The Sri Lankan Muslim Diaspora Dilemma

This past week, incidents in Sri Lanka and abroad have illustrated the dilemmas facing the Sri Lankan Muslim community and its Diaspora constituents.  These incidents though isolated in occurrence have the hallmarks of being related to a wider malaise afflicting the community and the challenges they face

In London on the 5th of May, a bank holiday, a protest was held in front of the Sri Lankan High Commission and number 10 Downing Street by one of the many Sri Lankan Muslim Diaspora organisations.    However, don’t be fooled by the photos that are doing the rounds on social media or on some news sites.  It wasn’t the whole of the Sri Lankan Muslims in UK protesting as one article poorly intimated that it was.  It was one organisation out of 20 or so organisations that exist in the UK, coming from one specific part of the UK (and comprising of members largely from around the same geographical area in Sri Lanka) and around 650 out of a potential 25,000 + (exact figure is not known) Sri Lankan Muslims living in the UK.  Hence it was a minority out of a minority.  Why am I emphasising this?   Because poor journalism is creating much more problems than there exists.   It is also because it is necessary to show that there was not only no widespread support for this from within the UK and even actually from Sri Lanka.  In fact the majority of the Sri Lankan Muslim organisations and individuals in the UK did not support the protest.

I am one of those that was against the protest not because I dislike protesting.  Far from it, I was one of the active members and organisers of the Stop the War protests at the height of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and I have supported protests against the invasion of Gaza and so on.  Yet for me, this particular protest was ill timed, ill conceived, inopportune and simply inappropriate.  Frankly how does standing outside Number 10 Downing Street shouting largely in Tamil achieve anything apart from causing an annoyance to inhabitants, especially when they don’t understand what is being shouted out?  What help does it offer to the people on the ground, when we give more reason to those already critical of Sri Lanka to be more critical?

The organisers of the demonstration have been described as having ‘Political Myopia’, which I agree with especially when you take the term myopia to mean narrow-mindedness.  I would also add the description of ‘self-centred insensitivity’ to the list.  This is because despite all the opposition and counselling against it, both within the UK and from Sri Lanka, the organisation (and its supporters)  in question went ahead with the protest.  Hence there was an insensitivity to not understand the ramifications of this on the ground in Sri Lanka especially given opposition or a failure to actually understand its effect. As one person asked me ‘How is protesting in the UK going to help us in Sri Lanka?’  And that is precisely the point.  When much more is needed from a political and diplomatic side to put pressure on those elements inside and out of the government and the wider society to stop these types of hate filled incidents, how can we build the trust?  How can we engage with all those concerned and provide a common platform to challenge these bigots and their ideology?

Therefore if these people really wanted to protest or do something to vent out their frustration, then something more positive e should have been done as a coalition of all communities (including Sinhala Buddhists) upset by the way societal coexistence is slowly eroding in Sri Lanka and for me, we should have done something outside Buddhist temples in London.  My reasoning is that whilst the Government’s complicity is there, in its lax approach to enforcing the rule of law and bringing to justice those perpetrating hate speech and crimes, a large part of the responsibility has to be also laid on the shoulders of sections of the Sinhala Buddhist community who are culpable in this either through their silence in not speaking out when crimes are committed in the name of preserving Buddhism; or in their tacit and overt support. In particular, we have to hold a mirror to those who are living in the Diaspora.  After all it is notable  by their ‘silence’ how many in the Diaspora especially from the Sinhala Buddhist community have publicly spoken out against what is happening in the country to the Muslim and other minorities.  Despite many attempts just asking even through personal contacts, it has been disappointing not to get a response or that people skirt around this discussion.  One also has to look at comments on sites like the Colombo Telegraph, which is banned to the average reader in Sri Lanka, to ascertain the deep hate and antipathy felt towards the Muslim community (and other minorities).  Whether this is justified or not is another article that needs to be written.  However the mere fact is that one only needs to engage with the average Sinhala in the UK for example and you will find that there is deep seated prejudice which needs to be addressed. Hence if anything, the protest should have been to tell Sinhalese Buddhists to not allow their religion to be hijacked by extremists.  It should have been an opportunity to engage with sympathetic elements in the UK amongst the other communities in order to build a bigger alliance.   Ultimately it would have helped those who perceive diaspora protests as being linked to one extreme element of a community to change the lens with which they viewed this protest. This is what was learnt from the Stop the War coalition that planned all the Anti War protests.  It was not that we stopped anything but we were able to build networks and alliances of people concerned about a common cause so that they could champion together and no one could be labelled for belonging to one group or another.

Yet this is the big problem.  The diaspora amongst all communities in the UK are not united and are still very disparate.  There is still a reluctance to engage in meaningful discussion and any dialogue takes place under emotive circumstances.  This shows the increasing dilemma of the diaspora generations removed and time bound from the country of heritage.  Unfortunately it fits into the criticism levelled against us as the Diaspora.  We are generally not aware of the dynamics of the country or the evolving nature on the ground.  We are also largely oblivious of the repercussions of our actions in the UK in Sri Lanka.  We as the Diaspora have this intellectual arrogance that just because we live out of Sri Lanka, we know better.  Thus we only listen to what we want to listen to.  Hence whilst we largely remain untouched from the results on the ground we replicate differences in the UK.    We project our inherited differences from Sri Lanka onto internal political struggles and intra-community disputes in the UK which doesn’t help any matter related to Sri Lanka.

