A monk’s rhetoric conflating missionaries with the LTTE redirected nationalist violence onto Christians.

Evidence

A telegenic and telefluent monk, Gangodawila Soma was partly responsible for the anti-Christian violence of 2003 and 2004. The monk, who harbored presidential ambitions, initially built a following by advising people on mundane matters but gradually took on controversial issues, including the ethnic conflict, supposedly pro-LTTE nongovernmental organizations, and unethical conversions. Gangodawila Soma repeatedly asserted that two types of terrorism confronted Sri Lanka: LTTE terrorism and missionary terrorism. In doing so, he resorted to chauvinistic rhetoric and made the missionaries look just as villainous as the LTTE. Not surprisingly, especially in the last year of his life, his fans began attacking Christian churches just as a previous generation had attacked Tamil homes and businesses. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 246

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s core question: manufactured enemy frames transferring from one out-group (Tamils) to another (Christians) once the original target becomes politically unpalatable, echoing Hall’s work on how moral panic labels migrate. — connects to: A popular monk’s rhetoric redirected community violence at new targets. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 246; Anti-Christian church attacks stem from nationalist ideology, not missionary activity — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 268; Sinhalese nationalist violence against Christians is opportunistic rather than primordial — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 245
• QUESTION: Was the shift from Tamil to Christian targets a substitution of manufactured enemies, or a distinct ideological animus? Worth probing whether anti-Christian violence fills the solidarity gap left by the Tamil peace process.

Broader Connections

• A popular monk’s rhetoric redirected community violence at new targets. #expands (0.85) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 246
• Anti-Christian church attacks stem from nationalist ideology, not missionary activity #contradicts (0.85) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 268
• Sinhalese nationalist violence against Christians is opportunistic rather than primordial #complicates (0.80) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 245