Even though SL has all the 4 World-Religions, it is Unfortunate that Political Chauvinism & Religious Fundamentalism have Overtaken RELIGIOUS VALUES!

Religion, ethics & politics


“Even though [Sri Lanka] has all the four world-religions, it is unfortunate that political chauvinism and religious fundamentalism have often overtaken religious values such as respect for human life and human rights.”


In sharing some thoughts triggered by the above words, I acknowledge my debt to works such as Alice Greenwald’s article, ‘The Relic on the Spear: Historiography and the Saga of Dutthamgamani’ (included in ‘Religion and Legitimation of Power in Sri Lanka’ edited by Bardwell Smith, USA, 1978), and to Bruce Lincoln’s ‘Holy Terrors’ (Chicago, 2003). The oxymoronic nature of the latter title relates to the core of what follows. In his poem, ‘On The Nature of Things’, written over two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that religion, rather than leading human beings to piety, has more often excited them to “foul impieties”. Yet all religions enjoin virtues such as forgiveness, non-violence and compassion. The claim of those who are brutal in the name of religion can be couched in the following lines: “I hate them more than you hate. I’m prepared, in the name of our religion, to be more violent and cruel than you. Therefore, I’m religiously superior.” Hate, and not love, becomes the hallmark of religiosity. Reinhold Niebuhr, in his ‘Moral Man and Immoral Society’ pointed out that we, accepting vague generalisation; mistaking myth for literal truth (the basis of true democracy is a well-informed public), act as a group, as a collective, in ways which are a contradiction and a shame to our private moral code, to our ethics as individuals. (Niebuhr, President Barack Obama writes, is one of his favourite philosophers: see the review in my ‘Public Writings on Sri Lanka’.)

If one simply understands a “terrorist” attack as one that unleashes violence on civilians (not on military personnel), then 9/11 was an act of terrorism, one that included children, women and fellow Moslems. Yet the final instructions to those who carried out this merciless act commence with the customary invocation to God, “the most merciful”. ‘The Mahavamsa’ relates that when Viharadevi was expecting Dutthagamani, her ‘pregnancy desires’ (lotus-blossoms, honey) included the longing to drink the water that had washed off the blood from the sword that killed the first of Elara’s warriors - while standing on that very head. Many will find this uncivilized, sickeningly gruesome and pathological, but the lady is presented as a paragon of piety. Like the Christian crusaders who, along with their weapons of war, carried holy relics, including the Roman spear believed to have pierced Christ’s side while on the Cross, so Dutthagamani placed a relic of the Soul of Great Compassion in his lance. Though the Buddha had forbidden monks to even witness military parades and reviews, Dutthagamani took along with him five hundred of them. Worried about the safety of his soul because he had caused the death of thousands, Dutthagamani is reassured by monks that he has killed but one and a half men: the one was a Buddhist; the other, on the path to becoming a Buddhist. All the others, being non-Buddhist, were but beasts. In other words, one is human only if one is a Buddhist. (As it has been observed, Sinhalese society is highly text-bound, ‘scriptural’, that is, written texts carry authority, and heavily influence both the literate and the illiterate.) But even if this inhumane degrading of humans to beasts is accepted, it is still an affront to Buddhism because the Buddha’s compassion encompassed animals and birds, as did the concern of the Emperor Asoka: see, Rock Edict 1 and Pillar Edict V. (On similar lines, it is said that the Prophet Mohammed never killed a fellow Muslim – unless the man had murdered another Muslim; was a married man who had illegal sexual intercourse; was one who fought against Allah and His Apostle or had deserted Islam and became an apostate. During the Inquisition, human beings were publicly burnt alive, in the name of “gentle Jesus”.) So it has been observed that while Asoka’s approach was tolerant and inclusive, Sri Lankan Buddhism is violent, restricted and excluding in that it identifies religion and “race”.

