Religion

Photo: Polonnaruwa Road near Punani, a small hamlet in Sri Lanka’s Batticaloa district. CC BY-SA 3.0

An Aborted University and Squandered Opportunity in Sri Lanka

Viewpoint by Dr. Ameer Ali

A modern Muslim university is an absolute need of our time, and it will be a sound first step to reform even the madrasas eventually, writes Dr. Ameer Ali, a lecturer in economics at the School of Business and Governance, Murdoch University, Western Australia. The aborted university project in Punanai, a small hamlet in Sri Lanka’s Batticaloa district was a golden opportunity squandered by abuse of political power, subservience to Wahhabism and hunger for profit, he adds.

PERTH (IDN) – About three years ago when passing through Punanai along the arterial road between Habarana and Batticaloa in Sri Lanka, I noticed a few brick structures appearing in a parched land amid thick shrubs and woody trees. It was almost a desolate spot where I could not see any people living close by.

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 19 July 2019

Photo: The Jami Ul Alfar mosque in pettah area, one of the oldest mosques in Colombo. CC BY-SA 3.0

Moulding Muslim Culture in Sri Lanka Echoes Chinese Uighur Experiment

Viewpoint by Dr Ameer Ali

The writer is a lecturer in economics at the School of Business and Governance, Murdoch University, Western Australia.

PERTH (IDN) – The July 7 'Rally of the Un-Enlightened', that fizzled out without the expected turnout of 10,000 Buddhist monks, was the most emphatic demonstration yet by the majority Sinhala Buddhists that they would not allow hatred and bigotry to hijack the millennial legacy of peaceful coexistence of different religions and cultures in Sri Lanka.

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 10 July 2019

Photos: A glimpse of the Borobodur festival. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne IDN | INPS

Borobodur in Indonesia has the Potential to Epitomise Religious Tolerance in Asia

By Kalinga Seneviratne

This article is the 33rd in a series of joint productions of Lotus News Features and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate. Click here for previous series.

SINGAPORE IDN) – Thousands of Indonesian Buddhists went on a 4 km procession from Mendut monastery to the historic Borobodur temple in Central Java to pay homage to the Buddha on Vesak day. The procession on May 18 passed a number of mosques with streets lined up with hundreds of local Muslims.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 13 June 2019

Photo: The Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo, which was among three Colombo hotels hit by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday. CC BY-SA 4.0

Sri Lanka Easter Sunday Attacks Possibly More Than a Religious Conflict

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – “I gave leadership to the government that defeated the terrorists that no one thought could ever be defeated. From the moment this government came into power in January 2015, they have been persecuting the members of the armed forces and the intelligence services that ended that war,” said former President and Current Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse in an emotional 10 minute address to parliament on April 23.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 April 2019

Photo: Protests in Pakistan. Source: Times of India.

Protests As Pakistan Blasphemy Death Sentence Is Overturned

Viewpoint by René Wadlow

The author is representative to the United Nations, Geneva, of the Association of World Citizens (AWC)*. This blog was carried by AWC on November 1, 2018. Since then, Asia Bibi remains in prison, and it is her lawyer who has had to flee the country. There are demonstrations against the Supreme Court decision in the larger cities of Pakistan, and Islamist groups have focused on the case. – The Editor

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) – On October 29, 2018, the Supreme Court of Pakistan reversed the decision of lower courts sentencing to death Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of four for blasphemy. After 3,422 days of imprisonment in solitary confinement, the Supreme Court reversed a 2010 lower court verdict. Asia Bibi is now in seclusion and will probably leave the country as some 60 persons in Pakistan have been murdered since 1990, accused of blasphemy.

: UN Bureau; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 04 November 2018

Image: Buddhism – which has shaped Asian civilizations for over 2000 years – has much to offer in guiding Asia's development path.

Asia's Buddhists Should Step Forward to Pave the Way to Sustainable Development

Viewpoint by Kalinga Seneviratne*

SINGAPORE (IDN) – Buddhists across Asia are going to temples, bathing the baby Buddha, giving food to monks, lighting lamps and offering incense sticks accompanied by chanting paying homage to the Buddha on Vesak day, May 29 this year. While keeping with these traditions is important, Asia's Buddhists are letting go a great opportunity to shape the global development path in an ecologically friendly, compassionate and a sustainable manner.

