War and Peace

Imagine

By John Lennon

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

My country may be well on the brink of another civil war. I hope I am very wrong about this one.

About 30 years ago, a civil war started between the Sinhalese (which makes up about 75% of the population) and the Tamils (which makes up about 11%) - it was a conflict between racial labels and it took 26 years to end. We gained nothing from it except for loss of trust, loss of lives and several decades of hindered economic progress.

In the recent times, incidents of violence are being reported between the Buddhists (which makes up about 70%) and the Muslims (which makes up about 10%) - this is a conflict between religious labels and at this point in time, it is too early to tell how it will end.

In both the cases above, the urge to start a war or incite violence was not something everyone under those particular races or religions wanted. It was the intention of some of them. But like a fire that is easy to spark with the right conditions, there are plenty of cinders lying around waiting to be sparked by deranged leaders of groups like the LTTE or more recently, the Bodu Bala Sena.

Are these just extremists fighting under the guise of race and religion to garner support of followers? Or does the very nature of religion and race serve to divide people and do us more harm than good?

The way I comprehend it, at the core of all ethnic tensions in Sri Lanka is a deep sense of insecurity on part of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority (to which I belong by circumstance of birth) over losing their identity and heritage to growing numbers of other racial and religious minorities. Although a tiny island on the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka has a rich and colourful history spanning several millenia. Its present identity is mostly a bittersweet result of historical kingdoms, religious influences, foreign invasions, war, literature, arts, crafts. etc. After the introduction of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC, it remains the predominant religion of the Sinhalese people who are considered the natives.

Growing up in Sri Lanka, I was instilled with ideas of patriotism and religion from my surroundings, despite attending a private school where we were taught no lessons on the history of Sri Lanka or religion.

In the racial sense, I was made to feel proud to be part of the dominant race and the brave ancestors from whom I descended. I even picked up the notion that the only country our race had was this tiny island of Sri Lanka and that it rightfully belonged to us and that all the rich history and culture it embodied would die with the death of it and therefore we had to protect it. I recall having petty fights with my friends (of another race) when we were children where I've insensitively asked them to go back to India if they were not happy to support the Sri Lankan cricket team! We laugh about it now, but unknown to me back then, these type of ideals probably made many citizens of other minorities feel unwelcome and identity-less despite being Sri Lankans for many generations.

It's only now that I have about 10 years between me and the period that I left Sri Lanka, do I fully realise that we are perhaps still living in the glory of a long-gone past and these romantic notions (which are not uncommon in most countries with ethnic struggles) are not practical or beneficial to the progress of a nation that is having a growing population of other races and religions. My shift in perspective is no doubt a result of living as minority in Singapore and Dubai for the last 10 years among people of various races and religions and understanding the value of an inclusive society.

In the religious sense, I was brought up with Buddhist values. Buddhism in its nature is a non-violent and tolerant religion (or philosophy, rather) that does not support egotistical attitudes or actions that cause any suffering to others. It encourages its followers to critically examine all views and beliefs thrown at them, including its own teachings. It preaches respect and harmony towards all religions and beings, which ironically, the radical Buddhist groups creating chaos on the island have conveniently forgotten. These groups thrive by manipulating the minds of their followers with a fear that many Indian and East Asian religions share - what becomes of their right to practice their religion freely if the country was swept over by a majority of any one of the Abrahamic religions that have little or no tolerance for other religious views? Would these rulers allow the same freedom and show the same respect to non-believers to build their respective places of worship, teach their children religion and practice peacefully?

Insecurities aside, no citizen of Sri Lanka deserves to be ostracized or discriminated based on whatever labels they carry on their birth certificates or live in constant the fear of having their livelihood destroyed or being physically hurt by extremists.

A great infographic on various world religions (best viewed in a larger size: click here)

Empires and civilizations rise and fall. Change is inevitable. Sri Lanka belongs equally to all its citizens, regardless of their racial/ religious labels and regardless of the country's history. The history of modern Sri Lanka needs to be re-written with a voice where all its citizens feel safe, welcome and wanted. No race or religion should be given preferential treatment over others so that we do not end up with the tensions that exist today. For now though, that day is very far away.

Musings of May

On Vesak day, I managed to participate in the temple celebrations of Singapore because unlike last year, I was not home for this occasion. This being a temple managed mostly by Sri Lankan monks and visited frequently by the expat community of Sri Lanka, it felt nice to be in a familiar cultural setting. Of course, part of the expectation of going there was to get a meal that reminded me of home! 

