Hamaduru Ethics Or Deontology? The Challenge Before Modern Sri Lankans

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –JUNE 20, 2022

Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

The Two Major Foundations of Ethics: Hamaduruism and Deontology

In ethics there are two major branches. This article argues that Sri Lanka is overwhelmed by just one of these, Hamaduru Ethics – with apologies to the few upright Hamadurus who do not fit this generalization. Most of us practise this. It is formally known as Utilitarian Ethics. It is the norm for people in authority such as Hamadurus, village headmen, and other religious leaders (especially in free churches where the pastor is god). Their authority carries their decisions, and its basis is utility – which often in Sri Lanka is the majority group’s utility. It is used to suppress dissent of any kind, and aggrandize privileges for themselves, going so far as murdering minorities.

In Hamaduru Ethics we examine how many people are benefitted by an ethics decision and how many adversely. On these considerations, we decide on what is good for the majority and that becomes the right thing for us to do. The Sinhala-only Act, the non-implementation of the 13th Amendment, the impunity as well as the pardoning of those who murdered Tamils, the multi-billion thefts in government, and the self-rewarding by politicians like giving themselves cars, huge salaries and their wives jobs as their Personal Assistants, are all signs of the dominant hold that Hamaduru Ethics has on Sri Lanka – there is no formal ethics in these Hamaduru-like decisions bereft of morality. Hamadurus plant temples in Tamil areas and supervise the beating up of minorities in the name of religion. It allows us to go by the will of the majority. Hamaduru ethics therefore tends to be arbitrary and unfair and ignores all human rights considerations. Even our Supreme Court of political appointees protects the system. Good Sinhalese rooted in the law are sidelined. An example is the late Elmore Perera. Others (the good cowards) are cowed into silence.

Negation of Hamaduruism

A real incident from the Chino Police Station in California is used as an argument against Utilitarianism or Hamaduruism (Taken from Hoole, Hoole and Hoole, Ethics for Professionals: An Internationalist, Human Rights Perspective, Cognella Press, San Diego, 2018). A woman who had been assaulted complained to the Chino police who insisted she should undress and allow photos to be taken in various postures of her injuries. These photographs were then reproduced and circulated among other policemen who derived much pleasure from them. The complainant went to the US Court of Appeals and prevailed over the police. However, the utilitarian absurdly argues that the complainant’s violation of rights was far outweighed by the pleasure derived by the many policemen who had viewed her nude photographs. Reductio ad absurdum; quod erat demonstrandum. [The thesis of Hamaduruism has been reduced to the absurd; its error demonstrated]. But that was in America with a strong judiciary, and this is Sri Lanka without dispassionate thinking among the people. Indeed, a Supreme Court Justice defended in open court the murder of a 12-year old in the Bindunuwewa Massacre. Who in Sri Lanka protested?

Justice Shirani Bandaranayake

Deontology

In contrast to Hamaduruism stands deontology – the ethics basis where we look at an authoritative book to decide what is right – the Bible, the Koran, law books, the constitution, ethics codes (yes there are such things), etc. It is the way of the modernist, repeatable decisions stripped of personal prejudice. This is why deontologists are called “The People of the Book.”

The diminution and destruction of Sri Lanka are owed to Hamaduruism – violation of the judicial process by the massacres and necrophilia on the beaches of Mullivaikal by Sri Lanka’s “heroic soldiers” who were subsequently promoted to the highest offices of our land, promotions of politically pliant judges, the sacking of Supreme Court Justice Shirani Bandaranayake, finding, the late irrepressible lawyer Elmore Perera in contempt of court based on the vague and flimsy “rude body language,” the pardoning of convicted murderers, the looting of the treasury through the bond scam and bribery, etc.

These outrages including the numerous anti-Tamil riots accompanied by murders and looting had the support of the 6.9 million people who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa. These events reeking of barbarism and savagery made the primitive majority of Sri Lankans (6.9 million in numbers!) happy. They were therefore sound ethical decisions by the yardstick of Hamaduruism.

Deontology protects us and the truth. For example, after I wrote about how the Church had approved Rs. 10 million each in cars for church officials, Bishop Dhilo Canagasabey ruled under Hamaduruism at the Standing Committee on which I was a member, that information from the committee must never go out. I asked him “By what rule?” The matter ended there in a triumph for deontology. Unfortunately, the new Bishop, Dushantha Rodrigo, also is going by the same secrecy rule imposed through fear. If a committee is honest in its work, it must not fear public scrutiny. Good sense tells us what is not to be talked about. It should never be a cover for misgovernance. Suppression of information is usually to hide unethical practices, even by Bishops.

Hamaduru Appointment of Incompetent Archdeacon

Right now, a Marxist who prefaces everything he says with “God’s Kingdom Greetings” has been appointed Archdeacon of Jaffna in the Anglican Church. He is big on talk but lacks common sense and Christian knowledge. He says in his assorted messages that

a) “Until the advent of colonialism there was peace between religions in our land,”

b) “the church is a cult” (A cult by Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a ‘religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious.’) His diocesan council resolution declaring the Anglican Church a cult received Bishop Rodrigo’s assent and thereby became official policy,

c) “We must replace Jesus with God,” – that is, move from a Christocentric Faith to a Theocentric Faith,

d) “You are saying ‘Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming,’ but he has come and gone,”

e) “Your going to heaven depends on whether you did more good than bad,” and

f) Jesus was born into the ordinary family of Mary and Joseph and did not come from the skies.”

The Ven. Fr. S.D. Parimalachelvan, Archdeacon of Jaffna, 31.12.2021

He has denied saying some of these things but my wife has or I have heard him.

We can argue. For no one has a faith thrust upon him. However, a church is a community of believers of shared faith voluntarily coming together and is governed by a constitution. These 6 statements are all a violation of deontology, against the Constitution of the Church. Anglican Deontology rests on it. Therefore, the Archdeacon is totally unfit as an Anglican leader and was dumped on Jaffna because of personal friendship with the Bishop. It was a Hamaduru decision to make an unfit person our Archdeacon – a person who probably is amply qualified to be a Hindu priest if Hindus want him. The Bishop’s decision follows the pattern of the Rajapaksas using Tamils to reward Douglas Devananda by making him a Tamil Minister.

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