A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Saturday, May 13, 2017
Is there an Islamophobic hate campaign in Sri Lanka? — Part 2
The Tamil dimension of the attacks requires careful analysis. The attacks have been predominantly, almost exclusively, by persons using nom de plumes that declared a Tamil identity.
This is a very wicked animal. / It defends itself when attacked. – La Fontaine
( May 13, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There
was of course an Islamophobic hate campaign, that of the BBS, under the
last Government, but is there one now? The BBS campaign subsided after
the present Government came to power, but the BBS itself has not been
dismantled, it is dormant and can be reactivated to hot things up
against the Muslims. In the meanwhile forces other than the BBS could be
engaged in an Islamophobic hate campaign. Many Muslims, including this
writer, are convinced that such a campaign has been going on, but
according to reactions provoked by this writer’s recent articles many
non-Muslims discount that.
The question is of national importance, not of importance to the Muslim
minority alone. Before explaining the reasons for that the writer will
pose another question: Was the last Government unique in the way it
behaved towards the BBS? It was widely believed that the BBS had massive
foreign funding, supposedly from Norwegian Christian fundamentalist
groups. There were other indications that the BBS had an international
dimension. Wirathu the Myanmar monk, who was internationally notorious
after figuring on the front cover of Time magazine as the world’s worst
racist hate monger, came to Sri Lanka as the honoured guest of the BBS.
It was known that the Wirathu gang backed genocide against the Rohingya
Muslim minority, which has brought for Myanmar world-wide contempt. It
was noted that the T-shirts worn by anti-Muslim demonstrators in Myanmar
and Sri Lanka were identical, except that the logos were different. We
now have the anonymous Backlash declaring his dog-like devotion to
apartheid Israel and writing that Israel backed the BBS, and actually
justifying that as a riposte to Muslim anti-Israeli demos in Colombo.
There is reason to believe that the reactions of the last Government to
the BBS was unique, unparalleled by anything comparable in the wide wide
world. Usually Governments attach great importance to forging a sense
of national unity and will counter hate campaigns against any of its
minorities, unless it has very special reasons for encouraging that. In
this case the Muslims have been pre-eminently a loyal minority, siding
steadfastly with the Sinhalese against the Tamils over the separatist
problem. The remittances made by our maids working in the Middle East
are crucially important for the Sri Lankan economy. The Islamic world
has been steadfastly supportive of Sri Lanka at the UNHRC and other
fora. Pakistan’s weapons support preventing a catastrophic debacle at
Elephant Pass in 2000 was of crucial importance. In the context set out
in the preceding sentences, any Government trying to forge some sense of
national unity would have tried to sort out the problems between the
majority and such a minority. Furthermore all Governments are fiercely
resistant to foreign interference in their internal affairs, and usually
would not tolerate foreign-backed hate campaigns against any of its
minorities. There was no doubt about foreign backing for the BBS.
How exactly did the last Government react to the BBS hate campaign? Some
very powerful personages in that Government were seen as obviously
supportive of the BBS and the Government as a whole acquiesced. It
refused to take legal action against the BBS leaders, in effect placing
them above the law. That failure to counter the BBS, which is quite
possibly unique in the world, seems to betoken something deeply
defective about Sri Lankan nationalism. The writer has in mind not just
the divisions between the Sinhalese and the minorities, not just the
divisions of caste and religion among the Sinhalese, but a deep
divisiveness among the Sinhalese that militates against the national
interest to a serious extent. For instance, every attempt at a solution
of the ethnic problem has been aborted by the Opposition, even if the
solution was advocated by the Opposition itself while it was in the
Government. This writer might seem to be ignoring the powerful
nationalism manifested in the military victory against the LTTE. The
truth is that the Rajapakse Government, just like its predecessors,
swallowed the myth of the LTTE’s military invincibility and fought the
war to a conclusion only or mainly because the closure of the Marvilaru
anicut left it with no alternative.
Anyway, whatever might be the reasons, there has been a failure to build
an inclusive nation in Sri Lanka, in fact to forge any sense of
national unity, which was seen clearly in the failure to stop the BBS
hate campaign. The failure to forge even a modicum of national unity
could have adverse, even lethal, consequences in the future. In the new
geopolitical configuration in South Asia, with a heavy Chinese presence,
India could conceivably come to want to impose a Cyprus-style
“solution” to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. That is only a very
remote contingency, but we should never lose sight of it.
Another possibility is that the lack of a sense of national unity could
lead to a loss of independence in all but name. Sri Lankans, just like
the rest of humanity, want a better life, a better material life which
requires economic development at a fast pace. That means that some
inescapable facts have to be faced. It is a fact that Tamil Nadu and
other Dravidian states are among the dynamic performers of India, and
that means that our economic development can be greatly facilitated by
linkages with those states. But fears will arise, among the Sinhalese
and also among the Muslims, that those close linkages will lead to
dominance by India, and a virtual loss of independence might ensue. Why?
The underlying reason is the total absence of a sense of national unity
in Sri Lanka. After all, most Sri Lankans believe that a substantial
proportion of our politicians can be bought and sold like potatoes. A
house divided cannot stand.
The above are, surely, powerful arguments to persuade the Government to
take counter-action against the Islamophobic hate campaign that has been
going on. But what evidence is there to show that there is such a
campaign after the subsidence of the BBS? Part of the evidence is to be
found, persuasively enough, in the attacks against this writer provoked
by his articles in the Colombo Telegraph, attacks which have been going
on for years. It was manifest that the attacks had two objectives: one
was to stop this writer being published and the other was to spread
Islamophobic hatred.
The Tamil dimension of the attacks requires careful analysis. The
attacks have been predominantly, almost exclusively, by persons using
nom de plumes that declared a Tamil identity. But how are Tamil
interests served by their attacks? Certainly, as a result of the war
there has been an increase, a steep increase, in anti-Muslim sentiment
among the Tamils, but such Tamils are most certainly in a minority.
Besides, the Tamil leaders of today are moderate, pragmatic, experienced
men who can be expected to understand that no purpose useful for the
Tamils will be promoted by fomenting Islamophobic hatred. They would
certainly want a coming together of Tamils and Muslims on the basis of a
commonality of interest as minorities.
The cases of the two Tamils, Backlash and Kettikaran, who have been
persistently attacking this writer over the years, can be very
instructive. They regard this writer as an abysmally low fellow, and his
articles as not much better than verbal excrement, yet they read him
week after week, month after month, and year after year, experiencing
disgust, hatred, rage, to which they give frequent expression. But they
have not been able to stop this writer being published: now four editors
are publishing him every week. So, what purpose and whose purpose are
they serving? Kettikaran gave a clear indication some time ago that he
is the servitor of a fundamentalist Christian group, and Backlash that
he is the servitor of the Zionists.
Even a cursory reading of the comments in the Colombo Telegraph provoked
by this writer’s recent articles will show that a high intensity
Islamophobic hate campaign is going on in Sri Lanka. A new propagandist,
Lester, writes the prose of an educated man but what he writes is
uneducated drivel: there is no such thing as an Arab civilisation
because there is something primitive in the Arabs that makes them
incapable of civilisation, and so on. The attacks against this writer
can be best understood in terms of a world-wide Islamophobic hate
campaign that is being promoted by fundamentalist Christian groups and
the Zionists. The Government should look into the charges made in this
article.