POLITICAL MENAGERIE BEYOND MANGALA’S KEN

The Cardinal who so courageously and assiduously stepped in and averted a bloodbath following the Easter Sunday carnage, and who was put high upon a pedestal, has suddenly developed feet of clay and crashed from the pedestal! Mangala Samaraweera has taken it upon himself to forget what the Cardinal did and write against him to the Reverend Father in Rome stating the Cardinal was creating communal unrest because he visited a fasting Buddhist monk demanding the resignations of one minister and two governors – all Muslims! It would be best for the country if Mangala went back to his dress-designing and the catwalk because the political menagerie and its boardwalk are definitely beyond his ken! Mangala is existing in a permanent state of contradiction, first about the country not being Sinhala Buddhist and his repetitious discrediting of Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and Ven. Athureliya Rathana Thera, he seems to be fostering hatred and showing he is hell-bent to discredit Buddhists! Some time back, Mangala claimed drug lords and kingpins were the Lion, Rotarian and Buddhist Associations! Contradicting this statement the subsequent day, he said the very statement was incorrect; which left the Buddhist Association leaders wide open as the drug lords and kingpins! And he wonders why he isn’t welcome to Buddhist temples – sad! Is Mangala displaying the compassion, tolerance and peace Lord Buddha preached when he continues to insult the clergy, both Christian and Buddhist? Of course he is! He says:

“I am a devout Buddhist, not because I say so, but because I believe in the tenets of Buddhism and the teachings of Lord Buddha. I believe that when our Constitution calls upon our country to ‘give Buddhism the foremost place’ and to ‘foster the Buddha Sasana,’ it means defending the values Lord Buddha preached, such as compassion, tolerance and peace.” What an upright, outstanding Buddhist citizen we have here! Perhaps, this is why the Sangha Sabhas in Gampaha and Matara declared him ‘not welcome!’