Buddhist Monk dies. Riots ensue.

Yes, it’s a clear exaggeration of the situation. Maybe. Or maybe not.

A Buddhist monk did die, that much is true. He died about a week ago in Russia and hasn’t been buried yet. Apparently, he was a rather important monk. Involved in politics from behind the scenes. I don’t know the full details, I only know what Fahim has told me. It sounds as though there are people who are questioning whether he was murdered or not, and there are those who are seeing conspiracies everywhere, and there’s been talk that tomorrow, he may be buried, and tomorrow, there may be riots.

Burn all the Christians!!!

Well, I don’t remember all of what Fahim said, but something to do with him meeting with Russians who were Christians, so of course it must be the Christians who killed him. Well, well, well. And it just kinda keeps going from there.

Whatever.

We’ll see what actually happens.

But Fahim also mentioned that it could mean a forced holiday. No shops or anything want to be open when there’s rioting. Can’t say I blame them.

Later . . .

Well, I got a phone call from Marlene at 10:30pm. This is surprising since she knows we go to bed early, like around 9 pm. She called because a message has been passed around to all the members of our district that we should not leave our houses tomorrow. It isn’t safe.

Some churches on the island have already been burned, apparently. The churches were Christian and belonged to those who practice faith healing, have charismatic leaders, and actively seek to convert others to their faith.

Our church here has a policy – the missionaries can’t teach anyone about our beliefs unless that person expressly asks to be taught. Will this be enough to protect our churches and our people?

The missionaries are forbidden to leave their houses until this is over.

And Marlene heard that the embassies are warning people not to leave their homes. Gee, where was my phone call? And yes, I am registered with the Canadian High Commission.

The monk who died is not against Christianity, but against conversions to Christianity. Fine line, I know. Apparently, some women who are poor and have no means of support have converted to Christianity in order to marry men who can support them.

Is that enough of a reason to be against conversions in totality? Let one or two bad reasons spoil it for everyone else? What about those who genuinely believe in Christianity? Remove their rights?

Anyway, the Buddhist monk’s funeral is to be held tomorrow followed by a cremation at around noon or so.

If there are questions about his cause of death, why cremate him so soon? Why not bring in a team of independent pathologists to determine cause of death? Fahim’s response was that no one would believe that the pathologists were independent. If one was Christian, it would be obvious where his bias is. Same if the pathologist was Muslim. Can’t trust anybody. No one’s word is good.

The existing report indicating cause of death has been reported as "possibly changing". Huh? What? In what way?

There’s a whole bunch of paranoid people here. It doesn’t help that this is a very corrupt country.

In talking to Fahim about this, he mentioned that the last time there was wide spread rioting was back in 1983 and it was between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. He said it got really ugly and people were confronted on the street and had to prove whether they were Tamil or Sinhalese.

Here’s the thing – there’s no visual difference between those of Tamil versus Sinhalese descent.

So people would have to recite prayers or something in the appropriate religion. Under threat. Just to prove they weren’t Tamil.

That rioting was island wide. He said everything was shut down for a week or so – schools, all forms of transportation, everything.

Since then, there have been occasional riots, but usually limited to one small area.

This time? No one knows. No one will know until it’s well under way.

Anyway, I know my thoughts are not entirely coherent on this. It’s kinda hard to be coherent on a topic like this when I don’t understand entirely what’s going on. I get bits and pieces from different sources.

Author: LMAshton
Howdy! I'm a beginner artist, hobbyist photographer, kitchen witch, wanderer by nature, and hermit introvert. This is my blog feed. You can find my fediverse posts at https://a.farook.org/Laurie.

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