Opinion

Muslims and ban on cattle slaughter

Published

5 years ago

2020/10/10

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”-Mahatma Gandhi

Sri Lanka has an ancient culture. We have been told about vehicles that flew, birds that announced the birth of gods: a wonderment of unexpected pleasures. Our myths speak of a land in which all living things flourished, where humans communicated directly with animals and people had learnt that it is the purpose of life to engender more life. As Creation is the supreme force in the universe, the beneficence of life and its comprehension through love, is to facilitate as many expressions of life as possible. We have an ancient tradition that a man may become a god by emulating the qualities of the divine. As the sun is the source of life on the planet, our forefathers recognized it as the fertility symbol nonpareil. As worshippers of Surya, our behaviour would be arya, as elevated and exalted as the source.

Every life is a unique personal undertaking and the only thing an individual can know is itself. Every other knowing is external and it is what Huxley meant when he said we were each an island universe with every experience only conveyable third hand. No one actually can know what it is like to be anyone else. As such, enlightened self-interest is the only personal inquiry we can make, with the all- important caveat that in our self-discovery we may not interfere with anything else’s self-discovery.

Hence ahimsa comes from himsa, and is a crucial aspect of the great or common consensus (Mahasammata) that if Man lives in Dhamma, the land, people, flora and fauna would be safe. This recognition of the sacred nature of life made it incumbent that we live our lives disturbing other living systems as little as possible.

The book, Portuguese Encounters with Sri Lanka and the Maldives, ed. Chandra Richard De Silva, Ashgate, 2009, highlights that there was no slaughter of cattle in Lanka prior to colonisation:

“… In this country there are many false beliefs sown by the devil, and to eradicate them there is a need for much time and trouble. I mention those that I remember, for I do not know them all. There is a class of gentiles who do not kill any living creature, not even the most poisonous snakes, nor any insect or worm whatever. They do not eat anything that has been killed, whether it is meat or fish. They do not eat bread, however hungry or needy they might be. Their food is made up of the leaves of a certain creeper (betel leaves) that climbs other trees like ivy. These leaves are smeared with the same kind of lime that they use for whitewashing their houses…

“…There is another class of people who do not kill any living creatures, except those they themselves need for their food, such as rats and salamanders and lizards of the forests; for they do not eat beef or the flesh of other animals. There is another class of people who kill fish, and this is only the caste they call paravas. These do not kill any poisonous insect they may find in their house. Yet all these people, if they choose and are able to do so, kill men, and their doctrine does not forbid it. There is another class of people that eats fowl and wild boar and deer, but does not eat the flesh of cows, since they believe their souls enter into cows after death; they will never kill a cow and eat its flesh…”

In the Lanka of Mahasammata, one’s duty to one’s village outweighed any perceived duty to oneself. One must make one’s contribution to the society in which one lived. A vocational caste system handed down secrets to successive generations, in a system where one’s knowledge was one’s wealth, with the Divine as the Supreme Master of one’s craft, one performs one’s duty with an aim to perfection in union of mind and spirit so each attempt brought one closer to the Ultimate Prize. In a land ruled by the Unseen King, in both metaphor and practise, the King embodies Mahasammata and sets the standard for the people. The people know that if they live in dhamma, Dhamma would protect them, and the land would be safe. In this milieu of trust and obligation, anyone who broke faith and violated trust was banished from the village. This was the origin of the ahikuntakayas. At this time beef-eating was punished by banishment from one’s caste and village, as edicts stemming from the advent of the Portuguese indicate.

My teacher, farmer Mudiyanse Tennekoon, believed that only a return to Mahasammata could rescue our nation, as it had become clear that the fate of Lanka was drenched in a post-colonial experience that threatened to smother us in the fire of unrighteousness. It seemed to him that the wisdom of our ancients, which vouchsafed consensus as the legitimate form of governance, had been jettisoned for a system based in dissent and acrimonious debate. Further, it seemed that certain elemental forces of globalist origin were cutting swathes to the interior of our country, such that the viability of the essential core of our island’s life was at risk. If the government continues implementing the various sanctions of the globalist agendas, our subsistence farmers are at great risk, and with them the lifeblood of our country and culture. A re-establishment of ahimsa was a necessary step for the restoration of Mahasammata.

As vouchsafed by Arabi Veediya in Anuradhapura, Arabs have been coming to Lanka long before the birth of the Prophet. Though modern Muslims sometimes scoff at customs and rituals of the oral tradition, and seek their answers only in texts, Kataragama has long been associated in Islamic esoterism with El Khidr, the Green Man of Islam. The idea of El Khidr also predates Islam, as he is commonly held to be the person whom Moses met at the Juncture of two rivers and who instructed him in the Tradition. Consequently, if the Muslims of Sri Lanka were doing something so abhorrent to the culture of the island, when the Portuguese came looking for them, the Sinhala kings would not have hidden them but handed them over to the Portuguese.

