A call to moderates

Friday, 11 March 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

News of three controversial hard-line organisations banding together is the worst news for all moderates and minorities in Sri Lanka and a sign that the ‘Sinha-le’ rhetoric will go up by several notches.

The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), Sihala Ravaya and Rawana Balaya have signed a formal agreement to work together in the future to “fight for the rights of the Sinhala Buddhist” people of Sri Lanka. This is bad news for several reasons. Given the activities of the past few years, every time these organisations push their controversial and rabidly-nationalist policies into the forefront, they create violence – an excellent example being Aluthgama, where the people who ultimately suffer are not the rabble-rousers.

Secondly, they deepen insecurities and suspicion between communities. In many instances these organisations have ramped up bigotry and intolerance to take the place of empathy and cohabitation. As the Government heads towards a more pronounced effort towards reconciliation, the activities of such organisations can only be detrimental. The movement to put aside ethnic and religious differences and come together as Sri Lankans will be severely undermined by hardliner attempts to sow strife among communities by creating perceived injustices.

Caution must be taken when tackling this particularly thorny issue. It’s a delicate matter. People’s basic freedoms should not be stifled in the name of fighting racism. At the same time, it is something that must be addressed and addressed right now. A large majority of Sinhalese people supporting these types of movements are an inherently peace-loving but misguided lot who feel threatened by minority communities. The minorities, for their part, can do a lot to build trust between them and the majority community and must also take every step possible to fight the extremist elements that exist within their own communities.

The Government, perhaps rightly so, has so far been stoically silent on the matter. President Maithripala Sirisena implied in a BBC interview recently that the Sinha-le issue was not something worth talking about. He has a point in that a State level intervention could give this dangerous yet largely fringe movement an unnecessary legitimacy that a country still recovering from a 30-year war could do without.

To the credit of his administration, wrongdoers are being arrested irrespective of their garb and status and there is a general confidence the law will step in if another round of violence is unleashed, but the situation should not be allowed to deteriorate to that point. In fact the amalgamation of these organisations could be in recognition of the fact that they operate in an environment of less impunity than under the previous regime. The entire Sinha-le sticker campaign is evidence of how much damage insidious movements can cause and the more these organisations operate in rural areas, the more potential for trouble they have.

If left unaddressed, such organisations have the potential to blow up into something far bigger and costlier than losing a few votes. Brushing it under the carpet and pretending it’s not there might not be the wisest course of action. All moderates across all communities have to unite to offset these dangerous developments.