The Persecution Of Muslims In Sri Lanka And The Indifference Of Muslim MPs

By Aboobacker Rameez -July 27, 2013 

Rameez Aboobacker

The Persecution of Muslims in Sri Lanka and the indifference of Muslim MPs and Ministers

The LTTE was fiercely decimated purely because they forcefully expelled the Muslims from the Northern province at gunpoint, and abruptly put an end to the call for prayers ( Athan), thereby closing the mosques in the province.  As such, let those who attempt to close mosques currently in Southern Sri Lanka be decimated in the same way and I am sure that they will also face the consequences sooner or later. I deliver this speech today in this parliament, while fasting, during our sacred month of Ramazan in the strong hope that my plea will be answered by the Almighty Allah. The world knows what is happening to minority Muslims in this country and to their places of worship. I fervently request our brothers living here in Sri Lanka and abroad to pray (Duas) to Allah in this holy month of Ramazan against those who draw up a cunning plan to suppress and oppress Muslims and their mosques in this country. (The Speech delivered by MP. Hunaiz Farook in Parliament yesterday-26/07/2013)

This speech is a genuine reflection of the emotions and grief in the minds of any Muslim in the country, against the backdrop of them continuously being targeted by the ethno-religious fascist Buddhist forces likeBBS and SR, obviously stirred by the government. The recent months have seen that a large number of Muslim MPs and local government members, both government and opposition, choose to remain silent in the parliament or local government bodies against the stridently venomous persecution of Muslims across the country. The rapidly growing aggression against Muslims in the country requires our representatives in the government to raise their concern in parliaments and other forums. I began to worry that they are more concerned with protecting their own perks and privileges, rather than protecting the legitimate concerns of the people who elect these representatives. I was eagerly yearning for a day to witness someone in parliament representing the Muslims, standing up for the rights of the Muslim community, but my expectation resulted in utter vain and was really sickening. No representative in the parliament or local government bodies vehemently criticized the continuous persecution of Muslims or at least attempted to cross over to the opposition to show his or her condemnation against the unfair practices of the ruling government, if they had an iota of self-respect and prestige.

Gehanu Gathiya And Pirimikama: Desegregated Gender Relations In Rural Sri Lanka

By Arjuna Seneviratne -July 28, 2013 

Arjuna Seneviratne

Over the last nine years, as a facilitator, activist and developer working with rural communities in Sri Lanka on systemic environment management, agriculture, fisheries, rural climate response, rural disaster prep and mitigation, aid effectiveness and development sustainability through civil, government, private, media, academic organizations and  trade unions, I had, for quite some time, been looking for a rather elusive link. As each year slid into the next, I began to feel the same type of frustration as scientists searching for the missing link between man and African tree frogs whose DNA apparently most closely resemble ours. I also began to lose hope. Until that is, I realized I was searching for the wrong thing in the wrong place.

This particular Dodo I was after is so deeply entrenched as being real in the minds of people that its existence has almost been taken for granted. It’s called masculinity and femininity and their classic associative links to males and females respectively. You see, a whole barrel load of development paraphernalia from funds to expertise to beneficiaries to goals are supposed to even out real or imagined disparities and inequalities and equip human beings to acquit themselves equitably. One of the more vociferously articulated differences was supposed to be those between men and women with women generally assumed to be sitting on the lighter end of the balance due to the said associative links and the power dynamics that supposedly arise from it with men snarling and drooling like tigers over women who were cowering and whimpering like rabbits beneath them.

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