Recent developments in Sri Lanka under the Sinhala regime of Rajapaksa suggest that after Eelam Tamils, they are now targeting Muslim community with state sanction. There is a growing rift between majority Sinhalese and minority Muslims over ‘Halal certification’. Sinhalese outfits like Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) are to begin an agitation next week asking non-Muslims not to buy Halal-products. Minister Champika Ranawakka told the cabinet last week that Halal certification was both illegal and exploitative. The Jamayathul Ulema was using it to make money to spread Islam, he charged. But Muslim Minister said that such certification was not compulsory though Muslims preferred Halal stamped products.
In the meanwhile, the state-owned English daily ‘Daily News’ published a provocative article on Muslims in Sri Lanka written by one Shenali Waduge inciting Buddhists to be scared of their (Muslims) ‘encroachment’ into their (Sinhala Buddhists) domains.
Some portions of the provocative article is as follows:
“Yes, the Sinhalese Buddhists are concerned. Do they have reason to be? Yet the concerns of Buddhists are never given an unbiased voice in the mainstream media and instead Sinhalese Buddhists are labeled as “racist”, “extremist” and even “militant”. Their version also needs to be heard.
There is little debate to overrule or challenge the historical place of Sinhalese evident in the population demographics through history. It was the Sinhalese patriots and the Buddhist kings who had protected the nation from enemies (except for Don Juan Dharmapala who betrayed the nation, the Sinhalese and Buddhism). With over 74 percent Sinhalese – 14.8 million people of a total 20 million it is unfair to undermine and overrule the place of the Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka. There is little to challenge that freedoms and rights have been enjoyed by Tamils 11 percent and Muslims 9 percent and it is because of the rights they enjoy that minorities have been able to openly bring up issues.
Every person born as citizens of Sri Lanka has to abide by the law of the land which applies to all equally. The Sinhalese Buddhists are concerned because of a new wave of “isms” attempting to dislodge the peace that prevailed historically.
For attempting to ward off these radical elements, to warn the natives of the ultimate outcomes has left Sinhalese being branded as “extremists” and “racists”.
The question is - on what grounds should a parallel law suddenly emerge to be accepted by all when it is not applicable or relevant to over 90 percent of the Sri Lankan populace? This clearly conflicts with the legal decisions of the laws relevant to all citizens. No society can function effectively with a parallel quasi-legal system with some people having in practice, diminished legal rights because of their religion.
Sinhalese Buddhists are concerned because Buddhist cultural heritage is being destroyed, Buddhist archeological and historical cultural monuments are being destroyed.
Sinhalese Buddhists are concerned because the Muslims they were peacefully living with are being radicalized and transformed into adopting a new wave of “exclusivity” evident by the increasing numbers of women in black attire, exclusive Muslims schools springing up.
* We are concerned because Islam is a system of life combining legal, social, economic, religious, political and military components. Challenging one means all forces of this system are engaged to attack those that challenge.
* We are concerned because there is an emerging conflict in Islamic laws with country/international laws.
* We are concerned because there is clear dualism in the law – one rule for Muslims and another for non-believers.
* We are concerned because the growing number of Sharia Law courts that were never present in Sri Lanka previously. When Muslims had been following the Sri Lankan laws for decades, why should there be a sudden need for a Muslim only law? Why should 9 percent of the population have a separate law when as citizens of Sri Lanka, Muslims must abide by Sri Lanka’s laws?
* We are concerned because every freedom stops the moment it inflicts harm on another (be it man or animal)
* We are concerned about extremist demands like loud speakers which does not constitute a fundamental right – speakers are only an electronic tools, a recent phenomenon.
If Muslims claim to want to live “peacefully” why are they undermining this by requesting for laws, practices and customs which directly cause conflicts amongst other communities who are in the majority when they know that in Muslim majority nation’s non-Muslims have virtually no rights?
* It was the Sinhala kings who gave lands to the Muslims in the East during colonial times and now they demand autonomy.
* Even Muslim owned supermarkets that caters to all communities shut down for prayers on Friday.
* Sri Lanka’s Justice Minister is a Muslim – and leader of a radical Muslim political party.
* When Muslims have the freedom of expression to call Buddhists “racists” and “extremists” and the Justice Minister himself calling Sri Lanka’s Buddhist monks as “yellow-robed terrorisms” – if Islam is criticized in Saudi the punishment is death by stoning.
* When a growing number of Muslim business establishments openly hire only Muslims why do they object to calls to boycott Muslim trading places?
* Why do Islamic fundamentalists incite violence against Buddhists in East Sri Lanka encroaching upon land given to them by the Sinhalese Kings and demolish Buddhist sites and temples?
* We question how peaceful Islam is when almost all the major conflicts in the World are Muslim-oriented and end up Muslims killing each other due to sectarian violence far more than the damage the West does with their air warfare.
The aggressive rise in demands for legal “exclusivity” towards Muslims does not advocate any policy of compromise or peaceful coexistence with other communities and is making not only Sri Lankans to ask what Muslims are really up to but the West is also now asking these same questions!
* It has become a practice for both Muslims and Tamils to hide their follies and wrongs behind the cry of “ethnic discrimination”, “hate campaigns” to cover up accusations made against them.
It has worked well to camouflage their ulterior motives by internationally promoting Sinhalese Buddhist as “extremists” and using the power of money to spread the news via media.
It has been convenient to quote “compassion” of Buddhism and ridicule Buddhists when they attempt to stop Islamic expansionism by bring the truth to the public.
Whatever theories or excuses that is being propagated for the growing resentment, the Muslims cannot disagree that there is an underground plan as well as an open strategy to exercise Muslim domination over non-Muslim nations – it is the Muslims who need to step back and digest the accusations and decide to peacefully coexist with the other communities while ceasing to demand exclusive status for Muslims.
As the author and historian Serge Trifkovic states: “The refusal of the Western elite class to protect their nations from jihadist infiltration is the biggest betrayal in history.” – we can say the same of Sri Lanka’s politicians.
The Sri Lankan leaders could have nipped the LTTE factor but it didn’t and that led to 30 years of conflict.
If Sri Lanka’s leaders do not address this radicalism that will affect all Sri Lankans including the moderate Muslims we are looking at deeper ramifications for the entire nation and the extinction of an already endangered ethnic group.”
The question is can such a blatantly provocative article against one community of Sri Lanka be published in the newspaper owned by the government? If permitted, is such a hate campaign against a minority community patronized and promoted by the Lankan regime of Rajapaksa?
Countering all the allegations against Muslims in Sri Lanka, one Abdul Halic has written an article under the headline “Sri Lankan Islamophobia: Encroaching the mainstream?” in his blog, some points of which are as under:
“In this ‘Daily News’ article penned by one Shenali Waduge on Muslims in Sri Lanka and why Buddhists should be scared of their ‘encroachment’, she displays a high level of confusion, connecting disparate events in the Muslim world (fabricating where it suits her), taking them out of context and then applying them to Sri Lanka.
Particularly absurd is her apparently iron clad statistical theory of Muslim’s 4 phased strategic and collective effort to ‘take over’ the locality, wherever they are, and install an Islamic ‘theocracy’ whatever that may mean.
Ms. Waduge, I WISH the Muslim community was as united as you appear to think it is. Even if you appear to think that such unity is always used for nefarious aims. I WISH our leaders were half as focused on the problems affecting the community as you appear to allude. At least you seem to have more faith in their selflessness that I.
While she appears to think that Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf States are synonymous with Muslims everywhere in the world, as if they are the ideal representation of what Sharia law and collective Muslim life is like, when it suits her, she likes to equate all of us with ‘extremist terrorists’, taking an about turn, since most of these ‘extremists’ are extremely anti-Saud. I wish she’d make up her mind.
She also doesn’t seem to have heard of a little event they call the Arab Spring where millions of Muslims stood up to depose tyrannical rulers, oppressing them since their so-called independence from the West. There’s a lot of dissent against existing rule in Gulf States too, but this writer doesn’t seem too interested in specifics, sweeping generalizations are her forte.
Around 1400 people have liked it on Facebook. And at least two of them are people I actually know. This is almost as hard to stomach as the fact that this bit of rubbish journalism was actually published in the ‘Daily News’. Which, while not exactly a journalistic stalwart, is significant in its position as the closest thing we have to a state sanctioned English language newspaper; are we to assume that this anti-Muslim vitriol is also state sanctioned? Or at the very least published with the assurance that no one up there is going to seriously mind?
The ‘Daily News’ is legitimizing this garbage by publishing it. Is this is a glimpse of the next wave of erosion in Sri Lanka’s print media, heralding the advent of anti-Muslim sentiment from the underground world of pithy Facebook groups and into the edges of the mainstream? Stuff like this is dangerous, when you have a climate of growing social unrest. People susceptible to hate are not going to verify things that confirm their bias, especially when it’s published in a leading newspaper.
Conspiracy theories that gain a widespread following don’t just pop out of nowhere. If anti-Muslim sentiment finds an ever broadening audience it’s because it actually perceives what it takes to be a very real indication of ‘Muslim supremacy’ happening in society. But this can be based on misinformation and bias.
Halal food does not mean that some secret chemical compound is inserted into all items certified Halal in some underground plant in the Empty Quarter (although admittedly this would make for excellent dystopic fiction). Halal just applies to the way food is prepared, according to certain standards of religious guidelines which include hygene and ethics.
Paying to obtain the Halal certificate is a decision purely based on choice and the profit motive. No one is compelling anyone to eat Halal. There’s plenty of non-Halal choice out there. No one is shoving Halal meat down feebly protesting throats.
To dissect the full scale of half truths, convolutions, blatant fabrications and outright lies in Ms Waduge’s article would take reams of text, and the question arises if it is actually worth refuting, as most of what she says in my eyes reeks of hate-speech and blatant fabrication, hardly the sign of a person looking openly for honest feedback. But if anything, it’s a good place to go for to get a gist of the prevalent misconceptions that are driving this new wave of Sri Lankan Islamophobia”
The Sinhala chauvinists pioneered by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka historically began similar hate campaign against Tamils accusing them of encroaching into their domains as a camouflage for attacks on Tamil identity in every sphere and finally resort to genocide. They seem to have now extended their ethnic cleansing process to Muslims also, without realizing further international condemnation and alienation. r
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