Simmering Mistrust In Tamil-Muslim Politics
By Ameer Ali –January 11, 2018
Since the first parliamentary elections in 1947 Tamil-Muslim political relations in Sri Lanka has been dominated by mutual mistrust. Even though the Chelvanakam’s Federal Party and Ponnampalam’s Ceylon Tamil Congress included the Muslims under the rubric Tamil-speaking people whenever they addressed public rallies, and similarly, even though Muslim political leaders talked tirelessly of the Tamil language and the proverbial ‘pittu and coconut” to underline the two communities’ inseparable coexistence, these were in reality utterances reiterated more for reasons of political correctness than out of any genuine concern for each other’s political, economic and cultural development and wellbeing. This historical fact cannot be glossed over any more and should be openly confronted, admitted and removed because Sri Lankan politics has reached such a critical juncture where particularly after 2009, majoritarian politics, consumed overwhelmingly by ethnic and religious chauvinism, has created an existential crisis to both minorities.
Past strategies of playing politics of opportunism on the part of Muslims and of separatism on the part of Tamils have passed their use by date, and new strategies have to be thought out for the two communities to live and prosper with equality and dignity in a globally connected but locally undivided Sri Lanka. One would have thought that after the end of the 25-year bloody civil war Colombo leadership would have come to its senses to sort out the minority issue quickly and seriously and avoid international agencies to intervene in a purely domestic matter. One would have also expected the two minority communities to have realised that their future survival, dignity and development cannot be achieved through mutual suspicion and mistrust but through unity built on frank admission of past mistakes, openness in dialogue and justice in objectives.
No doubt that a united plural Sri Lanka with all its naturally endowed and humanly created resources is a match to any country in the world. Yet and tragically, what has happened over the last nine years was deliberate procrastination by successive governments leading to further deterioration of national unity, increasing economic hardship to many and encroaching foreign influence in the country. The country has awfully mismanaged its plurality. The two contending political regimes of MR and MS leaderships at the moment have lost their political integrity and governing credibility, bankrupted their economic leadership and mortgaged the country’s sovereignty to regional foreign powers. Devoid of any policy substance they are left with only one issue to fight for power and that is Sinhala ethnic and Buddhist religious hegemony. It is this racist evangelism that poses a danger to the minorities. Like the Congress and BJP in neighbouring India, where the first covertly and the second overtly play anti-Muslim racism in their electioneering campaign, in this country also the element of racism is ever present in both camps. The difference is only a matter of degree.
The Tamils and Muslims must realise that they as national minorities cannot find lasting solutions to their problems by fighting alone. The Tamils, after the betrayal by the DMK Government in 2009, will be foolish to expect any material support from their brethren across the Palk Strait. At the same time to expect that international pressure on Sri Lanka would deliver favourable outcome to their complaints is also a dream because international agencies are part and partial of the global economic order that is more interested in markets and investments than in human rights and minority rights. The Muslims also must realise that the so called Arab connection is a mirage, and after 1990 the SLMC in particular by dragging Islam into its political campaigns has not only politically isolated the Muslim community but also has earned the mistrust of both the Tamil and Sinhalese communities. While the Tamil leadership at least maintained their personal and political integrity by not compromising their policy objectives in return for personal gains and prestige, Muslim leaders on the other hand and without exception has shamelessly surrendered their community virtually at the feet of successive Presidents and Prime Ministers to win ministerial positions and opportunities to accumulate wealth for themselves, their families and cronies. Therefore, any chance of honest co-operation and unity between these two minority leaderships will never work out, because they are qualitatively different. This is why the Muslim community has to reject wholesale their entire political leadership and search for a new generation of leaders who are intellectually capable, politically astute and personally honest.
Muslims of the East in particular have been and are being deluded by a short sighted and faction ridden SLMC leadership with a false promise that it could achieve a separate administrative district for Muslims at the expense of Tamils. This is a dangerous and suicidal commitment founded on the same old politics of opportunism and mistrust of the Tamils that will end up in endless Tamil-Muslim riots causing bloodshed and material losses, mostly for Muslims. Decades ago a then prominent Muslim leader told me in person that if Muslims could keep the Sinhalese and Tamils divided they could swim, but would sink if the two were allowed to unite. This politics of divide and rule cannot work in post-2009 Sri Lanka. What is now required of Muslims is to form partnership with the Tamils and become bridge builders between the two major communities. That role is far beyond the capabilities of the current Muslim leadership.
