Editorial

The Opium Of The Masses

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum, wrote the Roman poet Lucretius (99-55 BC): "Such evil deeds could religion prompt." We have no reason to believe that the poet Lucretius spent his formative years in Trincomalee, but his insight into the link between religion and evil suggests he might well have done so. Laying the poet Lucretius to one side for the nonce however, it behoves us to ponder a while on the recent goings on in Trincomalee, which has in the last fortnight become a hotbed of discontent.

The trouble started after a nebulous body known as the Trincomalee Three Wheeler Drivers' Association led by one Keerthi Piyalal surreptitiously erected a statue of the Buddha on land belonging to the Urban Council, in a prominent location beside the Trincomalee clock tower. Unlike the placement of most religious icons, which are accompanied by much fanfare and chanting of sacred verse, this statue found its way to its present home in stealth, in the dead of night. Piyalal is not one for ritual: he just gets on with the job. And being a three-wheeler driver, his brow a-dew with honest sweat, his toil knows no end: his is truly a day and night service to mankind.

Its population composed in equal parts of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims (and smattered with a small but influential sprinkling of Christians), the Trincomalee District is widely touted as a model of peaceful coexistence. Sinhalese shops do brisk business cheek by jowl with Tamil emporia in the squalid business district, while Muslim fishermen share the golden beaches with their Tamil brethren. When Piyalal finds his three wheeler flagged down by a fare, he rarely stops to ascertain their religious persuasion or their racial chemistry. It is all rather reminiscent of Anatevka, the village that is the setting of Fiddler On The Roof: "We don't bother them and they don't bother us."

Not any more. Piyalal's action drew outrage from an equally extreme faction of the Hindu community which, orchestrated by the LTTE, called for a hartal. Shops, schools, public transport and commercial activity were all switched off. Grenades thrown in the course of the protest killed one, and a further three were injured. The tension resulted in life coming to a standstill in Trincomalee. Tourists from hotels that had just begun recovering from the tsunami were seen fleeing for their lives.

Stepping courageously into the fray, Trincomalee Magistrate, M. Ganesharajah urged the police to "take all possible steps to temporarily remove the statue" pending a final decision by the Urban Council (it was, after all, the council land on which the statue had been foisted). This drew howls of protest from the monks of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), with its parliamentary leader, Athuraliye Rathana Thero, using parliament to hurl abuse at the judgement. Trincomalee continues to simmer, shunned by tourists, and the Buddha statue now enjoys a round-the-clock police guard at public expense.

For their part, Trincomalee's Muslims have watched this unfolding drama with bemusement, unable to comprehend how a statue cast in cement and painted over with Dulux could cause such a stir. Islam very sensibly prohibits any association whatsoever between its followers and graven images, having spotted many centuries ago that no sensible person could conceivably worship objects made by men. The late Soma Thera maintained much the same philosophy and was highly thought of in consequence. One wonders why his disciples are so quiet now, and is led to suspect that much of the public show of grief following his death was entirely unrelated to his very enlightened teaching.

Thankfully, apart from the JHU's extremists, the rest of the Buddhist clergy has maintained a stoic and somewhat embarrassed silence on the goings on in Trincomalee. One is at a loss to figure where in the dhamma it says that graven images of the Buddha should be cast or venerated, or for that matter, defended through the hurling of grenades. All very unpleasant and calculated to cast Buddhists and Buddhism in a bad light.

The quandary in which we find ourselves is largely the result of successive generations of political leaders not having the spine to mark a clear separation between religion and the state. In an act of supreme folly, J.R. Jayewardene, five-sixths majority and all, could not restrain himself from giving Buddhism the 'foremost place' in the 1978 Constitution of the Second Republic. In a truly secular state there would be no difficulty in resolving the Trincomalee issue: there simply cannot be a religious edifice on public property. And this is not such a difficult thing to achieve, as India's secular constitution has demonstrated in the course of 58 years of independence.

The mixing of religion in the affairs of state is not unique to Sri Lanka. Even the United States has sunk to pretty low depths, with some states earlier this year deciding to outlaw the teaching of evolution in schools, opting instead for the doctrine that God created the universe in seven days. It is not a far step from there to believing that God's chosen people are the Jews, and that Arabs have no place in a civilised universe.

Sadly, the practice of most religions is rarely consistent with the preaching. Muslims have been slow to condemn the violence perpetrated by Al Qaeda in the name of Islam. The fighting in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics goes on with barely a rebuke from the heads of either religion. Jews continue indiscriminately to slaughter Palestinians and forcibly colonise their lands. Hindus and Muslims have engaged in bloody conflict over whether it is Allah or Rama who hovers over the Ayodhya site in Uttar Pradesh. And even as the global population passes the six billion mark and keeps rising, the Vatican holds out against birth control and discriminates against women.

Given the turmoil religions of all flavours have bestowed on mankind, it is difficult not to conclude that Christopher Marlowe was right. "I count religion but a childish toy," he wrote, "and hold there is no sin but ignorance." The abuse of religion has been such that it is doubtful indeed whether it has had a positive influence of any kind on humanity. The electricity crisis Sri Lanka is presently suffering is largely the doing of the Catholic Church, which has steadfastly resisted the building of a coal-fired power plant at Norochcholai, the most economical site at which this could be done.

Even evangelical Christianity, that is growing extremely rapidly, is hard to admire given the five-star lifestyles of many of its adherents. One has only to drive past the Russian Centre on Independence Avenue on a Sunday morning to admire the Alfa Romeos, Mercedes Benzes and Volvos of the congregation of the Four Square Church worshiping within. It seems they have not read the gospel, Matthew 19:24 which maintains that, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The Sai Baba Ashram on Barnes Place and Captain's Garden Kovil are little different when it comes to the glitz of the wealthy seeking divine intervention to make even more money.

So long as Sri Lanka gives religion any kind of place in the workings of state, there can be little benefit either to the people or to the religions themselves. One has only to look at the curious conduct of the Malwatte Mahanayake recently, in instigating his priests to stage a hunger strike on the premises of the Dalada Maligawa, an action specifically prohibited by the dhamma. And that is to say nothing of the disgraceful bickering that has gone on with regard to the appointment of the Diyawadana Nilame, which has everything to do with politics and high-caste kinsmanship than with the principles of Buddhism.

It is not very often that The Sunday Leader finds itself singing off the same sheet as the JVP, but on this issue we find it difficult not to take our hat off to Karl Marx, who put it in a nutshell: "Die religion ist das Opium des Volkes." Dr. Marx never spoke a truer word.