Nalin Swaris

[Ed. Note: The article below is primarily based on two recent events in Sri Lanka. The first narrative is based on the detention of a poor woman shortly before Christmas. The second story relates to the massacre of young Tamils in Bindunuwewa in October and the country's ongoing civil war.]

I Was in Prison and You Did Not Visit Me

This is a true story about a poor
working woman who is named after the mother of Jesus. It took place in the season when Christians throughout the world were preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It is in the light of the life that Jesus of Nazareth lived, what he did and taught, but above all the circumstances that led to his terrible death on the cross that his birth takes on historical significance.

The Last Judgement (Matt. 25:31ff)

In the period in which Jesus was born, Jewish society was bristling with rebellion and charged with messianic expectations. The Jews believed that their God would soon send down a liberator from heaven to defeat their enemies and raise them to their rightful place as the people chosen by God to be at the head of all the nations of the earth. This hoped-for liberator was called the Messiah. The advent of the Messiah, the Jews believed, would be preceded by a cataclysmic end of the world after which the Messiah would arrive to judge the good and the evil. The Jews, as the Chosen People, were absolutely certain that they would be on the right side because they worshipped the true God and had kept faith in him.

Jesus took the popular belief about a Last Judgement and vested it with radically new content and thereby overturned the values of conventional religiosity. The Last Judgement will, indeed, take place, he said. The Son of Man will separate the good and the wicked, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will then invite the good as ones blessed by God to take as their heritage the kingdom prepared for them since the founding of the world. He will then turn to the wicked and banish them as accursed people to the eternal fires of hell. What is interesting is the criterion that Jesus uses to separate the just and the unjust. Remarkably, he excludes external observances of religion as the decisive criterion. The wicked are condemned to hell for failing to do what those who were blessed by God had done: 'Depart from me you cursed into the fires of hell, for I was hungry, and you did not feed me. I was thirsty, and you did not give me drink. I was naked, and you did not clothe me. I was sick, and you did not come to see me. I was in prison, and you did not visit me.' The condemned ask, 'Lord, when did we see you suffer these hardships and fail to come to your help?' The Son of Man replies: 'I tell you, whatever you failed to do to the least of my brethren, you failed to do to me. So depart from me, and go to your eternal punishment.' Visiting the imprisoned is thus one of the standards by which a Christian will be judged.

What is extraordinary is that the just did not know that when they helped a person in distress they were helping Jesus. It was a spontaneous welling up of metta-karuna (loving kindness and compassion) that impelled them to relieve suffering whenever and wherever they saw it. No religious affiliation, social class or ethnicity is mentioned as a criterion for being justified before GodÐjust the quality of a person's heart and humanity.

Mary, the Name of Jesus' Mother

To return to the poor woman who is named after the mother of Jesus, she comes once every two weeks to wash and iron my clothes for which I pay her a full-day's wage. She has lived her life in the shadow of her parish church. For about 15 years, she has been hand washing and ironing the cassocks, clothes and bed linen of the priests of this church. Her two daughters were baptised in this church, and her youngest daughter teaches catechism to children in Sinhala every Sunday.

About 8:30 on the morning of Dec. 4, I received a telephone call from this woman. She was in a state of great distress. In words broken by sobs, she told me, 'Help me, mahattaya (sir), I have nowhere to go. Our eldest daughter was taken away by the police last night. She was kept the whole night in the station. We stayed on the roadside till 2 o'clock in the morning. We were threatened by the police and asked to go home and return in the morning. When we did, our daughter told us she had been severely beaten.'

The complaint was that the young woman had stolen a pure gold designer watch worth five lakhs (US,046). The young woman of 25 had been working for a young, wealthy Roman Catholic couple as a day cleaner. In a choked voice, the mother told me, 'Last night, when she was taken away, I rushed to Father X and pleaded with him to go to the police station and ask the police to treat her well.'

The priest had already been appraised of the alleged theft by his wealthy friends. He also knew the poor distraught woman well. He had baptised and given the first communion to the girl held by the police, but he told her, 'There is little I can do for you. Get hold of a lawyer, and go back to the police station.'