On the very last page of his autobiography, ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’, Gandhi declares: “those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means”. Gandhi’s steps to this conclusion seem to be as follows. God is Truth, and Truth is God. To see Truth, one must love not only all on earth (animals, birds, insects included) but also love them in every aspect of life. Therefore, love, and the sense of care that arises from love, must draw one to politics because politics affects life. (Gandhi’s emphasis on love reminds me of one of the Prophet Mohammed’s Hadiths: “You will not enter Paradise unless you believe. And you will not believe until you love one another.”) But, as we have seen above, if to Gandhi politics and religion were an expression of love, these two could also be made to serve as justification for hatred and violence. Cruelty in the name of a compassionate God is not a contradiction: on the contrary, it is a manifestation of piety. If God created humanity, it is humanity which interprets and gives expression to religion. In that sense, blasphemous though it may seem, one could say that it is human communities (led by those with religious, political and social power) who create the “image”, that is, the actual nature and expression, of God. This is done through selection (which implies omission) and the tendentious “reading” of texts and tradition. The latter includes myth and, as Bronislaw Malinowski (one of the most important of 20th century anthropologists) observed, myth serves to establish, justify and reinforce a sociological order.

So should one, leaving religion, turn to Ethics for “salvation”? While in the rest of Germany pupils have a choice between Religion and Ethics, since 2006 (as the result of a referendum), lessons in Ethics are compulsory in Berlin. The sub-title of the work, ‘The Moral Landscape’, by Sam Harris (2010), neuroscientist and philosopher, is ‘How Science can determine Human Values’. “Morality” is a concern for the well-being of all, and the objectivity of science, Harris argues, must be brought to bear on it. In as much as there is no Christian chemistry or Islamic physics, there should be a neutral, universal, code of Ethics based, not on myth and feelings, but on reason and science, keeping in mind the desideratum of the well-being of all. The emphasis by Harris on a code of Ethics that is trans-national and trans-cultural reminds me of what Stephane Hessel, one of those who helped draft the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writes in his ‘Time for Outrage’. (Published last year when Hessel was ninety-three, the essay has been translated into over 40 languages.) The member states of the UN had to commit to respecting not merely inter-national but universal (emphasised) rights: “That is how to forestall the argument for full sovereignty that a state likes to make when it is carrying out crimes against humanity on its soil.”

But it is not easy to separate religion and morality because those who commit violence in the name of religion claim to believe they act in the cause of a much-higher morality, on the lines of: “Our enemies are the enemies of God (or of the Compassionate One). Therefore, it is right to annihilate them”. The 9/11 hijackers’ first victims were to be killed as sacrificial beasts whose throat should be slit in ritual fashion. Prior to the advent of Islam, what obtained was “jahiliyyah”, a state of ignorance and barbarism. ‘The ‘Thupavamsa’ says that the ‘Soul of Great Compassion’ came to Sri Lanka and, remaining in the sky, terrified the ‘Yakkhas” (the aborigines) with rain and gales and darkness so that they surrendered the Island to him. Immediately preceding is a description of Dutthagamani’s victory over the Tamils. The parallel is clear: for the Buddha to vanquish the Yakkhas was to overcome the primitive, the less-than-human. Similarly, Dutthagamani’s killing of the Tamils is necessary, good and justified. It can be seen, if so wished, as marking the end of a “jahiliyyah”. (The present President, because he exterminated the Tamil Tigers, is claimed to have ushered in a reign of decency and righteousness, of peace and prosperity.) When it comes to territory and people; to power, economic and social advantage, religion is brought in not only to justify but to compel and sanctify violence. Religion becomes the weapon to hegemony, with those who perpetrate violence in its name (and the suffering it inflicts; the pitiful tragedy it leaves behind) seeing themselves as being highly righteous and pious.

Religion cannot be equated with doctrine and sacred text for it exists with the paraphernalia of discourse, interpretation, story, myth, priesthood, institution, history etc. Thomas More in his ‘Utopia’ (1516) observes that there cannot be a perfect system until and unless there are perfect human beings to administer it. On somewhat similar lines, perhaps one can say that a religion is as good as the goodness (“goodness” measured by universal, objective criteria) it not only espouses in theory but expresses in practice? If so, a religion can be “bad” at certain times and in certain places, and “good” at, and in, others. If God created us in His image (The Bible), we continually create religion in ours.


Charles Sarvan charlessarvan@yahoo.com