Looking Beyond: Muslim ‘Accountability’, Govt’s Culpability & Geopolitics

By Mohamed Harees –MAY 7, 2019

Lukman Harees

Among the most positive developments, worthy of admiration, in the aftermath of this despicable tragedy, are the level of maturity of our people, timely interventions by the authorities to maintain peace, as well as the exemplary leadership provided by Rev. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith. They contributed significantly towards averting a major bloodbath as well as maintaining law and order. However, what is most disconcerting has been the sensationalism by some sections of the Media, as well as hate peddling promoted by political and social media warriors, to rekindle racist fires designed to re-create communal tensions and disturbances targeting the Muslims. This is a time where those affected by this unspeakable catastrophe needs consolation and support to overcome this unbearable trauma and therefore adding fuel to fire by these irresponsible elements will have explosive consequences. It is also a fact that the whole Muslim community too, has been going through the most stressful and the most challenging period in their known history, feeling ashamed, enraged and bewildered due to the vile actions of this fringe radical extremist terror group arising from among their ranks. It is therefore imperative that  Muslims should not be seen as part of the problem; rather as part of the solution to overcome this national tragedy. Taking them into confidence is a sine-qua-non in this context.

Even the fiercest of critics admit that the fringe group is only a minuscule decimal percentage among the Muslim community and already the community has realized the need to eliminate this cancer in the best interests of both theirs as well as the nation. To the Muslims, this radicalized group have brought shame on them and their religion and have polluted their credible track record of over 1000 years. No one therefore feel much more compelled to root out this menace than the mainstream Muslims themselves- hitherto a blind spot for them. Already they have started their mission which is well reflected in the level of roundups and detections. Even the bodies of those involved in this gravest crimes were not allowed into their graveyard. Further, the community also fell in line with any national imperatives including the ban on full face cover. What beggars belief however is, how the many leads and prior information given to the government and its’ intelligence agencies by some sections of the Muslim community and the ACJU about this violence prone NTJ group from time to time, were not taken seriously, which ultimately led to this avoidable tragedy. 

In this context, the Muslims of Sri Lanka should not be made to fall into the same fate as their co-religionists in the US as it happened after 09/11.There are some clear concerns. Firstly, there is media terrorism where many conspiracy theories about Muslims are being published without any verification, specially Sinhala media outlets such as Hiru and Derana, and even newspapers too. There is also no rationale for TV media teams to accompany the security forces on their combing out operations. There are many instances where TV outlets have been showing, the privacy of homes without any restrictions including those taken in and later released without charges, portraying them as culprits. Secondly, there seems to be lack of religious and cultural sensitivity on the part of the Police and armed forces when they were seen to enter places of worship for example not removing the shoes when entering the mosques, and dealing with the holy books, as well as for privacy when entering houses. Besides, there have been several reported arbitrary arrests too and lawyers are refusing to appear out of fear. Thirdly, it was a fact, that the Muslims during earlier communal violence in Aluthgama and Digana, were initially disarmed and under the cover of curfew, goons were allowed to attack the un-armed Muslims at will when the armed forces were watching. They perceive that this ‘disarming operation of individuals possessing minor weapons of self defence’ being only limited to Muslims ( I am not referring to large hauls of weapons found) has a similar devious plan in mind. Poratota incident is a case in point. Security forces should have this perception cleared and all individuals irrespective of nationality should be disarmed. Thus, failure to exercise caution and reassure Muslims or adopt double standards, will result in innocent Muslims becoming losing faith in the system who may then be targets of radical recruiters. These challenges were seen during Tiger time too, in winning the confidence of the community and it is foolhardy to ignore those lessons learnt. 

There are also calls for the Muslim community to assume collective guilt. These type of calls are usually heard, even in other parts of the world, whenever a racist, terror group or a terrorist with a Muslim name commits mass murder or a massacre. On the contrary, it is not the case, when a white supremacist commits a similar crime, most likely he will be called a psychopath or a lone wolfer. If an entire group is asked to assume collective blame for the actions of individuals, it makes it totally reasonable to exact revenge from any person from that group, and thus it will put all of them at risk . Further, calling for Muslims to assume collective guilt or shaming them will provoke defensiveness, not understanding. What is important for the people and the security forces to realize is that the mainstream Muslims are on the same page as the rest of the population when it comes to fighting this common evil of radicalism and terrorism. They should be viewed as equal partners in fighting this menace without the whole community being shown the red card. In fact, Muslims have been the biggest victims of the menace of Al Qaida and ISIS inspired terrorism. To them, religion of their victims is immaterial.  

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