By Shamika Soysa

In this article I firstly refer to the article “Anti-Christian Feeling Rises in Buddhist Sri Lanka”, reported in Reuters by Lindsay Beck. Then I am referring to the comments appeared in “The Buddhist News Network”, “The other side of the rise of ‘anti-Christian’ feelings”, by Kushal De Silva, the comment by Buddhist Observer, “Why we must stand behind the bastion of Theravada Buddhism”, by Sonali Samarasinghe and some other materials I have read regarding this issue. Also I would like to note that this article is written with no intention of criticizing or hurting pure Christian Community, which are not involved with Evangelism activities.

I would like to start from the title of the base article appeared in Reuters. The title itself is to make readers feel Anti-Buddhist. Therefore the intention of the writer is revealed right from the beginning. It is obvious that the blame is put to the Sri Lankan Buddhists without any investigation into the matter.

“The Church bells were silent last Christmas across Buddhist majority Sri Lanka”

“But that is changing since the death in December of a popular Buddhist monk who preached against conversions to Christianity”

Having quoted the above two lines of that article, proving the instincts of the writer, which is one sided reporting, it talks insufficiently about the story underneath. In fact it doesn’t talk about it at all. So I would like to fill up the lacuna.

Writer says in a definite manner that the conspiracy behind the monks’ death is a heart attack. However even though according to the laws now it says the death of the monk is due to natural causes, no one can take the sin away from the real culprits, which were able to get away with the help of the points of law.

The demise of Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero happened to be an unbearable lost to all Sinhala Buddhist in Sri Lanka. It was him who woke up the Buddhists who were in a deep sleep. It was him who showed the real Buddhism to the label Buddhists. It was him who lit the light to the darkness of ignorance of Sinhala Buddhist people. His sermons had been blasts for the Christian Fundamentalist Evangelists.

Does Lindsay Beck knows, that Soma Thero had been attacked at some occasions, by some Christians when he was doing sermons against unethical conversions? Why doesn’t the writer talk about the death threats, which Soma Thero got? Can anyone say that the whole incident is not suspicious?

The writer doesn’t talk about the evangelism activities launched in Buddhist Sri Lanka. Writer might not know that in some areas to do Religious Activities like Perahara’s they need to get the protection of police as fundamentalist groups are disturbing them. But through out the article it emphasizes that Sinhala Buddhists are the criminals and they are attacking innocent Christians.

Sonali gives a comprehensive report on how Sinhala Buddhists were harassed during the time this country was occupied by Portuguese, Dutch, and in the period of British ruling. Having come across such a hard time the Theravada Buddhism still remains in Sri Lanka, nothing but because there is nothing in Christianity than in Buddhism. British rulers and other predecessors were not able to erase Buddhism from this country but they managed to make bad Buddhists. Now this country suffers the consequences of it.

I am justifying nothing by stating the harassments which Sinhala Buddhist people has come across, just reminding something forgotten to these kind of writers who are trying to create a disgusted impression on Sinhala Buddhists.

Even though it is tried hard to emphasize that Buddhists have become powerful and they are harming Christians, the truth is in our own Buddhist land we have become helpless against the powerful hands of Christianity. Leading monks of the country are forced to shut their sermons, and they have started getting death threats as they have motivated to talk against the activities of fundamentalist sects, with the passing away of Soma Thero.

This rise of Buddhists is needful for the sake of the pure Theravada Buddhism, and the Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka, and these movements are purely with no intention of harming. Even though these movements have not been supported by the Government, the gathered strength is still enough to act against these unethical conversions. This is the fear of extremist Christian Fundamentalist sects. Even though most of the media in the world are not directly supporting the Evangelism, they do it by making Buddhism and Sinhala Buddhists unpopular around the world by one-sided reporting like this.

There are organized grouped operated in Sri Lanka to collect information about active Buddhist laymen and monks. Even there are people who appears as monks to spy on the activities of Buddhists. There are enough people to support Churchism through the loopholes of corrupt politicians in Sri Lanka. Therefore the feelings arise are Anti-Buddhist, but not Anti-Christian.

These attacks on Christians must be properly investigated. Culprits must be found and revealed to the whole world. Because who knows that, those are the fundamentalists them selves who appears as Sinhala Buddhists and attacking churches and let the blame be put on Buddhists. For sure these culprits are not Buddhists. Because, Buddhists never harm others. They spread loving kindness to the whole world. If someone does these things he is violating the teachings of Buddhism and he cannot be considered as a Buddhist. Therefore the message underneath in this article “Anti-Christian Feeling Rises in Buddhist Sri Lanka” is completely wrong because there is no Anti-Christian Feelings rising in Sinhala Buddhist people. They have just starting to put their hand together to protect this noble doctrine, because Buddhism will be the religion of the Universe in future.