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by
Avis Sri Jayantha
Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority
Identities in Sri Lanka
Eds., Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and Chandra R. De Silva,
State University of New York Press,
Albany, NY, 1998
Buddhist Fundamentalism is a series of
essays edited by Prof. Bartholomeusz of Florida State University and Prof.
de Silva of Old Dominion University in Virginia.
The editors, in their introductory
chapter, use the Fundamentalism Project of Marty, Appleby and others to
describe fundamentalism as 1) a reliance on religion as a source of
identity, 2) boundary setting that determines who belongs and who does
not, 3) dramatic escatologies [stories which give meaning], and 4) the
dramatization and mythologization of enemies (p.2)
According to them, Sinhala-Buddhist
fundamentalism is different from other fundamentalisms in that there is no
insistence on strict behavioral standards and believers do not form a
coherent, readily identifiable group. Although there is no “sacred” text
or scripture that serves as a blueprint for society, the authors argue
that the mythohistorical tract, the Mahavamsa, carries canonical
authority. Prof. Steven Kemper is quoted as saying that “the Mahavamsa has
become the warrant for the interlocked beliefs that the island and its
government have traditionally been Sinhala and Buddhist” (1991, p.2).
The editors emphasize that Sinhala-Buddhist
fundamentalism is “determined not only by historical tradition and
ideology, but by politics as well... As our essayists argue, Sinhala-Buddhist
fundamentalism, used as a platform for politicians and patriots since the
late nineteenth century, is concerned directly with power and dominance,
especially dominance by the ethnic majority, the Sinhalese.”(p.8)
This book is concerned primarily with
examining the fundamentalists’ Other - with the minority communities of
the island and how their identities have been shaped by Sinhala-Buddhist
fundamentalism. (The ‘Other’ is that which a group uses to define its
identity in opposition to. For instance, men define themselves in relation
to women. The editors’ definition of minority seems to include minority
Buddhist movements.)
Inexplicably, and this is the major
weakness of the book, there is no discussion of the one minority - the
Tamils of the NorthEast - which have refused to reach a subservient
accommodation with Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism. There is so little
acknowledgement of this prominent exception that one is led to feel that
these Tamils now live in another land in the minds of the authors and
editors of the book.
George Bond of Northwestern University
writes the second article in the book, “Conflicts of Identity and
Interpretation in Buddhism: The Clash between the Sarvodaya Shramadana
Movement and the Government of Pres. Premadasa,” which is about two
contrasting interpretations of Buddhism. He calls them both variations of
Buddhist fundamentalism with one being ‘political’ and the other ‘socially
engaged.’ The political strand emphasizes identity without requiring that
the government follow or enact Buddhist values, while Sarvodaya emphasizes
the primacy of values over identity.
Chandra de Silva, in “The Plurality of
Buddhist Fundamentalism: An Inquiry into Views Among Buddhist Monks in Sri
Lanka,” argues that “a) the variety of views relating to the ideal social
and political order among Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka is often masked by
the great concern for an appearance of a “unified” front; and b) the
continuing tensions and contradictions between the Buddhist doctrinal
tradition and twentieth-century nationalist ideology among Sinhala-Buddhist
monks illustrates not only a different kind of fundamentalism, but also
provides clues on strategies that might be adopted to foster greater
tolerance.”(p.53) I guess there is not much tolerance and the author
wishes there were more!
Oddvar Hollup of the Nordland Research
Institute, Norway writes on “The Impact of Land Reforms, Rural Images, and
Nationalist Ideology on Plantation Tamils.” He says that “Because the
Sinhalas - the majority and politically dominant group - historically have
failed to recognize (or at least have refused to consider) Sri Lanka a
plural society in its implementation of a cultural policy and its
definition of nationhood, the situation for Sri Lankan ethnic minorities
generally has been one of negotiation and accommodation.”(p.74) This
‘generally,’ of course, contains one big exception, which is really not
discussed in this book. Hollup analyses land reform of the tea plantations
on which hill country Tamils work and ends with:
“Land reform and the nationalization
of the plantations in Sri Lanka must be analyzed in connection with the
emergence of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist ideology and political
patronage. The ideology, based on mytho-historical interpretations of the
past, helped to create greater homogeneity by constructing a ‘singular
identity’ among Sinhalas while at the same time excluding others. The
past, in terms of the myths and legends of Sinhala-Buddhist chronicles,
still plays an important role in the construction of national identity,
supported by a fundamentalist ideology that conflates race, language, and
religion. These interpretations of the past, when connected with rural
images, representations of the estates, and construction of the Other, can
be helpful in explaining the legislation of land reforms and the
nationalization of the plantations.
Land reforms and nationalization of
the plantations represent politically motivated means to build up
electoral support, especially since the distribution of state resources
has functioned as an important means of political patronage. The state,
defined as a Sinhala-Buddhist one, became committed to support the Sinhala
peasantry as a moral obligation. As a result, land reforms were conducted
in the name of the peasantry by the landed elite, rather than springing
from demands and discontent among the peasantry.” (p.84)
Pradeep Jegananthan, a postdoc at the
University of Chicago, writes “In the Shadow of Violence: ‘Tamilness’ and
the Anthropology of Identity in Southern Sri Lanka” about how Tamils in
Colombo live in the constant expectation of violence and the coping
mechanisms they have to deal with this which differ based on caste,
economic status, place of origin, etc. He gives a detailed case study of 2
families who lived through the 1983 riots.
