THE AGONY OF SRI LANKAS

MUSLIMS
A Sri Lankan Muslim gestures toward his charred home in Aluthgama. Lakruwan WanniarachchiAFP
BY FRANCES HARRISON-JUN 30 2014
AN EXTREMIST BUDDHIST GROUP HAS TAKEN STEPS TO EXPEL MUSLIMS
FROM THE ISLAND KINGDOM, SILENCING DISSENT THROUGH
PROPAGANDA AND INTIMIDATION.
After three Sri Lankan Muslims were killed and thousands more were forced to shelter
in mosques and schools, many having lost everything in the worst communal violence
in decades, the minister of Public Relations, Mervyn Silva, went on TV and offered to
marry a Muslim woman to make up for it.
The minister has a habit of unsuitable proposals. Not long ago, he offered to marry the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, an ethnic Tamil from South
Africa, to teach her about Sinhala Buddhism and Sri Lankas ancient culture. No
matter that she already had a husband, or he a wife.
Silvas flippant remarks came after he went as an envoy of President Mahinda
Rajapaksa to tour the troubled coastal areas where scores of shops and houses have
been torched. Even if my wife or children tell me off, I am prepared to marry a Muslim
for the sake of national harmony, he said, disguising ethnic chauvinism with mock
gallantry.
His statement is little comfort for the deeply traumatized families of once comfortable
Muslim shopkeepers and traders, now waiting for handouts in mosques and schools.
Some have homes literally reduced to ash; others are too fearful to return in case the
violence reignites. Just as in the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom which triggered full-scale civil
war, Muslim shops and homes were attacked while nearby Sinhalese owned
properties were largely left alone by the mob. Muslims says their Sinhalese neighbors
must have passed on the information about the owners, though local Sinhalese blame
outsiders for all the violence. In several instances the victims allege the security forces
stood by and watched the destructionagain a disturbing echo of what happened to
the Tamils in 1983 on a larger scale.
So much misinformation has systematically been dished out against Muslims with the
result that the average or innocent Sinhalese has built up hatred toward us, says a
Muslim lawyer practising in Colombo, even an ordinary policeman might believe it;
they think all Muslims are wealthy, resort to unfair business practices and dont pay
taxes, but its not truemany Muslims are living below the poverty line. The lawyer
credits the Sri Lankan army with restoring sanity but is angry that at times even the
Special Task Force of the police failed to stop the violence. Its shocking that even the
Special Task Force stood by and allowed the mob to attack. They were complicit, he
says.
Simmering Tensions
It had been a long time in the making, but the simmering tensions in the southwestern
coastal town of Aluthgama erupted after rumors circulated about the alleged sexual
abuse of a Sinhalese boy in a Muslim-owned shop in Maythough another version
alleges this story was invented to cover up an act of shoplifting recorded on a CCTV
camera. In June, a motorcycle ridden by Muslim men collided with a car carrying a
Buddhist monk and there was a routine traffic altercation. The rumor mill suggested
that Muslims had assaulted the monk, for which there is still absolutely no proof. This
triggered protests and security forces fired tear gas and deployed armored vehicles,
as well as the police and paramilitaries. The extreme Sinhala nationalist Buddhist
group, Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Brigade), in a bid to exploit an already tense
situation, then announced a rally in the town for Sunday, June 15.
The question of why the authorities in Sri Lanka allowed this rally to go ahead has no
real answer. After the tragedy, authorities said they couldnt have banned the Buddhist
function because it coincided with the Poson Festival, which celebrates the arrival of
Buddhism in Sri Lanka. The police also said permission for the gathering wasnt given
to the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) as such, but to local temple trustees. But while Sri Lanka
has been swift to prevent candlelit vigils by families of the disappeared in the civil war
or protests by students or trade unions, in this case all the warnings were ignored.
Muslim groups actually wrote to the inspector general of police, stating clearly: This
is a dangerous situation that could develop into a major riot, hence we call upon you to
take immediate and decisive action to safeguard the lives and property of Muslims in
Aluthgama and surrounding areas. Their entreaties fell on deaf ears.
