Under all the rhetoric of pro and
anti Bodu Bala Sena blog posts, FB shares and comments, lies a fundamental problem which everyone
seems to quite comfortably have chosen to forget. Sinhala Buddhists of this
country have a fear. Fear of being becoming the minority of the country. Fear
of, someday being outnumbered, lead and dictated terms by another ethnic group.
A feeling of insecurity driven by both false and valid concerns raised by
groups such as BBS.
To some progressives this would
seem silly, and would simply argue that it is part of the process of evolving
as a country. They would even go in to the extent of asking the question of “So
what?”
For me it is a question of timing.
We came out of an ethnic war just 4 years ago. The country is still recovering
from a war mentality where all problems were looked in simple patriotic or
unpatriotic viewpoints. Some of us were lucky enough to move on from that
easily ; partly because we were largely unexposed to the reality of war.But the majority of this country is deliberately barred from
moving pass that ideological barrier by the ruling regime so they can continue
with their corruption and nepotism in the name of patriotism.
So I would disagree with the
people who asks the question “So what?” simply because we are not matured yet
as a country for that kind of “thinking”. Even the countries that we think are developed
and some who call them secular has not addressed this issue 100% successfully.
For an example, In US the cause
for insecurity has changed from Blacks to Chinese to Muslims and to Mexicans.
In France there has been major debate and controversy over ban of Hijab. In Germany
there has been growing protest over number of mosques been built. In Burma there is a bloody ethnic conflict t
that is going on among Buddhists and Muslims.
The reason that there cannot be
a silver bullet solution is because tribalism is part of human nature. No country or
society will be able to eradicate these doubts and fears entirely. BBS is just
another form of the same fear. It is not something new, these kinds of fringe
elements has always been part of the political system and they will continue to
be.
So then what’s the big concern?
The concern is that our situation
is more similar to Burma than US or France. In Burma the campaigns against
Muslims has spread through internet and are spearheaded by group of monks
called “969”. They started the campaign from urging the Buddhists to boycott Muslim
run shops and services. Sounds familiar?
In a country where there is
absolutely no intellectual discussion happening, where even the slightest
suggestion of progressive reforms are met with unprecedented amount of
negativity, slightest of provocation is enough for wide spread carnage. We are still in the war mentality; even though
the fear of getting dragged in to another war is there the false sense of
patriotism is providing sense of invisibility to groups like BBS. There are
signs of violence appearing which can quite quickly grow out of control.
Groups such as BBS can actually
be a part of the conversation in any democracy. But the problem is without
being part of the conversation they are becoming the conversation. Even the
best of the intellectuals are succumbing to their strategy and being
manipulated in to taking BBS as the discussion. When it should have been a
discussion about reforming our education system, how to heal the wounds of war
and how do we improve the Buddhist culture, we are arguing about BBS generated
issues such as Halal.
The irony of the matter is that
we can identify the petty politics of Tamilnadu where politicians use entirely
unrelated matter of SL to rally people behind them in elections, yet however
cannot see hidden political and trade agendas of keeping people away from
speaking up against corruption.
So
it is evident that at the heart of this noise made by BBS lies a real issue
which has to be addressed with proper political, policy based, ideologically
sound, and academically supported dialogue. Not in front of NOLIMIT or Fashion
Bug, not in Facebook but in proper forums that are dedicated for intellectual
discussions. Even BBS can come up with their arguments on how they want this
country to change. Arguments can be varying from insane ideas such as deporting some ethnicity all
together to subtle educational and constitutional reforms.
What
we cannot no longer allow is the noise of the fringe few to overpower the
voices of reason.