Sri Lanka’s Authoritarian Drift And Pakistan’s Shameful Lankan Affair
By Reema Omer -September 10, 2013 |
Reema Omer
In a meeting with External Affairs Minister G. L. Peiris last week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his admiration for Sri Lanka’s “unremitting endeavors for promoting economic independence, human dignity and social justice for the people of Sri Lanka.” He pledged Pakistan’s support for Sri Lanka’s ongoing struggle to evade accountability and justice in the United Nations, and warmly accepted President Rajapaksa’s invitation to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, scheduled to take place in Colombo in November this year.
Sri Lanka’s authoritarian drift
Prime Minister Sharif’s statements starkly clashed with the assessment, a few days later, of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Navi Pillay, who finished her official visit to Sri Lanka on 31 August 2013. The High Commissioner noted that “the war may have ended, but in the meantime democracy has been undermined and the rule of law eroded.”
She expressed concern that despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a vibrant, representative State, Sri Lanka “is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction.”
Sri Lanka’s Muslims: The End Of The Road
By Ameer Ali -September 10, 2013
Dr. Ameer Ali
Sri Lanka’s Muslims are at an unprecedented and ominous crossroads. The community there is faced with an existential threat at the hands of an increasingly militant Buddhist minority, while the nation’s Muslim parliamentarians appear to be more powerless and mute than at any time since 1947. This impotence is startling because the current parliament holds the largest number of Muslim cabinet ministers and deputies (four in each category, respectively) in history, although the number of Muslim representatives in the legislature, eighteen in total, is slightly fewer than in 1989 or 1994. In the face of increasing violence against Muslim businesses, mosques, madrassas, and lives, allegedly by Bodu Bala Sena (BBS)–a fascist outfit of the militant Buddhist political organization, Jatika Hela Urumaya (JHU), which is, like the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a coalition partner in the Rajapaksa Government–the abject silence and weakness of these parliamentarians is difficult to comprehend.
How and why has Muslim politics descended to this level of ineptitude? And to what extent has the Muslim community of Sri Lanka enabled this impotent political leadership? When a few individuals from the most wealthy and prestigious Muslim families in Colombo entered politics in British Ceylon at the end of the nineteenth century, they were marked by rare leadership qualities like: honesty, integrity, courage, and dedication to service. They maintained these qualities even when confronted with an adversarial legislative, executive and judicial environment. They were, in short, bona fide statesmen. The four Muslim nominees to the then Legislative Council appointed between 1889 and 1912, M.C. Abdul Rahman, A.M. Sheriff, W.M. Abdul Rahman, and N.H.M. Abdu Cader, belonged to this esteemed elite (Cader M.L.A, 1999, pp.1 & 148). Dedicated politicians of this ilk, motivated by a kind of noblesse oblige and nurtured in the Muslim aristocracy, continued to serve the Muslim community even after independence. Names of leaders like Razik Fareed, T.B. Jaya, and Badiuddin Mahmud are still popularly remembered with great love and respect.
Although wealth and family background by themselves may count little toward successful leadership, in the past they provided a firmer substrate for the development of other necessary traits, such as: honesty, integrity, courage, and commitment, characteristics that were essential for politicians and social activists to serve effectively and maintain public legitimacy. Tragically, too many of the current crop of Sri Lankan Muslim leaders seems to suffer from a serious deficit in these areas. This does not mean that even if the community were to replace them with better quality substitutes the outcome would be vastly different. The political trajectory that the Muslim elite has chosen to lead the community may have reached a dead end.