Saffron-clad Buddhist monks from the BBS and their supporters were bussed into the
small town for the rally. It began with an inflammatory speech from the partys general
secretary, firebrand cleric Venerable Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero. Using
offensive racist terms to warn that if a Muslim or foreigner, so much as lays a hand on
a Sinhalese person, let alone a monk, it will be the end of all these fellows, he proudly
declared: Yes, we are racists! Yes, we are extremists! He even went so far as to tell
the cheering crowd that enemy forces were looting their Sinhala heritage and future
generations would curse them if they didnt unite against it.
A subsequent march through the Muslim areas of Dharga Town resulted in clashes
injuring several people. The violence persisted even after a curfew was declared in
Aluthgama and neighboring towns. At least 2,000 members of security forces armed
with tear gas, water canons and rubber bullets were deployed with armored personnel
carriers.
Some sporadic violence also took place in the suburbs of capital Colombo and other
coastal towns. For four days there was serious concern that the violence would spread
like wildfire throughout the country. The BBS announced rallies in other towns with a
history of tension between Muslims and Sinhalese, only to be stopped at the eleventh
hour by court injunctions requested by the police.
There was huge publicity for what was going on and pressure from abroad. At the last
minute the government had to act to stop, but they got the police to do it for them so
they could pretend they werent involved and save face with the Buddhist monks,
explains exiled Sinhalese journalist Bashana Abeywardene of Journalists for
Democracy in Sri Lanka.
Government Complicity?
Meanwhile, rumors of attacks on statues of Buddha or monks made the rounds on
social media, as both state-run and private media ignored the crisis almost entirely
after an order was issued against reporting on the communal violence. However, a few
brave, local reporters defied this ban, producing excellent accounts of the situation.
These also spread on Twitter and Facebook and helped mobilize the attention of the
international community. This violence was sanctioned by the Rajapaksa brothers, but
they were dismayed by the publicity that reached the outside world and then there
were representations from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the U.S.
government that this has to stop, said Dr. Paikasothy Saravanamuttu of the Center for
Policy Alternatives in Colombo, referring to the family that rules much of Sri Lanka.
The cancellation of Pakistan Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharifs scheduled visit to Sri
Lanka was also seen as a notable step, although he cited a recently launched military
operation in his countrys tribal areas as the reason.
Its common knowledge in Sri Lanka that the BBS has the support of the powerful and
much feared defense secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of the president.
Hes openly attended their functions. The BBS has support at the heart of the regime
and that gives them guaranteed impunity, says Saravanamuttu. Some analysts even
claim that the unleashing of the BBS against Muslims was Gotabayas first step in his
election campaign, after he recently declared his intention to contest. The logic
proffered here is that the Rajapaksas will not win the minority vote and need to whip
up the Sinhala majority against a new enemy. This argument suggests the attacks on
Muslims are about securing succession in the Rajapaksa dynastic project where the
three brothers, along with many other family members, control almost 50 percent of
the states budget. Mind blowing, destructive and premeditated is how one
commentator in Colombo described the governments cynical manipulation of Sinhala
chauvinist forces.
Others argue the Rajapaksas electoral victory is already guaranteed because of their
triumph over the Tamil Tigers and they had no reason to encourage these attacks.
They have a huge bank of goodwillits credit they can live off for a long time and
you have to remember Muslims supported them, too, against the Tamil Tigers, says
exiled journalist Abeywardene. He believes the plan may be to provoke violent Muslim
resistance that the Sri Lankan government can portray to Western governments as an
Islamic terrorist threat. The aim would then be to deflect western pressure from a U.N.
investigation into war crimes committed in Sri Lanka in 2009, win external support, and
still remain a staunch Sinhala nationalist state at home. With Hindu nationalists in
power in Delhi, the assumption is that thered be less interference from India.
Many Sri Lankans believe it was no accident that President Rajapaksa was out of the
country during the communal violence and the entire Rajapaksa clan maintained radio
silence save a couple of anodyne tweets from the president and his son on the first
night of the unrest. They look complicit with their silence, like in 1983, says
Saravanamuttu, referring to then-president J. R. Jayawardene, who waited several
days before saying a word about an organized anti-Tamil pogrom that tipped Sri Lanka
into decades of armed conflict. Even the prime minister didnt say anything, says
Abeywardene. He just invited the BBS to sit down and meet with him and discuss [the
situation], which is absurd.
Stoking Islamophobia
That this was no ordinary, local religious tension was clear in the reactions of Sri
Lankans on social media. On Twitter, most were careful not to inflame passions and to
carefully corroborate reports of the spreading violence. The citizen journalism
site Groundviews played an important role in moderating the noise and amplifying
reliable voices.
