Are we citizens in Sri Lanka or citizens of Sri Lanka?

Sri Lanka should be a country for all religious and ethnic groups to live together without discriminating against one group or another, and where all Sri Lankans are able to live in harmony and in peace – Pic by Chamila Karunarathne 

The security of the Nation, in particular from 2015 onwards, has been compromised and the political process as well as the politicians have failed to keep Sri Lanka safe for its citizens, and our visitors. This view has been expressed by very ordinary people one meets on a daily basis unless one travels by BMWs, Range Rovers or Benz cars or has drinks and meals at five-star hotels. 

Three-wheel drivers, budget cab drivers, tourist taxi operators, small boutique keepers, fish vendors, counter staff working in supermarkets, hospital staff like attendants and nurses, clerical and middle management staff in Government offices, are some of these very ordinary persons who feel they have been utterly let down by politicians. They do not have any confidence at this juncture that they and their children have a future in Sri Lanka.  

Their collective and generally held view is that there cannot be any reverse recriminations with one side accusing the other and there cannot be any humming or hawing about who should take responsibility for the catastrophe that Sri Lanka is facing now. They hold the President and the Prime Minister equally responsible for the situation the country is in now, and are very clear that both must go! Broadly, they feel that politicians who enjoy all possible luxuries and who are now far away from understanding the plight of people like them, have let them down and have let the country down. 

Looking at the scale of the debacle, not just the unfortunate numbers who have died, and who are injured, but the extent of the operation by elements that could be labelled as extreme but obviously backed by some unseen hand somewhere outside Sri Lanka, is indeed mind boggling. It is not only the scale that is mind boggling, but it is the fact that what has been discovered and being discovered virtually on an hour by hour basis in many parts of the country, has been happening under the very noses of the President and the Prime Minister for the last so many years. 

They had been warned by numerous Muslim organisations and individuals and none of it had been taken seriously. They dismantled the intelligence operations that were in place as of January 2015, in particular in the East of the country which now is emerging as the hub of the operation that would have begun in 2015 and perhaps even before that. The incidents in Samanthurai and Kalmunai bear testimony to this.

The security of the people of Sri Lanka, the economy of the country which is now in tatters with wholesale cancellation of tour bookings, the manufacturing sector unable to manufacture and the hospitality industry which employed many people directly and indirectly brought to their knees. 

With a large scale terrorist activity that is still not ruled out judging by the number of people still in the wanted list as suspected terrorists and the hidden requisites needed for terrorism yet to be discovered, the Finance Minister has the audacity to assure Sri Lankans that all will be well. The man and woman in the street might be poor in material wealth but they are rich in intelligence and it’s best for the Finance Minister to keep his thoughts to himself at this moment.

Close the stable doors

It appears that the President and the Prime Minster are trying to close the stable doors after all the horses have fled. They collectively dismantled the intelligence operations and their domestic quarrels and disarray have proven the prophecy of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who stated that a paddy field cannot be ploughed with a plough (Nagula) pulled by a Buffalo and a Bull (Mee Haraka and an Ela Haraka) who will pull in different directions. The sad story of the current government has been nothing but this.

The very ordinary people referred to earlier in this article were of the opinion that it is time for the Nation’s security to be placed in charge of someone who knows about security. They opined that it is time that even as a temporary measure a person be appointed to manage the country’s security who does not have to report to either the President or the Prime Minister. They claimed that the person so appointed reports directly to the people through media briefings and inform the public directly about security issues that could be divulged without compromising security itself. Their question was as to why people should have faith and confidence in this President and the Prime Minister who have failed to protect the country from Muslim extremists. 

 

They had been warned by numerous Muslim organisations and individuals and none of it had been taken seriously. They dismantled the intelligence operations that were in place as of January 2015, in particular in the East of the country which now is emerging as the hub of the operation that would have begun in 2015 and perhaps even before that. The incidents in Samanthurai and Kalmunai bear testimony to this.

They asked whether the President and the Prime Minister felt the pulse of the common man and woman. Did they have any sense about the fears they have when getting into a bus to go to work? Did they have a sense of the hopelessness felt by thousands of boutique owners in the country? Do they have a feel for the three-wheel taxi drivers and cab drivers? Do they feel for the many who work in public hospitals who don’t have BMWs or Benz cars and who have to use public transport to get to work?

They were clearly very angry that what could have been prevented was not prevented. They claimed the entire country is angry and fearful about a possible backlash against the Muslim community who have without exception, as individuals and as organisations expressed their views about the work of some extreme elements who they themselves have labelled as not being Muslims. In their just opinion, the Prophet had never advocated violence against other human beings or any other living being.

External elements

People are also angry and concerned that external elements are the real brains behind the atrocity in Sri Lanka, and ISIS itself has been used by such external elements to destabilise Sri Lanka due to its geopolitical importance for those engaged in super power rivalry. It is not unknown for the sub systems within certain powers to use their own purported enemies, often created by such sub systems, against others who are threatening their status and power. 

It is still unfathomable to many as to why only the Catholic community was targeted besides the economic target of tourism. The only possible explanation is that these attacks were orchestrated by this unseen hand as part of a global strategy. No other explanation makes sense. An attack on Catholic people in any country could well be seen as an attack on the Catholic Church led by His Holiness the Pope. 