On Sep 12, 2014, with some friends we began a campaign to end cattle-slaughter in Sri Lanka, and while I went around the country collecting signatures for a petition to parliament one question I was asked over and over again was this: “What did I expect the reaction of the Muslims of Sri Lanka to be to my campaign?” I replied that many people I had spoken to, some in my own family, had been against this campaign, and many others were wholeheartedly supportive of me, all urged utmost caution. I said that I had been able to make my immediate family aware that this was not a scurrilous exercise, but a restoration of ahimsa that colonialism had destroyed. I appealed to the generally accepted personality of the Prophet, as one who loved amity and good manners, and who, as Muslim tradition would have it, was not a person to hurt the feelings or sensibilities of others. In this I spoke to the spirit of the Revelation, which to me is as much about equity and social justice as it is about transcendental reality.

There is no doubt that Muslims are not barred by tradition, custom or revelation from eating beef; however, it is also plain that a claim to a democratic right to kill is a symptom of our postcolonial dystopia. Mahasammata is nothing less than an exhortation to behave well, to have good manners. And good manners, as my late wife Jeanne pointed out, is never more than consideration for other people and making them comfortable. As such, I believe that as a Sri Lankan Muslim, it is incumbent on me to respect the mores of my compatriots and to live in a way that will lead to greater social cohesion, amity and unity of purpose. Perhaps, Muslims should ask themselves why pre-colonial Sri Lanka fitted every description of Paradise in the Qur’an.

FEISAL MANSOOR

Convenor, Saradiel Movement

Saradiel.com

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Opinion

Missing 52%: Why Women are absent from Pettah’s business landscape

Published

14 hours ago

2026/02/23

Thilina Walpola

Pettah

Walking through Pettah market in Colombo, I have noticed something both obvious and troubling. Shop after shop sells bags, shoes, electronics, even sarees, and yet all shops are owned and run by men. Even businesses catering exclusively to women, like jewelry stores and bridal boutiques, have men behind the counter. This is not just my observation but it’s a reality where most Sri Lankans have observed as normal. What makes this observation more important is when we examine the demographics where women population constitute approximately 52% of Sri Lanka’s population, but their representation as business owners remains significantly low. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2023 report, Sri Lanka’s Total Early Stage Entrepreneurial Activity rate for women is just 8.2%, compared to 14.7% for men.

Despite of being the majority, women are clearly underrepresented in the entrepreneurial aspect. This mismatch between population size and economic participation create a question that why aren’t more women starting ventures? The answer is not about capability or intelligence. Rather, it’s deeply in social and cultural barriers that have been shaping women’s mindsets for generations. From childhood, many Sri Lankan girls are raised to believe that their primary role is as homemakers.

In families, schools, and even universities, the message has been same or slightly different, woman’s success is measured by how well she manages a household, not by her ability to generate income or lead a business. Financial independence is rarely taught as essential for women the way it has been for men. Over time, this messaging gets internalised. Many women grew up without ever being encouraged to think seriously about ownership, leadership, or earning their own money. These cultural influences eventually manifest as psychological barriers as well.

Years of conditioning have led many skilled women to develop what researchers call “imposter syndrome”, a persistent fear of failure and feel that they don’t deserve success kind of feeling. Even when they have the right skills and resources, self-doubt holds them back. They question whether they can run a business independently or not. Whether they will be taken seriously, whether they are making the right choice. This does not mean that women should leave their families or reject traditional roles. But lack of thinking in a confident way and make bold decisions has real consequences. Many talented women either never start a business or limit themselves to small, informal ventures that barely survive. This is not about men versus women. It’s about the economic cost of underutilising 52% of the population. If our country is genuinely serious about sustainable growth. we must build an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem through confidence building programs, better finance access to women, and a long term societal mindset shift. Until a young girl walking through Pettah can see herself as a future shop owner rather than just a customer, we will continue to waste our country’s greatest untapped resource.

Harinivasini Hariharasarma
Department of Entrepreneurship
University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Opinion

Molten Salt Reactors

Published

14 hours ago

2026/02/23

Thilina Walpola

Some essential points made to indicate its future in Power Generation

The hard facts are that:

1) Coal supplies cannot last for more than 70- 100 years more at most, with the price rising as demand exceeds supply.

2) Reactor grade Uranium is in short supply, also with the price rising. The cost is comparable to burning platinum as a fuel.

3) 440 standard Uranium reactors around the world are 25-30 years old – coming to the end of their working life and need to be replaced.

