By Nalin de Silva

The so-called third world, which itself is a concept coined by western intellectuals, is being oppressed and exploited using western knowledge. It is unfortunate that the “professionals”, administrators and others who take decisions connected with the lives of the people in these countries posses some western education and as far as these countries are concerned very often the effect of their actions are worse than that of the politicians.

The populist politicians, even if they are uneducated according to the so-called educated, have to depend on the masses, and are being continuously educated by the latter. The masses are represented to a certain extent by the populist politicians, whereas the educated represent the western interests.

To adopt a phrase from Marxism, western knowledge is the opium of the masses. As a Sinhala Buddhist, more a Hela Buddhist than a Sinhala Buddhist, I consider knowledge in general is the biggest obstruction in attaining Nibbana and my interpretation of Anna in reference to Arhant Anna Kondanna differs from that given in the Sinhala Buddhist Pali Atuva (Commentaries) as Anna here means no knowledge and not a special type of knowledge as stated in Atuva. Kondanna could be interpreted as the foremost intellectual or knowledgeable person and Ven. Kondanna when he became the first to enter the stream (sothapanna) he was on his path to become knowledge less.

I know that many Sinhala Buddhists would not agree with the above interpretation, as it goes against the Atuva. The knowledge we have of ‘I’ ‘ego’ or whatever one calls it is the biggest hindrance in attaining Nibbana. However, one needs some kind of knowledge to be used as a raft to cross the river and it is contained in Paticcasamuppada and Dhammacakka Pavaththana Sutta, Eightfold path etc. However, the raft has to be thrown away once the river is crossed but as long as we continue our sansaric journey we need some kind of knowledge.

The question is: what is the knowledge that we have to use in order to maintain the freedom (sovereignty) to manage our own affairs? The western intellectuals create blatant lies (pattapal boru) in order to oppress and exploit us. The modernity is essentially connected with the so-called Renaissance that began in the late Fifteenth Century as a struggle between the individual and the society or collectivity or Catholicism, and Christianity became the religion.

The freedom of the individual as opposed to the rule of Pope and western feudalist kings was emphasised and together with it, concepts such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of choice (without considering who produces the choices) came to the forefront. Knowledge based on sensory perceptions was emphasised and prominence was given to satisfying the sense organs. The educated Sinhalas have gone very far in these directions, while paying lip service to Sinhala Buddhism as a culture.

I am of the opinion that the western culture during the last five hundred years or so has become the most hypocritical culture in the history of mankind whether one believes in linear evolution, anthropology created in the west or not. They talk of truth without knowing what it is. They, in fact, give much prominence to knowledge without telling us what knowledge is. They boast of a scientific method whereas there is no such thing, they consider pattapal boru (blatant lie) as truth or statements that constitute a body of knowledge that would reach truth eventually, tell us of individual freedom when there is no such freedom, talk of a reality or real without explaining what is meant by the term, boast of objectivity while resorting to relativism and subjectivity all the time. The list is too long but our education wants us to believe in these blatant lies.

It is true that modernity commenced with individual freedom as opposed to collectivity and feudal kings and pope. However, Henry VIII was not interested in the freedom of individual but only in his freedom from the Pope; people such as Cromwell used people to gain power for themselves. Soon strong states were created and the individual became a nonentity with his freedom confined to the textbooks and soapboxes in Hyde Park in London. There is no post modernity as such but there is a post modernism that laments over the path taken by modernity. Post modernism wants the freedom of the individual and would object to objectivity and is against what are known as meta (not mega as some people tend to think) narratives. However, it is removed from the people in the western countries, and there is nothing that the post modernists could do without a social movement and a post modernism.

The so-called NGOs are not Non Governmental organisations as such because they were created in the sixties firstly in the African countries after those countries were given some kind of political freedom. The Asian and African countries were never given economic or cultural freedom and the main purpose of establishing the so called NGOs was the propagation of western ideology. Finance either directly or indirectly by the western governments, they were supposed to do everything possible to topple the governments not to the liking of the western countries and get involved in forming governments that were puppets of the west. The so-called NGOs should be properly called western governmental organisations (WGOs) and hereinafter they will be referred to by that term even if I am the only person to do so.

It is the west that calls the WGOs as NGOs and as we are dictated by their knowledge most of us have no choice, in spite of so called freedom of choice. The WGOs cannot be compared with the Kulangana Samithi or Maranadhara Samithi or even Suriya Mal Movement, which were not financed by the western countries though western ideology would have crept into some of these organisations. However, unlike in the thirties when some youth returned from the west started the Suriya Mal movement, at present not so young people in ‘Marxist parties’ have access to foreign financial aid.

Any individual or organisation should have the freedom to criticise the government, work against it, to replace it with another government etc., as long as no foreign finance is involved. However, it is an entirely a different matter when the foreign governments are involved in financing individuals and organisations that are engaged in political activities. There should not be any political rights for individuals and organisations financed by foreign governments directly or indirectly, as it amounts to a threat to the freedom (call it sovereignty of the people) of the country as a whole. The government should enact legislations to monitor the monetary and other gains by individuals and organisations involved in politics, from foreign governments directly or indirectly. They could, with the support of the media, also controlled by western educated pundits, work towards changing the opinion of the people.

The political freedom should be confined to local organisations not financed by foreign governments as we should not lose the limited political freedom we won in 1948. These organisations are worse than Mugalan who went to Dambadiva to gain support against Kashyapa. Then Mugalan took the initiative and went to Dambadiva to topple Kashyapa and to become the king. In the present case the initiative is taken by the western governments and the members of WGOs are the payrolls of those governments. It should be remembered that in the western countries the individuals have no freedom against the state even locally as has been revealed by Edward Snowdown and others.