Mr. President, Its outright Racism.
Featured image courtesy Yahoo News
- - on 03/09/2016
President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decade long era of governance saw unprecedented racism and hate against the minority communities in Sri Lanka. The Bodu Bala Sena and other Buddhist extremist groups were blamed for this bigotry. It is a well-known fact that the regime change in January 2015 was mainly due to the minority communities voting en-bloc against the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, which brought in the common candidate Maithripala Sirisena to the executive Presidency. This inconceivable feat would go down in Sri Lankan history as a silent revolution that sent a war-winning popular President out of office. He had the mass backing of the majority Buddhist community, but lost the approval of the minorities because of his tacit support and impunity that his administration offered the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and other extremist Buddhist groups to intimidate and attack the Muslim and evangelical Christian communities. While blaming the BBS for his defeat, the ex-President has now started talking in conciliatory terms to the minorities in his ‘come-back’ attempt. Now President Sirisena’s Secretary’s call for explanation on the introduction of Sharia Banking based on a complaint by the Bodu Bala Sena smells of the continuation of an extreme racist agenda that could reignite ethnic tensions.
The Bodu Bala Sena failed miserably in their electoral foray when they contested the 2016 General Elections as the Buddhist People’s Front (Bodu Jana Peramuna) in 16 electoral districts. They received a mere 20,377 island wide votes, when eleven million six hundred and eighty four thousand and ninety eight (11,684,098) Sri Lankans voted during the August 2016 elections. This is simple evidence that the absolute majority of Sinhala Buddhists are not racist. A disgraceful electoral performance by any count for a party that claimed that it could topple governments.
Media reports indicate that President Sirisena’s Additional Secretary, S. T. Kodikara, in a letter addressed to the Secretary to the Ministry of National Policy and Economic Affairs M. I. M. Rafeek has called for an explanation within two weeks on whether Sharia banking practice is being introduced to the country by following the respective laws and regulations of Sri Lanka. Incidentally, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe holds the National Policy and Economic Affairs portfolio. This comes amongst rumors that the cash starved Maithri-Ranil government would have a billion dollars in investment from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis will not invest if it is not Sharia compliant.
