The media, singling out the Muslims as a target of hate, carefully orchestrated its campaign to poison the hearts and minds of the people against that community.
by Mass L. Usuf
In the Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta, the buddha explains to his son Rahula, using a beautiful illustration, about deliberate lying.
Referring to a little bit of left-over water in a container, the buddha said that the little bit of water is the extent of goodness in a monk who feels no shame at telling a deliberate lie. Having tossed away that water, he said to Rahula that what little good a person has is thrown away like the water when telling a deliberate lie. Buddha then turned the container upside down and said that whatever goodness one has is turned upside down just like that when he feels no shame at telling a deliberate lie. Then he turned the water container right-side up and said, "Rahula, do you see how empty and hollow this water container is?" Whatever little goodness there is in a person who feels no shame at telling a deliberate lie is empty and hollow just like that. (MajjhimaNikāya Sutta 61)
Applying the above to the local context, the extent of goodness that is left in some of the monks who shamelessly speak deliberate lies is not difficult to assess. People of this country are witness to such lies, exaggeration, half-truths, fabrications and tenuous interpretations given by these monks who are hell bent to cause affliction on others. All those who indulge, promote and applause such lies and hate speeches may be suffering from Sadistic Personality Disorder and are in a state of self-deception. While those who are engaging in harassment of the others are a set of narcissistic fools because they are not going to achieve anything by their lowly behaviour except self-satisfaction. Therefore, both these dispositions do not yield positive vibes to the society or country as a whole. Everyone must realise that hate speech and harassment of Muslims can be counterproductive.
Repetition Of History
A couple of days after the 21/4 incident many people expressed deep concern about the foreboding consequences. They feared that what happened to the Tamil community during the war may repeat itself targeting the Muslims. To know that someone is watching over you in public was not a very comfortable feeling commented a Tamil colleague. The stare one experiences in public was also discomforting.
The hardships that they had to endure was of course inexplicable. The words of Dr. Thavarasa echoes in my ears each time I remember him. I asked him why does he want to get out of the country? His last words before migrating were, “I was helplessly watching my house being looted and then burnt. How many of these fellows I would have taken out of their mothers’ wombs with so much of care and caution. Do you want me to continue to live with these ungrateful fellows?” Dr. Thavarasa was a family friend and this was with reference to the 1983 pogrom. He was a Senior Lecturer in Gynaecology in the Colombo Medical faculty (if I remember correct) and was working in the Castle Street Maternity hospital.
The 21/4 incident was not a war but international terrorism mysteriously manifesting itself within our borders. The shock and awe created by the incident naturally overwhelmed everyone including the Muslim community. Generally, the people of Sri Lanka be it Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or others, like all peoples around the world are peaceful. This incident created a bizarre sense of disbelief at what happened and confusion as to who would have done it. With the news of the number of deaths and injured trickling in, shock and awe turned to empathy and instinctive sadness. As information on the identity of the perpetrators came to light the initial state of shock and awe gradually transformed into resentment. This is neither unusual nor surprising. These transitory feelings have nothing to do with a particular race, ethnicity or religion. These are common human traits in any human being and are understandable.
Engineering Fear and Suspicion
Selfishness and opportunism are also part of human characteristics. However, even when acting with selfish or opportunistic motives there is a self-imposed censorship or restraint that is practised by any decent human being. This innate ethical restriction was grossly violated by some of the personnel in the media, both the owners and their employees. This irresponsible conduct of the media is continuing to cause immense damage to the country as a whole. This country is not a novice to violence and bomb blasts. The resilience of the people of Sri Lankan have been time tested and proven to be indomitable. How did such an unshakable society breakdown and succumb to irrational fear? The answer to this is found in the systematically orchestrated fear psychosis. The media contributed by subtly engineering a fear that was non-existent among the people. The media propagated suspicion between communities thereby, tearing apart the social fabric. The under mentioned statement explains it all.
“The success of fear-based news relies on presenting dramatic anecdotes in place of scientific evidence, promoting isolated events as trends, depicting categories of people as dangerous and replacing optimism with fatalistic thinking.” (Psychology Today).
The above observation exactly fits into what happened recently. Analysing it one by one firstly, we witnessed the dramatization ‘in place of scientific evidence’ of the most heinous and unjust accusation against Dr. ShafiShahabdeen of mass sterilization of Sinhalese women. Then ‘promoting isolated events as a trend’ can be matched with the creation of the ‘swords’ in the mosque stories. ‘Depiction of a category of people as dangerous’ was successfully achieved by the outrageous acrimony directed at the Muslim people. Fatalistic thinking of being invaded and vanquished was compelled. Thereby literally relegating all Muslims to be terror suspects.
Rogue Ahimsa Paragons
The media, singling out the Muslims as a target of hate, carefully orchestrated its campaign to poison the hearts and minds of the people against that community. This saga was clearly seen unfolding itself on a daily basis since 21/4. Islamophobic statements dominated the media agenda. News were deliberately sensationalised with a racial twist. Balanced and unbiased reporting was almost absolutely absent. Even the residual of an already fast diminishing media ethics and professional journalism was at the edge of the cliff.
A section of the Buddhist monks was spewing hate speeches as if they were competing with each other in a hate speech competition. Applying Goebbels approach the continuous tirade of the enrobed made to look what was extremely abnormal and criminal as normal and lawful. These pseudo ahimsa preachers least realise that hate speech is one form of incitement to commit hate crimes and it did happen many times. Of course, do not speak about the rule of law which spontaneously becomes impotent at the very sight of the saffron robe. Many, many Sinhala people are questioning the submissive servility of the arms of the law when it relates to monks. This has encouraged the lay rogue elements in society to often mobilise the services of a monk of the area to address public issues. They know the Police will not harm them because the monk is present. So, it is common to see monks followed by a mob of lay people interfering in everything while themselves are sometimes in breach of the law. People have frequently seen how some of these rogue monks insult senior Police officers in public. This is typical vigilantism and is a matter of grave concern for civil society and the rule of law. The IGP and the Police Commission should take note of these threats to democracy and democratic principles. Importantly, to the integrity of the Police.
Brave and Honest Shani
The poisonous tongues of these monks did not spare even those who were performing their Police duties faithfully. The dangers of unfounded malicious accusations by monks were clearly expressed by the Senior Superintendent of Police Shani Abeysekera, Director of the Criminal Investigation Department. In his submissions in July 2019 to the Parliament Select Committee on the Easter bombings, he said that many had levelled various unfounded allegations against him to the point that it has posed a threat to him and his family. “My children cannot even step out of the home” said the much-distressed Director.
If this is the concern of a brave and honest Senior Police Officer especially, belonging to the majority Sinhala community imagine the agony of Dr. Shafi, a Muslim and his young family who was relentlessly hounded by these monks. This is only one example of hate and harassment.
Muslims Will Not Hate
These monks may reflect on the Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta and cease to be hypocritical by preaching day and night to the innocent Buddhists something that the monks themselves do not practise. Why is this column focussed only on the monks speaking hate and lies while there are innumerable other people doing the same thing? If the monks first stop, then they will be able to guide the laymen.
Some of you hate the Muslims and by this you do not follow the Buddha. The Muslims will not hate you and thereby be followers of the Buddha’s dhamma.
Nahi verena verani - Hatred is, indeed, never appeased by hatred.
The End.
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