Features

A singular modern Lankan mentor – Part II

Published

1 year ago

2025/02/3

Thilina Walpola

Prof. Obeyesekere

by Laleen Jayamanne and Namika Raby
(Part I of this article appeared in The Island on Friday (31 Jan.)

Women’s Mental Health: Trance/Dance in Folk Rituals

The lecture Namika heard on ‘pregnancy cravings’ (dola duka) among peasant women in a particular village, is one of Gananath’s earliest pieces of research which shows his turn of mind, originality, in taking seriously a compelling female desire which may not have been treated in the scholarly arena with the gravity and seriousness that it warranted. I associate a certain sense of cultural embarrassment on hearing the term ‘dola duka’ in Sinhala back in the day when a pregnant relative of mine craved to eat pieces from a freshly baked (navun) clay pot with its special fragrance. The film shows Gananath’s empathetic ability to pay careful ethnographic attention to a variety of gendered states of mental distress and trauma and their traditional ritualised ecstatic expressions, especially with regard to women, well before some feminist scholars in the West began to be interested in the topic of ‘Women and Madness’ from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. Psychoanalytic theory became methodologically important for Feminist Film Theory, which I used in my doctoral thesis on ‘Female Representation in the Lankan cinema’.

A sequence in Dimuthu’s film focuses on the subject of Gananath’s book Medusa’s Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience, which is a case history of an old woman called Karunawathi Maniyo (mother). She appears with her thickly matted, long snake-like grey locks which, we are told, were created by her as a mode of existence, entailing a ritualised daily practice of puja at an altar, with images of the fierce Kali with fangs and Durga Ashuramardani (a divine figure of combat capable of violence and great power), to express and assuage her mental distress. However, I did not see an image of Pattini, the ‘good mother’, on her altar.

It is worth noting that both Kali and Durga are not maternal figures and though they were incorporated into the Brahminical Hinduism, they have no consorts and were in origin folk goddesses, according to the historian of ancient India, D. D. Kosambi. It is worth remembering that the first feminist press in English, in India was called ‘Kali for Women’! There is here an evident externalisation of an unusual desire, intelligible within Karunawathi Manio’s social class/group and as such, acceptance of her idiosyncratic behaviour and appearance. It is impossible to imagine such a Medusa-like scary treatment of hair in a middle-class milieu.

Again, there are images of a possessed young woman, Nawala Maniyo, who participates in an exorcist ritual in a trance, eyes glistening between strands of her long tresses masking her face. This reminds me of Gananath’s extraordinarily gripping Case Study, ‘Psycho-Cultural Exegesis of a Case of Spirit Possession in Sri Lanka,’ which we dramatised for the soundtrack of my film A Song of Ceylon (Australian Film Commission, Sydney: 1985). Again, as an ethnographer he demonstrates how the Sinhala-Buddhist folk culture provided symbolic means of collective, public, theatricalised, somatic, expression of profound individual trauma registered in the unconscious of the young possessed woman, Somawathi, and the therapeutic value of these public, social forms of physical expression.

In the early 20^th Century Vienna, the Neurologist Sigmund Freud treated young bourgeoise female patients suffering from a new pathology named ‘Hysteria,’ which in turn led him to postulate a theory of the Unconscious and to develop his ‘Talking Cure’ through ‘free-association’, to assuage mental pain. This however was in a privatised and personalised setting in his study; the female patient lying down on a couch speaking in a ‘stream of consciousness’ mode, with Dr Freud as the silent listener, his gaze averted. Freud’s case studies of these patients are also gripping reading, like a 19^th Century novel, and they are also ‘ethnographic’ psychoanalytic interpretations of the pathology named Hysteria, a new medical category which entered the Diagnostic Manual.

A portrait sculpture of Prof. Gananath Obeysekera by Prof. Sarath Chandrajueewa

In contrast, while deeply interested and trained in psychoanalytic theory and methodology at the University of Washington, Seattle, by European specialists, Gananath appreciated and powerfully theorised the public, social nature of Exorcist Rituals (Bali Thovil) and other such therapeutic practices.

