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Aversion to Nibbana in enlightened UK

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Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancients Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honour of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother’s Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday.”

Once a major tradition in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, this celebration fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church”—the main church in the vicinity of their home—for a special service. Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition shifted into a more secular holiday, and children would present their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation. This custom eventually faded in popularity before merging with the American Mother’s Day in the 1930s and 1940s.

However, differently sons and daughters may describe their mothers, there is bound to be common ground forming the bedrock of a totally selfless unique human being who Lord Buddha had described as the living Buddha in every home! The apt description is even more poignant at the bottom end of the socioeconomic spectrum to observe how mothers in poverty-stricken homes would even go hungry just to ensure her children are fed adequately! She derives all her pleasures and satisfaction in the sacrifices she makes! One has to be careful not to lose sight of the role both the parents played in bringing up the family in different ways and to varying degrees! Really speaking, responsible and caring motherhood is universal including the animal kingdom! However, devoting this write up to the mother, let us reflect on our past how we all came to be where we are now, the pivotal role she, the most wonderful and important person played throughout, the unsung heroine with an unparalleled loving personality who would sacrifice her life for you ! She would portray herself as being happy and contented always knowing well that the trials and tribulations she goes through day in day out are best hidden lest it would affect the children’s emotions!  A true omnipresent stoic in every family. 

Be that as it may, we can take a lot of pride and comfort in the knowledge that our Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist culture we grew up recognises all these virtues without the need for a reminder in order to remember and celebrate the goddess who brought us into our world.

If one assumes Christianity and the Church play a pivotal role in upholding traditions associated with Mothering Sunday, you could not be further from the truth! Yes, in the hierarchy from the top, Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby down to the dioceses headed by Bishops overseeing the clergy, the Anglican Church plays a completely different ball game! As a mark of respect in my beloved mother’s cherished memories, I wish to share with your wide international readership our experience of blatant religious discrimination! How can this be the case in a western democracy? Here in U.K., we have the unparalleled freedom of speech to recognise nobody is above the law, every facet of public life amongst the Royalty, the Prime Minister, his government comes under the sharp scrutiny of the media. Do not be fooled! 

My beloved mother died back home in Sri Lanka on 08 March 2006 attended by her only surviving son (myself), my Welsh wife and youngest sister from the UK to join the rest of the families. She was cremated and some of her ashes put in an urn was brought over to the U.K. where we are permanently domiciled. It was in turn put in a hermetically sealed factory-made casket and kept in a pergola in our back garden as a shrine to pay homage in Wokingham, Berkshire for a number of years. It then dawned on me that as the years go by, where could it end up when we are no more, pointing to the need for its internment in a cemetery. Enquiries with St Paul’s Church nearby revealed my Buddhist background was no barrier as there was a section dedicated to people from all religious denominations. Her ashes were officially buried after paying the fees involved and following the protocols, conducted by Farther Richard Lamey on 27 July 2014. Our enquiries with him revealed there were no barriers to laying a fitting memorial in due course.  Later on, it was time to consider laying such a memorial and efforts to make contact with St Paul’s Church administration as regards any stipulations proved difficult with messages left on the answerphone remaining unanswered. Finally, my wife and I drove to look around where mother’s ashes were buried. It was patently clear seeing monuments of varying shades of black, grey and different sizes, there was flexibility. So, we ordered a ledger stone measuring considerably smaller than most in situ through a stone mason in West Wales who previously supplied a lovely gravestone where my father-in-law was buried in West Wales. 

Coincidentally, we had driven from Berkshire to collect it, when the clerk at St Paul’s Church rang me on my mobile in response to the messages I had left. I explained clearly what had happened since to which her short reply was “Oh, I don’t know. You’d better meet up with Fr Richard Lamey on your return”. My arranged meeting with him was most upsetting as he was unrelenting and unreasonable in his outright dismissal of our case to place the ledger stone we had at a cost of £450.00 (possibly considerably more in Berkshire), citing its size, colour, inscription and carefully avoiding the mention of our wish, “May she attain Nibbana!” All my pleading to show mercy and compassion fell on deaf ears. When questioned why there were no such rigid standards or stipulations in respect of several other gravestones, in the same section of the cemetery, his stock excuse was that they were already in place when he took office! But it was patently obvious that he did not like the wish ‘May she attain Nibbana!”  