In “Sufi and Reformist Designs: Muslim
Identity in Sri Lanka” Victor de Munck of the University of New York at
New Paltz defines Islamic fundamentalism as “the construction of an
Islamic/Muslim identity based on a ‘memory’ of a heroic Arabic past and an
avowed ideological commitment to Islamic doctrinal practices and
beliefs.”(p.110) de Munck hopes “to show how identity can be
differentially interpreted.”(p.111) Based on fieldwork in a Muslim village
in the Uva Bintenne, de Munck discusses how a new urban-based pan-Islamic
fundamentalist identity seeks to subvert a more localized Sufi-Muslim
identity. According to de Munck, in both Sinhala and Tamil contexts, the
Muslim is defined as being subordinate and in an accommodating role in
relation to the dominant Other, so it is satisfying to be identified with
a larger, pan-Islamic world.
Tessa Bartholomeusz of Florida State
University in “Sinhala Anglicans and Buddhism in Sri Lanka: When the
‘Other’ Becomes ‘You’ states that:
“As Oddvar Hollup comments in his
essay, language, race and ethnicity, rather than religion, as had been the
case until recently, are the most important identity markers for Sinhalas
and Tamils in contemporary Sri Lanka...In this chapter, I analyze at what
point the majority of Sri Lankan Anglicans saw themselves as a separate
religious community. In addition I explore why today they identify
themselves with Sinhalas, rather than the British, despite the Sinhalas’
association with Buddhism. As we shall see, Sinhala Anglicans, much like
other Sinhala groups, have been forced to show their loyalty to the nation
through the revival of a shared ‘history,’ and language, rather than
through religious affiliation.”(p.133)
She ends with “...the history of this
convert group is best discussed in relation to the organization of state
power in Sri Lanka. In short, in the present context, indigenization means
Sinhalization, a movement toward empowerment.”(p.142)
In his chapter on “Catholic Identity
and Global Forces in Sinhala Sri Lanka”, R.L. Stirrat of the University of
Sussex argues “that an understanding of changing Sinhala-Catholic identity
has to place it within the broad processes of ‘globalization,’ which
involves not just a three centuries-old increasing interdependence of
different parts of the world at an economic level, but also the more
recent phenomenon of a growing sense of ‘global consciousness’ in which
distinctions between the universal and the particular collapse.”(p.147)
In her second chapter Tessa
Bartholomeusz writes on “Buddhist Burghers and Sinhala-Buddhist
Fundamentalism” and how some Burghers have become Buddhists and some,
especially A.E. Buultjens, have even played critical roles in the
development of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalism.
John Clifford Holt of Bowdoin College
in Maine concludes the volume with “The Persistence of Political
Buddhism,” a good portion of which is given over to Pres. Kumaratunge’s
message on Vesak Day of May, 1997. Holt asks who are the Sinhala-Buddhist
fundamentalists and answers from his experience that they are ‘militant
and politically motivated Buddhists of the more urbanized sections of the
populace who are heirs to the type of puritanical religiosity fostered by
an early twentieth-century reformer, the Anagarika Dharmapala, and that
the fundamentalists are something of a minority, albeit a powerful
minority.
“...our inquiries then seek not so
much to identify specific social institutions, individual people, or a
specific system of thought and practice, but rather focus upon the
designation of a religious trait or propensity, a trait or propensity
often articulated through exclusive and uncompromising claims to truth
made on the basis of literalistic readings of sacred, authoritative texts
containing powerful and idealistic mythic visions of the past. For the
fundamentalistically inclined, this vision of the past is what also serves
as a blueprint for the future and, as H.L. Seneviratne has noted in
another place, has sometimes functioned as a rationalization for the
perpetration of violence against or the political marginalization of
others in the present. Being fundamentalistic, then, denotes a particular
way in which some people claim their religiousness. But this is a type of
religiousness that seems also subservient to militant and often intolerant
political machinations. It tends to breed, for instance, fear (the
‘shadow’ hanging over Jeganathan’s Colombo Tamils), alienation (in
Hollup’s Plantation Tamils), an acquiescent assimilation (in Bartholomeusz’
Anglicans and Burghers or Stirrat’s Roman Catholics) or a countering and
correspondent fundamentalistic antipathy (in de Munck’s Sinhala Muslims)
in other Sri Lankan communities.
From the essays comprising this
volume, we have also learned that being fundamentalistic is also a
particular way in which some people who are religious in the
aforementioned regard are simultaneously political...
While it can be argued that not all
ways of being religious, or more specifically not all ways of being
Buddhist, are inherently political in nature, we can entertain the
assertion that the quest for gaining or maintaining political power is
intrinsic to Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist religiosity. Taking this one
step further, I tend to conclude, on the basis of reviewing the previous
essays of this volume, that political power is usually the primary aim for
Sinhala Buddhists with the fundamentalist trait. In fact, it seems to be
their hallmark.
