Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and Sepal Amarasinghe – Part II
Posted on October 9th, 2022
C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.
සවුදි රජපවුලට බැන්නොත් මරනවා…” – YouTube
Introduction
After seeing the above YouTube piece by Sepal (Oct 2, 2022), I felt there is nothing more to discuss with him about Ven. GG. Because with this second video Sepal has proven that the BBS stand is correct. He can easily find out whether he received a fake email by tracing the IP address of the computer from which it came. Whether it’s a prank or not, Sepal’s reaction revealed how frail we humans are. He should have ignored this email. Sepal’s recent videos on Paba-Damita, university ragging, Surein Raghuwan are rational dissections like cutting butter with a hot knife. But, if Sepal could get so upset by one Wahabi email in a lifetime, one could imagine the kind of agony Ven. GG must have gone through for almost a decade for trying to tell three objective truths: 1. Sinhala Buddhists are leaderless; 2. There is unethical religious conversion, and 3. Wahabism/Sharia invasion is real. On top of that sharia and evangelical agents have infiltrated all strategically important institutions and jobs. Cricket as well as the Attorney G’s dept. are on the victims list!
Evangelical power
The treasure of a big political party, a 13-A supporter, is the head pastor of a large born-again church system. Now there are over 500 such sheds, houses, or huts in rural areas. There were news reports in the past of smashing Buddha statutes by converts to born again sects and urinating on the rubble. RanilW has been branded as anti-Buddhist until his house was burnt and a collection of precious Buddha statutes was found. Who broke the heads of these priceless statutes? A Buddhist would not do it. SajithP’s sister was questioned by the CID about the arson incident at Ranil’s house and then suddenly she left the country with her family. Was it possible that some rascals came with her did this crime without her knowledge? This is the extent of penetration by Christian fundamentalists. Ven. Ampitiye Sumanaratana, once punished a pastor when he got caught operating unethical propaganda work targeting innocent villagers in Batticaloa.
Ven. GG’s role in Sri Lankan politics
The conspiracy to destroy Ven. GG had no limits. Even black magic was tried. At the last election, a coup by the so-called democratic establishment sabotaged his nomination papers for three districts that had wider support base for him, and then when his ‘party’ got one bonus seat, he was cheated again by a fellow monk he trusted for a long time and saved him from death from a fast unto death! One Ven. GG in the parliament could have handled 224 others in any ideological and practical debate/argument/confrontation relating to the plight of Sinhala Buddhists. Ven. GG faces so many police magistrate court cases filed by Muslim politicians, sometimes several cases for the same incident! In most of these what Ven. GG pointed out was that the archaeology law has no religious or ethnic bias, and it is common law applicable to all residents in the island (resident monks cannot dig ground even for a toilet pit without prior permission from the archeology dept if the temple land is marked as protected territory). But officers are a helpless lot in dealing with Muslim politicians.
One such case against him relates to his comment about the destruction of the smaller stupas (පරිවාර චෛත්ය) encircling the Somawathi Stupa flood protection zone. Muslim settlers use the stupa base as high ground to erect cattle sheds despite warning signs. They remove the signposts! This is deliberate wanton action done with the support of Muslim politicians to erase the island’s historical record. It is different from them taking ancient rock pieces routinely as ලිග්ගල්, හෝදන රෙදි අතුල්ලන ගල්, වැසිකිලි-කැසිකිලි ගල් etc. He is accused of telling Somawathi land is not Allah’s property. The irony is big lawyers ask big money to argue on his behalf, while Muslim politicians have all the money in the world to hire one like Abraham Sumanthiran, who anyway failed to prevent RanajanR going to jail!
In another case he was accused of violating a court order prohibiting the cremation of the body of the chief priest of the Gurukanda Raja Maha Vihara within the temple land. A few days ago in the parliament, Gajendra Ponnambalam accused of officers violating a court order suspending renovation of the Kurudumalei Raja Maha Vihara. In this case magistrate involved withdrew one of his previous (arbitrary?) orders after an onsite inspection. These two temples are on the paths taken by ancient Buddhist missions from India bringing sacred relics.
