Sri Lanka’s Muslims in the Cross Hairs

7/29/2019 Sri Lankas Muslims in the Cross Hairs

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Sri Lankas Muslims in the Cross Hairs

By Sudha Ramachandran-September 11, 2013

Turning their attention from Tamils, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists arenow targeting the island's Muslim minority.

Sri Lankas Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists have opened a new front in their war againstthe islands minorities. If for decades it was the islands Tamils who were the focus of

their hostility, it is the Muslims who are in their cross-hairs now.

Since 2011, scores of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses have come under attackfrom Sinhalese mobs led by Buddhist monks. In April last year, a mosque in Dambulla,a town located 150 km north of Sri Lankas commercial capital Colombo, wasvandalized. Early this year, a Sinhalese-Buddhist group, theBodu Bala Sena (literallyArmy of Buddhist Power) (BBS) ran a violent campaign calling for the boycott of halal-certified meat. A month ago, amob forced Muslims to shut down a new mosque inColombo.Anti-Muslim violence has grown in frequency and ferocity in recent months, a

Colombo-based Muslim trader, who spoke to The Diplomat on condition of anonymity,said. Around 160 incidents of violence targeting Muslims are reported to haveoccurred this year.Buddhists comprise 70 percent of Sri Lankas 20 million people and are all Sinhalese.Hindus, Muslims and Christians are the main religious minorities. While Hindus areall Tamils, Muslims and Christians speak Sinhala or Tamil depending on where theylive.Although Sri Lanka is not a Buddhist state, its 1978 Constitution, while assuring
http://thediplomat.com/2013/09/11/sri-lankas-muslims-in-the-cross-hairs/?all=truehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17852900https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist/https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist/http://tribune.com.pk/story/589222/muslims-close-sri-lanka-mosque-after-buddhist-unrest/http://tribune.com.pk/story/589222/muslims-close-sri-lanka-mosque-after-buddhist-unrest/http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/11/us-srilanka-mosque-attack-idUSBRE97A04G20130811http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17852900https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/sri-lankas-army-of-buddhist/http://tribune.com.pk/story/589222/muslims-close-sri-lanka-mosque-after-buddhist-unrest/http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/11/us-srilanka-mosque-attack-idUSBRE97A04G20130811http://thediplomat.com/2013/09/11/sri-lankas-muslims-in-the-cross-hairs/?all=true


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freedom of religion to all citizens, grants foremost place to Buddhism and declares itthe duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddhist Sasana (broad teachings of theBuddha).

Successive governments in Sri Lanka have sought to project themselves as theguardians of Buddhism. Rather than uphold the peaceful core tenets of Buddhism,

they have wooed the Buddhist clergy through generous grants for the renovation ofBuddhist shrines and monasteries, or with lavish gifts to the mahanayakes (highpriests) and other monks.Meanwhile, the authorities appear to have turned a blind eye to violence instigated andunleashed by the monks. Not a single monk was arrested in the violence in Colombolast month, for instance. When the Dambulla was damaged and desecrated last year,nobody was arrested. Instead, the government bowed to the mobs demand to relocatethe mosque.

Some of the anti-Muslim violence has distinct economic undertones, the trader said,

pointing to the drive against renting Muslim-owned houses. Indeed, even thecampaign against halal certification has economic motivations.

Apparently the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulema (ACJU), Sri Lankas main body ofIslamic scholars, charges a fee for certifying meat as halal, a cost that is passed on toSinhalese businesses and consumers. Only Muslims need halal certification of meat.Yet all non-Muslims too have to pay for a service they do not need, DilantheWithanage, the only lay member of the BBS executive committee, told The Diplomat.Muslim-owned meat shops have been attacked too. An activist of the Sinhala Ravaya, aSinhalese-Buddhist organization that is demanding a constitutional ban on cattle

slaughter and religious conversions, justified the attacks by saying that Muslimpractices that go against Buddhist beliefs must be challenged.

This is a Sinhalese-Buddhist country and we must act to preserve Buddhist principles,culture, beliefs and way of life, he said.

We are only asking for Muslims to respect the majority culture, Withanage said.

Sinhalese-Buddhist hardliners draw on the Mahavamsa chronicles to bolster theirargument that the island is Sinhalese-Buddhist land. First written in the sixth centuryAD by a Buddhist monk named Mahanama, and subsequently modified between the

16th and 18th centuries, the Mahavamsa is largely mythical.However, to many Sinhalese-Buddhists its contents are irrefutable fact. To them SriLanka is the land of Sinhalese-Buddhists because the Mahavamsa refers to it asSinhaladipa (the land of the Sinhalese) and Dhammadipa (land of righteousness orBuddhism).

