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Who gave these fellows this strength? Muslims and the Bodu Bala Sena in post-war Sri Lanka.
Abstract
This paper looks at the anti Muslim movement at its moment of ascendency in 2013. It also describes a particular post war sensibility that supported the assertion of anti Muslim sentiment in this manner. It argues that, additionally the power wielded by monks was utilised to its fullest in taking forward the movement.
This chapter deals with Sri Lanka’s Muslim council of theologians - the All Ceylon Jamiathul Ulema (ACJU) - and their response to Sri Lanka’s anti- Muslim movement. The anti-Muslim movement emerged after the end of Sri Lanka’s ethnic war and flourished when Sri Lanka was exploring post-war reconciliation measures. The ACJU responded to the anti-Muslim movement using the language of the reconciliation process. Analysing the manner in which the ACJU responded to challenges faced by the Muslim community in Sri Lanka during the past decade, this chapter will argue that given the attacks that the anti-Muslim movement is mounting on Muslims’ religious and cultural life, Sri Lankan Muslims require a less vulnerable institution to provide leadership when engaging with religious others. The anti-Muslim movement’s undermining of ACJU’s authority limits their ability to intervene. This moment also exposes weaknesses of the ACJU approach to reconciliation and offers an opportunity for the emergence of an alternative leadership.
මෙම අධයයනය ඊලාම් යුද්ධව අවසන් වීමෙන් පසු වර්ධනය වූ නව බෞද්ධ අන්තවාදී සංවිධාවල ක්රියාකාරිත්වය තේරුම් ගැනීමට දැරූ උත්සාහයකි.
This study attempts to understand the emergence of politically motivated Buddhist organizations, their modes of activism, the way in which their role is being perceived and responded to by the other forces of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism, and lastly, how the activities of these organizations affect the precarious political equilibrium in the post-Eelam war Sri Lanka which is dominated by antagonistic relationships among a number of ethno-religious nationalisms. It argues that these organizations are very much part of the hegemonic Buddhist organizational network in Sri Lanka and logical offspring of a recent evolution of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism.
The absence of political polarization in the Philippines stems in part from the remarkable popularity of Duterte’s signature war on drugs.
Violence and hate speech endorsed by Buddhist monks against Muslim minorities in South and Southeast Asia have attracted global attention in recent years, and been the focus for a growing academic scholarship. This article turns the attention to peace activists, religious – including Buddhist – leaders and other civil society actors seeking to counter anti-Muslim agitation in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Drawing on theories about social movements and countermovements, it analyses the diverse counter-forces, their activities and the obstacles they face. Doing so, the article contributes to an understanding of peacebuilding in religiously framed conflicts, and of the conditions for peace movements in an age of radicalisation and online activism. Based on interviews with civil society representatives and religious leaders, complemented with secondary sources, the study finds that although the peace movements are weaker and largely reactive to and restrained by the radical Buddhist nationalist movements, they constitute important counter-voices. The article also argues that the struggle between hate speech and counter speech in social media constitutes an important part of the movement–countermovement dynamics. Finally, the article suggests that theories on opposing movements can usefully be developed to enhance our understanding of mobilisation in different arenas in conflict-affected societies.
Sri Lanka has recently seen an upsurge in aggression towards ethnic minorities, and Muslims in particular, by newly formed extremist Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist groups. The politicisation of Buddhism is not new but the development and use of social media for political purposes and for advancing ethno-nationalist agendas is a recent feature of Sri Lankan public and political life. This study explores the parallel emergence of new media technologies and the most recent forms of ethno-nationalism among Sri Lankan youth. A campaign known as SinhaLe is used as an entry point to explore broader issues of identity, religion and politics. The article uses an anthropological approach that combines digital ethnography with in-depth interviews and pays close attention to individual narratives. The article concludes that social media is offering a new forum for the expression of identity that not only mirrors ‘what is out there’ but also provides opportunities to (re)produce viral politics as a form of ‘everyday nationalism’ created from below.
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