Rise Of BBS Is A Direct Result Of Triumphalism

By Vishwamithra1984 -June 25, 2014

“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

This has been told, not once, not twice or thrice but an umpteen number of times. The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) organization is not a fresh or novel manifestation of a particular sectorial thinking or a by-product of yesterday’s emotions. The character, substance and inner content of the driving force behind these civil organizations- although there is nothing remotely civil about this kind of groupings- is a tremendous sense of inexplicable yet remarkably acute inferiority felt all along the storied history of the Sinhalese Buddhist people. The style adopted by the Bodu Bala Sena might appear as novel, violent, militant and even sophisticated to an untrained and unequipped academic but that style is deeply embedded in the troubled psyche of the Sinhalese people, especially of the Buddhist kind. The Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka are experiencing a feeble feeling of inferiority despite being a great majority among those who claim the country as their motherland. Time and time again, historians have failed to render any valid and legitimate reason as to why and how an ethnic majority schooled and nurtured by a non-violent and non-discriminatory religion, is indulging in macabre killings and wanton vandalism. A malicious and a delusional mind is being portrayed as a superior kind, exposing complete absence of intellectual reasoning and prudent inquiry.Read More