By Kiribanda De Silva Sumanasekara – 

Dear Mr. President Obama

I am writing you before the Ides of March!!

I am a Sinhala Buddhist from Sri Lanka and I want to be blunt right at the outset: You are an idiot!

Who are you to impose sanctions against the greatest country in the world? Who are you to pass any resolutions against us? You are an idiot. Let me tell you why.

Ours is the greatest country in the world. This is known as Dharmadeepa- the island of righteousness. This land has 2500 years of written history. That history is a history of non-violence because there were Buddhist monks all along advising our kings on non-violence. Yes. We did have some wars in the past. But they were merely to protect non-violence.  I know that you know some English even though you are African. So read Mahawansa in English. Even at the war against the foreign king Elara only one and half human beings were killed in our country. All others had not entered the Path and, therefore, they were not human beings. How many times do we have to tell you that human beings have to be Sinhala Buddhists?

Mr. Obama you are an idiot. You are going to work against us because of that shitty Channel 4 thing. It was made in an NGO studio in Colombo. There are some Sinhala traitors in Colombo. That Channel 4 thing is their handiwork. It is something like Wag the Dog the Hollywood movie. Not that I am into Hollywood. In our country no one watches Hollywood crap because our people are Buddhist and they know that Hollywood is there to instigate desire in human beings. With our Buddhist upbringing, we can resist Hollywood with no problem. But I have heard of Wag the Dog, and channel4 is exactly like that.

Speaking of Hollywood, the audio-visual wing of American imperialism, has totally failed in Sri Lanka. Our government has not banned Hollywood stuff. In fact they are available everywhere in the country. But people don’t give a damn about them because our people are Buddhists. Since our honorable monks have trained our people in the practice of non-attachment and so on the people treat “Desire” as the main enemy. So Hollywood is a total failure in Sri Lanka. Mr. Obama, be honest, that is why you are against us.

An American consumerism! Another failure in Sri Lanka. With our Buddhist upbringing we normally don’t indulge in gratification of senses. We don’t like owning desirable objects. And, moreover, we are non-violent and against any form of killing. That is why your car culture is a total failure here. We only trust in economical public transport and bicycles. Come and see any town in Sinhala Buddhist areas, you will see pure simplicity. And McDonalds, Pizza Hut, KFC!! They couldn’t sell a single meal in our country. No. Our government did not prevent them from coming in. They all tried to start business here. But Sinhala Buddhist would not go to them. There are some non-Buddhists and non-Sinhalese eating at them. But the Buddhists! No way!! That is how our Buddhism has trained us in non-attachment, non-violence and simplicity.  As Buddhists we have successfully resisted consumerism, capitalism and even Western modernity.  As our greatest living thinker Professor Nalin de Silva have elaborately expounded in his weekly treatises in Sinhala paper Irida Divina and English paper The Island, Sinhala Buddhism is only real challenge to Western modernity and Judaic-Christian thought. Be honest man, that is why you are against us.

By the way get your Embassy in Colombo collect Nalin de Silva treatises. Are you puzzled by his name? No he is not Portuguese. He is using that name to mock you Westerners since you don’t accept any great idea unless it is put forward by a Western White man. Our great thinker, de Silva, argued in Divina several times that we need to arm ourselves to go to war with America if needed. He is right. You know what. We are ready. Bring it on. By resisting Hollywood, consumerism, Google, and the like we have won the cultural war against the imperialism of your country. With the same spiritual power, we can beat you in the war. Bodu Bala Sena, led by a giant-like monk, is getting ready for that. By the way, having seen that extremely honorable monk’s photos you would think that, in the amount of flesh in his body, he equals a typical American in size. I have heard thus (Evam me sutam): he got that kind of physique by the merits he gathered in his previous lives and this life. Though a heap of merits, he is no hurry to reach Nirvana. He will surely reach New York leading a battle ship, if you really insist. You are an idiot! Who is afraid of Geneva?

Your kind of embargos, resolutions will not obstruct our speedy flow to a great future. Our president is the most foresighted one in the human history. I cannot reveal you all the tricks he has against your idiotic embargos but I will tell you some so that you have time to rethink your plans. Economically, we are not scared at all. Our president has so much wealth and he is ready to sacrifice it all. He is coming from a very rich family with connection to royalty going to back at least 20 centuries. He has land everywhere in the country. In case of emergency he will sell them all to feed us, people. Once he became the president, he asked one of his brothers to get 10% from every development project, business and so on. The brother did exactly as he was told. Now, all that money is in a place you will never able to freeze.  That countless amount is called “Nation Saving Fund.” It is enough to feed us for decades in case of emergency. All ministers (about one hundred of them) also have used the same technique to contribute that Fund. Our first lady, too, has come out to help us along with her brothers and relatives. The Lady Fund, under able leadership of her brother, has raised so much money that it has already bought a whole fleet of airplanes in case your sanctions jeopardize our international travels. That is a bit on our economic front. You are an idiot!

