Monks destroy Muslim shrine as police stand idle

Monks destroy Muslim shrine as police stand idle

“You can bend it and twist it... You can misuse and abuse it... But even God cannot change the Truth.”

The Mad Men of Dambulla

“Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanised humanity…”
Brecht (The Exception and the Rule)

By Tisaranee Gunasekara

That the ancient-city of Dambulla is not sundered by religious violence is thanks to the sense and sensibility of its ordinary inhabitants (of all faiths) and the security personnel on duty.
Had the people of Dambulla been as virulent as the anti-Mosque/anti-Kovil demonstrators, had the STF and police personnel been as supine as the government, a religious conflagration would have engulfed the area and beyond.
Mobs have no sense; religious-frenzy is unconcerned about consequences. But governments need to count the cost of fanaticism, especially in a pluralist country which is yet to recover from the wounds of a 30 year war. The manner in which the Rajapaksa administration responded to the Mad Men of Dambulla indicates that the self-destructively myopic mindset, which created a linguistic issue and facilitated its evolution into an ethnic war, flourishes still, in the highest echelons of the Lankan state.

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