Vesak lanterns 

Traditional drummers of Sri Lanka

The residents of Singapore received a pack of free face masks by post. Out of lessons learnt in the past, the country is well-stocked for another haze episode.

The other day, I went shopping and after returning from my trip, I realised that one of the t-shirts purchased still had its security tag on. These are the ones that makes the detectors beep if anyone tried to shoplift! Unfortunately nothing beeped when I walked out so I didn't see it till I got home. There was no way I was going to waste two hours to get it removed at the mall!

I don't recommend stealing, but I can confirm that the wikiHow entry on "How to remove a security tag from clothing" works! It wasn't easy but the rubber band method eventually worked.

A shoplifters guide to removing security tags

On my way to the duty station yesterday, I met a couple of Cotton topped tamarins. The mother tamarin was teaching her 2-month old to climb branches and the little one was screaming its head off when felt left behind. These primates are critically endangered with about 6000 left in the wild.

 The baby tamarin

The mum

The young aldabra tortoises were enjoying a meal of fresh vegetables

Filling the voids

I have completed six months at work. Since I could not find a suitable picture on the internet to describe my interpersonal progress at work, I made an amateur attempt to draw it. 

No snails were harmed in the making of this picture

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People who have fallen into their perfect niche of a career are unmistakable. The doctor in my neighbourhood clinic is one of them. He sees a good number of sickly and depressed people per day and yet in all the times I have visited, he used scribbled up diagrams to explain more about my disease, even without me asking any questions. I have only visited him when I had the flu and so far, he's drawn my throat to tell me how infected my tonsils were and another time, he drew the cycle of events that follow a flu and how we can block certain points in order to prevent progression to the next symptom! He is so cheerful, kind and even generous with recommending the number of days to stay off work. I also noticed he uses very mild and minimal medicines to treat patients. My spirits are usually up a notch when I walk out of his consultation room. Not only that, I wonder why he charges a little less than what a government clinic does.

I should send him a postcard when I move out from this neighborhood.

~ ~ ~

A new anti-rape bill was passed in India recently. This came about in response to the horrific gang rape case in December that attracted much local and international attention. If the case didn't get so much attention, I doubt the bill would have been passed by now. It's a small victory, really, because it's going to take a while before its effectiveness shows up in the statistics - during which time more victims will pay the price. It will take even longer to change the existing attitudes of a religious and conservative culture. This is true not just in India; it happens in every culture and every society where extremist religious/patriarchal views dominate and in cultures that are alien to the concept of gender equality.

On one side of the world there are women who lead relatively safe lives with equal opportunities in career and education. And on another side of the world there are men deciding that women need a male guardian's permission to travel, or that they are born to serve as sex slaves, or they don't need an education, or that they cant drive a car, or that they should be flogged for being raped  - and these men so sure in their 'righteous' beliefs just like we are certain the sky is blue. And most women in these unfortunate parts of the world, though unhappy, have it instilled in their minds that this is indeed their fate and that there is nothing better for them in this life. Fighting for their human rights is a risky move when even the national laws don't support them.

An article that was shared by a friend of mine stated that every rapist is someone's son. It explores how parents have the opportunities to change the course of life events in a male child that may lead to a fateful decision like rape. I don't think parents bringing up sons in environments where gender equality and respect for all differences are encouraged and practiced need to worry much. It's the other parents who have a greater role to play in the lives of the sons they bring up.

A grey matter

Religion is another unique set of belief systems that people choose to embrace for one reason or another. Some fall into a particular religion merely by circumstance of birth or geographical location, others voluntarily take up a religion because it may appeal to them more than others and some others convert by obligation of marriage or in exchange for support received by other religious affiliations. And then there are those who refuse to be identified as belonging to a particular organised religion. Labels to describe different types of belief systems or lack of any, can be found in abundance, so I am not going to list them out here. But whatever the individual belief may be, most people are willing to bet their lives to defend their belief, while usually putting down or denying other belief systems. Not only that, religious debates can go on (often inconclusively) for a long, long time!

Looking through an objective standpoint, organised religions are many-faceted. They all have more than one of the following general characteristics;

• It has moral guidelines for happiness and harmony
• It can be philosophical and appeals to the intellect
• It gives people a sense of comfort, security and purpose
• It has larger-than-life explanations to explain the un-explainable
• It controls by fear of punishment, the notion of the after-life and by discouraging the questioning of the teachings
• It is sometimes driven by political agendas
• It unites people under one purpose to achieve feats (both good and bad) that one individual simply cannot accomplish alone
• Religious texts often reflect various inequalities that were predominant in societies thousands of years ago during the times when these texts were written. Examples include: believer-non believer, male-female, master-slave, man-animal, heterosexual-homosexual, high caste-low caste, etc

The list is not exhaustive.

