Religion: Not for public debate

Unlike in the case of social media activist Sepal Amarasinghe, the issues with regard to Pastor Jerome Fernando and standup comedian Nathasha Edirisooriya seem to be quite tricky for the authorities to handle, despite all three have been accused of insulting the Buddha or Buddhism. 

Sepal undeniably ridiculed a religious place that is held by the Buddhists in high esteem, but the others have been accused of belittling Buddha in an indirect way. Pastor Jerome wanted to see the Buddha in an inferior position than that of Jesus Christ. Nathasha was creating during one of her comedy presentations a hypothetical situation during the early childhood of Prince Siddhartha who later became the Buddha.

Pastor Jerome gets hold of the wrong end of the stick, by clinging to the word ‘light.’

He says that Buddha attained enlightenment whereas Jesus himself was the light, by which he was accused to have seen Buddha in an inferior light. What he conveniently ignores, apart from the inaptness of public comparison of religions and their founders of them, is that the English word enlightenment, which contains the root word ‘light’ in it is a term to refer to Buddhathva or Buddhahood, which does not have the rood word ‘light’ in it. 

Nathasha was, in fact, ridiculing the mothers, who compare their children’s growth with that of the other same-aged children, due to their competition with other families. 

In the process, she moves on to the childhood of Prince Siddhartha to question what the pressure would have been on the children of those days, had this trend prevailed then. 

She creates an imaginary scenario of mothers of those days comparing their children with Prince Siddhartha. The references to Prince Siddhartha by those imaginary mothers in Nathasha’s presentation do not hold the Prince and his father, King Suddhodana in high esteem, as Buddhists normally do.  

Nathasha and those who defend her might argue that it was not she but those imaginary mothers of Prince Siddhartha’s childhood who did not pay due respect to Prince Siddhartha and King Suddhodana. 

She was not uttering those words, but was quoting the imaginary mothers, they might contend. However, what she overlooked was that people, without exception, do not like to hear the names of the founders of their religions, including their childhood names and names of their associates, without due respect, even in an imaginary story. 

This was a repetition of the saga of Salman Rushdie, who published his novel Satanic Verses in September 1988, naming prostitutes in his novel after the wives of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH), and disparaging several persons referred to in Abrahamic religions, including Islam. 

Nathasha might not have had any intention to belittle Buddha or Prince Siddhartha, as she and some of her friends claim. She might not have realized her insensitivity to the feelings of the Buddhists until the uproar woke her up to apologize to those who were hurt by her presentation. 

However, she, as a person who lived in this country in recent years must have been able to understand how sensitive religion is for the majority of people, not only in Sri Lanka but the world over. 

Also, the apology by Pastor Jerome to those who were hurt by him while standing by his earlier statement which opened a can of worms might question the genuineness of her apology as well. 

Another factor that landed her in hot water was that her video in question went viral on the heels of two similar incidents involving Sepal Amarasinghe and Pastor Jerome, justifying the suspicion by many if there is a sinister move (‘Conspiracy’ as they call it) by some groups to bring Buddhism into disrepute. 

National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa, who always suspects the US Government being even behind the unpleasant dreams he would see had accused the Americans of the controversial standup comedy event involving Nathasha. 

And the Government leaders, especially the leaders of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), as they have done in the recent past blame the last year’s Aragalaya for this incident as well. 

They are hell-bent on making the people forget the destruction they have done to the country’s economy by demonizing the public uprising that toppled the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Government and made them accept the leadership of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was earlier branded by them as an agent of the LTTE and the Western imperialist powers. 

They vilify Aragalaya using isolated incidents involving some of the social media activists who were prominent in the protests while ignoring the millions of people who thronged the Capital city chanting “Gota Go Home” last year, after being angered by the sufferings they had to undergo due to the economic crisis. 

The bankruptcy of the country was a fact and not an imagination. It caused the uprising and not the other way around. 

On the other hand, Nathasha’s defenders justify her act which may be described as a slip of the tongue or a witting blunder, as freedom of expression, giving more ammunition to the government leaders. 

The validity of their attack on the ruling party for rousing religious feelings to gain political mileage in the forthcoming elections is being questioned by their actions.  

In a recent media briefing held to protest against Nathasha’s arrest, it was argued that freedom of expression includes insults and offence of this kind of feelings of others as well. 

However, this point did not seem to have been subscribed to by all those who aired their views at the press conference, despite them being silent about it. It was also argued that questioning religions is a right similar to the right to follow religions and it has been a practice throughout history. 

The notion of the right to question and criticize religions is undeniable, but the validity of its practice depends on the time and space it is practised. 

Attacking the beliefs or perceived beliefs of a religious community that is already under communal attack by another group would be tantamount to adding fuel to the fire and some so-called radicals ignored this fact, in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks by Muslim terrorists on April 21, 2019. 

Similarly, questioning and criticizing religions in intellectual discourse is a far cry from doing so in public, which would never involve intellectualism. Besides, nobody would be able to give an assurance of the nonoccurrence of untoward turns of events over the views expressed in the public domain. 

Also, such public debates would make it difficult for the people to accept others’ views and divide the people, an outcome that corrupt politicians would also prefer. 

The current debate reminds the writer of a story that was published some thirty-five years ago in the Junior Vikatan, a Tamil magazine published in Tamil Nadu. According to the story, the Tamil Nadu Government had filed a case in a British High Court in 1982, claiming the right of an 11th-century Shiva Nataraja statue, which had been seized by the Scotland Yard from the British Museum, after it had been stolen from Tamil Nadu.  When the case was called one day, a member of the court staff had brought the court production - the statue - to the courtroom hanging it by its feet which had infuriated the judge.

The writer remembers how he had censured the staffer which goes like this: 

“You and I may not see any worth in this statue, but 50 million people (The then population of Tamil Nadu) venerates and worship it as a deity. We must be cultured enough to respect the feelings of those 50 million people.” 
This point would be more appropriate in a multi-ethnic or multi-religious society.