4) Climate Change is increasingly making itself felt and forecasts can only be for continuing deterioration due to existing levels of CO2 being continuously added to the atmosphere. It is important to mention the more serious problems associated with the release of methane gases – a more harmful gas than CO2 – arising from several sources.

5) Air pollution (ash, chemicals, etc.) of the atmosphere by coal-fired plants is highly dangerous for human health and should be eliminated for very good health reasons. Pollution created by India travels to Sri Lankans by the NE monsoon causing widespread lung irritations and Chinese pollution travels all around the world and affects everybody.

6) Many (thousands) of new sources of electric power generation need to be built to meet increasing demand. But the waste Plutonium 239 (the Satan Stuff) material has also to be moved around each country by lorry with police escort at each stage, as it is recovered, stored, processed and formed into blocks for long term storage. The problem of security of transport for Plutonium at each stage to prevent theft becomes an impossible nightmare.

The positive strengths to Thorium Power generation are:

1) Thorium is quite abundant on the planet – 100 times more than Uranium 238, therefore supplies will last thousands of years.

2) Cleaning or refining the Thorium is not a difficult process.

3) It is not highly radioactive having a very slow rate of isotope decay. There is little danger from radiation poisoning. It can be safely stored in the open, unaffected by rain. It is not harmful when ingested.

4) The processes involved with power generation are quite different and are a lot less complex.

5) Power units can be quite small, the size of a modern detached house. One of these can be located close to each town, thus eliminating high voltage cross-country transmission lines with their huge power losses (up to 20%).

6) Thorium is ‘fertile’ not fissile: therefore, the energy cycle has to be kick-started by a source of Neutrons, e.g., fissile material, to get it started. It is definitely not as dangerous as Uranium.

7) It is “Fail – Safe”. It has walk-away safety. If the reactor overheats, cooled drain plugs unfreeze and the liquid drains away to storage tanks below. There can be no “Chernobyl/ Fukoshima” type disasters.

8) It is not a pressurized system; it works at atmospheric pressure.

9) As long as reactor temperatures are kept around 600 oC there are little effects of corrosion in the Hastalloy metal tanks, vessels and pipe work. China, it appears, has overcome the corrosion problem at high temperatures.

10) At no stage in the whole chain of operations is there an opportunity for material to be stolen and converted and used as a weapon. The waste products have a half- life of 300 years, not the millions of years for Plutonium.

11) Production of MEDICAL ISOTOPE Bismuth 213 is available to be isolated and used to fight cancer. The nastiest cancers canbe cured with this Bismuth 213 as Targetted Alpha therapy.

12) A hydrogen generation unit can be added.

This information obtained from following YouTube film clips:

1) The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor – what Fusion wanted to be…

2) An unbiased look at Molten Salt Reactors

3) LFTR Chemical Processing by Kirk Sorensen

Thorium! The Way Ahead!

Priyantha Hettige

Opinion

Foreign degrees and UGC

Published

14 hours ago

2026/02/23

Thilina Walpola

There are three key issues regarding foreign degrees:

Recognition: Is the awarding university recognized by our UGC?

Authenticity: Is the degree genuine or bogus?

Quality: Is it a standard, credible qualification?

1. The Recognition Issue (UGC Role)

The UGC addresses the first issue. If a foreign university is listed in the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook or the International Handbook of Universities, the UGC issues a letter confirming that the university is recognized. However, it is crucial to understand that a recognized university does not automatically imply that every degree it issues is recognized.

2. The Authenticity Issue (Employer Role)

The second issue rests with the employer. It is the employer’s responsibility to send a copy of the foreign degree to the issuing university to get it authenticated. This is a straightforward verification process.

3. The Quality Assurance Gap

The third issue

—the standard and quality of the degree—has become a matter for no one. The UGC only certifies whether a foreign university is recognized; they do not assess the quality of the degree itself.

This creates a serious loophole. For example:

Does a one-year “top-up” degree meet standard criteria?

Is a degree obtained completely online considered equivalent?

Should we recognize institutions with weak invigilation, allowing students to cheat?

What about curricula that are heavy on “notional hours” but light on functional, practical knowledge?

What if the medium of instruction is English, but the graduates have no functional English proficiency?

Members of the UGC need to seriously rethink this approach. A rubber-stamp certification of a foreign university is insufficient. The current system ignores the need for strict quality assurance. When looking at the origins of some of these foreign institutions (Campuchia, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Sudan..) the intentions behind these “academic” offerings become very clear. Quality assurance is urgently needed. Foreign universities offering substandard degrees can be delisted.

M. A. Kaleel Mohammed
757@gmail.com
( Retired President of a National College of Education)