DHAMMA AS THE HEALER'S DRUMBEAT

"Northern children keen to learn the Dhamma" was the cheery news that no doubt snuck itself typically to our inside pages yesterday, as such news often is wont to do. Truly a wonder to behold, this trend, considering that not so long ago the terrain referred to was home to the most beastly deeds and mind boggling atrocities. Spiritual pursuits or religious contemplation were as rare as Pirith in the middle of a battlefield. Religion was a dead letter, with the angel of death in the form of one Velupillai Prabhakaran hovering over the populous. Worst, the LTTE described Buddhism as the religion of the 'majority Sinhalese' only, never mind that The Buddha was an Indian whose message was universal -- or the many commonalities between Buddhism and Hinduism. The Tamils were thus isolated from all of Sri Lanka, not only on the basis of race, but also of religion.

A Dhamma school for Northern children is therefore a little bit of 'Nirvana for the North', and such experiments are a means of healing the spiritual scars of the people of the province who were desolate both morally and spiritually for over three decades. Those involved in this religious awakening in a once spiritually barren outpost should be availed of the largesse of Buddhist philanthropists. The Jaffna Naga Viharaya which is conducting the Dhamma school project, has sought donations and other assistance from the majority community for expansion, sustenance and improvement. This is the best way - remember -- to keep Northern youth away from guns and Molotov cocktails.

But more importantly, Dhamma schools should germinate a larger national effort toward national reconciliation. The seeds of religion planted in a community that was misled and brainwashed into demonizing the Sinhalese and the majority religion, would spawn a culture of co-existence that no NGO men with their scholarly treatises can replicate.

It is in this regard that the efforts of those responsible for starting the Nandarama Tamil Dhamma school should be commended, not the least because five years ago it was impossible to think of anything remotely akin to their effort. Our report states that the fledgling Dhamma school in Jaffna begun under the auspices of the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress and other well wishers is drawing a large number of Tamil youth, keen on acquiring more than a nodding acquaintance with the Dhamma. This is in the opposite direction to the blood spattered route taken by the Tamil youth in the not too distant past.

It is a sea change in the already fast developing Northern landscape where the region's inhabitants, particularly the youth, offered the space for spiritual development, are undergoing a transformative experience. The Dhamma school should also achieve the bonus result of dispelling myths and fallacies propagated against Buddhism, by the LTTE and the Tamil diaspora.

A more broad-based programme spearheaded by the State to hearken the teaching of the Dhamma in the North must be undertaken in earnest in the wake of this nascent project. There is no doubt that the accent laid on the spiritual could have healing prowess between communities that no Commissions Report could possibly recommend or envisage -- and there is no better place to foster this force, than a locale that had exclusively experienced bitterness and isolation for many decades. The Dhamma school project could and should be given a shot in the arm by further by visits to the North of leading Buddhist clergy, and inter-religious groups.

Inter religious harmony and goodwill among the many faiths is almost an existential need in the post war Northern Province. The underlying theme of such an exercise should be the end to all acrimony through the harmonizing influence of religion, though that sentiment may sound so preachy as to be regarded with some cynicism. Steering youth on the righteous path could be, after all, something that is not confined to Commission Report recommendation or policymakers wish. Provided, what is said to be the most exciting new religion among the educated in the Americas for instance - Buddhism -- is taken to by our own Northern youth in the spirit of modernity, as opposed to that of regressive decadence, that was the signature of the LTTE's call to arms.