Follow-Up On The Buddhist-Tamil Dialogue In Europe & USA

By Kumar David –

Here is a message that I sent a few days ago by email to about 25 friends and comrades;

“The matter I was getting excited about in my last (20 Aug.) Sunday Island/Colombo Telegraph column is, I think, very important. I reckoned that there was a possibility that a section of the Buddhist clergy would come out into the open and say: “This shit must stop! Tamils and Sinhalese who want to live in peace side by side must be allowed to do so. We will go out among the people and ensure that it happens”. If several monks take this stand it will be a game-changer. They can achieve things that state-power alone cannot. The lesson of history is that the Buddhist clergy (a moderately large section of it) is the only power that can change the history of Lanka. At this time it can be the vanguard of a solution to the racial divide, our perennial curse for decades. On the Tamil side, the Tamils must declare “Eelam is all bullshit. We too stand for an undivided Sri Lanka; political arrangements can be negotiated”.

Imagine if riots breakout somewhere in the country and the monk from the neighbourhood temple comes to the scene and tells the hooligans “F-OFF!” the riots will stop in minutes. This is all that is required for Sinhalese bystanders, who are now cowed down by thugs and hooligans, to intervene and stop rape, murder and arson.

The effect on Tamils, across the country, will be electric. If they know that the Buddhist clergy is their protector, it will do more to electrify Tamil sentiment than our corrupt and dysfunctional bloody state. It is in this context that I opined that the Buddhist-Tamil dialogue that started a few weeks ago when a group of monks travelled overseas and participated in a dialogue with Tamil groups in Europe and the USA, is the most important Good News I have heard in a long time. 

Kumar”

Now imagine my disappointment when every response but one (Prof Eich, Emeritus of Open U) said this would never happen, that I was hallucinating, a nut case baying at the moon, that such a thing was impossible. The politest was “I wish you were right Kumar, but no significant section of the Buddhist clergy is going to play the role you envisage of taking a brave stand to address the national question”.

However, on further reflection I am NOT prepared to throw in the towel. I persist in my view that something will come out these initiatives. Why did a substantial body of monks go all the way to Europe and the US, engage in discussions with Tamil groups and show great determination, unless they mean business? 

Formal statements from both sides will of course greatly help the process to move forward. The left (NPP/JVP) has put its tail between its legs and run. It is terrified to comment on its dismal record on the National Question. It has declined to even comment on 13A. It is caught by the balls: That is whether to continue to support Wijeweera-Somawansa racism or to admit that it made a huge blender that cost some 60,000 live in 1989-91 and must now change?

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