Freedom of Hate Speech

*Reader discretion advised: Post contains quoted content which could be considered objectionable or offensive.

Lately, sentiments of violent Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism have turned into powerful Orwellian prolefeed (From 1984: a constant stream of mindless entertainment produced to distract and occupy the masses), not simply stirring up repugnant chauvinism but actively promoting hate and violence against those who do not subscribe to their novelty Sri Lankan Buddhism. This prolefeed has found a fertile breeding-ground on social media; regional, local, national-level pages belonging to various extreme Sinhala Buddhist factions mushrooming at alarming frequency. Each group has disturbing reach and terrifying engagement by members who post vile, incomprehensibly hateful, racist comments provoking and even on occasion, threatening physical and sexual violence and death.

These Facebook pages have become spaces for free but detrimental expression that demands our action, considering the spate of violence against places of Christian and Muslim religious worship, Muslim-owned businesses and even patrons. These hate campaigns have gained wide, concerning ground on Facebook in particular, where a demographic comprised of (arguably impressionable) young males whose malevolence is commended and egged on unchecked.

The BBS page for example, posted photographs of participants from the peaceful vigil which happened in Colombo last week under the album title ‘Treasonous Savages Who Distorted the National Anthem’ and ‘Enemies With No Race or Religion’ (translated from Sinhalese), requesting members to help identify the traitors. The comments attacking race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality and gender on these photographs which were mostly made in Sinhala (transliterated and text) by members of the Facebook group were truly horrifying.

‘He’s a (expletive) that sells his mother for a living’

‘Tiger prostitutes (expletive)’

‘Nightclub prostitute bitches’

‘May these people be struck by lightning the sons of prostitutes (expletive) devouring this country. This is our country, a Sinhala country, devils.’

‘They are prostitutes with no race or religion’

‘These people haven’t even grazed past Buddhism. They are NGO people. If they were so concerned about the country and Buddhism, where were these (expletive) when temples were being bulldozed? They are just giving (expletive) here, it would be good if they mind their business without getting murdered by the real Sinhalese’

‘Bastard dogs’

‘These are a bunch of Colombo people trying to be cute. Have they even taken shelter from the rain at a temple? They are trying to teach us religion they should be taken in for questioning to the CID.’

-> Response: ‘Excellent comment. They should be raped.’

‘They  look like midgets chased out of South India. There’s not even an speck of Buddhism in them. They look like Ethiopian cows.’

‘Don’t worry I was there when this NGO band protested in front of the Bodu Bala Sena Base. They have even distorted the National Anthem. They are rising to destroy the Buddhist power, but the security forces and the priests of the Bodu Bala Sena intervened and successfully defeated this treasonous, unpatriotic effort. (BBS Monk)

‘(Expletive) if I see you in Battaramulla, I will definitely open up your (expletive), you dog. Be careful when you’re on the road, you NGO cow born to a dog. (expletive)’

-> Response by BBS monk: ‘Help us identify this man’

‘These (expletive) planned this while Gnanasara Priest (BBS monk) was out of the country. If Gnanasara was there these people would have been stripped and forced to run away naked.’

‘Nature will punish these people. When you’re on the road be extra careful, there are big lorries and buses coming your way’

‘Don’t be disheartened by these efforts, even Lord Buddha defeated the Demons. This protest was not done by real Sinhalese, but a flock of mixed-race miscreants. If you need anything priest, we are always with the Bodu Bala Sena’

These comments are a mere sampling of what is being said in response to the photos of the participants who attended the peaceful vigil. Not only was the content aimed at identifying participants in order to orchestrate an abhorrent response on-line (and frighteningly maybe even potentially off-line, given the identification of people’s names and places of employment), the comments unquestionably call for murder, physical violence and rape.

The process of reporting the page and its contents to Facebook appears to be straightforward: The ‘I think it shouldn’t be on Facebook’ option provides you with another to report ‘Hate speech’ under multiple categories of  targeting race or ethnicity, religious group, based on gender and orientation, based on disability or disease. While there is no ‘all of the above’ option which sum up the BBS page’s contents, myself and many others have reported this page and similar pages repeatedly. Facebook, however, does not find this reason enough to either issue a warning to the page owners to moderate, clean up the content or have it taken down. Understandably, the content is in transliterated and text Sinhala, which at first glance will not check any hate speech boxes, but does terrifying and unapologetic hate speech only deserve Facebook’s attention if it is in English?

While liberals may argue that shutting these pages down are a threat to the freedom of speech in a country where most freedoms are delusional at best, do these pages deserve space for engagement (and evident indoctrination as far as an impressionable young membership is concerned)? While the admin-uploaded contents do not directly threaten harm to anyone (save for requests to members to help identify so-called perpetrators and distastefully condemn them in captions and album titles), the administrators are allowing rabidly racist commentary to continue, irrefutably violating Facebook’s Community Standards.