Blessing in disguise
Sepal’s video gave me an opportunity to ponder on how important and timely a phenomenon like BBS in Sri Lanka’s present predicament. It is a case of අන්තෝජටා-බහිජටා. In a situation like that in the absence of rational thinkers such as the late Carlo Fonseka, people like Sepal needs to examine critically the recommendations made by Ven. GG’s OC-OL report. Look at the mess. Sarath Fonseka says a revolution is a must. Amnesty International, suspected as an arm of the western new imperialism, with which Kumar Rupasinghe had deals then, predicts bad luck for SL. All foreign agencies led by Geneva HRC issue warnings ranging from malnutrition of children to the need for foreign judges. Parliament is like a pot warming slowly with 225 mad crabs swimming in it. Separatist elements are hopeful that 13-A+ would be added to 22A. The evil triangle, its officer leg, operates as usual. Protests are everywhere in the name of democratic right to protest, but to end democracy and balkanize the island. Is it possible to avoid UN-R2P trap? Buddhist monks are confused, shortsighted, and divided. They are failing in fulfilling their historic role as guardians of the Sinhala nation, its language and religion. This did not mean harming other minorities. For them Bodu Bala Sena provides a rational path based on ‘Buddhist politics.’ Even the president RanilW has advanced from his Lichchavi ideals preached during the so-called yahapalana days to Dantakuuta Jathaka examples now in October 2022 (ref. his speeches in the parliament and at the workshop for govt. media personnel).
Victor Ivan-Karu Jayasuriya and BBS
From its inception in May 2012 to the One Country-One Law Report in 2022 Ven. GG has evolved as a mature national leader following the Buddhist Middle Path. Sinhala Buddhist, Muslim, Tamil separatist and Marxist politicians of all kinds tried to condemn BBS, but Muslim and Tamil people demonstrated their confidence and trust in Ven. GG at numerous OC-OL hearings. Giving him this task was one bold Hitler-like decision taken by GotabhayaR as president. OC-OL takes the country on a path towards system change.
President RanilW, like the proverbial man who ate honey facing three deaths (මරණ තුනක් ඇති මිනිහෙක් පැණි කෑය), mentioned twice now his decision to meet with the demand made by the Galle Face crowd for people’s Councils (මහජන සභා) at the grassroot level. This idea is lifeblood of the Peratugami strategy of system revolution. And like the motherhood no politician old or young opposes the words, Jana Sabha! RanilW first said to Samantha Power that Karu J and Victor I are preparing plans to convert 14,000 GSN units as People’s Councils. Again, at the workshop for govt media directors he reiterated (Oct. 7) that KaruJ’s jana sabha plan will be implemented from next week.
Bodu Bala Sena and LLRC (Buddhist self-reliance)
These new developments must be like honey in Ven. GG’s ears. BBS has been a people-centered peace and prosperity movement started in May 2012 aimed at an unconventional system change which politicians threatened by its message tried to derail with falsehood. I sent a set of suggestions to BBS in March 2013 titled, ‘Bodu Bala Sena and LLRC (Buddhist self-reliance), based on my independent understanding of its role (my first ever direct communication took place only in June 2022). An improved version of this in Sinhala was sent again in Sept. 2014 (ref. link below).
ජන සභා සංකල්පය තුලින් සාමකාමි තිරසර ලංකාවක් බිහි කර ගැනීම (බෞද්ධ දේශපාලනය)
Posted on September 25th, 2014
හැඳින්වීම
මෙම සංදේශය පිළියෙල කරන ලද්දේ මේ මස 28 දා පැවැත්වෙන බොදු බල සේනා මහා සංඝ සමුළුවේදී සංවාදයට ලක් කල හැකි යෝජනාවක් වශයෙනි. මෙහි දැක්වෙන මූලික අදහස නම් ගම් මටටමින් පුර වැසියන්ට බලය පවරා දෙන පක්ෂ දේශපාලනයෙන් තොර (නිදසුන: ගැමි දිරිය වැඩ සටහන) පරිසර නිර්ණායක අනුව මායිම් වෙන් කරනු ලබන ජන සභා පිහිටුවීමේ අවශ්යතාවය ය. (රටේ ප්රශ්න වලින් 70% ක පමණ මේ මඟින් විසඳා ගත හැකිය). ඌව චන්දයෙන් පෙනී ගිය කරුණක් නම් (හැම දෙනාම අමතක කර දමන්නට හදන) බොදු බල සේනාවට විරුද්ධව කතා කල ඇමතිලා දෙන්නෙක්ම ලැබූ පරාජය ය. ඉදිරි චන්ද වලදී බොදු බල සේනාව විසින් 1956 දී මෙන් බලවේගයක් ගොඩ නඟණු නිසැකය.