Further, he showed how the rituals, based on folk beliefs, were imaginative, performative public events with an ‘audience’ participating in them and their importance as witnesses, for the cure. In these, the female ‘patient’ or woman possessed of demons danced to drum beats in ecstatic trance, resisting through spirited dialogue, the Exorcist (Kattadirala), who embodied patriarchal authority and even physical violence. In these rituals the possessed woman is given a public arena to play (dance) in, and while the ritual has a familiar cultural ‘script’ so to speak, the possessed woman has every chance to improvise and play as she desires or as the demons (all male) possessing her desire.

It is clear through this work that, contra psychoanalysis, the unconscious is not structured like a language and the repressed is insighted to find expression through trance-dance and vocal expression which go against traditional notions of femininity. In ecstatic states the patient is animated by drum beats that touch her nervous system directly and thus the entire body, revealing deep registers of affective trauma, that a purely static, talking cure (while lying down on, what became, that famous couch, now preserved in the Freud Museum in London) could not possibly do.

Dimuthu brings all this out lucidly, not only with the questions he poses to Gananath but also by placing the relevant photographs or clips within the interview sequences themselves. This montage technique of placing carefully chosen stills and clips from Gananath’s very extensive ethnographic archive, interspersed with the ‘Talking Heads’ interviews, makes the film very lively and watchable. It also teaches us something about the complex theoretical ideas Gananath worked with in an accessible way because of his powers of ‘scientific’ rigorous ethnographic observation, tempered by a Buddhist Humanist empathy and engaging style of writing so rare in scholarship.

Perhaps the film would encourage young scholars to read Gananath’s writing as Dimuthu did even before he entered the University. And I hope it encourages the translation of at least some of his major work. The film is significant in this sense, too, because Gananath did not accept the orthodoxy in his field and questioned received methodologies and theories. His critical mind is truly dazzling in its generosity of spirit and sense of curiosity even so late in his retirement. We hear him say, ‘Even now (then in his 80s, soon to be 95!), I am learning something new every day in the Uva-Wellassa area’ and exhorts us also to make that a goal. Yes, let’s!

Gananath’s use of the idea of the unconscious, via Freudian Psychoanalysis, in his ethnographic theorisation of rituals was enabling methodologically. It provided a key theoretical concept for understanding the actions performed by men and women under immense mental and physical duress, which went against the mandated gender norms of the traditional culture. I remember in the 1980s how Gananath was severely criticised by Marxists for ‘indulging in and validating superstitious folk beliefs and practices’ among the so called, ‘ignorant peasantry’.

The whole nexus of folk beliefs and cultural practices, including aspects of Hinduism, and their integral articulation with Buddhism, practiced as a popular religion with rituals and dramatic enactments by these rural communities was dismissed in a simplistic rationalist critique, as myth, hence false. But what has survived time, as an anthropologically cogent theoretical analysis based on meticulous, imaginative ethnographic work, is Gananath’s central argument about the hybrid, generous, inclusive nature of Buddhism as a religion, practiced in the robust, open folk traditions, by the peasantry. Dinidu gives considerable time to Dr Kumudu Kusum Kumara, who explains Gananath’s very detailed, complex argument and research with clarity and imagination in the film.

Buddhist Humanism or ‘Protestant Buddhism’

Kumudu explains the significance of Gananath’s formulation of the concept of ‘Protestant Buddhism’ introduced by the Theosophist Colonel Olcott in the 19^th Century, who schooled the Buddhist revivalist Anagarika Dharmapala in constituting a Sinhala-Buddhist Catechism based on the Thripitakaya (the canonical Buddhist text), fit for school children in Daham Pasal modelled on Sunday School for Christian kids. He explains how this was a rationalising, westernising move, following Max Weber’s thinking here. Gananath’s brilliant coinage ‘Protestant Buddhism’, which was also strongly aligned with the Nationalist Anti-Colonial Movement, rationalised religious practices making them exclusive. A Victorian-English-Protestant-Puritanism thus entered Buddhism in Lanka, making it more akin to Protestantism in Europe which had a very severe moral code. Thereby the inclusive flexibility of the Buddhist folk tradition with its humour and sense of play, is lost along with, crucially, the story-telling tradition based on the Jataka Tales of the Buddha’s many rebirths, parables about ethical behaviour towards all living beings.

