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
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, June 1, 2017
Should Religion Dictate our Life?
The colonized world for generations was reduced to search for their identity because the soft power of the West, after the period of colonization was over, and even now many of the colonies have split personality.
( May 29, 2017, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) Often
storm of debates take place, particularly when political leaders in
positions of authority visit other countries, whether the country’s
national interest has been upheld or sacrificed during the leader’s
visit, in talks with the host political leaders and agreements signed
with the host country. Such debates used to take place in developing
countries with weak institutions where the government could be
destabilized or overthrown by extra-constitutional forces.
But these days’ debates on safeguarding the national interest are also
taking place in developed economies with old democracies in which a
section of the people feel threatened that their identity is being lost
by large scale immigration of people from other countries.
Analyzing the emergence of identity crisis in the nation states of
Europe and North America John Rex (University of Warwick) observed
“Faced with increasing immigration of culturally relatively alien
minorities and with absorption into a larger European entity, French
social scientists asked two questions: ‘Do the new identities presented
by immigrants challenge French national identity?’ and ‘Will the new
immigrants, through their trans-national organizations, seek to deal
directly with supra-national organizations, undermining the sovereignty
of the French state?”
The recent Presidential elections held in France ultra-right candidate
Marine le Penn asked for a ban on immigration from basically Muslim
countries who, she argued, was diluting French identity though Muslims
over 18 years old represent 6% of the population and voting population
would be far less. Luckily for the French, Europe and the world Marine
le Pen lost the elections to Emmanuel Macron who is pro-Europe and
believes that immigration is good for France.
In the United Kingdom Brexit has become a fact of life though pending
the negotiations with EU the actual results of the divorce from the
European Union remain to be seen. Though Scotland and Northern Ireland
had voted to remain with the EU England largely voted to opt out because
they felt that the English are losing their jobs to the immigrants and
culturally, the Muslims in particular, were vastly different from the
mainstream Britons.
In Holland anti-immigration party lost out to Prime Minister Mark Rutte
who is pro-Europe and Centre-Right in his policies while in Germany
Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to win the coming elections. Yet
only a few years back Angela Merkel like Giscard D’Estaing of France and
Berlusconi of Italy had lost hope in multiculturalism because of the
refusal of the immigrants to be totally assimilated with the mainstream
population of the host country.
Little attention was given to the legitimate grievances of the
immigrants of discrimination faced by them in every sphere of life. The
majority population had forgotten that the immigrants were invited by
the host country to help rebuild the war ravaged economies of Europe and
that the second and third generation immigrants had rarely visited the
country their forefathers had come from. These generations of immigrants
were born and brought up in their “host” countries which legally and
effectively were their own country. This sense of deprivation has been
used by the recruiters of ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
One, however, must be clear in his mind that no argument of deprivation
can justify the brutalities perpetrated by the terrorists the most
recent being the massacre at Manchester where 22 people, mostly
teenagers and children were killed by the suicide bomber who allegedly
was a recruit of ISIS.
The question that arises is whether sense of deprivation alone can lead a
suicide bomber to kill so many innocent people who have nothing to do
with the “deprivation”? Or can one look for another reason, for example,
the perceived threat to the terrorists’ religion by the dominant
religion and consequent loss of identity. But then this fear of losing
identity and to try to take a people to the sixth century is a denial of
modernism and progress that defines the improvement of living
conditions through scientific innovations coupled with establishment of
law and order in the society.
The developed West not only beat the East in developing science and
technology but also in establishing law and order that ensured freedom
for all people in a particular defined area. One, however, should not
gloss over the period of colonization by the West through force of arms
and consequent transfer of riches from the colonies to the metropolis.
History of colonization has been brutal exploitation by the West of the
colonies defies description. Slave trade from Africa to North America
has been one of the facets of colonialism.
The colonized world for generations was reduced to search for their
identity because the soft power of the West, after the period of
colonization was over, and even now many of the colonies have split
personality. Some in the developing world still try to ape the Western
way of life leaving their own culture and tradition ignorant of
centuries old wisdom handed down to them. It is not being suggested that
everything western is to be avoided. Far from it the developing world
has benefitted immensely by the innovations and technological progress
of the developed economies. These days to the western academic
institutions droves of students go every year for higher education.
China, for example, is reported to have the largest number of Chinese
students nearly a quarter million in the American universities. There is
the constant argument of brain drain from developing to the developed
world. But this appears to be a tenuous argument for preventing bright
boys and girls from going to the western institutions of learning.
So we are faced with a disconnect between those who would like to go to
the western schools and colleges for higher studies and a small group of
people who in the name of maintaining “purity of religion” would become
terrorists and commit unspeakable atrocities. The downside of brutality
practiced by ISIS and al-Qaeda variety of terrorists has produced
influential intellectuals like Samuel Huntington, Bernard Lewis,
Christopher Caldwell, to name a few, who have injected in the minds of
powerful people and ordinary westerners the vitriolic propaganda that
“danger is Islam, the villains are Muslim immigrants, the terrain is the
West, and the outcome is certain defeat for European culture—unless the
tide of Muslim immigration, which threatens to become a tsunami, can be
stemmed” as Bruce Lawrence of Duke University has written in his
critique of Caldwell’s book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe:
Immigration, Islam, and the West.