Laying claim to this conclusion,
however, does not mean that the dynamics of the current ethno-political
conflict in Sri Lanka can be understood strictly along the lines of
religious divides. While both Stirrat in his essay and Bartholomeusz and
de Silva in the Introduction emphasize how religious and national
identities were conflated in the colonial context of the late nineteenth
century, virtually all the contributors to this volume recognize that
language, race, and ethnicity [and class] are now just as important
factors in generating social identity and alienation between communities
in the present...That is, communal identity, let alone ethnic or national
identity, is no longer necessarily coextensive with religion, In fact,
being Sinhala or being Tamil is precisely what now divides virtually all
Christian communities in Sri Lanka, especially the Roman Catholic.
What is primarily significant, then
about contemporary fundamentalistic Buddhists is that, like their late
nineteenth predecessors for whom religion and ethnicity were largely
conflated, their Buddhism is intimately linked to political ideology… In
the present, Buddhism is consciously invoked by politically motivated
Sinhalas to advance their own empowerment (usually to the exclusion of
other communities) or to rationalize their agendas for actions taken
against other communities in post hoc fashion. In the former
nineteenth-century instance, the revival of Buddhism contributed to the
formation of a new national political consciousness; in the latter
instance of the present, Buddhism becomes a powerful trope [figure of
speech] for expressing a matured political ideology that may be more
appropriately identified as communal (since it is not inclusive enough to
be truly national for a multiethnic society). Not only is this political
ideology that invokes Buddhism as a trope not really broad enough in
conception to be truly national in scope, I would suspect, quite frankly,
that it is not primarily religious either, especially since its avowed
aims are not ultimately soteriological [theology dealing with salvation]
in nature.
The traditional Sinhala adage that
‘the country exists for the sake of the religion,’ as a statement that
formerly characterized the rationale for Buddhist kingship in Sri Lanka
and other Theravada countries, would no longer seem to hold in relation to
the aims of these political Buddhists. Rather, it may be more accurate to
say that for fundamentalistic Sinhala Buddhists of the present, the
religion exists for the sake of those aspiring to control the state.
Buddhism is a trope of continuing powerful appeal in a world of political
expediencies.
Having said that, it also needs to be
emphasized that since the 1950s, politics among the Sinhala constituency
has been dominated by just such appeals to Buddhism for the sake of
legitimation and in the service of expediency. Since that time Buddhism
has been afforded a special place in the nation’s series of constitutions
with each new government stopping just short of declaring it, de facto,
the official religion of the state. In practice, or de jure, it has
functioned as such, at least publicly, for the Buddhists in power.”
(pps.187-190)
“... That is the historicization of
mythic images embedded in the Mahavamsa is continuously facilitated by the
institutionalization or ritualization of national holidays celebrating
landmark moments in the mythologized history of Sri Lanka’s Buddhism. As
long as governments in Sri Lanka ritualistically promote Buddhist holidays
as celebrations of national importance, pledge their resources and
energies to the propagation of Buddhist ideals, and invoke Buddhist images
of what constitutes a moral and just society, then we can continue to
expect the idealization of the Buddhist past to be articulated as the
blueprint for the nation’s present and future. That is, we can expect that
that ritualistic invocation of mythic imagery will continue to serve and
inform Sinhala-Buddhist political consciousness. In this regard, it is
highly relevant to recall Donald Swearer’s observation (noted by de Silva)
that ‘the primary “fundamentalism” extracted from the sacred “source
texts” of Sri Lanka (the myths and legends) is properly speaking more
reflective of, and at the service of, the nationalist rather than the
Buddhist worldview.’
Swearer’s observation is an important
one, for it signals what is, in fact, the basic dilemma faced by what de
Silva has referred to as the more ‘benign’ orientation of the Sinhala-Buddhist
community and perhaps by President Kumaratunga herself. It is a dilemma
faced by Sri Lanka’s more secularized liberals as well. The dilemma is
this: How to construct an inclusive nationalist discourse which recognizes
the importance of a Buddhist historical past yet transcends its
fundamentalistic myth and ritual function as a blueprint for the present
and future. That is, How is it possible to transcend the sacred canopy of
Buddhist nationalist discourse so that a new more inclusive discourse can
recognize the diversity of Sri Lanka’s various communities? What’s at
stake is the discovery of a new political vision for Sri Lanka’s future,
one that is not simply dependent upon a pandering to ethnicity, language,
and religion....
In the end, however, this may prove to
be an overly idealistic sentiment, much too much to expect in a South
Asian political climate which continues to be fragmented or totalized by
appeals to religion and ethnicity. Sri Lanka is certainly not alone in
this struggle. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives are essentially
Islamic states, while India is witnessing a surging wave of Hindu
fundamentalist politics. Whatever the future portends, more totalizing or
fragmenting politics or not, religion, fundamentalistic or not, is certain
to remain an important player in the dynamic.”(p.193-4)
Avis Sri Jayantha
for Sangam Research
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