With this loss, we are told, the tradition of Buddhist Humanism, with its values of compassion as exemplified in these stories teaming with natural life and animals, too, also disappeared. Further, through this loss the ethical values nurturing and sustaining ‘a Buddhist Conscience’ were also lost, he argues. We are shown (via images), how the painterly folk tradition in Temple Murals and the literary sources, song, poetry (kavi), trance-dance, drumming, dramatic enactments within the folk traditions (as distinct from the official chronicles of the Mahavamsa and Deepawams), offered an alternative vision of Buddhism as practiced by the peasantry.

We learn that in the folk tradition Dutthagamini repented killing Elare the Tamil king and conscience struck, he attempted reparation and contrition, unlike the patricidal king Kashyapa who escaped into a hedonist life in the rock fortress of Sigiriya. Kumudu says that Gananath argued his case by reading the folk archive, of images on Temple walls and anonymous folk texts (Panthis Kolmura, a large corpus of 35 long poems, some of which he translated and also sang, Kadaym poth or Boundry texts and Vitti poth or Event books), which were authorless and title less work of the people, for the people and by the people. The film helps us to understand that it is this folk tradition, cultivating empathy and an ethical conscience, a capacity to be contrite, that has been lost within the post-independent ethno-nationalist version of official Protestant-Sinhala-Buddhism, with state patronage. This imported ideology of the English speaking coloniser is then presented as the ‘pure original Buddhism’ shorn of local superstition, hybrid folk tales and beliefs and rituals, rejected as ‘unBuddhist’. Indologists in turn supported this rationalising move of creating a ‘pure, original Buddhism’.

A Case Study

Kareem, a young Muslim man hangs on hooks (attached to a swing-like structure on wheels in a religious procession), as penance at the Kataragama Hindu festival and is also seen dancing in a trance. Gananath explains in his Case Study of Kareem that he was imprisoned in 1961 for assisting in the Army Coup against the Government. One wonders how a humble young Muslim cook got caught up in and imprisoned for a foolish Coup staged by a select group of English-speaking bourgeois gentlemen of Colombo, who were all high up in the armed forces of that era. Daughters of three of these officials who were arrested and served sentences were close friends of mine in school during this time, which heightens a sense of the absurdity of this poor man’s plight. Gananath’s case study of his childhood revealed an authoritarian paternal figure who instilled fear in him. However, he seemed serene and happy in the photographs taken with Gananath after the ritual and even when swinging from the ritual hooks.

Here, I would like to cite Arjun Appadurai’s review of Gananath’s magnum opus, The Cult of the Goddess Pattini because it is not readily available to those outside the academy.

“This is a book of unusual scope, quality, and scholarly significance. Ostensibly a description and analysis of a single cult in Sri Lanka, it is in fact a major symbolic, psychological, and ethno-historical study of practical religion in Sri Lanka, and of the relationship of that island to Indic culture and society. It is the product of two decades of field research by Sri Lanka’s most distinguished anthropological interpreter, and its combination of textual analysis, ethnographic sensitivity, and methodological catholicity makes it something of a blockbuster”.

Dimuthu informed me that Gananath studied six different traditions of the Pattini Cult, starting in the 1950s. Dimuthu and his research team went looking for the priests of each of these traditions named in his book and found that they had died but they did meet a student of Yahonis Pattini Mahattaya of the Rabaliya tradition and of Podi Mahaththaya, H. D. Edwin Pattini Mahatthaya, who is now the only living informant of Gananath’s Pattini research. Edwin Pattini Mahattaya performed aspects of the Pattini Cult for Gananath at his request for the sake of photo documenting it for his book. His son Tilak is seen dancing as Pattini in the Dimuthu’s film. Seeing him becoming Pattini (after his ritual investiture), even in an all too short clip, is among the high points of this film for me, because we see a profound metamorphosis of this young male ritual dancer into a female archetype, Pattini, the only Mother goddess of Lanka, in an inspired rhythmic play with codes of gender and beyond to reach an ecstatic body and spirit – words fail me. What we can also see is the profound gestural, rhythmic, spiritual transmission of this syncretic tradition across generations, across the abyss of death itself.

