From The Safest To An Insecure Sri Lanka For Muslims – III
Dr. Ameer Ali
Whatever happens to them, the Muslims of Sri Lanka, like the Sinhalese, are here to stay, and they, like the Sinhalese, have nowhere else to go. It is malicious to spread the canard that just because Muslims follow Islam they can migrate to Arabia. It is also a myth believed by some Muslims that if anything untoward happens to them the world of Islam will come to their aid. Those who have some inkling of understanding of how the world order works will realise the absurdity behind these beliefs. The global aspirations of so-called Brotherhood of Islam has never overtaken sectional aspirations of nation states. Every community in Sri Lanka therefore, has to confront and solve its problems with its counterparts by working within the national framework, and no foreign power or its agency is going to intervene to solve for them. This is one bitter lesson that the Tamil community must have learnt after the civil war, and a lesson that others cannot ignore. The country belongs not to any one community but to all communities inhabit there.
The civil war it faced was an unnecessary and a costly political tsunami driven by ego. It only showed that the political system the country inherited from the British failed to produce statesman when it needed one, but instead allowed self-centred and megalomaniacs to take the country along a blind alley. The current wave of violence against Muslims reinforces my belief that the country needs a systemic change to get out of its ethnic quagmire. Former president JR and leaders who followed him wanted to transform Sri Lanka into another Singapore without realising that Singapore achieved its growth and prosperity on the solid foundation of ethnic harmony. Lee Kwan Yew, with a technocratic cabinet and an iron fist, kept the Chinese chauvinism at bay when it clamoured for Chinese to be the official language. Where is the leader in Sri Lanka who can provide this foundation?
The recurring anti-Muslim violence from a short term perspective is a law and order problem but from a long term perspective is a symptom of political pathology. As a law and order issue the solution is simple. Take immediate action whenever and wherever violence breaks out. It was the government’s delayed action that allowed the incident at Digana to snowball. In this era of instant communication technology lack of information to act upon is no excuse. This only allows one to suspect that the delay was deliberate. Such delayed action is not new. SWRD did that in 1957 and JR did it in 1983. Time in their hands became a political weapon. Related to this is the role of funeral marches. It was the funeral marches in 1957 and 1983 that triggered widespread violence against the Tamils. Needless to say that it was also the long funeral march to Horogolla that swung peoples’ sympathy for Srimavo to become Prime Minister. Had the funeral march been stopped in Digana it would have at least reduced the severity of the mayhem. The political exploitation of funerals must be stopped.
However, these measures can only help prevent anti-Muslim violence from escalating. To stop them occurring at all the fundamental issues that I discussed in the earlier parts have to be tackled, both by the Muslim community as well as by others. Let me take the Muslim community first.
The progress of the Muslim community and its peaceful coexistence depends crucially on the quality of its political leadership. Any political leadership of any community for that matter should be one that must be unreservedly patriotic to start with and should staunchly believe that the advancement of its community is not possible unless the country advances. Without enlarging the size of the national cake, competing for larger pieces is an exercise in futility. On this score, the attitude and performance of the current Muslim leadership is shockingly disappointing. On national issues such as rising cost of living, mounting national debt, depleting natural resources, privatization of education and healthcare, role of foreign capital and so on, has any Muslim parliamentarian made any positive contribution to the national debate? True, Muslim community has a number of grievances, but should that be the only concern of their representatives in the national legislature? Shouldn’t they care about the nation as a whole? By concentrating solely on their own community’s problems, the leadership becomes parochial and inward looking. The importance of the national outlook and patriotic commitment cannot and should not be underestimated because, it is that which is ultimately going to create the image that Muslims are not simply in Sri Lanka but of Sri Lanka. It was the absence of that national concern among Muslim leaders, which once prompted late Colvin R. De Silva to remark that Muslims in Sri Lanka are “like the cow and the grass”.
This is why I said in part II, that the formation of SLMC was a historic blunder. It worsened the community’s image in the country not only by isolating the Muslims politically, but also and more dangerously, by promoting communal parochialism at the expense of nationalism. Had Muslim political leadership, even before SLMC was born, been more nationalistic and inclusive in outlook, they would have been the bridge builders between the Sinhalese and Tamils. SLMC in particular, accentuated ethno-nationalism. What have the SLMC leaders achieved so far except ministerial positions to accumulate wealth for themselves and their cronies? Does it have an economic policy? The long-term solution to the current crisis demands that the community produces a political leadership that is patriotic, intellectual, honest and inclusive.
