Political & Religious Leadership Crisis Of Muslims
Latheef Farook
The island’s Muslim community is passing through its worst ever political and religious leadership crisis which placed the community in a precariously helpless situation while burning issues await urgent solution. The tragedy is that this happens at a time when so many hostile forces, both local and foreign, are openly and secretly working against Muslims.
Ever since the evolution of political reforms in the 1930s Muslim leaders who were respected by all worked for the community and won their rights while maintaining the goodwill of the majority community. The situation began to change drastically after the independence in 1948 due to rising racist politics.
The vote catching strategy of promoting majority community interest began by the United National Party continued later by the Sri Lanka Freedom party despite its devastating overall impact on the country.
However Muslim leadership was represented in both parties. As a result despite rising chauvinism, Muslim leaders managed to contain the hatred towards the community though there were sporadic anti Muslim attacks.
However the disaster came when late President J.R. Jayewardene dismissed the UNP Muslims stating that “if they want they can stay or they can leave the government” when the Muslims opposed his move to bring Israelis to deal with growing Tamil militancy.
Read More
Read More