LankaWeb – ජන සභා සංකල්පය තුලින් සාමකාමි තිරසර ලංකාවක් බිහි කර ගැනීම (බෞද්ධ දේශපාලනය)
2014/9/25
These documents are resurrected again for people like Sepal to read and understand the other side to their one-track Marxist ideology. Sepal regrets that JVP and the Peratugamis did not act in unison to topple the parliament to finish their Aragalaya to capture power for the people! Aragalaya became a fraud. Pathum Kerner is missing. Motivation Appachchi is going to contest the next presidential election. Damitha, the working activist now certifies that Sajith faithfully adheres to the five basic tenets of Buddhism (පන්සිල් පද පහ). Previously, early in the Aragalaya Dulika Marapana shouted set fire and vanished from the radar. Because the essay below is too long, I will only copy the first two paragraphs of it here. Unfortunately, the original essay found on Lankaweb website (archives) has some formatting defects. Therefore, the link to it cannot be given. Instead, a cleaned version will be presented as Sepal-part III. Both these essays, Sinhala and English are useful to KaruJ (and Victor Ivan) in finetuning his/their people’s council project, especially the diagram below.
Source: රට කැබලි නොකර සිස්ටම් චේන්ජ් කිරීම (බුදු දහම හා ජන සභා සංකල්පය)
2022
Bodu Bala Sena and LLRC (Buddhist self-reliance)
Posted on March 31st, 2013
C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.
Need for a new map of terrain
What empowers a Sinhala/Tamil medium graduate left Sri Lanka in frustration to become a professor, a scientist, or a research director for example, in USA facing world-wide competition? How was it possible for young men from poor Sri Lanka to win the world cup of cricket by team effort? What reasons were the behind the capacity of village girls and boys in Sri Lanka to end a thirty-year war in less than three years surprising the whole world? In each case the old map of terrain which was not real and not true was replaced or revised with a new map, new model. Since 1832 Sri Lanka used the Eurocentric-colonial map/model. Prior to that Sri Lanka had a map based on the trinity of village, tank and the temple guided by a philosophy set out in the Buddhist Jataka Stories, 550 of them. That model was based on truth and reality. In 2013 the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) is acting to discard the old map (Colombo black-white model). We cannot escape from freedom and avoid challenge. We must be open to challenge.
Compare you-tube video clips of monks Dambara Amila, Bellanvila Wimalaratane and Baddegama Samitha with the monks Kirama Wimalajothi and Galabodaaththe Gnanasara. You can almost touch the pain the latter two monks undergo in their feeling of responsibility (Those who are genuine in their public service mission get angry and agitated like what we heard of the Anagarika Dharmapala). The former three are reading old unreal maps without any feelings, like those Marxists happened to be in front of Jetavanaramaya, Somawathiya or the Tissa weva. For them they are just brick and water. There is no national pride, no goose bumps. Meanwhile the types of Azath Salley sents secret SMS to mosques!
Reasonableness Doctrine
In these times of our seeing the Buddhist King Pasenadi Kosol’s Sixteen Dreams in real life, Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) reminds one the idea known as the Pas Maha Balum. BBS is in the right place at the right time. If one surf the English medium websites like the anti-Sinhala Buddhist Colombo Telegraph and newspapers, what jumps out is venom and confusion against BBS. Those English-speaking local and foreign agents who refused to come before the LLRC then are the ones now in the forefront demanding the implementation of its report. This same – this war is not winnable boat – people are so confused, they think that BBS is all about Taliban-based halal and pretend that they did not know or see the BBS website. Under colonial assault the first Buddhist Renaissance began shortly after the 1848 genocide culminating with an ideological victory at the Great Panadura Debate in 1873. The public cheating of Buddhists by partisan politics since 1948 deteriorated so badly with a crook and criminal system of governing that began after 1978, forcing the arrival of the Bodu Bala Sena Movement in 2012. The business of BBS is open discussion and debate, no lurking in the dark.
BBS is an idea based on the Middle Path doctrine in Buddhism. In ancient Greece and in China there was the idea of the Middle Way, but the Buddhist Middle Path goes along with the phenomenon of impermanence and the cyclical nature of life (not linear). Buddhism is simply the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold Noble path (4NT+8NP). This Middle Path is nothing but the reasonableness doctrine of the modern Western world. For example, it was this reasonableness which allowed women to become Buddhist monks 2600 years ago. In modern politics or global geopolitics reasonableness is equated as moderates or compromise of give and take. Majorities and minorities compromise in modern representative capitalist democracies. Rights as well as duties, not escape from freedom! Because BBS is based on reasonableness doctrine it was ready to discuss openly the merit and demerit of Halal certification and the gonibilla full face cover. What is reasonable in Afghanistan or dessert sands of Arabia or in Paris or London may not be reasonable in the context of Sri Lankan history and geography. Thus, marijuana can be legal in Bangladesh but not whiskey. If Muslim MPs did not like to see pork served in the parliament canteen, was it reasonable to ban pork from 90% of others’ choice of almost free lunch that all the MPs are enjoying?