The poor woman replied, 'Swami (Father), how can I find a lawyer at this time of the night? Can't you help?'

The priest refused.

The next morning when her daughter told her that three policemen had beaten her she went back to the priest and asked him to go to the station and inquire about her daughter. The priest refused to do so and again told the desperate mother to find a lawyer and go to the station. It is then, in a last desperate bid, that she decided to call me.

Divine Rites and Human Rights in
Sri Lanka Today

I called the Institute of Human Rights and asked for a lawyer that a friend had recommended. Fortunately, he was present, and he immediately agreed to act on the matter. By the time I went to the police station, he had already arrived. I was faced with a difficult situation. How could I provide some sort of comfort and a sense of security to the girl and her parents?

There is a convent of nuns adjoining the church where our man of God has been a parish priest for several years. I went there and asked the nuns if they could go and visit the girl. They proved to be true ministering angels. They immediately agreed to go and visit the young woman who is well known to both priest and nun alike in this parish. I also spoke to a priest serving in this parish. Though recuperating from a debilitating illness, he promptly got on his scooter and came to see the girl in custody and spoke to the police officers about his concern for her welfare. The obscure meaning of priestly ritual was revealed in reality.

The One Sent by God

When the nuns came out of the police station, they told me, 'This child is frightened to death. Can't we go and see Father X and ask him to speak to the rich matron? She is a great benefactor and a dear friend of father.'

I did not know the priest's address, but the nuns said they would direct me to the place. To my amazement, it was about a mile away and down a lane on the same main road as the police stationÐa five-minute drive by car. The place is at the end of the lane in a pleasant and secluded spot. There this priest, who heads a non-governmental welfare organisation, has built a cosy little cottage for himselfÐ generous donations, of course.

The nuns stated the purpose of their visit and pleaded that he speak to his dear friend the rich matron and ask her to tell the police not to harm the girl in their custody, that this was not their intention when they reported her as a suspect to the police. The priest declined to do so and asked the nuns to go visit the lady if they were that concerned.

Realising that this would be a fruitless exercise, I dropped the nuns off at the convent and returned to the police station where I kept watch with the parents and other friends and relatives from the shantytown.

The Man Beaten Up and Left Half Dead (Luke 10:25ff)

That afternoon I was standing with my back to the road in front of the police station with the family and neighbours of the detained woman. It must have been around 5:30 p.m. when the people told me, 'There, there, swami yanawa (the priest is going).'

They pointed to a double-cab going past the police station on the opposite side of the road. When I asked, 'Kohede yanne (Where are you going)?' the people said, 'He is going to say evening mass in the small church up the road.'

'Do you realise,' I said, 'that this is exactly what happened in the Gospel?'

Jesus taught a new law, which would supersede the Mosaic Law: 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.'

Peeved by his insolence, the Pharisees, led by a lawyer, asked him the cynical question: 'Who is my neighbour?'

The question was essentially self-centred. They wanted Jesus to give them a legal definition, which would, in turn, delimit the extent of their obligation. Is 'neighbour' those who live in my immediate neighbourhoodÐpeople of my own religion, race or kinship group?

Jesus, seeing through their casuistry, decided to tell a story instead. A certain man (no race, no religion) was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He fell into the hands of bandits who 'stripped him, beat him and made off leaving him half dead.' Then, says Jesus, a priest and a Levite (a member of the Jewish priestly tribe) came by; and when they saw the wounded man, they passed by on the other side.

Then, in a devastating blow to the false religiosity of these pious men, Jesus said, 'A Samaritan came along, and seeing the wounded man, was moved with compassion when he saw him. He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He took him to an inn and looked after him. The next day he took out two denarii and handed them to the innkeeper and said, 'Look after him; and on my way back, I will make good on any extra expense you have.'

Turning to his questioners, Jesus then asked: 'Which of these do you think proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the bandits' hands?'

The legalist replied, 'The one who showed pity towards him.'

Jesus said to them, 'Go, and do the same yourself.'