But on Sinhala websites it was, and remains, a different story. Bloody dogsyou go
to Pakistan, bloody thambiya (racist insult for Muslims in Sinhala), read one of
hundreds of racist comments posted by readers on the BBC Sinhala Service
Facebook site. No matter that Sri Lanka Muslims are mostly descendants of Arab and
Malay traders who came to the island from the eighth century onwards and consider
themselves a separate ethnic group, making up about 10 percent of the population.
The level of venom on the BBC Sinhala Facebook page, which is just one of many
targeted for abuse, is staggering. One man even posted a comment that he was taking
a leave from his job in The Maldives and returning home to join in the fun of attacking
Muslims. Many of the obscene comments and cartoons posted about Muslims are
simply too inflammatory to reproduce anywhere else. Rumors that these were
coordinated efforts appear have been validated when some of those positing online
changed their user avatars to a black flag identical to the one displayed on the BBS
website after the violence began.
Sinhala chauvinists have also found it easy to exploit resentment among impoverished
Sinhalese working in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, where they are not
allowed to worship statues of Buddha. The BBS has also raised alarm by claiming that
80,000 Sri Lankan migrant workers were converted to Islam in the Middle East and
that there are active attempts to convert Buddhists to Islam inside the island.
Islamophobia has become deeply entrenched in Sri Lanka, according to observers,
who worry that it could go mainstream. If neighbors turn on each other then that
becomes very scary. With all their venomous propaganda and misinformation, they
[BBS] have aroused feelings within the Sinhalese and convinced them that Muslims
are a threat, a curse, a death, said the Muslim lawyer in Colombo. Others agree: I
am afraid the racism is coming into the mainstream, which I wouldnt have said before.
Its a rich vein they can tap into, says Saravanamuttu.
Even before the riots in Aluthgama, theres been a well documented upsurge in attacks
on Muslims in Sri Lanka in the last two to three years, with pig flesh being thrown into
mosques, places of worship dismantled, and Muslim shops attacked by monks in
saffron robes who have even been caught on camera but never prosecuted. Muslim
businessmen are pressured into dropping charges with discreet reminders that they
need protection for their other shops, which will be withheld if they go against powerful
people. Women have been attacked and publicly humiliated for wearing Islamic dress
and told not to wear burqa or abaya in schools and universities.
Theres a huge, unbelievable amount of anti-Muslim feeling in the last two years,
says Abeywardene. It was not there before and its not just an extreme fringe. Much
of it is fed by wild rumours circulated on Facebook, through email and via leaflets. One
such fabrication claimed a fashion store in Colombo was offering Sinhalese customers
toffees that contained chemicals to render them infertile. This belief was so deeply
held that customers who refused to boycott the shop in question had eggs thrown at
them. Then rumours started circulating that Muslims were selling Sinhalese underwear
that made them infertile. The last week of June, a branch of the same store burnt to
the ground, and police are investigating whether it was arson. One of the fears raised
by the BBS is that Muslims are having too many children and will eventually
outnumber the Sinhalese majority. The BBS also recently spearheaded an aggressive
campaign against halal certification of food in Sri Lanka on the grounds that it was a
conspiracy by Muslims to raise money to arm jihadists.
Distorted Buddhism
Though many Sinhalese have been quick to denounce this extremist brand of
Buddhism as a distortion of the religions true values, few want to challenge it in public
because they know it has powerful backers who arent afraid to act against dissenting
voices. Shortly after the violence in Aluthgama ended, Buddhist monk Venerable
Watareka Vijitha Thero, who had been critical of the BBS and heads rival group
Jathika Bala Sena (National Brigade), was kidnapped. He was later found bound and
naked. This was not the first time hed been attacked for defending the rights of
Muslims, but police told local media that this time the monk had been attacked in what
appeared to be an attempt to circumcise him, presumably to signify that hed become
a Muslim and betrayed his own faith by tolerating Muslims. Then, in a bizarre twist of
events, the police accused the monk of staging his own kidnapping and self-inflicting
his wounds. The police have now detained him for allegedly making a false complaint.
A disturbing video interview of the monk, recorded in hospital shortly before he was
arrested, shows him constantly looking over his shoulder in fear. It has intimidated
ordinary Sinhala Buddhists who might want to be critical of the BBS extremist
ethnocentric strain of Buddhism.
