Buddhism and Violence

Militarism and Buddhism in Modern Asia

Vladimir Tikhonov, Torkel Brekke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136277078
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian History

It is generally accepted in the West that Buddhism is a 'peaceful' religion. The Western public tends to assume that the doctrinal rejection of violence in Buddhism would make Buddhist pacifists, and often expects Buddhist societies or individual Asian Buddhists to conform to the modern Western standards of 'peaceful' behavior. This stereotype – which may well be termed 'positive Orientalism,' since it is based on assumption that an 'Oriental' religion would be more faithful to its original non-violent teachings than Western Christianity – has been periodically challenged by enthusiastic acquiescence by monastic Buddhism to the most brutal sorts of warfare.

This volume demolishes this stereotype, and produces instead a coherent, nuanced account on the modern Buddhist attitudes towards violence and warfare, which take into consideration both doctrinal logic of Buddhism and the socio-political situation in Asian Buddhist societies. The chapters in this book offer a deeper analysis of 'Buddhist militarism' and Buddhist attitudes towards violence than previous volumes, grounded in an awareness of Buddhist doctrines and the recent history of nationalism, as well as the role Buddhism plays in constructions of national identity. The international team of contributors includes scholars from Thailand, Japan, and Korea.

Part I
Nationalism and Militarism in Modern Asian Buddhisms

1
Sinhala Ethno-nationalisms and Militarization in Sri Lanka

Mahinda Deegalle

Rapid militarization of post-independent Sri Lanka is shocking and alarming for any Buddhist or non-Buddhist since such a violent phenomenon was unimaginable a few decades earlier in an island called ‘paradise.’ Most natives and overseas visitors never anticipated that such a naturally beautiful and peaceful society within a relatively short period of time—three decades—would turn into one of the most violent and militarized societies on the planet. Today allegations of human rights violations and war crimes are echoing in every corner¹ as an apt testimony to inevitable consequences of rapid militarization. The tolerant and peaceful image created by the very presence of Theravāda Buddhism in the island over two millennia had created a comfortable zone of safe society relatively free from violence and abuse. This peaceful image began to shatter from the beginning of the latter part of the nineteenth century when seeds and symptoms of an emerging religious and ethnic unrest gradually manifested themselves in a variety of religious and ethnic contexts. Unexpected events such as the Kotahena Religious Riot of 1883² in the late nineteenth century and the Sinhala Muslim riot of 1915 and the black July of 1983 in the twentieth century displayed some unpleasant testimonies of disharmony questioning the very idea of ethnic and religious co-existence of a pluralist society that Sri Lanka increasingly became in modern times. The Sinhala youth rebellion against the Sri Lankan government in the southern regions in 1971 and the militant terrorist movement of the LTTE [f. 1975, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] that emerged ferociously in the northern regions in the late 1970s indicated the process of rapid militarization as an inevitable and emerging violent phenomenon. The Tamil militant insurgency of the LTTE, which traumatized the island for nearly three decades consuming many valuable human lives and scarce resources, was forcefully and perhaps for ever militarily defeated in a crucial campaign that ended in May 2009. As a South Asian democracy still struggling to rehabilitate war victims, Sri Lanka yet faces a critical issue of establishing peace and security for the development of post-war society having confronted the serious question of rapid militarization of the civil society.

In order to contribute towards an understanding of the process of militarization of a predominantly Buddhist society, this chapter examines a few episodes relating to the Sinhala and Tamil ethno-nationalisms of the last four decades. It examines ways in which some Buddhists individually as well as collectively being affiliated with political organizations and parties supported and contributed to the rapid militarization of the Sri Lankan state. These developments are examined in the context of the State’s mission of eliminating terrorist threats that Sri Lanka faced nearly three decades under the terrorist campaigns of the LTTE.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, modern Sri Lanka primarily as a Buddhist nation that comprises of 70 percent of the total population witnessed a radical growth of Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms combined with increasing militancy and use of violence in resolving social and political problems of the time. Initially, in the distant past, both forms of nationalism, sometimes united and occasionally independently, were in operation as reactions to the British colonial government that began in 1815 but after the independence in 1948 they shifted their focus to each other as mutual enemies working constantly and systematically to exclude and deny the other.