Jesus tells the true believers that a pagan had understood the great commandment of love better than the priests and acolytes of their religion. The 'neighbour' is whoever is in need, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, class or caste.
Christians and Crimes against Humanity

The central symbol of Christianity is the figure of a tortured man. Jesus was arrested on trumped-up charges. The high priests had accused him of claiming to be the king of the Jews to the Roman authorities and that he was plotting a popular insurrection against Roman rule. Jesus was taken from one court to another, flogged till his body was covered with open wounds. His jailers spat on his face and beat him with their fists. A crown made of thorns was hammered into his head to mock his alleged claim to be a king. He was then nailed to a cross and left to die in agony. Crucifixion is one of the most perverse forms of torturing a person to death that has been invented by human malice.

The United Nations has declared that torture is a crime against humanity. Beating up a suspect to extract a confession is torture. Christians, more than members of other religious persuasions, must have an almost instinctive revulsion for this crime and must be spurred into action against it because the founder of their religion was the victim of a gross violation of human rights. There are laws concerning arrest and detention in Sri Lanka. The law lays down how a person should be arrested and where he or she can be detained. The letter of the law provides security for those held in custody by the State. However, the word custody takes on a perverse significance if it becomes an opportunity to torture, even kill, detainees. The shame of Bindunuwewa hangs like a dark cloud over Sri Lanka. This is a repeat of the atrocities of July 1983 when goons entered the maximum security ward of Welikada jail and bludgeoned Tamil detainees to death on two occasions. The perpetrators have not been found and charged. The affair has been forgotten.

Remember and Do Not Forget

The aim of the ruling classes of all societies is to rewrite history and make the people forget the crimes committed against them, to erase their memories. Drug them into forgetfulness and they will become submissive sheep is their belief and strategy. However, whenever Christians recite their creed, they repeat, '. . . suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.' Lest the world forget the terrible crime that would be committed against him, Jesus left behind a commemorative rite and urged his disciples to re-celebrate it, saying, 'Do this in memory of me.' In other words, do not forget the injustice that is about to be perpetratedÐremember, make sure such things do not happen again. Every Sunday Christians are reminded of a heinous crime against humanity. It is seared into their memory by the creed they recite, but ritual repetition tends to dull the edge of awareness.

Christmas has meaning because of the life, death and, as Christians believe, Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Symbolically, the open grave asserts: You cannot kill the human spirit. You cannot seal the truth in a tomb or nail love to a cross. In the end, truth, justice and love will prevail. This is what the expected Second Coming of Christ is about. For Christians, Christmas is both recollection and expectation.

The Prince of Peace

On the night that Jesus was born in a cattle shed, we are told that a host of angels appeared in the heavens and sang, 'Peace on earth to people of good will.' He was seen as the Prince of Peace spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.

A merciless war rages on in the North and the East of Sri Lanka. On both sides of the conflict, it is the sons and daughters of the poor who are its combatants and its victims. The poor in our shantytowns and remote villages are also victims of daily exploitation and harassment. They are crushed by the weight of the ever-soaring cost of living. Their so-called political representatives live off the fat of the land and allocate for themselves luxuries which even the ambassadors of the countries that give us aid would be too embarrassed to flaunt. The poor, the weak and the powerless are the voiceless ones. No one hears them, even when they scream in pain.

As the well-to-do plunge into an orgy of revelry, carolling, gorging themselves and burning millions of rupees in firework displays, deadly firecrackers will continue to kill and maim people in a war that people have suppressed from their consciousness. But it is there in the war-torn lands, away from the holy and unholy places of the city, that the real Christ event is taking place. In this region of death, more than a million displaced and forgotten peopleÐSinhala, Tamil and MuslimÐlive in fear and deprivation. There, in miserable hovels, exposed to the elements, like Mary the mother of Jesus, displaced mothers give birth to their children and wrap them up in rags. As on the first Christmas, those who are wise enough will, like the three kings, see the star shining over these hovels which are worse than cattle sheds. Through the conditions into which he was born and by the choice of his parents, the Son of God revealed that he makes a preferential option for the poor. The Holy Night was not a silent night. It thundered a message which the world has found convenient to ignore. The world, however, continues to worship its real God in cathedrals of consumerism.