Ethnoreligious Nationalism & The Crisis Of Muslim Leadership

By Salithamby Abdul Rauff –February 5, 2016 

Dr. Salithamby Abdul Rauff

Ultra ethno-religious nationalism, government ignorance and betrayal of own leadership disturb the existence of Muslims in Sri Lanka

The Muslim ethnic minority of Sri Lanka has been facing an existential threat today that the community has ever encountered in recent times. The history points to that Muslim community of the country has been sporadically vulnerably targeted by recurrently surfacing ultra ethno-religious nationalism (whether Sinhala-Buddhist one incubated by those in political power or Tamil one actively practiced by Tamil militancy (LTTE) at the time of armed conflict in the country), ignored by governments and equally betrayed by their political leadership also when the leadership prioritised filling its own pockets and stomachs with perks and posts from successive governments at the expense of its people’s interests.

In 1987, when India’s and Sri Lanka’s governments signed an Indo-Lanka accord to settle Sri Lanka’s prolonged ethnic question, Muslims the second largest ethnic minority in the country after Tamils were systematically ignored by Sri Lanka’s government in the accord submerging their existence, aspirations, interests and problems under the guise of Tamil-speaking people. When Muslim community went to their political leaders for this injustice, leaders of the time were unreasonably muted.

In 1990s, when ultra Tamil nationalism pursued with Kalashnikovs by Tamil Tigers in the north and east carried out an ethnic cleansing against Muslim community forcibly expelling tens of thousands of Muslims from the north despite the north being Muslims’ traditional homeland too, when the same Tamil nationalism massacred Muslims in the east at homes, mosques, rice fields and markets, the government of Sri Lanka simply disregarded its inherent obligation of protecting these innocent Muslims from these painful events. The response of Muslim political leaders to this vulnerability against their own community was nothing but some senseless rhetoric.

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