Pattini’s origins are in Kannagi, a heroic human figure from the Tamil Epic Silappadikaram, who is worshiped as a mother goddess, Kannagi-Amman, in India and in the East coast of Lanka by Tamils who still observe matrilineal descent (a system of tracing kinship through a person’s female ancestors), according to Gananath. The significance of this for gender and family relationships would be of particular interest to feminists. There is a large modern Bronze statue celebrating Kannagi in Chennai, India and colourful plaster ones and paintings in Hindu temples in Lanka, seen carrying her iconic anklet. (To be concluded)

All News Advertisement

Features

Buddhist Approach to Human Challenges

Published

12 hours ago

2026/05/1

Thilina Walpola

Life, by its very nature, invariably presents a myriad of challenges that are fundamental to the human experience. The various social ills that afflict humanity cannot be understood without recognizing the profound human dynamics at play. Navigating these challenges according to Buddhism involves shifting from attempting to control external circumstances to mastering one’s internal responses. Central to these challenges are certain detrimental drives stemming from pernicious distortions in the functioning of the human mind.

According to Buddhism, human suffering—both on a personal and societal level—arises from three unwholesome roots: greed, hatred, and ignorance or delusion. These roots manifest primarily as the unbridled proliferation of these negative states, serving as the foundation for our conduct. The Buddhist perspective offers profound insights for confronting these difficulties by emphasizing the nature of suffering, known as dukkha. Buddhism teaches that suffering (dukkha) is an inevitable part of life and is fueled by greed, hatred, and ignorance or delusion. This approach promotes mental transformation through mindfulness, ethical living, and the cultivation of wisdom, empowering individuals to confront their struggles with clarity and resilience.

Furthermore, accepting that suffering and difficulty are inherent parts of the human experience—while expecting life to be free of challenges—is, in itself, a cause of suffering. It is also important to recognize that all situations, whether good or bad, are temporary. This understanding helps reduce anxiety when facing difficult times, as these will eventually pass, and it prevents possessiveness during happy moments. Cultivating mindfulness (sati) and living in the present moment without dwelling on the past or worrying about the future is essential.

Understanding that all things—emotions, situations, relationships, and physical bodies—are constantly changing and in a state of flux helps reduce the fear of loss and provides comfort during difficult times, ensuring that we know pain will pass. Moreover, recognizing that the self, or ego, is not a fixed entity minimizes selfish grasping, arrogance, and the tendency to perceive challenges as personal attacks.

At the core of many human challenges lie the three unwholesome mental qualities identified by Buddhism: greed (raga), hatred (dovesa), and ignorance or delusion (avijja or moha). These states of mind serve as obstacles to spiritual progress and underlie a spectrum of harmful thoughts and actions. The Buddha employed powerful metaphors to illustrate these forces, referring to them as the three poisons or fires that ignite suffering and trap beings in the cycle of samsara.

Greed leads to insatiable desires that obscure our awareness of others’ needs, creating a cycle of frustration. Greed encompasses all forms of appetite, such as desire, lust, craving, and longing, manifesting in both physical and mental forms. It embodies the concept of grasping, leading to clinging and an inability to let go. As an unwholesome mental state, greed can become insatiable and inexhaustible. People are often drawn to pleasant things, and no amount of forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, or mental objects can satisfy their desires. In their intense thirst for possession or gratification of desire, individuals may become trapped in the wheel of samsara, overlooking the needs of marginalized groups based on religion and ethnicity (as noted by Piyadassi Thera). Those who overcome greed realize that all mundane pleasures are fleeting and transient. In a society driven by consumerism, people may find themselves endlessly chasing after things of little value, becoming enslaved by them.

Hatred is another unwholesome mental state that fosters division and conflict, distancing us from genuine relationships. It encompasses unwholesome mental states such as ill will, enmity, hostility, and prejudice. Hatred can be subtle, lying dormant in a person’s mind until it finds expression in unexpected moments. This destructive emotion can degenerate into mass-scale violence and bloodshed within society. Today, hatred and hostility against minorities based on religion and ethnicity are prevalent in many countries. People are often targeted by bigotry and hate, leading to a rise in antagonistic and derogatory behavior toward certain religious and ethnic groups. Hatred, enmity, and retaliation do not foster spiritual well-being; rather, they vitiate our own minds. Buddhists are encouraged to cultivate metta (loving-kindness). Greed and hatred, coupled with ignorance, are the chief causes of the evils that pervade this deluded world. As noted by Narada, “The enemy of the whole world is lust (greed), through which all evils come to living beings. This lust, when obstructed by some cause, transforms into wrath.”