One more thing, your country too has unwittingly contributed to our economic strength: When two of our president’s brothers were in America they made some dollars working as janitors, dishwashers, gas station attendants and so on while they were following higher degrees at Harvard and Columbia. When they returned to Sri Lanka in 2005 to help their brother to save the country, they brought those dollars with them. In case of economic sanctions against us, they have that money, too. You do not know what personal sacrifice is. Learn it from these exemplary brothers, you idiot.

If you were to go ahead with your plans in March, I am afraid; it will hurt American people very badly. I cannot imagine how they will live their life without the stuff we export. Without our fish, rice, butter, clarified butter, organic vegetables, oranges they will starve to the brink of death. Many other countries too will stop exporting those things to your country in support of mine. Without Ceylon tea in the morning, Americans will be sleepy all day. And it will affect their efficiency and productivity. Without the lingerie made in Sri Lanka, American love-life will be in danger. The voluptuous American Victorias will lose their sensual Secrets. (As Sinhala Buddhist I have been taught not to think of such worldly pleasures but I am telling these to get you to think.) The other side of the coin is equally important. If we stop importing American stuff! It will be a huge dent on American economy. This is only the suffering of American people. People in Europe! They practically live on the things we export and on the money we import from them. Mr. President, you are an idiot!

In the field of international relations, we are pretty much prepared. Our able Foreign minister, Professor GL Peris, has been traveling the world for months. He knows the art of persuasion. The leaders of many powerful countries, whose names I hold back for now, have agreed to support us because they all have learned international law from the books our professor has written. Yes. You just went to Harvard Law School. Our man is a law professor who has shelves of books to his credit. The professor gave up that illustrious career to help our president to build the country. Now, under the visionary leadership of the president’s elder son who is also lawyer, who has won historic courtroom battles, the Law Professor has already persuaded world leaders to vote against you. Mr. President, you are in idiot!

Mr. Obama, let me tell you one last thing. Sri Lanka is a universe in itself. We have all the knowledge, science, technologies that we need. Buddhism has given us all the wisdom we need and we have used that wisdom wisely. It is the Judaic- Christian thinking that teaches that human world is interconnected and we are inherently bound to the rest of the world. Our Sinhala Buddhist thought is radically different. We think that our country is a separate universe in the Universe and we are not all that concerned what is going on elsewhere. Therefore, we do not care where Geneva is. Whatever Geneva decides to do does not matter to us at all. With our great mental concentration and meditative power we can always hold the Evils of Geneva at bay.

Since we are a universe unto ourselves, we do not need any knowledge from anywhere else. We have more than a dozen of great universities producing all the knowledge we need. And those universities function very well under the guidance of one of the greatest statesmen named SB Dissanayake and his buddies, incredibly wise vice-chancellors.  All those vice chancellors have created the knowledge needed for the universe named Sri Lanka. If you want just check out their publication records in university websites. Minister SB Dissanayake and our president, with great effort, persuaded them to stop their knowledge-production for a few years and to accept vice chancellor jobs in order to strengthen ‘our knowledge front.’ Now, we do not have to borrow any form of knowledge from the rest of the world, specially from the West. University of Kelaniya is ground breaking in that sense since even God Natha is working with the scientists there. God Natha descended from heaven at the invitation of the great sage Nalin de Silva. Mr. President Obama, you always boast your great universities. Look at our ones. Specially look at our vice chancellors! Real men of real wisdom! You idiot, we are ready in our knowledge front too.

Dear Mr. President Obama, I can go on like this for ever. But I guess this is enough for you to make up your mind. I can tell you all crimes your country committed in Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and so on.  For one thing, since we are a universe unto ourselves those things do not matter to us. Another thing is that I have seen our great orator minister Wimal Weerawansha is telling all that to our people in Sinhala so that our people know the truth.

Mr. President you are an idiot. If you are plotting to take our president, his brothers and sons to a certain electric chair, you are mistaken. There are plenty of others to step into the shoes of those brave brothers. Take extremely wise minister Champika Ranawaka, for example. I have heard that he is ready to form a kind of coalition and become the president if the royal family is trouble. Even Mr. Weerawansha can be the president of our beautiful country. There are some other names and I will tell you about them in a personal letter. This is an open letter.

I am a Sinhala Buddhist and I hate American imperialism. Yet I love American people. That is why I am writing this letter so that I can prevent those nice people from suffering as a result of your stupid acts in Geneva in March. Even though I write this by my own name this letter represents the collective self of good many Sinhala Buddhists of my country.

Yours sincerely

Kiribanda De Silva Sumanasekara

PS

Several of Buddhist chairmen of Local Councils (Pradeshiya Sabha) send their greetings to your wife and daughters, specially to the daughters.