Many commentators have drawn parallels between Venerable Galagoda Aththe
Gnanasara Thero, the BBS leader in Sri Lanka, and the 969 Movement in Burma led
by Venerable Ashin Wirathu, notorious for describing himself as the bin Laden of
Buddhism. The two monks reportedly met in March in Burma and the Sri Lankan
leader is said to have invited his Burmese counterpart to visit. Notably, an edition
ofTime magazine that called Venerable Wirathu the face of Buddhist terror was
banned in Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Buddhists deny there are similarities, claiming that
while the numbers 969 have been used by the BBS in Sri Lanka on propaganda
posters, they dont have the same doctrinal relevance in Sri Lanka as in Burma.
They may take courage from Burma but they are not just Burmese copycats, says a
Sri Lankan academic who prefers to remain anonymous for his safety. He traces the
origins of the BBS back to nationalist tendencies among the clergy in 19
th
century
Ceylon and opposition to that eras British colonial rule. Wielding state power was
always a fantasy for a section of the monkhood, he says. A clear line leads to the
writings of the revivalist Anagarika Dharmapala, whom the BBS invoke today. By the
1970s, a surge in Buddhist religiosity coincided with economic liberalization, which
raised consumer expectations of the suburban middle classes but failed to deliver.
This also coincided with the early beginnings of the Sri Lankan civil war, which hurt
Sinhala pride as the Tamil rebels proved so difficult to defeat.
Many others see the precursor of the BBS as the now defunct Sinhala Veera Vidahana
(Sinhala Valorous Order), which challenged the success of Muslim and Tamil
businessmen at a time of increased economic competition, and erected martial statues
of Sinhalese heroes who fought the British. This grouping and others were subsumed
into the Sihala Urumaya party from which a purely clerical group, the Jathika Hela
Urumaya (Sinhala Heritage Party), formed in 2004. The current BBS group is an
offshoot of the JHU, comprising monks that broke ranks in 2009 because they felt their
fellow monks were not radical enough.
Political Monks
According to some pundits, the BBS monks seek state power, or at least patronage of
whoever wields the thronein this case the Rajapaksas. But most commentators
believe that the BBS, as it stands now, would not be able to survive without
government patronage. They argue that the idea of a Sinhala Buddhist supremacist
state has been around since the early 20
th
century and has periodically tried to
establish itself. With the Rajapaksa state, I think it has come into being. Far from
being a threat to the Rajapaksa state, the BBS is part of it, says the academic who
requested anonymity. The amount of airtime BBS leaders have been given on state
television in recent weeks is an indicator of this close relationship, he says. Within six
months they were brought from nowhere to being one of the most important forces in
the country, says journalist Abeywardene, Gnanasara Thero wasnt considered a
senior figure among the monks but now hes become a national leader and that
couldnt have happened without the tacit and overt support of the government.
However, political analysts warn that the state might not be always able to control the
BBS. Ultimately they may find theyve let the genie out of the bottle and unleashed
forces they cannot control, says Saravanamuttu.
The only thing preventing Sri Lanka from spiraling into further violence is the patience
and tolerance of Sri Lankan Muslims, who generally didnt fight back. Traditionally, the
Muslims of Sri Lanka have sided with the government during decades of civil war, but
theyve also internalized a deep sense of vulnerability, of belonging to neither side.
Many say they are still operating in survival mode after the trauma of at least 70,000
Muslims being evicted from the north of the island by Tamil rebels. Once calm was
restored in Aluthgama, there was a Muslim-led strike that closed down many areas of
the island and a peaceful protest in the capital where some Buddhist monks showed
their solidarity with Muslims. Indian Muslims in Chennai rallied in support and, for the
first time, Sri Lankan Muslims gathered outside Downing St. in London to register their
complaints.
But how long Muslim community leaders can control the passions of their youth and
whether external Islamic forces will seek to intervene in the situation remains to be
seen. The stereotype was that Muslims would fight back and that would be worse
than the Tamils but theyve been amazingly restrained. Theyre cowed because they
have no political leadership to strengthen them, says Saravanamuttu. Few Muslim
M.P.s and ministers have bothered to visit the affected people despite the precarious
situation. When Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem, a Muslim, met the victims, there were
no clenched fists or angry declarations of revenge. Instead, he wept with helplessness
as his constituents abused him for failing to resign.