The most profound of these afflictions, ignorance (avijja) or delusion (moha), clouds our judgment and obscures our capacity for understanding, causing us to harm ourselves and others through misguided actions. Addressing bhikkhus, the Buddha declared, ” I do not perceive any single hindrance other than the hindrance of ignorance by which mankind is obstructed, and for so long as in samsara, it is indeed through the hindrance of ignorance that humankind is obstructed and for a long time runs on, wanders in samsara. No other single thing exists like the hindrance of ignorance or delusion, which obstructs humankind and make wander forever. This unwholesome mindset generates negative speech, actions, and thoughts, perpetuating our own suffering. As stated in the Dhammapada, “All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; if one speaks or acts with an evil mind, suffering follows.”

Buddhism urges us to go beyond merely addressing the symptoms of our problems. Instead, it invites us to explore the roots of our suffering and examine how greed, hatred, and ignorance manifest in our lives. By uncovering these sources of distress, we can cultivate essential qualities such as compassion, loving-kindness (metta), and acceptance. These virtues are crucial for ethical engagement with significant societal issues, including environmental challenges and social inequality.

In a world marked by material prosperity and emotional chaos, many individuals may feel lost or overwhelmed. The teachings of the Buddha remain relevant today, reminding us that the origins of our struggles often reside within our own minds. By practising ethical self-discipline and steering clear of destructive emotions like jealousy, anger, and arrogance, we can transform our experiences and relationships.

Buddhism teaches that cultivating wholesome mental qualities is essential for spiritual advancement. The positive counterparts to the three unwholesome states are non-greed (alobha), non-hatred (adosa), and non-delusion (amoha). These virtues represent not merely the absence of negativity but also the active presence of beneficial qualities such as generosity (dana), loving kindness (metta), and wisdom (panna). Each of these six mental states serves as a foundation for both personal growth and societal harmony.

Human beings are often tempted by moral transgressions rooted in unwholesome qualities. Actions driven by greed, hatred and ignorance require wisdom and mindful awareness to overcome them, allowing us to see the interconnectedness of all beings and act accordingly.

As we strive to abandon these unwholesome states of mind and cultivate awareness, we contribute positively to our lives and the broader world. By embracing Buddhist teachings, we learn that transforming our minds can significantly impact our experiences and the lives of those around us. Through this mindful practice, we can aspire to create a more compassionate, harmonious existence, transcending the limitations of unwholesome mental states and fostering a deeper connection with ourselves and others.

by Dr. Chandradasa Nanayakkara

Features

How does the Buddha differ?

Published

12 hours ago

2026/05/1

Thilina Walpola

Buddhism, perhaps, is not a religion if the definition of religion is strictly applied. However, by an extension of that definition, as well as by consensus, Buddhism is considered a religion and is the fourth largest religion with about half a billion followers worldwide. Of the four great religions in the world, Christianity is still way ahead with 2.6 billion adherents, followed by Islam with 1.9 billion and Hinduism with 1.2 billion followers. In most Western Christian countries church attendances are on the decline whilst the numbers following Islam are increasing with Islamic youth displaying signs of increasing religious ardour. There are recent reports that Buddhism has also joined the ranks of shrinking religions. Is this cause for concern? Is this happening by the very nature of Buddhism?

Hinduism, the world’s oldest living religion rooted in the Indus Valley Civilization and dating back at least four millennia, is considered to have evolved from ancient cultural and religious practices than being founded by a single individual, unlike the other three religions. The Buddha differs from Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed in many ways, the most important being that there is no higher power involved in what the Buddha discovered.

Jesus Christ is considered the ‘Son of God’ and Christianity is built on the life, resurrection and teachings of Christ with emphasis on the belief in one God expressed through the Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there is no room for questioning the words of the Almighty passed through the Son.

Islam, with its Five Pillars of faith, frequent daily prayers, charity, fasting during Ramadan and pilgrimage to Mecca, is founded on revelations made by Almighty God, Allah, to Mohammed, the last of his Prophets, which are recorded in verse in the Holy Book, Quran. Muslims consider the Quran to be verbatim words of God and the unaltered, final revelation. This leaves even less room for questioning.

In contrast, the Buddha achieved everything by himself with no help from any higher source. Rebelling against some of the practices in the religion to which he was born and seeking a solution to the ever-pervading sense of dissatisfaction, Prince Siddhartha embarked on a journey of discovery that culminated in Enlightenment, under the Bodhi tree on the full moon day of the month of Vesak.