While the BBS page was taken down briefly yesterday, today it has returned with English language comments deleted (likely for the benefit of Facebook checks on hate speech), while the Sinhala language content remains untouched. Additionally, when those captured in the photographs reported the content to Facebook as harassment, the social media platform failed to respond to multiple complaints. Meanwhile, these photos are being shared and commented on, rapidly replicated in similar pages, subject to streams of comment abuse, shocking misuse and photo-manipulation. We must be weary of the pervasive and fluid nature of social media, and consider its impacts outside the relative freedoms, anonymity and bravado of the Internet.

Where freedoms have been fought for over centuries of human history, they are not simply easy entitlements won by others long-gone for willful abuse, but must like all rights be tied to responsibilities. Those who do not respect these responsibilities, are entirely undeserving of these freedoms- especially where they are actively encouraging hatred and inciting violence against those who do not subscribe to their beliefs.

A Quiet People

In August 2012, examining the  ethnic violence against the Rohingya and the attack of the Dambulla mosque in Sri Lanka incited on both instances by Buddhist monks, I wrote,

The tenet of reincarnation forms the core of Eastern-religions, by which the soul renews itself in new guises, moulded by the sins and virtues of one’s biological life. Thus, at the conclusion of a life’s consciousness, another manifestation comes into being – human, animal, divine or malevolent… Buddhism in its socio-political samsara has begun to embody a malevolent reincarnation in the face of tense identity politics, the political self-determination of monks and intolerant calls for violence antithetical to its teachings of wisdom, morality and discipline.

Many months later, the massacre of the Rohingya continues and virulent Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism continues to gain disconcerting momentum in post-war Sri Lanka, with multiple attacks on places of Christian and Muslim religious worship and the vicious inciting of violence against minorities by Fascist monks who make a mockery of the thoughtful introspection of their Teacher.

The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Organization, a Buddhist extremist group extolling an anti-everything-but-jingoistic-novelty-Buddhism, has been visibly responsible for a spate of vitriolic hate-mongering. At first it seemed laughable (perhaps naïvely so); was anyone so gullible to be swayed by their vocal and virulent claims of  extreme nationalism and attacks against other religious groups? Yet, their belligerent rhetoric against genocidal candy, Halal certifications, clothing choices, on international conspiracies to destroy their version of Sri Lankan Buddhism have gained disturbing ground, legitimised by unapologetic corporations and the obedient actions of many and the quiet inaction of others.

Yesterday (12th April 2013), a group of citizens organised a peaceful candlelight vigil against the Bodu Bala Sena, expressing their concern regarding the hateful stance of the BBS.

The contents of these videos require no interpretation; the complicity of the state manifesting in the unacceptable behaviour of the police in obstructing freedom of association, movement and speech; the reality that we have no rights or space to voice concerns that fall outside the sanctions of sugarplum state propaganda of peace and progress; and most significantly the sheer necessity for our collective quiet to end, to oppose the injustices we so resolutely ignore, perhaps in optimism that they will subside, in fear that we will be reprimanded or worse in apathy because we no longer care.

In 1983, there was quiet, as violent mobs rampaged unchecked murdering Tamils and destroying their homes and livelihoods.

1987-87, there was quiet, as thousands were culled in the name of skewed politics.

1983-2009, there was quiet, as explosions shattered our towns and bullets riddled our people.

In 2009, there was quiet, as thousands of civilians were massacred in the final stages of the civil-war and others were detained in inhuman conditions.

Nearly at the four-year mark since the end of the war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE), the island lolls in a warm ocean of delusional contentment. We are told the economy is flourishing, for surely, the viral red pavements and white elephant harbours and airports are testament to prosperity. We are sung songs of triumphalism heralding that the ethnic conflict is no more, as all people now know a peace that was paid for by the sacrifice of a thousand of heroes.

We are told that Sri Lankans are an entitled people.

Yet to most like the BBS, the only true Sri Lankans are those who speak a particular shade of Sinhala, worship a particular variation of Buddhism, and embrace a particular sentiment of Sinhala-Buddhist entitlement, who shun the tongues, gods, heritage and choices of others, who by those vices are somehow less Sri Lankan and consequently treacherous conspirators who must be dealt with, lest we pollute this rabid flag-waving chauvinism with non-compliance.

Yes, we the minority who do not fall into their trappings of Sri Lankan, because of the language we choose to speak, the gods we choose not to worship, our education, associations, desires, callings and commitments which make us lesser and unworthy of voices, and unworthy of Sri Lanka, for we are simply not them.  We are a quiet people.

