Sri Lankan Muslims at the cross roads – 24
By Izeth Hussain-November 7, 2014, 6:15 pm 
I have sought an explanation for the anti-Muslim campaign, and I will now conclude this series of articles with some observations on the corrective action that might be taken over it. But first I must make a clarification of my metaphor of the cross roads. Traditionally our Muslims played a marginal role in politics, focusing on their religious and business interests, and their strategy was one of political quietism. That was appropriate in a period when the center of gravity of their interests was in religion and business. That situation changed radically with mass education of the Muslims leading to aspirations to upward mobility outside as well as within the field of business. The Muslim response to that change led to the formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress in the ‘eighties. It was a frank and realistic avowal of the importance that identitarian politics had come to assume in Sri Lanka.
