Cultural Deference, Community Survival

After the military defeat of the Tamil insurgency in Sri Lanka, nationalist sectors backed by Sinhala Buddhist ideology turned to religious minorities in search of new enemies of the State. These have included Muslims and Evangelical Christians who are described as foreign intruders that contaminate the traditions of the nation. Catholics have been spared of accusations of proselytism and the introduction of foreign cultures partly due to the Church leadership’s explicit stance against Evangelical missionary activities and its support of Sinhala nationalist discourse. Catholic communities of Sri Lanka thus find themselves in an ambiguous position: incorporated into the national citizenry, yet a visible minority anxious not to become marginalized like other religious minorities

Buddhism · Deference · Ethnology · History of religions · Ideology · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · South asia · Sri lanka · State (computer science · Tamil · Theology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies