COVID-19 and compassion

Each day there is more hopeful news of a vaccine reaching Sri Lanka’s shores but COVID-19 and the myriad of challenges that it created will definitely colour a large part of 2021 as well. But there are some things such as division and bigotry Sri Lanka can chose to end in 2021 so communities can move forward together. 

Public reactions to details of a second two-month-old Muslim baby being cremated has been heart-rending, particularly because the Government remains inexplicably silent despite numerous appeals by the community and moderates at large. 

This is particularly heart-rending given that a committee report was already presented showing the scientific evidence that burials are possible. In the backdrop of the Mahara prison deaths and continued restrictions on repatriation of migrant workers, to just mention two examples, it is evident that Sri Lanka’s virus response has also created further marginalisation of the vulnerable. 

One thing that would help make the COVID-19 situation more bearable for thousands of people is if the Muslim community is allowed to bury its dead. This appeal has been growing louder for months but the Government is inexplicably glacial in its response. Multiple expert committees have been appointed, discussions involving top officials have been held, Parliament has debated the issue, and it was even brought to the notice of the Cabinet, but a resolution seems as far away as ever.

Things have come to such a pass that the Maldives has offered to bury Sri Lanka’s deceased COVID-19 victims and last month, their former Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon extended an open invitation for the local Muslim community to move to the archipelago. It is heart breaking that the Government is choosing to be silent at a time such as this and allowing a Sri Lankan community to be treated in such an insensitive and uncaring manner.

When all other countries, including Buddhist-majority nations, are allowing their Muslim communities to bury their COVID-19 dead and providing the necessary support, it is a grievous oversight for the Sri Lankan Government to not do the same. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO), together with a multitude of local and foreign experts, has been over the science time and again. The Muslim community, met with closed doors and deaf ears, has had little choice but to register their civil protests. Moderates of other communities have joined and this issue looks set to scar inter-community relationships for years to come.

All over the world, people, communities and countries have been defined by their COVID-19 response. Exhibiting humanity, compassion, empathy and understanding has become the greater goal of the pandemic effort. The universality of this response has also exposed the systemic and institutional underbelly of marginalisation, deprivation, disempowerment, racism and bigotry. How humanity responds to these truths will define all our futures. Will 2021 be the year the Government embraces a different path?