I made an earnest appeal to the Bishop of Berkshire & Oxfordshire, Olivia Graham to no avail. Further appeal was made in desperation to Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury only to receive a negative response from his office, citing that the Archbishop did not get involved and had no jurisdiction over individual dioceses!  It was Hobson’s choice for us: we had a wooden post with a small engraved plaque made by a carpenter stuck into the ground where my mothers’ ashes were interned.  Any recourse to an exhumation of her ashes to be interned elsewhere was fraught with costly Anglican Church redtape (some £2000) with no guarantee of success either! My wife and I (both retired from NHS) were driven to sheer desperation, having to keep the ledger stone in our garage and finally, decided to sell our house and move to Wales in 2017. Rightly or wrongly, we discreetly replaced the wooden post with the ledger stone the day before moving house in the fervent hope that common sense would prevail amongst the Anglican Church authorities to let it be! Moving house first to Builth Wells in Powys, the wooden memorial post was erected in our garden to enable us to pay homage knowing full well that trips to Berkshire to lay flowers on the grave would be few and far between. We were wrong! It did not last long before I received a shocking email giving an ultimatum from Olivia Graham to remove the ledger stone or risk having it removed from St Paul’s Church cemetery with all its attendant costs to us and prosecution, etc. The dice was up, our daughter kindly agreed to drive down to bring the “offending ledger stone” to our new home, knowing Dad was visibly too upset. This tragic chain of events unsettled us again, forcing another house move and another to our final destination. In short, three house moves in under three years! The ledger stone was proving to be an unbearable source of sheer anguish and despair, eventually we had it refurbished by the same stone mason with an inscription to be placed alongside my father in law’s gravestone forever. My youngest sister who lives in Hayes, Middlesex and her husband kindly liaised with an “approved” stone mason in Berkshire to have a miniature memorial within the strict stipulated measurements at further additional costs placed over my mother’s grave on 30 June 2020. (Her birth anniversary). The whole harrowing saga is an indictment of the unspeakable insensitivity, callousness and ruthlessness of the Anglican Church’s arbitration in dealing such a devastating blow to a Buddhist family and it clearly demonstrates the yawning gap in what they preach and practise. This merits full journalistic investigation and verification for exposure in the media! Ironically, it will not be possible here in the U.K.

Legislation in the U.K. government has kept pace with changing circumstances and times under the leadership of successive Prime Ministers, e.g. discrimination against race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, age, etc., are all against the law. However, the Anglican Church remains buried in antiquated and archaic regulations and practices while still continuing to preach from the pulpit borrowing ostentatiously chapter and verse from Buddhism when it extols the virtues of compassion, tolerance, diversity, mindfulness, reflection, etc., to give itself a semblance of adaptation to modern life! 

It would therefore be a comforting outcome to share our deep emotions with the rest of the world through your esteemed journal!

 

Sunil Dharmabandhu 

U.K. 

My email: sunilrajdharm@yahoo.co.uk 



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Opinion

Arun Siddharth the troublemaker

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Arun Siddharth

By Rohana R. Wasala

A feature article in  The Island Financial Review of February 16, 2023 served as a formal event announcement for the inaugural function of a new NGO called the People’s Convention on Good Governance (PCGG) that was scheduled to be held nine days later (i.e., on February 25). Some 1,600 delegates were expected to attend the event. Those included the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe (parliament elected following the ouster of Gotabaya Rajapaksa about seven months previously), prime minister Dinesh Gunewardane, cabinet ministers, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, ‘a few noteworthy parliamentarians’, leaders of all political parties, the diplomatic community, corporate leaders, professionals, university deans, civic leaders, youth leaders, ‘noteworthy personalities’, and a representative group of citizens who cannot ‘influence good governance other than by making correct choices’; local and international media institutions were to be invited to telecast the proceedings for a worldwide viewership.

The convention that was accordingly conducted on 25 Feb., 2023 was a massive operation. It naturally occurred to me then that the Sri Lankan government had a serious responsibility to ensure that the huge benefits to be accrued from the lavish funds collected by the NGO should reach all the adversely circumstanced Sri Lankan citizens for whom generous international donors made them available; otherwise, the money would end up in the wrong hands, as it usually happens in Sri Lanka. The benefits of the largesse should be distributed equitably among the deserving without discrimination or favouritism that is based on race, caste, religion or ethnicity; the NGO activists owe it to the suffering masses.

