Muslims are not as bad as we think
Posted on September 1st, 2018
Dr Sarath Obeysekera
My wife who works in a private hospital has come across a 26 year Sinhala girl who had a renal ( kindney )failure failure .She used to come to the hospital for dialysis twice a week .As the family had spent all their money ,my wife with another doctor helped them financially .They have placed an advertisement in the daily papers asking for a kidney donor .Many Sinhalese have contacted them and requested advance money before they are even checked the suitability of the Kidney.
They were contacted by a Muslim mother who had a daughter of same age and offered her kidney free of charge .Operation of transplant was done in Maligakanda hospital and operation very successful. She is doing well.
The point I want to make is that the perception we Sinhalese have about Muslims, including the (Not so) venerable monk who jailed, is not correct . Muslims are not bad people .but Americans and Jews have created the problems for them to fight back.
My other question is why can’t all these venerable monks donate their organs to the people rather than going around the country creating a mayhem?
September 2nd, 2018 at 6:52 am
Who says all Muslims are bad? Certainly, not Buddhist Sinhalese; they don’t condemn any non-Buddhists including Muslims as bad. Neither do they praise themselves as paragons of virtue. What that Muslim woman has done is good, but it a rare exception among them. Muslims that I know have told me it is haram to donate parts of the body. They don’t even draw the human body, because it is haram to even imitate what their god has created. I don’t think that ‘good’ Muslims donate blood. Donation of blood, eye corneas, kidneys, etc is not there thing. Dr Hudson Silva, the pioneer of blood donation, is the founder and president of the International Eye Bank. He said his cornea collecting campaign was greatly facilitated by SL’s Buddhist cultural background. Free giving without any expectation of a return is extolled in Buddhism. Donation of eyes, head, flesh and blood (probably grafting of body parts was practiced in ancient Ayurveda and Sinhala medicine) is proverbial.
I personally knew a couple of young undergraduate monks at Peradeniya in the late ‘70s who regularly donated blood. At least one such monk I knew donated one of his kidneys to a patient who had failed to find one even for a high payment (he could easily afford to do so) because he was of a rare blood group; the monk’s matched. He gave it free; he refused to accept any payment, and also wished to remain anonymous. Of course, not all monks and lay Buddhists are that generous. Human beings are not perfect, whichever religion they profess.
Galaboda-aththe Gnanasara thera is not a bad monk despite his exterior appearance and his habitually irritable temper, which has earned such bad reputation. Actually, much of it is play acting done in order to try and persuade unresponsive Buddhists. It is obvious that he has no political or other worldly ambitions. Sinhalese as a race and their lifeblood the Buddhist culture is under threat. This is an existential reality. There is much evidence to prove this.The Mahanayakes are not doing their duty; they appear not to care. Sinhalese Buddhist politicians look the other way when the monks and lay Buddhists genuinely concerned about the unfortunate state of affairs bring these problems to their notice. Politicians are more worried about the minority vote than about the protection of the Buddhasasana or the survival of the Sinhalese race. Gnanasara thera pleaded with the Malwatte Mahanayake thera three times to intervene personally or with the authorities in a number of vital issues to resolve them peacefully without monks like him having to get involved in unseemly demonstrations. Silence was the answer. Hence his present situation. I have seen videos of this monk helping out flood victims, among whom were Muslims. He didn’t discriminate. He has been adjudged in contempt of court and is now serving a prison term. That is a different matter. He was operated upon for a kidney stone just after his consignment to prison. How can other people of the same bloodline (same ethnicity) avoid feeling especially sorry for this man?
The Sinhalese women who queried how much they were going to get paid for giving a kidney should be pitied. Most likely they were from needy families. Particularly these days. Would a woman who is fairly well off offer to sell her kidney or blood just for getting some money to make ends meet? Asking about the payment is a sensible thing to do in this case, because it would be a waste of time, money and effort, and the sense of humiliation resulting from the revelation of her poverty to the world even for a few minutes to be told after you arrive at the hospital that the patient cannot use your kidney.
September 2nd, 2018 at 4:58 pm
Generalization must be avoided. Every community has good and bad people. Each has to be assessed on a case by case basis. The converse is also true. Real issues like terrorism and radicalization must not be pushed under the carpet.
Let me add that Muslims are far more amenable than Tamils in embracing Sri Lankan language, value system, the culture and politics. Islam is studied in Sinhala language by most Muslims and I’m proud of that. Contrast this with Hindu studies in the country which is not studied in Sinhala at all. Shame!
We must guard against racists who try to create needless divisions between the two amenable (emphasised) communities hoping against hope that another community will finally join us (which will never happen).
September 2nd, 2018 at 11:09 pm
I agree with this article.
September 5th, 2018 at 2:01 am
Muslims are Sinhalese.
Indian imperialists managed to alienate Muslims from Budhists using monks like Nanasara.
Banda’s feeding of Sinhalese with Sinhala was the start.