On analysis, the protest ultimately was not done primarily with the interest of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka at heart, but for some cheap attempt to score political brownie points.  This sounds very strong, but the question that has to be asked is if there was so much opposition from community leaders, representatives and organisations both in the UK and Sri Lanka, why did the organisation proceed with the protest?  It is either due to an arrogance that this group knows better or that there was some other reason not the interests.  Being intimately involved in the goings on of the Sri Lankan Muslim organisations, I am well aware that this particular organisation and some of its supporters has always been one to work by itself if it felt it was not on the leadership role.    Right from the word go, it has chosen not to be part of the umbrella body for the Sri Lankan Muslim organisations in UK, COSMOS, which has quietly been working in front and behind the scenes with all sorts of stakeholders to put pressure on the government and more importantly to support the quiet actions of the leadership back home who have reacted calmly and wisely, and been praised for this.   It has chosen to work not only in opposition but sometimes in parallel to COSMOS, criticising it for its ‘ineffectiveness’.  Criticism for COSMOS is also unfounded.  It has been working to build support from the community in order to come up with a dignified and unified response to the crisis and somehow avoid falling into the same trap of emotive responses that has affected other diaspora organisations.  It has chosen to consult with Sri Lanka in order to ensure that what is done in the UK has no repercussions for people in Sri Lanka.  The quiet diplomacy has meant that COSMOS has reached out to the High Commission, other community and faith organisations and others in order to ensure that the true ground reality is shared.   The High Commission in particular has always reciprocated this engagement policy by COSMOS by not only opening its doors to hear the concerns, but in its limited capacity to try and do something about it despite it not being able to really influence things back in Sri Lanka.   True at certain times COSMOS has appeared slow and lethargic and I have been one to criticise some of its actions and statements.  However the incentive by COSMOS to build coalitions to take this from an ethnic to a national problem that is felt by all sides is one that has to be supported.  This is ultimately where the discussion has to move towards.  The concern of the decline of religious freedoms and the overt radicalisation and extremist rhetoric spouted by one group is detrimental to the whole country.  It thus needs collective responses.

We should not forget that this is the need of the hour.  The recent incidents in Aluthgama shows the challenges facing the community and the country as a whole.  With perpetrators of hate speech and violence allowed to roam freely and the law seemingly unable or unwilling to rein them in, it is only a matter of time before frustrations reach a tipping point.  Once this is reached, the space becomes open for extremists to abuse and exploit.  In order for this to happen, collective pressure (from all communities) needs to be maintained.  This is how the new police force to look into religious crimes came into being and needs to be supported.

These are testing times for the country and the communities.  Our response as individuals and communities where we don’t learn from the past will determine how the future will look like.  As Diaspora whose lives and future are now in the countries where we live, our self-centeredness and naïve sincerity cannot ransom the future of the country of our heritage.

This originally appeared on Groundviews

3 years on, a hurting stalemate in Sri Lanka

Last month saw the official marking of three years after the end of the 28 year old war that plagued Sri Lanka, killing thousands and setting the country back in terms of development and prosperity.  Yet three years on, it seems that not much has changed.

Whilst Sri Lanka has tried to portray that there has been progress made on the ground largely in infrastructural development, critics have been quick to highlight the lack of tangible progress on reconciliation, in effect  the inertia on implementing internal recommendations for reconciliation, coupled with an ever weakening space for human rights, media expression and democratic freedom.   The recent resolutions at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on Sri Lanka have been testimony to this type of thinking where analysts have not only been critical that progress has been slow on the ground amidst a decline in general rights that are deemed to be core to a functioning democracy, but they have also pointed to the need to keep this on the international agenda.

This is a debatable fact and the Government is not really willing to engage on any real discussion on the issue despite the occurrences as reported in the media of kidnappings and killings. A recent interview between the defence secretary and the BBC is testimony to the extremely sensitive nature of such discussions and criticisms.

It is also not helped by the ongoing international distractions that have prevented it from addressing some of the real pressing issues. Since the end of the war, there has been pressure from parts of the international community, supported largely by many Tamil  Diaspora organizations (some of them aligned with the former LTTE rump) for ‘accountability’ on the conduct of the end of the war and the ‘alleged’ deliberate killing of  Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan army.

This vociferous call for ‘justice’ from one section of the Tamil Diaspora community which is blatantly anti State and only interested in one thing, which at the surface is not  any  comprehensive reconciliation solution for Sri Lanka,  has been unfortunately conflated with criticisms of the country’s current status.  This lack of subtle differentiation is convenient and means that any discussions critical of the state and its governance is immediately treated with suspicion that it is being done in support of the LTTE.  It doesn’t help as well that those who are often the loudest critics of the country and the government, themselves share platforms publicly with supporters of the LTTE and the creation of a separate Tamil state.