Why does a religion appeal so much? Reasons are varied from receiving guidance on how best to live a good life, finding strength or inspiration when it is much needed, finding inner peace, maintaining law and order in a community, securing a good after-life, receiving divine favours or miracles, tapping into higher states of mental consciousness or even finding answers to some of life's burning questions like our origins and purpose. Man's primary intention to seek refuge in religion is mostly for positive reasons rather than negative ones. Based on this need, religions have thrived for centuries and many try to keep up with changing times to maintain the appeal.

Not all religions survive the test of time - depicted here are the Olympian Gods of ancient Greece

Organised religions of today may have evolved from the time our ancestors tried to explain mysterious natural occurrences around them that went beyond their understanding. It is not hard to imagine that people instinctively respected and feared these powerful forces which had the power to destroy and create our existence. Then there were various religious figures who rose to prominence for their realisations, teachings, causes and impact. Crowds gathered around them for the same reasons that people still seek out religions - for answers, for happiness, for comfort, for peace. Over time, various religions were born and spread geographically. They were handed down from generation to generation with the aid of religious texts, devout followers, strict rules and their fusion with cultural elements. Not surprisingly, religions in the past have heavily influenced everything in a society from culture, traditions, attitudes, education, art, music, dance, literature, drama, philosophy, architecture, sport, food, politics, terrorism to wars. Some of these are slowly changing with growing knowledge of Science, globalisation, the Internet, advancement of human rights movements for equality, etc.

A great piece of Western classical music inspired by strong religious faith, no doubt

As much as religious influences have potential for much good in the world, sometimes it can take a bad turn to bring about much misery and imbalance to the world. The world has seen some of the best forms of expressions in the arts, music and expression arising from the profound connection that man has with his spiritual side. Religion can also be a strong driving factor for people to overcome their weaknesses and help others in need. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some teachings have been taught or interpreted in extreme ways and people have found themselves deluded to the point that they choose violence and mental manipulation in spreading their dogmatic views. I think, somewhere in between these two extremes lie a majority of the world's population consisting of people with moderate, little or no religious beliefs.

It's amazing what love, riches and a vision combined can achieve. That aside, the architecture of Taj Mahal showcases religious influence

What prompted me to write this post was seeing a religious post on my Facebook feed. A person from religion X warned others of deceitful ways that followers were converted to other religions by organised groups. Out of curiosity, I dug for more information. Using the details of a case where authorities cracked down on a ring of offenders, he went on to use references from the country's ancient history to state why religion X earned superior status in the country and had to be protected. To me, it reeked of extremist religious views. His opinions gathered passionate support from a group of followers of religion X who felt the same. Of course, people who abuse the law by bribery, disrupt religious harmony or use forceful or deceitful ways to coerce people into conversions in faith have to be dealt with seriously by the authorities. I believe there are laws in multi-religious countries for such offences.

Is there a need to be so insecure over losing followers if they were considered as people who were capable of thinking for themselves and were at liberty to embrace whatever religion or philosophy that made sense to them? If a religious community feels forced to protect its people like sheep out of fear that they'll be taken away or if a religious community feels driven to resort to forceful or deceitful ways to subscribe new followers, then clearly the motives in both cases are more political than moral. Also, acting out in this way reveals that something is not fundamentally right either in a religion's teachings or in the way that it is preached and practiced. This is just one example and this type of insecurity is not uncommon in most religions.

Anyway, this post was not written with malice towards any particular religion, rather it was a neutral standpoint to touch on all the general aspects that I thought revolved around the concept. Growing up in a multi-cultural school that didn't offer any religion as a subject (now I see how that was perhaps a clever idea to foster unity), growing up with friends from various religions, living in households with people practising different faiths and living in countries with varied religious influences have made me indifferent over the years to what others decide to embrace as their religion. It only bothers me when they try to justify and get away with something immoral, unethical, irrational or ignorant using their religion as an excuse.

Regardless of our differences in religious labels, what would be nice to have in the world are people who exercise their intellect and better judgement to respect all living things, make ethical choices that benefit everyone and practice tolerance towards the differences in race, religion, gender, species, sexual orientation, etc, that exist among us today.

Is it too much to ask?