The Malevolent Reincarnation of Buddhism

‘Social markers within neoliberal political economies, even those which demarcate spiritual commitments, cannot be ignored. Where religious and nationalist extremism lurks as a many-headed monster, is Buddhism’s militant reincarnation really unexpected?’

Wee bit late on updating this, but cross over to The Platform Blog for thoughts on ‘The Malevolent Reincarnation of Buddhism’

Faithless

I was raised in a veritable pickle of a household. We speak three languages. We believe in different gods, some of us uphold a curious syncretism that defies logic and some of us, we don’t believe at all. We fear the wrath of a pantheon of gods, while some of us respectfully stand in the sidelines, amused but compliant to the arcane rituals that map our faith. Despite the contradictions and occasional absurdity, we co-exist and we keep celebrating each other’s holidays because festivities are always welcome.

Over the years, I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of religion. Mostly when it encroaches into my thought space in the form of the question, what religion are you?

As a child, I, like many of my peers were compelled to put a religion down on paper. At the start of every school year, they sent home a form that required the specifics: race, religion, denomination. There was no room for ambiguity; a binding pen on paper commitment was required. It was a matter of priority for annual timetables afterall.

Accordingly, our Christian institution grouped us twice a week to provide us with a religious education as set forth in the state curriculum.

There were two of us in that class for whom, the topic of religion did not matter because our parents did not give us much of a religious education at home. Mine were a non-committal pickle, hers were uninterested and amidst a group of girls whose Sunday School education had begun at kindergarten, we struggled to learn Buddhism in a Christian School. I recall the torturous experience of having to learn and recite unfamiliar sūttas that rolled of the others’ tongues. How we couldn’t recite on demand the most sacred words of the Buddha mystified the teacher. How I dreaded those afternoons where spot recitations were called upon and I’d struggle, owing to little more than a complete lack of interest in memorizing verses in a language I didn’t understand.

Our text books were populated not with the everyday choices that might require some form of spiritual guidance, but yarns of mytho-history that defined Sri Lankan, Sinhalese Buddhism. From historical buildings, facile meditation techniques and long-winded stories on virtue and other blessed things this text book was supposed to be instilling in us, we ultimately studied for an exam.

Remember, regurgitate. Remember, regurgitate.

So I studied Buddhism, unapologetically, to keep my grades up.  I even won a prize once. No wiser, no more interested, but compelled, for there was no option for marking down uncertainties on that austere typeset form.

Today, I am grateful for this education because I can tell you many little facts about Sri Lanka’s Buddhist history and significant archaeological sites, not because of the personal spiritual enlightenment it brought about.

I remain blissfully unconcerned about religion, pressing matters like death, heaven, hell, afterlife and reincarnation rarely occurring to me or intruding into my every day only when someone throws the unabashed question,

What religion are you?

Much like those school forms from many years ago, Sri Lanka allows very little room for ambiguity.

I falter. Buddhist I suppose, I say if they are looking for a short answer or if I’m looking for a quick way out.

Buddhism, separated from cultural pollution, provides a meaningful roadmap for living, to good and a balance of cause, consequence and karma. I respect that simplicity and freedom of being able to choose my path. Yet, I cannot recall the last time I went to a temple to worship or to gain some form of spiritual guidance or solace.

I try to believe in good and do the right thing, to give to the less fortunate and not harm the living. That to me is surely in the words of every religion, label and pen on paper commitment-free.

I often wonder what faith in Buddhism means to a purported 70% of Sri Lanka. The temples, the flowers, the verses of pali few undersand,  and the saffron-robed monks that preside over it all.

Last week, a 2000 strong Sinhalese mob rallied under the puritanical war cries of Buddhist monks who called for a local mosque which had stood for half a century to be demolished.  Petrol bombs flared, stones were thrown and the revered Friday prayer was canceled. Over the weekend, it was agreed on a political table that the mosque would be demolished and relocated to what I can only understand as a less-offending place.

An isolated incident, say the optimists anchored in the belief of a greater good and surely one that does not reflect Sri Lanka’s Buddhist virtue and humility.

For a nation so saturated with such Buddhist righteousness and integrity, we have seen a three decade long war, the full-blown armed hostilities which were triggered by an ‘isolated incident’ not unlike this in 1983. We pretend that thousands of civilians were not killed under the flags of victory. We do not think of the thousands more who remain displaced as a consequence. We pretend that our country is not rife with lawlessness, corruption,  grave insecurity and violence, while we hide behind the white cloth of Buddhist morality. Such ugliness cannot happen in a land where the Buddha himself set foot thrice, we tell ourselves.

This too shall pass, we avert our eyes away from the reality of ugliness that Sri Lanka has tumbled into.

Today, where Sinhalese Buddhist monks rallied the hatred of 2000 Sinhalese Buddhists against the faith of another, I find myself unable to falter.

I am faithless.