It turns out the alleged Cultural Revolution happened

At the very least, Malinda Seneviratne recognises that there is something worth debating about (please read his response to my article of two weeks back in last week’s issue of Lakbimanews, titled ‘On the alleged Sinhala Buddhist Cultural Revolution.’)
If there is something worth debating about, I daresay he identifies perhaps unbeknownst to himself that there is a new phenomenon that is faintly traceable in the cultural crackdown on umbrella lovers and tipplers, which constitutes the most visible marker of the possible Cultural Revolution that I loosely identified as an (again possible ...) core Sinhala Buddhist symbiotic effort, enlisted by the Rajapaksa regime.
Of course Malinda says that this Cultural Revolution is alleged.
Well may I say at the outset that I think there are revolutions and revolutions and there are also silent revolutions.
It reminds me that the late and lamented Ajith Samarnayake used to say that he does not always say quote unquote, particularly where what’s obvious has to be implied. Certainly the Cultural Revolution that I spoke of is not of the Chinese Gang of Four variety.
And I didn’t mark quote (“) unquote (‘’). But I suspect that there is a silent revolution probably, and in a reasonably loose sense revolution it is; after all the Beatles were called a revolution in pop, and Anagharika Dharmapala was called a revolutionary thinker in his time —- so I don’t think it is quite, urm, revolutionary to use the word revolution in the context I used it.
I think what is culturally relevant is not whether Mahinda Rajapaksa’s wife is Catholic or not, or whether Chandrika Kumaratunge as Malinda says, “was always working against Sinhala Buddhists.’’
What’s more germane at this time I think is the fact that Mahinda Rajapaksa seems to be the Chosen One of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.
And I don’t think this represents an incidental passing fancy in the manner of J R Jayewardene picking up whatever flag he could wave and Chandrika Kumaratunge the ‘anti Sinhala Buddhist’ being chosen by the Sinhala Buddhists at one time, as their beloved leader as well.

The moral police

Mahinda Rajapaksa was bestowed a rare special honour given to laity by the Ruhuna chapter of Buddhist monks, and it is remembered that in the recent past when the Mahanayakes wanted to converge on behalf of the losing presidential candidate, Mahinda Rajapaksa was able to with the help of the said Ruhuna chapter of monks, silence the usually indomitable chief prelates.
I think these few examples begin to map out the contours of the argument that I am prepared to make, being that there is some kind of discernible compact between Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sinhala Buddhist majority (...the majority of that majority at least) that was certainly absent in the relationship between Jayewardene and the Sinhala Buddhists and Kumaratunge and the Sinhala Buddhists for instance.
Now having got that out of the way, the question is whether the moral police and whether the anti-tippler and anti-umbrella lover brigade can be put down to the present special relationship between the leader and commander-in-chief, and the majority of the doting Sinhala Buddhist masses?
Certainly, this may be debatable which is why we are having this debate in the first place.
Maybe it is a journey from the sublime to the ridiculous to say that if it walks like a duck quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck. But that’s what I see about the Mahinda Rajapaksa Sinhala Buddhist Cultural Revolution — if it looks like one, I daresay it must be one, and that is to divest the subject of all the needlessly vexing academic frills.
Indubitably, there is a trend in the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime unleashing the moral police or making it clear - in some instances — that essentially only Sinhala Buddhist values can fly in our Sri Lankan society.
This does not stop at umbrella lovers.
To me whether Muslims have their fatwas or the Christians have had their inquisitions is not what is relevant. The present debate is not whether there is a Catholic Cultural Revolution in Sri Lanka but whether there is a Sinhala Buddhist Cultural Revolution in this country.

Regime sponsored polarisation

Now, when there is a Sinhala Buddhist lady who has written a book on Islam having converted to that religion abroad, being persecuted, taken to court and vilified by the moral police, and there is nobody in government and essentially in civil society to say boo to this — I see at least the rough contours of a trend.
Malinda Seneviratne also says that perhaps the reaction of the majority Sinhala Buddhists is a reaction against the Colombans.
I’ve known the Colombans to have been a much maligned lot in recent times —- and there can be Colombans and Colombans, some who cheer for a pure and unalloyed form of English usage for example, and others for instance who do not.
Of course if NOT being a Colomban entails eschewing all the pluralistic values that this very multicultural society of ours has cherished for long, I would personally take being a Colomban any day. This knowing very well that being a Colomban is decreed a major jailable crime these days, even by those who insist on Shakespeare’s English, having a gala time natamin baila in the process...?
I’m not on the same page as Malinda is when it comes to othering and theiring and using the lingo of ‘acada-speak’ or is it acadamese? I do not do identity-referencing and doctrinal identity formations and all that type of thing all too well. But what I care to say is that there seems to be a regime sponsored polarisation between the Sinhala Buddhists and the many others in these interesting times we live in.
In the many debates that Malinda himself has called for on the issue, we will surely have many more Sundays to go into the details of all this. Suffice to say for the moment that the fact that several people are identifying the general contours of this trend makes it clear that there is something out of the ordinary that is happening; the best evidence of it being that we are having the debate on this subject in the first place.
Whether what is going on takes the shape of a revolution however silent or subtle it may be —- is no doubt not yet settled argument.
Rome was not built in a day and certainly the Mahinda Rajapaksa revolution was not pulled out of a hat with a saataka in the time it takes to go from Medamulana to Temple Trees in a bullet proof Jag.
But if Sunday tuition classes are banned (not a bad thing at all ...) because it is deemed that the students en masse should be corralled into Daham Pasal territory, and then one thing leads to another and a Buddhist convert to Islam is persecuted for writing a book on Islam, and in the melee umbrella lovers are being hounded and tipplers are trounced etc etc., I see a very discernible trend in this hotchpotch of activity.
I do not know about othering and smothering or baring and theiring but all this does seem to me to have the makings of a Cultural Revolution, reasonably loosely put...