This examination of ethno-nationalisms demonstrates how growing nationalist sentiments against each other in exclusive terms led to gradual militarization that devastated both ethnic and religious communities. As illustrated here some Sinhala nationalist responses can be associated with certain Buddhist groups because they have their bases in the majority Buddhist community. There is no doubt that both Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms have increasingly and equally led to gradual militarization and brutalization of contemporary Sri Lanka. Because of a variety of practical limitations, however, this chapter focuses only on the Sinhala majority side of the issue and Sinhala nationalist contributions towards rapid militarization of Sri Lanka.

BUDDHIST NATIONALISM AND RELIGIOUS AGENCIES IN ETHNO-POLITICS: JHU FACTOR

Some religious leaders have been important agencies in ethno-nationalism of Sri Lanka. Identifying the lack of research in this area, Brekke notes:

[W]e need an approach to religion that puts less emphasis both on religious doctrine and on religion as an aspect of ethnic identity. We need to carry out research that puts more emphasis on religious organizations, religious structures of authority and the role of religious organizations and religious leaders in political processes. In particular, we need to study the way that Sri Lankan religious leaders and organizations work in times of conflict, how they have reacted to peace initiatives, whether and how their reactions have influenced their respective constituencies, and how the work of these organizations has implications for political processes in the country.³

Political events after 2000 marked significant developments in the influence of religious agencies in political affairs of Sri Lanka.⁴ The birth of the Jāthika Hela Urumaya (f. 2004, National Sinhala Heritage), Buddhist monk political party, marks an important phase in this development. However, this is not the first occurrence of the influence of Buddhist political leadership and religious agency.

Jayadeva Uyangoda, one of the ardent critics of the Jāthika Hela Uru-maya (JHU), commented extensively on the relative success of this monks’-led political party in the 2004 general election in the South Asia Journal:

The nine Buddhist monks of the JHU have added a theocratic dimension to Sri Lanka’s parliamentary politics. The JHU is a peculiar political formation in the sense that it is led by politicians while its parliamentary candidates are all Buddhist monks. It indeed benefited from Sri Lanka’s system of proportional representation that … favours small parties. Under the PR [Proportional Representation] system, any party that obtains a minimum of 5 per cent of votes in a given electoral district qualifies for seats at the expense of major parties. The JHU, committed to aggressive Sinhalese nationalism, fielded 260 candidates who were all Buddhist monks. The JHU monks, campaigning with the promise of establishing a Dharma Rajyaya (a Buddhist Religious State)⁵ in Sri Lanka, drew their support mainly from the urban middle-class voters, disenchanted with the mainstream Sinhalese political parties who they see as making compromises with ethnic and religious minorities, especially the Tamils. The voting pattern also indicates that the many middle class UNP [f. 1947, United National Party] voters, who were opposed to the UNP’s peace bid with the LTTE, have also shifted their loyalties to the JHU which presented to the electorate a militant version of Sinhalese nationalism, interspersed with the sentiments of majoritarian insecurity among the Sinhalese and a message for moral regeneration.⁶

Foreign media has heavily criticized both political and religious positions of some of the prominent nationalist Buddhist monks. When the Sri Lankan government was waging war in the north of the island, the media questioned and challenged religious and political positions of some Buddhist monks such as Ven. Athuraliye Rathana, then the parliamentary group leader of the JHU. In the midst of war, in March 2008, writing to the Herald Scotland, Nick Meo criticized Rathana’s political views on war:

Like every Buddhist monk, the Venerable Athuraliye Rathana believes in peace, harmony and loving kindness. But unlike most, he believes the best way to pursue such virtues is to fight a war to the death with his enemies.

Rathana, mischievously nicknamed a “war monk” by Sri Lanka’s press, speaks passionately of harmony but believes it will only come after the Tamil Tigers have all been killed and their political movement decisively crushed by the army. To carry out this aim he gave up a quiet life of meditation to found a political party to press for war, winning a parliamentary seat along with nine fellow monks in 2004 on an anti-peace talks platform effectively ending hopes of a negotiated end to Sri Lanka’s long-running, bitter civil conflict.