Hinduism, or Sanatana Dharma as traditionally referred to by followers, encompasses the concepts of Karma, Samsara, Moksha and Dharma with a creator Brahma, preserver Vishnu and destroyer Shiva. In addition, there are multitudes of gods serving various functions and there are ritual practices of Puja (worship), Bhakti (devotion), Yajna (sacrificial rites) in addition to meditation and Yoga. The one thing that has blighted Hinduism, on top of sacrifices, is the caste system. The uncompromising attitude of Brahmins led to the formation Sikhism as well, long after the establishment of Buddhism.

Prince Siddhartha studied under eminent teachers of the day, of which there were many, but realised the limitations of their knowledge. Having already given up the extreme of luxury, he went to the other extreme of self-deprivation which after a search for six years, he realised also was not the solution to the problem. Exploring through his mind he realised the truth and came up with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. He shunned extremes and proposed the Middle Path which seems to hold sway in many spheres of life, even today.

Buddha’s greatest achievement was the analysis of the mind and scientists are only now establishing the accuracy of the concepts the Buddha elucidated, not with the help of supernatural powers or sophisticated machinery at the disposal of modern-day scientists but by the exploration of the mind by turning the searchlight inwards.

Having discovered the cause of universal dissatisfaction and the path to overcome it, the Buddha walked across vast swathes of India, most likely barefoot, preaching to many, in terms they could understand, as evidenced by the different suttas illustrating the same fact in different ways; to the intelligent it was a short explanation but for others it was a more detailed discussion.

In sharp contrast to all other religious leaders, the Buddha encouraged discussion and challenge before acceptance. What the Buddha stated in the Kalama Sutta, acceptance only after conviction, laid the foundation for scientific thinking.

The Buddha, being a human not supernatural, never claimed infallibility as evidenced by his agreement with his father King Suddhodana that ordaining his son Rahula without permission was a mistake and took steps to ensure that this did not happen again. In fact, the entire Vinaya Pitaka is not an arbitrary rule book laid down by the Buddha, but are the rules the Buddha laid down for the Sangha, based on errant actions by Bhikkhus. Long before the legal concept of retroactive justice was established, the Buddha implemented it in the Vinaya Pitaka.

In an interesting video on YouTube titled “Nature of Buddhism”, Bhante Dhammika of Australia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY8WfGJq2FI) discusses some unique aspects of Buddhism. Some religions are ‘high demand’ religions where the followers are required to strictly adhere to certain rules which is not the case in Buddhism and he opines that this has led to the gentleness of Buddhists, at times leading to even being lackadaisical! Interestingly, as a widely travelled person, he describes his personal experience of the change of people’s attitudes on going from places with Buddhist influence to others. Speaking of Sri Lanka, where he spent many years, he commends the traditional hospitality as well as lack of cruelty to animals. He refers to “Law based religions” where some things are compulsory whereas in Buddhism there is no compulsion. Buddha was not a lawgiver but recommended good behaviour, giving reasons why and encouraged thinking. Some religions are exclusivist, claiming that there is nothing in other religions. Buddhism is not and Bhante Dhammika refers to an incident where the Buddha encouraged a disciple who converted from Jainism to continue to give alms to his former Jain colleagues.

Have all these strengths of Buddhism become its weakness and the reason for the shrinking number of followers? Had Buddhism demanded more from followers would it have flourished better? Is the numbers game that important? These are interesting questions to ponder over and I am sure, in time, researchers would write theses on these.

Whilst total numbers may diminish in traditional Buddhist areas, more people in the West are recognising the value of the philosophy of Buddhism. Mindfulness, a concept the Buddha introduced is gaining wide acceptance and is increasingly applied in many spheres of modern life. Perhaps, what is important is not the numbers that practise Buddhism as a religion but the lasting influence of the Buddha’s concepts and foundations he laid for modern scientific thinking and analysis of the mind!

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Features

Political violence stalking Trump administration

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

A scene that unfolded during the shooting incident at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington. (BBC)

It would not be particularly revelatory to say that the US is plagued by ‘gun violence’. It is a deeply entrenched and widespread malaise that has come in tandem with the relative ease with which firearms could be acquired and owned by sections of the US public, besides other causes.