It has now dawned to people including President Donald Trump that
military solution cannot solve the great divide between the developed
and developing countries as the divide will not disappear within
different social strata in the same country. Very recently Donald Trump
speaking to the assembly of Muslim leaders on his first visit to Saudi
Arabia as President urged them to destroy “violent extremism” from their
midst and indeed from the face of the earth. Eric Trager in an opinion
column in Daily News on 21 May pointed out that President Trump did not
link violent extremism to “colonialism that denied rights and
opportunities to many Muslims,” or to the “Cold War in which
Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies,” or to
“modernity and globalization” that “led many Muslims to view the West as
hostile to the traditions of Islam,” as Obama did in his 2009 Cairo
address. Nor did Trump link terrorism to the absence of democracy or
freedom within the Muslim world, as former President George W. Bush did
repeatedly in the years that followed 9/11.
Indeed, Trump’s speech did not include the words “freedom” or
“democracy” anywhere. Such reticence was logical as the venue of his
speech was in an autocratic kingdom where women still are denied many of
their fundamental rights and rulers are not democratically chosen but
are the sons of King Abdul Aziz, the founder of al-Saud dynasty. Besides
there is democracy regression in many Muslim countries.
But of the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
majority of the Muslims live under some kind of democratic rule. But the
Muslims are put in the dock again and again for the terrorism committed
by a handful of renegades who have declared war in the name of Islam on
the rest of the world including the Islamic countries who they think
have been weaned away from the “true spirit” of Islam. Consequently more
Muslims have been killed by these terrorists than non-Muslims.
The point being made is not a comparative value of the life of a Muslim
with that of a non-Muslim because any life lost to terrorism is far too
many. And hence ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram or any terrorist have to be
eliminated. But the war against terrorism will not be won even if the
terrorist strongholds are eliminated. Because the suicide bomber who
killed dozens of people in Manchester was British born of Libyan origin.
It is quite possible that when ISIS and the others lose control of
their territory their adherents may return to their countries with
training and expertise to create havoc in their host countries which are
mostly in the West. To deny them such opportunities they have to be
denied entry into their countries of birth. Whether such denial of entry
based on suspicion will be legal remains to be seen.
Donald Trump tried to ban entry of Muslims through executive orders but
failed to convince the American courts of the legality of the executive
orders. Intelligence and law enforcing agencies have to be more
intrusive into the suspected circles of terrorists so that acts of
terrorism can be unearthed before such acts are committed. One, however,
has to be cautious that in the zeal to fight Islamist Extremism the
Muslim Diaspora in the West do not feel further alienation and
marginalized in their countries of birth.
Contrary to common belief fundamentalism does lie in Islam alone. Walter
Russell Mead of the US Council of Foreign Relations (God’s
country—Foreign Affairs—September/October 2006) has described the US,
the only super power in the world today, as a nation where religion
shapes its character, helps form America’s ideas about the world, and
influences ways Americans respond to events beyond its shores. Russell
Meade is not far off from the observation of Alexis de Tocqville who was
struck by the religious aspect of the country on his arrival in the
United States in the 19th century. Contrary to his experience in France
Tocqville found in America spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom
marching together in unison and not in conflict. He wrote in Democracy
in America “Religion in America … must be regarded as the foremost of
the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a
taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it”.
The first amendment to the US Constitution prohibited the government
from making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding
the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech,
infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to
peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental
redress of grievances.
As Western societies developed and became more tolerant of the views of
others the separation of the church and the state became more
pronounced. German philosopher Jorgen Habbermas thinks that the current
state of the world as passing to a post-secular state, a period in which
modernity is perceived as failing and at times morally unsuccessful
leading to a state of peaceful coexistence between spheres of faith and
reason. In Europe and in the US to a lesser degree (before the election
of Donald Trump) religion is now playing an important role in politics
and immigration is now being used as a popular tool by the legislators.
In the Indian subcontinent religion is the raison d’ĂȘtre in Pakistan
while in India Muslim community feel persecuted and discriminated
against. For India where the Muslim population is estimated to be 170
million and Christian population is about 28 million (2011 figures)
governmental rules disfavoring infraction of Hindu rites (accounting for
80% of the population) in the social life of followers of other
religions may be politically sound for the Hindu belt but in the long
run may give rise to feeling of subordination in the minds of followers
of other religions.
Unfortunately it has become increasingly undeniable that religion now
plays a significant role in the socio-economic and political life of the
people of the world. Aberrant groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda and
inter-sectarian Shia and Sunni conflicts among Muslims have found
breeding grounds due to inter-faith intolerance in many parts of the
world. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the political leaders holding
positions of power to encourage their followers and detractors alike to
consider religion as a personal matter and not to let religion dictate
peoples’ day to day life. At the same time global war against ISIS and
terrorists of al-Qaeda variety should be fought on all fronts till they
are totally eliminated.
The writer is a former Secretary and Ambassador of Bangladesh.