Now the monks are in the government and, with savage fighting in the north and suicide bombers attacking the capital Colombo, they are cheerleaders for generals who want to kill 500 guerrillas per month and overrun the northern enclave held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the end of this year… . Sri Lanka’s war monks have played a key role in wrecking that dream.

With his robe, shaved head, and gentle demeanour, their spokesman Rathana looks every inch the man of peace until he opens his mouth. “Peace negotiations simply made the LTTE stronger,” he said. “We mustn’t talk to them, we can crush the LTTE. It is like surgery. I don’t like war, we need peace. But the LTTE is killing people every day. The West fights terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq and, like them, we have to fight it here. It simply has to be finished. We can’t go on and on.” Only a minority of monks in Sri Lanka support the political party founded by the hardliners, Jāthika Hela Urumaya (JHU, the National Heritage Party), with its jumble of policies and arguments against terrorism and drinking alcohol, and vague platitudes in favour of social justice. But its underlying ideology is an ugly form of Sinhalese nationalism.

For Rathana, the long, complex war is not a matter of political power but a simple affair of good versus evil, flavoured by Sinhalese sectarianism and paranoia. He promises that after victory over the LTTE, the Tamil population in the north will be well-treated although in the past that has not happened… . Rathana believes the strategy is working and he is sure that he can go back to his monastery after two more years with his mission accomplished. He does not understand why foreigners think Buddhists are pacifists. The Dalai Lama once had an army, he points out, and the Buddha did not prohibit his followers from defending themselves.

He is a moderate by the party’s standards. Other JHU members have made crudely sectarian threats against Tamils and there are even more extreme Buddhist monks who have on occasion brawled with peace protesters at rallies. Udaya Gammanpila, JHU deputy secretary, insists the war strategy will help Tamil civilians. “We have to kill the killer to save the innocent,” he said. “We can bring happiness to people by destroying the LTTE.” His only fear is that international pressure will stop the government from pursuing the war. “My message to foreign governments is: let us finish this our way,” he added.⁷

This newspaper article generated a rich online discussion on the role of Buddhist monks in the military pursuits of the Sri Lankan Government forces. Responding to this newspaper article, Kanagan, perhaps a Tamil by birth, wrote on March 3, 2008:

Will the war mongers, like [the] war monk and his “peace loving” monks, go to the war front and fight? Same thing goes for the GoSL [Government of Sri Lanka] politicians. Have anyone of them, let it be SLFP [f. 1951, Sri Lanka Freedom Party], JVP [f. 1966, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna], JHU, sent their children to go for the war front? Instead they want to send the children of poor Sinhalese families to fight this unwinnable war. These politicians make the country bankrupt by resorting to their luxurious living, handsome bribes and commissions earned on arm[s] deals. They whip up the emotions and make the grassroot Sri Lankans to suffer. Now Sri Lanka has drifted to fight in guerrilla war. Let’s be practical. Let’s learn from what happened in the World. You cannot win a guerrilla war. Go for peace. Stop this rubbish from the chauvinist extremist. Save mother Lanka.

Some reflections on the comments expressed on the newspaper article are needed. Readers’ responses to the article are quite penetrating. What is striking is the discourse; the way a couple of people responded to the ideas, as well as the monk who was in spotlight in the article. Noteworthy is the diversity of opinions expressed; they show that misperceptions of each other exist among Sri Lankans. The issues raised in this online discussion show the ground reality in Sri Lanka where obstacles in tackling the conflict and managing it are significant. As a country devastated by ethno-nationalism Sri Lanka faces the collapse of law and order. A specific form of religiously couched ethno-nationalism continuously fed nearly three decades of civil war. Current political situation in Sri Lanka is stable but there are accusations of human rights violations and issues of misconduct in the war. In a fragile context, eth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Introduction: Dialectics of Violence and Non-Violence—Buddhism and Other Religions
• PART I Nationalism and Militarism in Modern Asian Buddhisms
• PART II Militarism and the Buddhist Monks
• PART III Buddhist Justifications for Peace and Militarism
• Conclusion
• Notes on Contributors
• Index