The religious extremism and social harmony in Sri Lanka: a critical view

Abstract

The concept of social harmony is a paradox which is gaining more importance in post-war Sri Lanka. Though Social Harmony is used to referring to ideas about living in harmony in general, there are differences between various groups. However, numerous efforts have been undertaken to bring consideration regarding social harmony in post-war Sri Lanka. But achieving it still remains challenging. Religious extremism is considered as one of the major factors that influences social harmony. This has made the view of social harmony in Sri Lanka a complex and challenging one. Therefore, this study aims to examine the implications and challenges of religious extremism in the social harmony in postwar Sri Lanka. This study is conducted mainly based on the secondary data and carried out through the interpretative analysis method. Specifically, 30 of the literature were used for this study to attempt to investigate the growing religious extremist activities and their impacts on social harmony. According to the findings it was revealed that the activities of Buddhist extremism have intensified in post-war Sri Lanka. On the other hand, a very few groups were motivated to involve in Islamic extremist activities. The study also reveals that this situation undermines the trust, tolerance, and goodwill found among the Sri Lankan communities and poses a great challenge to social harmony between the communities.