Rajapaksa’s Olcott Buddhist Card
The world before it being discovered, the individual societies across the globe lived a life, free of aggression and occupation by others. Every society that lived had it’s Rulers either Monarchies or Tribal Leaders to fend and protect their subjects. Once the world was discovered there started Trade and Colonization of the weaker by the stronger. Wars have been waged between countries for supremacy, dominance or Religious reasons. Thereafter the Monarchies have been replaced by elected bodies to govern with the birth of Democracy, while some countries opted for systems of Communism and Socialism as opposed to the former.
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott
The present day America is one country that have been plundered from it’s original inhabitants by all those invaders who Colonized countries across the globe then and their progeny that constitute the majority of it’s citizenry. Hence modern America, boasts of a History of a little over two hundred years, while today the US has become the major supper power after the collapse of the USSR. The US today acts as the self appointed Guardian and Policeman to foster a form of Democracy they believe is right to suit their agendas, ably assisted by their allies with no other country standing up to it openly. The US virtually dominates the whole world. Although the US professes to safe guard Human Rights, Democratic Freedoms including Media freedom in all countries especially of those under the UN charter, they are absolutely silent when these very basic norms are violated by their brief carriers whom they have helped to elect to govern, as ours. On the one hand they allow Journalists and those who dissent to be killed by their brief carriers and offer Asylum to others to show how magnanimous they are and their Democracy is.
Fear And The Predicament Facing Muslims
Ahilan Kadirgamar
A Muslim lecturer friend some time ago described a troubling moment. The incident took place when he pulled into the parking lot of a supermarket with his wife few weeks ago. As they got out of the car, a group of men standing by first stared at his wife, who was wearing a headscarf, and then looked intently at him. In a split second, his day was disturbed; he reflected on this moment for quite some time. Was this a harmless gaze or did it reflect a change in attitude towards Muslims? My friend described his own reaction to that momentary stare as one that brought on fear. What did he fear? And why?
The Muslim community is in a state of fear in Sri Lanka. That is what many Muslim intellectuals, activists and community leaders have been saying in recent months at various forums. Do they fear the fringe groups mobilising Sinhala Buddhist nationalism against the Muslim community? Or is it the reception of anti-Muslim rhetoric by broader sections of the Sinhala community? Or is this fear rooted in the support given to such extreme forces by the ruling regime? Or is it fear of the Sri Lankan state itself, responsible for the security of its Muslim citizenry? Indeed, fear is characteristic of modern state and society. But the form that fear takes differs at different historical moments and in different societies and communities.
A few months ago, I wrote an article titled “The Political Economy of Anti-Muslim Attacks”. There, I discussed the broad reception of the anti-Muslim hate campaign within the Sinhala community and its relationship to the economic changes taking place in Sri Lanka. I concluded by mentioning the need to rethink concepts such as the state, religion and politics, as well as the importance of reflecting on questions of fear and insecurity facing communities and their implications for relations between communities. In response to my article, at a conference, a Marxist feminist critiqued what she felt was a reductive analysis of social disaffection on my part. She argued that such political economic analysis of social disaffection also makes claims about people’s affection towards both the economy and the state. She went on to argue, that classes are not just formed, but also formulated through narratives which are predicated on the nation and produced in part by the state. Acknowledging her critique and building on it, I find questions about fear to be inextricably linked to analysis of the state. In this article, I will engage the politics of fear in the Muslim community and articulate the need to build bridges between communities through dialogue and dissent. Read More
