Editorial: Superstition, Violence and

Power

by Tisaranee Gunasekara
If we cant think for ourselves, if were unwilling to question authority, then we are just
putty in the hands of those in power- Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World).
( June 14, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In 2011, the Florida Department of
Environmental Protection issued a verbal directive banning its employees from using
the phrases climate change and global warming[i]. The states new governor Rick
Scott was then a Tea Party darling; denying anthropogenic climate change was a key
axiom of their common political creed. Governor Scott obviously did not want one of
his own departments to speak about the connection between Floridas climatic woes
and environmental degradation. The bizarre order may have helped Mr. Scott
politically and electorally but it has not saved Florida voters from being battered by

killer storms and rising sea levels and may doom Miami to eventual inundation[ii].
In 2011, five year old Lama Ghamdi died, after being admitted to a Saudi hospital with
a broken back, a crushed skull, severe burns and multiple rapes[iii]. Her father Fayhan
al Ghamdi, a popular preacher who often warned about the dangers of immoral
behaviour on Saudi television, was arrested and confessed to subjecting his little
daughter to multiple rapes because he doubted her virginity[iv]. According to Aziza al
Yousef, computer science lecturer at King Saud University, there is no specific law
that bans child abuse or protects children from child abuse[v]; and men convicted of
murder generally get a light sentence if the victims are their own wives or children. So
Mr. Al Ghamdi did not suffer the same fate as our own Rizana Nafik, beheaded in 2013
in this medieval paradise, after being convicted of murder via a highly questionable
judicial process (incidentally the Lankan government refused to pay the lawyers who
lodged the appeal against the death sentence). He was sentenced to 8 years (two
years less than recent sentences given to a rights activist and a blogger). Subsequent
reports indicate that he was released in 2013[vi].
When ignorance, religious superstition and power (political/societal/familial) intertwine,
basic commonsense, basic compassion and basic decency are banished and
outlawed. It is a condition we in Sri Lanka too are afflicted with.
This month in Mawanella a young man was starved to death by his own parents,
acting on the advice of an exorcist. When Prasanna Priyalal fainted as he entered his
home where an exorcism was in progress, the exorcist claimed that the young man
had incurred divine wrath for consuming beef. Mr. Priyalal was a heart patient who had
undergone surgery and was on medication. Anyone with an iota of sense would have
rushed him to the nearest doctor. But his family opted to listen to the exorcist, who
happened to be a minor just sixteen years of age. Mr. Priyalal, locked up in a room
unfed and untreated, died twenty one days later. Though his plight was public
knowledge, no one informed the police or any other person of authority/influence
(Grama Niladhari/village monk). Perhaps the villagers too feared incurring divine
wrath[vii].
Archaic ideas, often justified by some religious superstition, continue to be alive and
well in the 21st Century. In 2009 in Nigeria, a father tried to force acid down the throat
of his nine year old son, after the family pastor accused the boy of being a witch. In
2012, in Dehiattakandiya, Sri Lanka, a little girl was killed when an exorcist forced her
to swallow a sharp knife as a cure for a malady; two other sick girls suffered severe
burn-injuries when the same exorcist and his wife pushed them into the ritual fire. This
bizarre triple-crime took place amidst a large gathering.
Witch hunts pulverise parts of present day Africa. Several Evangelical churches have
been accused of inflicting violent cures on very young children deemed to be witches.
These exorcisms often involve horrific torture and sometimes result in death[viii]. Sri
Lanka with its high rate of literacy should do infinitely better, but does not. The two
deaths by exorcism indicate that some Lankans, rendered mindless by
divine/paranormal phobia, willingly embrace/endorse extreme cures even of