 

They were clearly very angry that what could have been prevented was not prevented. They claimed the entire country is angry and fearful about a possible backlash against the Muslim community who have without exception, as individuals and as organisations expressed their views about the work of some extreme elements who they themselves have labelled as not being Muslims. In their just opinion, the Prophet had never advocated violence against other human beings or any other living being.

In the backdrop of what many very ordinary people felt and what they expressed, one has to ask whether the inaction was only on the part of the President, the Prime Minister and other politicians including the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

The question has to be asked how some extreme elements within the Muslim community could have amassed so much ammunition for a vast scale terrorist activity without the Muslim community as a whole not knowing or suspecting or being indifferent to what was going on in the country clearly for many years.

While the Muslim community individually and through numerous religious and civil organisations have overwhelmingly condemned these attacks by extreme elements within their community, it cannot be unsaid that these extreme elements could have escaped the radar of the entire Government and as well as the broader Muslim community.

In this context, it is useful to reflect on some writings of Dr. Ameer Ali, a prominent Islamic scholar and a former adviser on Muslim Affairs to former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard’s Government, and an academic at the Faculty of Management and Governance of Murdoch University. 

In an article published in the Asian Tribune on 23 July 2013, (http://asiantribune.com/node/63186), Dr. Ali was quoted as to how Muslims in Sri Lanka were self-alienating themselves from the mainstream community. He raised the point that it was a crucial issue for the Muslim community in Sri Lanka to decide whether they want to be Muslims of Sri Lanka or Muslims in Sri Lanka. Dr. Ali noted that since the 1970s, there has been the development of orthodox Islam, something new to this country and many issues had come up due to the new brand of imported Islam.  

 

‘The Closing of the Muslim Mind’

In another article titled ‘The Closing of the Muslim Mind’ published in the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs , Volume 27, 2007 – Issue 3, Dr. Ali mentions in the abstract to his research work that: “Incendiarism, threats of homicide, and hooliganism has become the trademark of Muslim protests in recent times. This has seriously damaged the image of Islam and Muslims especially in the Western world. This unwelcome behaviour has no justification in the primary sources of Islamic shariah and is contrary to the spirit of free thinking that was pioneered by Muslim thinkers of the classical era. 

“The rise of orthodoxy has crippled the healthy tradition of dialogue and rational thinking that developed during the early caliphates and has produced an Islam whose mass of believers has been kept deliberately ignorant of this glorious legacy and has been led along a blind alley from which there seems to be no quick return. The institutions that are usually expected to promote enlightenment and socially acceptable behaviour are desperately in need of reforms. In a contest between taqlid (imitation) and ijtihad (interpretation) the former appears to have won the day to the detriment of modernity and progress in the Muslim world.”

The veering of sections of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, supported by politicians who wielded considerable political influence, towards the orthodoxy that Dr. Ali writes about has been increasingly evident in some parts of Sri Lanka. 

In the above mentioned article published in the Asian Tribune back in July 2013, Dr. Ali makes three significant observations that are relevant to the rise of Muslim orthodoxy in Sri Lanka. 

In response to a question on whether there was a recent effort by some segments of Muslims to highlight their differences with other communities and not so much to do with historical similarities, Dr. Ali said, “I have one observation. When I went to the Eastern Province, in Kattankudy, they have planted date palms to decorate the roadside. My question was, what is the connection between date palms and Kattankudy or date palms and Sri Lanka? Why do you spend millions of rupees to make it look like Arabia? I could see that already half of the trees had died. I told the Muslims to go to Tissamaharama and see what has been planted there: Tamarind trees, which are shady and bearing fruit. Are we living in this country or are we living in Arabia?” he asked.

In response to another question, Dr. Ali said there were 58 mosques in Kattankudy and that he had been to one of the mosques to pray and there had not been even 20 people in it. The whole mosque had been nearly empty. He questioned the need to build more mosques when the existing mosques were empty. His view was that those who returned from the Middle East as preachers wanted to build mosques and introduce a brand of Islam which was not consistent with the ancient and traditional Islamic practices in Sri Lanka.

Thirdly, he said there was no need for Muslims to make a statement by getting their women to dress like this or practice other extreme measures which were not real Islamic practices, and were confrontational like the Burka. While Muslim women in the ‘70s wore sarees, it was the misreading of Islamic scriptures that had led to the current situation. Muslims in Sri Lanka needed more enlightened leadership to overcome these confrontational attitudes.

To the onlooker it appears that the growing Muslim orthodoxy witnessed particularly in the East and some central parts of the country had provided a fertile ground for the extreme elements within their community to plan this widespread terrorist activity and for the external unseen hand to capitalise on this situation.

While it is certainly not the time to engage in discussions about what Muslims of Sri Lanka did or did not do, a solution to the issue that has arisen will not be possible unless such a discussion takes place when the time is right to do so. Such a discussion should not be limited to the Muslims, but should include similar discussions within all religious and ethnic groups in the country.

Sri Lanka should be a country for all religious and ethnic groups to live together without discriminating against one group or another, and where all Sri Lankans are able to live in harmony and in peace. Extremism and/or imported dogma and orthodox practices that disturbs the social and societal equilibrium in the country will only impact on the harmony amongst all Sri Lankans.

If the country is to recover from the current debacle and move forward, it cannot do so within the current model of one group or another projecting themselves as being citizens in Sri Lanka, and not being citizens of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is the sum of all parts. It cannot function effectively and efficiently if all the parts are not in sync and not in harmony. This goes for all ethnic and religious groups.