[Buddha-l] FW: Sri Lanka monks form RSS-like group

[Christopher Fynn]

On 28/03/2013, Jo <ugg-5 at spro.net> wrote:
> Thanks for posting BBS's provisions. Very useful.
>
> (4) Government projects intended to reduce the Sri Lankan population must be
> stopped. Within a month closing the family planning units. Prohibiting
> sending women to the Middle East for slavery.
>
> According to what I have read, this BBS provision concerns the suspected
> habit of the Muslim population trying to outbreed/out-populate Sinhalese
> Buddhists.  My comment:
> I have no research evidence on whether this Muslim proclivity is factual in
> Sri Lanka.
> However, I DO know that the current brand of Islam being pushed world-wide,
> thanks to Saudi money in every country with Muslim populations --the Wahhabi
> sect of Islam---forbids using contraception and limiting fertility in any
> way. (Bangladesh is one of the countries that finally decided to fight
> this.) Muslim women are supposed to keep putting out kids until they either
> die, or go sterile.

The solution is to ensure that all Sri Lankan children, girls and
boys, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim, receive a good,
*secular*, education up to a minimum of higher secondary school.
Forbidding contraception amongst Buddhist women would clearly be a
completely retrogressive step. Ensuring that all girls (esp. Muslim
girls) receive a good education - and employment opportunities - would
surely keep family sizes down.

> As for prohibiting sending women to the ME:
> Sri Lanka is not the only country that has been allowing this practice.
> India and Nepal are big practitioners of allowing the shipping of
> poverty-level women for alleged jobs in the ME and Gulf states.

+ The Philippines and Indonesia

> They all
> know by now what happens to these women--they are physically maltreated,
> rarely receive their pay, are worked like slaves, trapped from fleeing home
> because their passports are lifted by the employers, and often they are
> raped and used for sex by male employers.
> I do know about this practice in the case of Nepal: The Nepali government
> knows very well what the future of these women is or can become. There are
> two main obstacles to enforcing any laws preventing this (IF there ARE any
> laws):
> a) poor women are easily lured by word of employment in the Gulf States,
> let's say, and they clamor to get passports and borrow heavily to go; b)
> touts/gangsters operate such employment programs, putting their victims in
> debt for the transportation, visas, and more. (b1) Such organized action is
> very often owned by rich moneybags in both Nepal and India--men with
> "connections"--thus the governments do nothing significant to stop it!!!
>
> Now I want to ask:
> Has Sri Lanka passed laws against this practice as yet? How will the BBS
> monks be able to get any enforcement of existing laws, or get laws passed,
> when they probably will need to go against the very moneybags who contribute
> generously to the sangha? Have they figured out how this trafficking of
> women operates in their country?  Are they blaming the Muslims for it? Do
> Sri Lankan Muslims have anything proven to do with this?


> (5)        Protecting Buddhist rights. Introducing one legal system for all
> Sri
> Lankans. (a) Dutch and English Law, (b) Tesavalame Law, and (3) Sharia Law.
>
> I personally support all efforts everywhere to maintain one legal system
> applicable to all citizens, of any country. Would this provision entail
> writing a new constitution for the country?  Such a constitution should
> protect all citizens' rights, not just Buddhist rights.
>
> I want to add, as one who has devoted a lot of study to aspects of
> contemporary political Islam, that in the past decade (if not more)
> Wahhabist/Salafist propaganda among Muslims pushing calls for adding shari'a
> to national legal systems has been going on. Has this been happening in Sri
> Lanka as well?
>
> Joanna