Arun Siddharth (birth name: Arulanandam Arun), convenor of the Jaffna Civil Society Centre, was among the 1600 or so invited participants at the PCGG event which was held at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH), Colombo (on 25 Feb., 2023, as already mentioned). He had come with a delegation of about fifty Tamil men and women from Jaffna who had been persecuted by the LTTE.

Arun Siddharth took part in a panel discussion on ethnicity conducted by this new NGO, the PCGG. The positive implications of Arun’s participation in that important event for dispelling the dense clouds of disinformation and misinformation that constantly tarnish Sri Lanka’s international image as a sovereign nation cannot be exaggerated. Using the rare opportunity that came his way to share the stage with the big guns of the PCGG (such as Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu being, among other things, the  founder head of  the NGO known as the Centre for Policy Alternatives), Arun Siddharth advanced arguments with supportive evidence to convince the members of the convention, especially representatives of the international community, that there is no problem of ethnic disharmony or conflict between the Tamil minority and the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka to be resolved and that the real issue that affects the lives of sixty per cent of the Tamil population in the North is the severe caste discrimination and oppression that is allowed to continue under the ruling political elite of that part of the island.

That elite includes the retired supreme court judge turned politician C. V. Wigneshwaran, and M. A. Sumanthiran. Arun Siddharth called their bluff and incidentally exposed the sham of reconciliation politics fraudulently sustained by the powers that be out of ulterior motives. He thereby delivered a potentially dangerous blow on the lucrative NGO industry that thrives on uncalled-for reconciliation efforts.

Arun Siddharth’s vocal participation in the panel discussion on the alleged problem of ethnicity must have proved to be a complete surprise, as well as a disturbing eye-opener, to most of the distinguished participants, because he flatly denied that there was any ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka to be tackled. He supported his argument with incontrovertible proof based on personal experience.

His revelation was perhaps an unintended blow to the NGO which was primarily set up to address a non-existent need for ‘reconciliation’, to build bridges between the majority Buddhist Sinhalese and the majority Hindu Tamils. The truth is that there is no need to build new bridges between the ordinary Sinhalese and ordinary Tamils, who in their mutually compatible and naturally co-existing (Hindu and Buddhist) religious cultures, together form over eighty percent of the population that is very tolerant and accommodating towards other religious communities.

The bridges are already there, though somewhat damaged recently by certain meddlesome international do-gooders (an ephemeral tribe of civil servants accountable only to the existing governments of the countries that they represent, but not to the common suffering, but sovereign, Sri Lankan masses). In my opinion, Arun Siddharth has great potential power to permanently repair these recently broken bridges, and he is emerging as a unique new star in the ascendant in the northern political firmament.

He actualises a break with the past in several ways. He doesn’t want to be a regional politician, unlike his casteist and racist elite counterpart who, while living safely in the South (Colombo) among the peaceful Sinhalese, visit the North (Jaffna) to do communal politics among the innocent Tamils, peddling the useful myth that the Sinhalese are their sworn enemies. Arun works with the downtrodden majority (sixty percent) of Tamils in that region, the so-called low caste Tamils, as one of them.Though the fighting cadres of the LTTE were mainly recruited from his class, his family experienced violence at the hands of the LTTE, and he was opposed to that organisation and the separatist goal it espoused.

Now in his forties, Arun says he remained silenced (presumably by pro-separatist forces).  According to him, his father edited a Tamil language newspaper in Colombo, and he was a Marxist. Arun himself seems to mix his politics with Marxist ideas. Arun Siddharth is bravely taking on ‘disgusting caste based Tamil elite politics’ while also criticising the long entrenched  Tamil separatist ideology. Equally significantly, he rejects brazen Indian expansionism in Sri Lanka. It is obvious he enjoys enthusiastic reception both in the South and in the North, which appears to be more marked in the former.

After two unsuccessful alliances (probably initiated by him as a fact-finding strategy)  made with the mainstream national parties of the SLFP and the UNP consecutively, Arun has joined the Mawbima Janatha Pakshaya (MJP) founded and led by former lawyer and entrepreneur Dilith Jayaweera, where he was admitted to the supreme council of the party as a member. Later he was appointed the MJP Jaffna District Organiser by Jayaweera.