This suspicion from the government’s perspective of any criticism of its actions is somewhat unhealthy as it views with distrust anyone who disagrees with them.  It has also become unhealthy because the real pressing issues of reconciliation, good governance and so on, are overshadowed by trying to react to these allegations and calls for ‘accountability’.

A recent discussion in London at the Frontline club, bears testimony to this ‘Push Me – Pull You’ scenario affecting Sri Lanka.  Pitting the director of the Infamous Channel 4 documentary, with someone from Amnesty International and a representative for Tamils against Genocide,  against  a Government MP and advisor, the stormy discussion ended up rehashing old ground with no actual consensus of how things can move forward and two sides clearly polarised and reacting to one another.    As a consequence, we have a hurting stalemate with no real progress.

There needs to be a change of narrative that seeks a 3rd alternative to the one that is currently being offered by both sides. The 3rd alternative has to be one that starts to look at how the country (with all its constituent communities) can move forward.

The days of looking for black cat in the dark room is over because we now know that there is no cat there’

In the past, the war was a powerful unifying force, giving radical parties a platform for populist agitation and established politicians a diversion from their failure to address economic weakness, social concerns and pervasive corruption.  This shield is no longer there and the government will have to realize that there are some fundamental structural weaknesses affecting the country (in terms of bad governance, corruption and so on) which criticism off, doesn’t make one anti state.  Whilst the task of ensuring a political solution to the grievances of the minorities in a way that ensures that the country moves forward after more than 20 years of conflict, the government

will also have to realize that true reconciliation is a bottom up approach that requires acknowledgement of and engagement with all communities and their concerns.  This in particular means that there is a need to contain the extreme Sinhala Buddhist elements that seem intent on hammering the Sinhala nationalist identity home whilst playing into the hands of the detractors by affirming their criticisms of the country.  Recent incidents in Dambulla with no official reaction from the government have done little to dispel the perception of an erosion of rights for minorities in Sri Lanka.

The Tamil community mainly in the Diaspora have to also learn that by continuously appearing to repeat the narrative of organizations associated with the LTTE or even flying LTTE flags at protests and events such as what happened during the recent visit of the president to the UK,   they will do nothing apart from harden the opposition to them and the perception that they represent ‘ an LTTE rump’.  By flying the LTTE flags, these protestors show that they not only support an organisation that killed many of their own leaders and people, but was also responsible for the recruitment of child soldiers and the ethnic cleansing in the north.  This not bode well for any future discussion of reconciliation, accountability and justice for Sri Lanka.

There will also have to be a realisation that the narrative of the end of the war is not as clear cut as it seems.  If recent media reports are to be believed, a large part of the Tamil Diaspora are themselves responsible for the deaths of civilians in the conclusion of the war, when they refused to put pressure on the LTTE to release the human shields that they were holding.

So the narrative on Sri Lanka and about Sri Lanka has to change.  The Tamils genuinely believed that they were fighting for an identity and to take pride in their ability controlling their own affairs.  Though the LTTE ultimately betrayed their own people on what Tamil autonomy would entail, these

feelings cannot be blotted out by simply eliminating the LTTE but, they can be made irrelevant by the treatment Tamils (and other minorities) receive in the new Sri Lanka.  More importantly it cannot just be done by institutional measures to use Tamil language or to suggest some political autonomy but it will have to be done parallel at the grass roots level where communities need to start trusting one another and accepting them for their differences.

The building of relations of trust is important. By building these relations it is about forswearing the need for revenge and hatred but understanding that there has to be a way of stopping the cycle of unfair pain turning in one’s memory.  In order for this to happen, we have to acknowledge each other’s narrative and hear the other’s stories.  This iintellectual empathy ensures that people who are in conflict with each other will have to acknowledge that everyone has justified grievances and will also allow the disagreement of someone’s view, analysis or policy without doubting their sincerity and loyalty.

This is what we call restorative justice that does not punish nor does it condone evil and absolve the perpetrator of responsibility.  What it does is that it acknowledges that the past is the past and though it has to be honoured must not be allowed to become a ball and chain for the future.

As Ian Paisley said, ‘We must not allow our justified loathing of the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future.  in looking to that future, we must never forget those who have suffered during the dark  period from which we are emerging’

Restorative Justice is needed not only on the ground but also with  the Diaspora of all communities, who have a lot of interest in what goes on in Sri Lanka and can be used to support post conflict community reconciliation.

Circumstances have now changed  and there is a real opportunity for great advances to be made for the country, not only in laying to rest the ghosts of the past, but to work towards a new political system and era.  Everyone is advocating for a change, tired of the cost that the conflict has inflicted upon the nation, tired of the corruption of the political system, tired of how Sri Lanka has become as a nation and society.

The question is whether communities and stakeholders will develop that 3rd alternative to go beyond the hurting stalemate or whether we will be resigned to wishful dreams of what might have been.

this originally appeared on Groundviews