Instead of Killing Akon

All this talk of killing Akon makes me want to yawn in spite of myself. I’ve heard too many people wanting to kill other people mouthing off. Killing people may not be the answer. But then that depends on what the question is.

If Akon is waging a war against Buddhism through a sustained campaign fuelled by malice or simply because he hates saffron, the Dalai Lama etc then yeah, maybe you need to kill him. Cos that’s what opponents do in a war if peace talks fail. But then peace talks are mostly just a farce and most wars end by means of arm twisting. Nvm.

But Akon, as far as i know, does not fund a full-scale military/propagandist offensive against the religion of Buddhism. All accusations these kill Akon groups level against him centre around a Buddha statue used in a video of his. Now i understand how that can be offensive; to have a couple of scantily clad ‘ho’s’ dancing around something you consider to be sacred, and if someone did that in a mosque I’d be pretty pissed off too.

But going berserk on the news that he is to perform in Sri Lanka and threatening to kill the guy is not going to help anyone. Least of all the Sri Lankans. Right until I heard about this insulting Buddhism angle, I was under the belief that it was only the metal heads who intended on doing any killing. A friend suggested bombing the concert to get rid of ‘all the dumb people in Colombo’. Metal heads can sometimes suffer from superiority complexes.

Anyway if peace is the ethos of Buddhism, why not organize some peaceful non-testosterone driven demonstration or something to show Akon that Buddhists won’t take the way he used a statue of the Buddha in his video sitting down? That should serve the purpose of making the man realize that he is hurting feelings and that he should stop yeah?

I know I know, not very glorious no. And not very bloody. And a bit boring as well. But it might be just the solution they’re seeking. Someone said that the recent attack on Sirasa TV was motivated by anti-Akon sentiment. Some people say all this has subversive political intonations, but I promised my mother I wouldn’t write politics for a while so I will refrain from speculating on that angle.

It’s sad to see these elements use the name of Buddhism to achieve their own ends though. And its sadder to see people who call themselves Buddhists following them. I’ll be going to see Akon if I get my hands on a ticket insha Allah. I’ll probably even be waving my lighter to ‘Mr. Lonely’.

• Akon
• Buddhism
• Sri Lanka