However, a third apparent attempt on the life of US President Donald Trump in around two and a half years is both thought-provoking and unsettling for the defenders of democracy. After all, whatever its short comings the US remains the world’s most vibrant democracy and in fact the ‘mightiest’ one. And the US must remain a foremost democracy for the purpose of balancing and offsetting the growing power of authoritarian states in the global power system, who are no friends of genuine representational governance.

Therefore, the recent breaching of the security cordon surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington at which President Trump and his inner Cabinet were present, by an apparently ‘Lone Wolf’ gunman, besides raising issues relating to the reliability of the security measures deployed for the President, indicates a notable spike in anti-VVIP political violence in particular in the US. It is a pointer to a strong and widespread emergence of anti-democratic forces which seem to be gaining in virulence and destructiveness.

The issues raised by the attack are in the main for the US’ political Right and its supporters. They have smugly and complacently stood by while the extremists in their midst have taken centre stage and begun to dictate the course of Right wing politics. It is the political culture bred by them that leads to ‘Lone Wolf’ gunmen, for instance, who see themselves as being repressed or victimized, taking the law into their own hands, so to speak, and perpetrating ‘revenge attacks’ on the state and society.

A disproportionate degree of attention has been paid particularly internationally to Donald Trump’s personality and his eccentricities but such political persons cannot be divorced from the political culture in which they originate and have their being. That is, “structural” questions matter. Put simply, Donald Trump is a ‘true son’ of the Far Right, his principal support base. The issues raised are therefore for the President as well as his supporters of the Right.

We are obliged to respect the choices of the voting public but in the case of Trump’s election to the highest public position in the US, this columnist is inclined to see in those sections that voted for Trump blind followers of the latter who cared not for their candidate’s suitability, in every relevant respect, and therefore acted irrationally. It would seem that the Right in the US wanted their candidate to win by ‘hook or by crook’ and exercise power on their behalf.

By making the above observations this columnist does not intend to imply that voting publics everywhere in the world of democracy cast their vote sensibly. In the case of Sri Lanka, for example, the question could be raised whether the voters of the country used their vote sensibly when voting into office the majority of Executive Presidents and other persons holding high public office. The obvious answer is ‘no’ and this should lead to a wider public discussion on the dire need for thoroughgoing voter education. The issue is a ‘huge’ one that needs to be addressed in the appropriate forums and is beyond the scope of this column.

Looking back it could be said that the actions of Trump and his die-hard support base led to the Rule of Law in the US being undermined as perhaps never before in modern times. A shaming moment in this connection was the protest march, virtually motivated by Trump, of his supporters to the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, with the aim of scuttling the presidential poll result of that year. Much violence and unruly behaviour, as known, was let loose. This amounted to denigrating the democratic process and encouraging the violent take over of the state.

In a public address, prior to the unruly conduct of his supporters, Trump is on record as blaring forth the following: ‘We won this election and we won by a landslide’, ‘We will stop the steal’, ‘We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen’, ‘If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.’

It is plain to see that such inflammatory utterances could lead impressionable minds in particular to revolt violently. Besides, they should have led the more rationally inclined to wonder whether their candidate was the most suitable person to hold the office of President.

Unfortunately, the latter process was not to be and the question could be raised whether the US is in the ‘safest pair of hands’. Needless to say, as events have revealed, Donald Trump is proving to be one of the most erratic heads of state the US has ever had.

However, the latest attempt on the life of President Trump suggests that considerable damage has been done to the democratic integrity of the US and none other than the President himself has to take on himself a considerable proportion of the blame for such degeneration, besides the US’ Far Right. They could be said to be ‘reaping the whirlwind.’

It is a time for soul-searching by the US Right. The political Right has the right to exist, so the speak, in a functional democracy but it needs to take cognizance of how its political culture is affecting the democratic integrity or health of the US. Ironically, the repressive and chauvinistic politics advocated by it is having the effect of activating counter-violence of the most murderous kind, as was witnessed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Continued repressive politics could only produce more such incidents that could be self-defeating for the US.

Some past US Presidents were assassinated but the present political violence in the country brings into focus as perhaps never before the role that an anti-democratic political culture could play in unraveling the gains that the US has made over the decades. A duty is cast on pro-democracy forces to work collectively towards protecting the democratic integrity and strength of the US.