The MJP is the main constituent of the new alliance named the Sarvajana Balaya (All People Power), which is fighting the upcoming general election under the ‘Medal’ symbol. Arun Siddharth is Sarvajana Balaya’s parliamentary candidate for the Jaffna district. About a month ago, he made an impassioned as well as well reasoned appeal in eloquent Sinhala and Tamil for understanding and support from the national electorate both in the North and the South. Incidentally, it should be mentioned that Udaya Gammanpila’s Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) and Wimal Weerawansa’s Jathika Nidahas Peramuna (JNP)  are also partners of the Sarvajana Balaya alliance.

Udaya Gammanpila is contesting for the Colombo district under the same symbol as Arun, i.e., the Medal. Weerawansa has decided to stay out of the contest, though obviously, the seasoned politician has no intention of leaving politics or the Sarvajana Balaya. It is also clear that whatever success the Medal achieves at the parliamentary election will ultimately contribute towards strengthening President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his government, provided they are wise and humble enough to heed their constructive criticism and critical help.

Unfortunately however, Dilith Jayaweera’s inexplicable failure to  cleanse lingering stains of his past association with the ruinous Rajapaksas and his questionable co-option of a character like Daham Sirisena, son of discredited former Yahapalana president Sirisena, will prove to be clear drawbacks unless remedied soon.

I for one have already proposed several times in the recent past that the main key to resolving Sri Lanka’s chronic as well as emergent political, economic, and social problems is the restoration of  accustomed peaceful coexistence, cultural integration and solidarity between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities in the context of ineluctable realities of geopolitical pressures that have been and continue to be exerted on our island home for over two and a half millennia. Arun Siddharth from the North has much to contribute to restoring North South unity which is vital for Sri Lanka’s survival as a sovereign nation into the future.

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Opinion

Possible scenario after general election

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The three-member Cabinet including President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will have completed over fifty days in office as on the day of the general election.As an independent observer, keenly interested in the political scenario of the country, and having evaluated the performance of the present regime thus far, I think the following queries require public attention.

Has rhetoric taken precedence over action?

Has the strain of governance already taken its toll on the NPP administration?

Has their lack of experience been exposed?

Has the NPP/JVP combine bitten off more than they can chew?

Has the government betrayed the trust of 43% of voters reposed in it?

The possibility of the country having a hung parliament cannot be ruled out. The results of the recently concluded Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabha election could be considered an indication.

It certainly will be an enormous, if not uphill, task for the incumbent NPP/JVP combine to secure a simple working majority, let alone a commanding one at the elections, considering that it is being conducted under the Proportional Representation (PR) system. To a great extent, the PR system provides for the accommodation of many minority parties/independent groups in parliament.

To form a government, the NPP may have to seek the support of others or independent groups. The ITAK, which presumably may gain the majority of the 29 seats in the North and East, could be one such entity. However, it is left to be seen whether they would cooperate or not, depending on the conditions they are bound to lay down for mutual advantage.

In my opinion, there is no gainsaying the fact that a majority of ex parliamentarians will re-enter Parliament. Further, considering the advantages of the PR system, a large number of Independent candidates could also enter parliament.

How many of such members will consent to extend support to the party planning to form a government remains to be seen. Here again, personal agendas will certainly take preference over national issues.Notwithstanding this aspect, some ad-hoc alliances might emerge to grab power.

WILLIAM PHILLIPSZ 

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Opinion

A new dawn for Sri Lanka

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by Ayampillai Dharmakulasingham,
(Retired Sri Lankan career diplomat)

The Communist Party of India won Legislative Assembly elections in the Indian states of West Bengal and Kerala, establishing their respective governments. Leftist parties were also influential in some other states, especially in Tamil Nadu, though they could not capture power there.

In Sri Lanka, JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s rise to the presidency marks a new chapter in the country’s history. The upcoming general election, on 14 Nov. holds significant importance and has raised hopes that Sri Lanka is undergoing a transitional period for good. It may mark the first time a left-wing party comes to power in Sri Lanka. There are other factors that make the upcoming election important. Major political parties have become notorious for corruption, mismanagement of national resources, family dynasties, elitist politics, etc. Corruption has been widespread throughout government, accompanied by nepotism, lack of transparency, and mismanagement of public funds

It is indeed true that the JVP’s presence in the northern and eastern regions, is not as strong as in the south, such as Galle, Matara, Hambantota, Anuradhapura, Kurunegala, and other districts. However, Anura’s popularity has drawn attention in the north as well. For the first time, substantial support appears to be emerging for the JVP in the northern and district districts of Jaffna, Batticaloa, Ampara, and Trincomalee. However, every parliamentary election has been similarly heralded as “historic” by the press and media, though often without substance. The major parties – the United National Party, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna – have ruled Sri Lanka repeatedly, with the media often playing a supportive role by portraying each election as historic, ultimately misleading the public.

