Just more
than a year ago, I wrote about a new conflict that was threatening to overshadow Sri
Lanka’s post conflict reconciliation journey.
The fear was that the constant organized provocation by extreme Sinhalese
Buddhist groups particularly on the Muslims would necessitate a response,
thereby culminating in communal clashes of a severe magnitude. The fear for many was that a repeat of the
infamous 1983 ‘Black July’ pogrom (then against the Tamil community)
would once again be re-enacted. The 1983
state sponsored pogrom is a stain on Sri Lanka’s conscience and history but in
effect led to the 30 year old conflict which came to a bloody conclusion in
2009. Like then, there was a ramping up of provocative rhetoric against theTamils
until an incident against the Sri Lankan army by the then relatively small LTTE
group provoked the organized response. Whilst there was a pubic apology in 2004
by the then president, the underlying issues have never really been discussed
and potential fault lines have been hidden.
On Sunday,
those fears once again resurfaced after clashes erupted between Sinhalese
protesting in a Muslim majority town in the South of Sri Lanka and Muslim
inhabitants. Like many of these
incidents, it is hard to pinpoint who instigated what, but it is clear that
there was enough of a provocation from the Sinhala Buddhist extremists to
warrant a response from the Muslim community.
The rest is as they say history.
As riots, attacks and rumours started circulating, it was clear that the
government was either caught off guard or as some people have alleged, was
reluctant to properly intervene. There
is strong suspicion of a state complicity because clashes could have been
avoided, had the planned protest through the Muslim town been prevented as many
community leaders had requested. In
addition, the self censoring of state and national media to highlight the
events taking place, the lack of an official statement on the issue and the
general intransigence of the law enforcement agencies highlight a drop in
confidence with regards the intentions of the government at least amongst the
Muslim community. Despite this social
media outlets like Twitter and Facebook were able to keep an international
spotlight on the incidents. Of course,
the events are evolving and there are reports of a snowball effect with
clashes taking place and tension in
other parts of the south. It is not
necessarily clear whether these are
linked, or whether it is copy cat incidents.
However it does point to a wider malaise within society of a breakdown
of understanding and trust between communities.
It is clear that there are deeper issues which are manifesting and being
exploited into violence.
As things
begin to calm down slowly, the effects of the weekend violence have long
reaching ramifications. There is an
uneasy calm in Colombo as people are unsure of what the next couple of days
hold. Many Muslim children have not gone
to school and businesses seem to be quieter than usual. In other parts of the country, there have
been protests. There is a fear as to
what the international community’s response would be especially the Muslim
countries in particular the Middle East.
Sri Lanka has long dependent on the latter for support in international
forums such as the UN Humani Rights Council sessions, whilst a large proportion
of Sri Lankans are employed in the Middle East providing a huge contribution of
GNP.
It is also clear that the relationship between
the communities has been affected.
Beruwala where some of the violence broke out is reputed to have the
oldest mosque in Sri Lanka and is one of the first areas where Arab and Muslim
traders came to Sri Lanka. The Muslim
communities in the south have traditionally prided itself on its close
relationship with the Sinhalese and have always formed the Muslim political
leadership that engaged within the political process and with the main
political parties. This familial trust
has now been broken and will take a long time to be rebuilt. It is not just about a political solution,
now but it involves moral and astute religious and community leadership from
all sides. For the Sinhalese Buddhists
in particular, it will need greater protection and confidence as they come
under pressure from their extremist constituent’s for ‘betraying’ their community. There is hope though in terms of the monks and the lay people who have spoken
out against the violence.
There is no
justification for the violence that ensued, but what is clear is that like in
Myanmar, the Buddhist extremist groups are on a campaign to denigrate and
eradicate the Muslims. The Muslims of
Sri Lanka can not fall into that trap of reacting as is expected nor can Sri
Lanka go down the route of the Xenophobia exhibited by Myamar. They can take
some comfort from the fact that with social media, there are more people
speaking out and campaigning to stop such violence.
The
international Islamophobia campaign that seeks to denigrate Muslims in the west
has a ready audience in places like Sri Lanka and Myanmar where these extremist
groups latch onto the hate rhetoric.
Unlike in the west though, whilst the campaigns are really steered
around the issue of immigration and assimilation of migrants, in his part of
the world, where the Muslim communities are indigenous and native, the rhetoric
is spun around the very existence of the communities.
Sri
Lanka’s ethnic and religious fault lines
are no closer to being healed or solved by this violence. However what this has shown is that any part
of the country (and not just the former war affected areas) are not only
vulnerable but extremely fragile. It is
clear as the weekend violence has shown, that personal disagreements between
people of different faith and ethnicities have a potential to flare up into
communal clashes. Thus community,
religious and ultimately political leaders have to ensure that these
differences are not hijacked by extremists.
This is now the challenges coming out of the recent spate of violence in
Sri Lanka.
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