As the centre of gravity of the world’s economy shifts to Asia, Buddhism – which has shaped Asian civilizations for over 2000 years – has much to offer in guiding Asia's development path. Buddhist philosophy has a rich reservoir of ideas on living sufficiently and comfortably without exploiting nature and people, ideas that anyone can adopt irrespective of your religious affiliations, as the mindfulness fad in the West shows. Mindfulness itself is rooted in the age-old Buddhist meditation practice of 'Vipassana Bhavana'.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; OPINION; 29 May 2018

Photo: Panelists in the April 24 event, including Kazakh Vice-Minister Berik Aryn (extreme left), UNAOC High Representative Al-Nasser (centre), and Ambassador Kairat Umarov, the Kazakh Permanent Representative to the UN (third from right at the back). Credit: Kazakh Permanent Mission to the UN Headquarters in New York.

Kazakhstan Sets the Ball Rolling for the Landmark Interfaith Congress in Astana

By J Nastranis

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) – "The holy scriptures of the Koran, Bible, Torah, the Bhagwad Geeta or the Lotus Sutra" underline "the vital importance to unite the efforts of political and religious leaders for the cause of security and stability across our planet," said Kazakhstan's Vice-Minister for Religious Affairs and Civil Society, Berik Aryn, in a keynote address at an event organized by the Kazakh Permanent Mission to the UN in partnership with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC).

He was speaking on behalf of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the Chairman of the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Head of the Secretariat of the Congress of the Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, Kazakhstan’s interfaith initiative launched in 2003.

: J Nastranis; CENTRAL ASIA; 30 April 2018

– 15 March 2018] Photo: Some of the shops that were set on fire at Katugastota near Sri Lanka’s Kandy city on March 7, 2018. Credit: Meera Srinivasan | The Hindu

Sri Lankan Academics Abroad Condemn Violence Against Muslim Community

By Shanta Roy

NEW YORK (IDN) – A group of Sri Lankan academics teaching in educational institutions abroad – and numbering about 50 – has written to condemn ongoing violence against Sri Lanka’s Muslim community, especially the “brutal attacks” perpetrated early March.

In a letter published by 'Groundviews', they say: “We are outraged that the government has failed to act speedily and decisively to stop the violence and bring those responsible to justice. The government must act firmly to prevent more destruction and bloodshed.”

: Shanta Roy; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 15 March 2018

Photo: In the worst outbreak of violence against Muslims in recent years, mobs were on the rampage earller in March attacking people and property in the central hill capital Kandy. Picture shows the Kandyan terrain as viewed in 2013. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Sri Lanka’s Extremists Find a New Enemy

Viewpoint by Dr Farah Mihlar*

LONDON (IDN) – After fiercely quelling a three-decade armed conflict fought mainly on ethnic grounds, majoritarian politics in Sri Lanka has found a new enemy – the country’s nine percent Muslim community.

In the worst outbreak of violence against Muslims in recent years , Sinhalese-Buddhist mobs were on the rampage earller in March attacking people and property in the central hill capital Kandy. One Muslim was killed in the violence and dozens of Muslim owned shops and properties set ablaze. The government imposed a curfew and sent in troops, but the situation remains volatile and tensed as police are at best ineffective and at worst complicit.

: Asia Editor; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 10 March 2018

Photo: Umbrellas on the Piazza of the Prophet´s Holy Mosque in Medina. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

What the Prophet Implied and What Sustains Fundamentalists

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – What do we in the West know about Islam? Perhaps more than we did before 9/11 but not much.

When Tony Blair was prime minister of the United Kingdom he was photographed walking along holding the Koran. President George W. Bush said repeatedly that Islam was a religion of peace.

Even though at that time one of the most influential American political writers, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, had written that it wasn’t fundamentalism that was the problem, it was Islam itself.