suicidal/homicidal variety. If this affliction is allowed to spread any further, Sri Lanka
will retrograde to a dark age of violent superstitions and superstitious violence.
Spells to Befuddle the Crowd[ix]
Superstitions have always played a role in Lankan politics, but never so nakedly as
under the Rajapaksas. During the tenure of President Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka gained a
royal astrologer who publicly boasted about his involvement in statecraft. The
president openly carried a golden-hued talisman. State media used astrologers as
political analysts (private media followed suit).
Though the teachings of the Buddha are non-theistic, Sinhala-Buddhism believes in a
pantheon of 3.3 billion gods. It is to these gods that ordinary Sinhala-Buddhists turn, in
troubled times, for protection and consolation. Any ruler who seems to enjoy the
blessings of these interventionist gods would be automatically acceptable to many
Sinhala-Buddhists.
The Rajapaksas both subscribed to these popular beliefs and honed them as weapons
of political power. An excellent example is the reported birth of an elephant calf on the
day the LTTE was defeated. According to Mahawamsa, the appearance of an
elephant-calf was one of the many auspicious omens which attended the birth of the
future king Dutugemunu. The birth of an elephant calf on the day Eelam War ended
was hailed as a similar miracle. The new baby was named Dinuda: Victory Day.
Years later it was revealed that Dinuda was not born on Dinu-da, Victory Day or even
Victory Year. He was born eight months earlier (some reports even claimed that
Dinuda is not a he but a she). Someone, at some point, decided to fudge the truth and
create a politico-ideological myth about a divinely-blessed victory.
Joseph Campbell argues that myths are useful in supporting and validating a certain
social order[x]. During the Rajapaksa era myths (and related superstitions) were used
to create/maintain a sense of identification between the Ruling Family and the majority
community. Mahinda Rajapaksa was depicted as a divinely blessed and infallible heroking; a wholly apocryphal pedigree was manufactured, connecting him to King
Dutugemunu and to the Buddha. The acceptance of such arrant nonsense, the
success of such incredible bamboozle depended on banishing critical thinking to the
nether regions as undesirable and dangerous.
When a countrys ruler exhibits his thraldom to astrology with such unashamed
starkness, it is but natural for people to become even more blindly superstitious.
Mahinda Rajapaksas fall from power can be attributed in some measure to his habit of
blindly following astrological advice. A rough analogy can be made between that act of
politico-electoral suicide and the deaths in Dehiattakandiya and Mawanella.
Post-election, the Rajapaksa camp continues to use superstition as a political tool.
Two astrological predictions are being accorded considerable currency in the proRajapaksa propaganda, especially on the internet. One claims that Mahinda
Rajapaksa will rise again politically, in the second half of this year; the other claims
that President Sirisena will be assassinated in January 2017.