Sri Lanka’s first left-wing political party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), once had widespread support across the country and grew powerful enough to become a significant opposition force. The plantation population, in particular, supported both the LSSP and the Communist Party. The LSSP achieved major victories in parliamentary elections after the 1940s. In response, the first Prime Minister, D. S. Senanayake, revoked the citizenship of people of Indian origin, stripping them of their political rights. As a result, the LSSP lost a significant portion of its support base. When the citizenship rights of people of Indian origin were revoked, the prominent Tamil leader G. G. Ponnambalam served as a key Minister in the UNP Cabinet. Although he opposed the provisions of the Act within the Cabinet, Prime Minister D. S. Senanayake ultimately prevailed. Despite his opposition, Ponnambalam failed to take meaningful action to protect the political rights of the hill-country Tamil population. This perceived betrayal led S. J. V. Chelvanayakam to leave the Tamil Congress Party and establish the Federal Party.

In the northern and eastern regions, the parties and organizations that once formed the traditional alliances of the Tamil Alliance and other Tamil parties have fragmented. They are now contesting the general election as separate alliances. Like it or not, the Federal Party remains somewhat influential today, although its support base is not as strong as it once was

Tamil parties have often criticized and blamed the major national parties as being racist. Ironically, most Tamil political parties – such as Thamil Arasu Katchi, Tamil Congress, and the Tamil National Alliance – include “Tamil” in their names. In contrast, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, United National Party, and Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna do not reference any race in their names. Yet, Tamil parties have continued to win elections by appealing to Tamil-speaking people with claims that only the major parties are racist. Some insights into racism are important here. Muslim citizens representing major parties have been elected as members of Parliament in predominantly Sinhala areas. However, the stark reality is that the Muslim population in the North and East has been alienated by the Jaffna-centered major Tamil parties.

G. G. Ponnambalam, the leader of the Tamil Congress, advocated for 50/50 representation for the Sinhalese and other ethnic groups, despite the fact that Sinhalese people are the majority. This 50/50 representation demand is seen as an extremely racist slogan. In other words, he openly undermined the representation and political rights of the majority Sinhalese people. S. J. V. Chelvanayakam left the Tamil Congress and founded the Federal Party due to G. G. Ponnambalam’s perceived betrayal of the upcountry Tamils. However, Chelvanayakam’s own performance was not markedly better than that of Ponnambalam. Chelvanayakam’s own words deserve attention. In 1970, when the SLFP coalition swept the parliamentary elections, Chelvanayakam famously declared, “Only God should save the Tamils from now on.” It is essential to closely examine the underlying implications of this statement. The first implication is that the UNP government is preferable. The second is that Sirimao’s party will not benefit the Tamils. Notably, Chelvanayakam’s loyalty to the UNP correlates with the historical voting patterns of the Tamil (Jaffna) people, who have traditionally supported UNP candidates in all elections within the Colombo Municipal limits and the adjoining areas of Dehiwela and Ratmalana.

On 27 Oct., a book titled “Jaffna on Fire” (Tamil version) was launched in Jaffna. Original Sinhalese book was translated by well-known media personality and translator, Manoranchan, into Tamil.  The author, Nandana Weerasekhara, presented evidence that the Jaffna Public Library, modern market, and other locations were set on fire during the presidency of J. R. Jayewardene, allegedly with his blessing. Another notable aspect is that Tamil leaders, both before and after this incident, provided full political support to the UNP.

President Dissanayake’s NPP is expected to win significantly in the upcoming general elections. This expectation arises from the fact that most Sri Lankans are seeking change. President Dissanayake has emphasised the need to elect representatives from the NPP in large numbers to cleanse the Parliament. It is understandable that the President requires a strong Parliament to effectively govern the country with new legislative measures. During a meeting in Kilinochchi on 04 Nov., Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya captured the attention of the audience by stating that Parliament should be cleansed. She emphasised the importance of electing the right representatives in the upcoming general elections. The overwhelming response from the audience reaffirmed the prevailing mood of the country.

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