MUSLIMS LIVING AS MINORITIES
Out of the Pan and into the Fire Rising Islamophobia places Sri Lankan Muslims in challenging situations BY MISBAHUDDIN MIRZA ISLAM IN SRI LANKA
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n April this year, the Sri Lankan cabinet approved a proposed ban on wearing full-face veils including burqas, despite a UN expert’s comment that it would violate international law. Considering the ruling party’s parliamentary majority, there is real fear among Muslims that this could now be enacted into law. Public security minister Sarath Weerasekera has called burqas, an outer garment that covers the body and face worn by some Muslim women, a “sign of religious extremism” and said a ban would improve national security (“Sri Lanka cabinet approves proposed ban on burqas in public,” April 28, 2021; https://www.aljazeera. com/news/2021/4/28/sri-lanka-cabinet-approves-proposed-ban-on-burqas-in-public). This is yet another outrageous and highly discriminatory step in Colombo’s systematic and sustained harassment of Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority in recent years. Islamic Horizons spoke to Rohan Sourjah, president, Sri Lankan Muslim Association of California, and with Amina Salley, a U.K. law student and daughter of Mohammed Azath Sanoon Salley, former governor of the Western Province and leader of the National Unity Alliance, who is currently imprisoned on reportedly false charges. Talking about the challenges confronting Muslims, Sourjah said burqas were
temporarily banned after the 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed more than 260 people. Two local Muslim groups that had pledged allegiance to ISIS were blamed for the attacks at three churches and three high-end hotels. Sourjah explained that there have never been any issues between Sri Lankan Muslims and Christians, and thus it was unimaginable that a native-born Muslim would be involved in these massacres. The delay in releasing the investigation report, he added, is spawning rumors about the culpability behind those horrendous atrocities. Krishnadev Calamur, writing in The Atlantic, quoted C. Christine Fair, an expert on terrorism in South Asia and an associate professor at Georgetown University, “It doesn’t make sense,” for the National Thowheed Jamath had never attacked churches previously. Moreover, Sri Lanka has generally not seen tensions between Muslims, who make up 10% of the population, and Christians, who are about 7%. It’s far more likely, she stated, that an outside group, such as ISIS or al-Qaeda, based in the Indian subcontinent is involved in some way (“What’s Different About the Attacks in Sri Lanka,” April 22, 2019). Buddhists account for 70% of the island’s population; Tamils, who are mainly Hindu, comprise about 15% of the population.
36 ISLAMIC HORIZONS JULY/AUGUST 2021
Islam arrived in Sri Lanka primarily through Arab traders, some of whom who settled down and married local women. Later on, some Tamil-speaking Muslims from India migrated. Also, the Dutch colonialists exiled some Muslim Malays to the island. Muslims span the entire spectrum of life in Sri Lanka, ranging from gem traders, merchants and businessmen to teachers, farmers and mechanics. Due to their business acumen, they have been quite successful financially. Ironically, after the long and bloody conflict (1983-2009) between the minority Hindu Tamils and the majority Buddhist Sinhalese ended, Islamophobic groups such as the ultra-nationalist Sinhalese Bodu Bala Sena (BBS; Buddhist Power Force) started raising their ugly heads. Led by its general secretary Venerable Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, they started targeting Christians and the relatively prosperous Muslim community. Subsequently, following the June 2014 Aluthgama pogrom against Muslims, Gnanasara’s visa to the U.S. was cancelled. In his “‘Fascists’ in saffron robes? The rise of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist ultra-nationalists” (July 18, 2014), CNN’s Tim Hume explains that the BBS has emerged as a troubling presence on the Sri Lankan political landscape in recent years and is blamed by many for inciting the deadly violence in Aluthgama. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives, told CNN that he believed the BBS, which he described as a purveyor of “classic hate speech,” had become emboldened by the lack of censure over Aluthgama. “Their more violent or aggressive demonstrations of power, involving even criminal acts, have gone unpunished. They seem to have a lot of support, if not protection, from within the regime itself.” The same phenomenon is happening in Myanmar, where the monk-led anti-Muslim 969 Movement has been blamed for instigating deadly clashes. Speaking on his 79th birthday, the Dalai Lama called upon Sri Lanka’s Buddhists to desist from violence against Muslims (https://www.cnn.