Franz Mesmer (the charlatan who invented a magnetic cure and gave birth to the
term mesmerisation) and his adherents advocated the cultivation of a mindless
mindset: Be very credulous. do not listen to reason[xi]. That was and is what the
Rajapaksas want us to be, credulous and irrational. Critical intelligence is the enemy
of any kind autocratic rule, be it religious or secular. A citizenry capable of doubt and
reason is unlikely to be carried away by phobias or manias into the wastelands of
rightless anti-democracy. If Lankan democracy is to be safeguarded and strengthened,
a return to sanity is an urgent need.
Common Peril
In Nineteen Eighty Four, Orwell writes about the Two Minutes Hate, a key political
ritual in his dystopian state. Every day, at eleven hundred hours, the populace gathers
around telescreens to renew their hate of arch-enemy Emmanuel Goldstein. Orwell
draws a chilling picture of how this outburst of hate can be transferred to a visible and
more accessible object. It was possible, at moments, to switch ones hatred this way
or that by a voluntary act Vincent succeeded in transferring his hate from Goldstein
to the dark-haired girl behind him. Vivid beautiful hallucinations flashed through his
mind. He would flog her to death with a rubber truncheon. He would tie her naked to a
stake and shoot her full of arrows like Saint Sebastian. He would ravish her and cut
her throat at the moment of climax.
Orwells Vincent Smith overcame his temporary madness. But in real life, especially in
lands exposed to long periods of actual violence, many would be incapable of resisting
the lure of blood-lust. And who can be more accessible targets than children?
In 2011, the Family Health Bureau warned that 10% to 14% of underage girls in Sri
Lanka are sexually abused annually and around 7% get pregnant at a very young age.
The youngest reported victim of child rape was just four months old. In 2012, the GA of
Jaffna warned that there are about 600 child abuse cases annually. and claimed
this immoral culture was not there before the conflict or during the conflict period, but
has emerged after the conflict[xii]. Both warnings went unheeded, except for an
attempt by the Rajapaksa government to introduce a rape-marriage law! Had those
warnings being heeded by government, politicians and society, the horrendous gang
rape and murder of Vithya Sivaloganathan may have been prevented.
When Ms. Vithya failed to come home from school, her family sought police
assistance. The police was dismissive, alleging that the young girl would have eloped.
Eventually the police took down the complaint but did not search for the missing
student. Ms. Vithyas tortured body was discovered by her brother. Her killers, in the
guise of saddened neighbours, attended her funeral.
The execrable indifference of the police to Ms. Vithyas fate, the inexplicable escape
from police custody by one of the suspects (a Lankan Tamil domiciled in Switzerland)
and the resultant fear that the alleged criminals would evade justice caused a mini-riot
in Jaffna. Mob violence should not be excused or tolerated; but the best way to
prevent such outbreaks is to fix the justice system and prove to ordinary people
everywhere that crimes will not go unpunished.

Though former president Rajapaksa and his cohorts rushed to use the mini-riot in
Jaffna to their political advantage, their howls about resurgent-Tigers did not resonate
with the Southern public. Perhaps an absolute majority of Sinhalese, reading about
Ms. Vithyas final horror-filled hours, forgot ethnicity/religion and reacted like parents,
siblings and human beings. By going to Jaffna to meet with Ms. Vithyas mother,
President Sirisena gave expression to this sense of human empathy and solidarity. It
was a praiseworthy gesture (one his predecessor would never have made) but much
more will have to be done if Sri Lanka is to become a safe place for her children and
for her restored democracy.
We, Lankans of every ethnicity, creed and none, are survivors of a three-decade war
and two armed insurgencies. Death and destruction, hate and fear have been an
integral part of our existence for so long. The Rajapkasas did nothing to alleviate this
condition because it was to their advantage. President Sirisena and his government
have much to do, starting with the psychological demilitarisation of society. But that
work can succeed only if we, Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, realise the insalubrious
state of our collective psyche. Without critical intelligence and rationality, without an
acceptance of our common humanity, we are more likely to embrace violent and
superstitious solutions and fall prey to politicians whose path to power lies through
inflaming the worst phobias and manias skulking in society and within each one of us.
I
[i] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/09/us-usa-florida-climatechangeidUSKBN0M51P520150309
[ii] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/11/miami-drowning-climate-changedeniers-sea-levels-rising
[iii] http://saudiwoman.me/2013/01/31/rest-in-peace-lama/
[iv] http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudi-preacher-gets-light-sentence-forkilling-daughter-1.1141045
http://quemas2.mamaslatinas.com/in_the_news/110232/saudi_preacher_rapes_kills_5
yearold
[v]http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/02/14/saudi_women_fight_for_justice_for_5yearold_girl_
allegedly_beaten_raped_by_father.html

[vi] http://saudiwoman.me/2014/07/07/saudis-reaction-to-waleed-abulkhairs-fifteenyear-sentence/ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30744693

[vii] http://www.gossiplankanews.com/2015/06/unfortunate-death-of-youth-atmawanella.html#more
[viii] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-childrendenounce_n_324943.html
[ix] Auden We too had known Golden Hours

[x] The Power of Myth

[xi] quoted in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of the Crowds
Charles Mackay
[xii] The Sunday Times 25.3.2012
Posted by Thavam