Two myths one about Prince Vijaya, the founder of the Sinhalese race, and the otherabout the Duttugamini-Ellara battle (2nd century BC) have been particularly


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influential in shaping the Sinhalese-Buddhist ideology.

According to the Mahavamsa, Prince Vijaya was the son of Sinhabahu, who was bornof a union between a sinha (lion) and a human princess (hence Sinhala or the lionrace). Vijayas arrival with his band of 700 followers in Sri Lanka, the Mahavamsa says,was preceded by three visits of the Buddha, during which the latter rid the island of

evil spirits and consecrated it. Thus, it was to an island consecrated by the Buddhahimself that Vijaya arrived. Indeed, he set foot on the island the day the Buddhaattained Nirvana. The link this myth makes between Buddhism, the Sinhalese race andthe island is evident. What is more, the Mahavamsa speaks of the Sinhalese as achosen race, Buddha having selected them to preserve and protect Buddhism. InLanka shall my teachings be established and flourish, it quotes the Buddha as saying.Consequently, the Sinhalese see themselves as the Defenders of the Faith.More pernicious in its impact on inter-ethnic and religious relations is theMahavamsas telling of a battle between the Sinhalese king Duttugamini and the Tamilking Ellara. Duttugamini is said to have defeated and killed Ellara. What was a politicalconflict (before taking on Ellara, Duttugamini fought 32 kings, several of whom wereSinhalese) is depicted in the Mahavamsa as an ethnic one, underscoring the point thatSinhalese-Tamil enmity is several millennia old.Importantly, the Mahavamsa portrays this as a religious conflict. Duttugamini went towar carrying a spear with a relic of Buddha and was accompanied by 500 asceticmonks, it says. At the end of the war, eight arrahants (Buddhas enlightened disciples)dismiss Duttugaminis remorse by claiming that only one and a half human beingswere killed, these being one who embraced Buddhism and another who accepted thefive precepts of Buddhism. Non-Buddhists are thus portrayed in the Mahavamsa as

less than human, deserving of a violent death.While the perception of the island as belonging to the Sinhalese-Buddhists andof asinhala (un-Sinhala) and abaudha (un-Buddhist) as outsiders, even less thanhuman can be traced to the Mahavamsas myth-embellished telling of history, it isBuddhist revivalists like Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) who encouraged violenceagainst the outsider.Buddhist revivalism surged during colonial rule. The target of Dharmapalasmobilization was the islands religious minorities, especially Christians who undercolonial rule enjoyed social and economic privileges. He drew attention to their allegedmisdeeds. Christianity and polytheism [i.e. Hinduism] are responsible for the vulgar

practices of killing animals, stealing, prostitution, licentiousness, lying anddrunkenness, he said in a speech.

In the early 20th century, it was the Muslims, who dominated business and trade, whocame under fire from the Buddhist revivalists.

"The Muhammedans, an alien people by Shylockian methods became prosperouslike the Jews. The Sinhalese sons of the soil, whose ancestors for 2,358 years had shedrivers of blood to keep the country free from alien invaders, are in the eyes of the


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British only vagabonds," Dharmapala wrote in 1915. His writing in SinhalaBauddhaya and that of Piyadasa Sirisena in Sinhala Jathiya inflamed anti-Muslimpassions in the island, culminating in anti-Muslim riots that year.Following the riots, Dharmapala hailed the violence. The peaceful Sinhalese have atlast shown that they can no longer bear the insult of the alien, he wrote. The wholenation in one day has risen against the Moor [Muslims] people.

Dharmapalas influence survives. Similar sentiments are being articulated in Sri Lankatoday. Only now, the threat posed by religious minorities is couched in the languageof terrorism and extremism. We are concerned about Muslim extremism, Withanagetold The Diplomat, explaining the BBS perception of Muslims.The rampaging mobs do not constitute the majority on the island. It is the support theyenjoy from the government that empowers them. The BBS allegedly enjoys the supportof President Mahinda Rajapaksas brother Gotabhaya,who is Sri Lankas Defencesecretary.Besides, the government is working in tandem with extremist Buddhist organizationsto Buddhistize Sri Lanka, the trader said. While officials of the governmentsDepartment of Archaeology identify and cordon off land as Buddhist areas (even if amosque, church or temple stands on it), the mobs unleash violence to clear the area ofnon-Buddhists, he alleged.

There have been attacks too targeting the places of worship of theislands Christians and Hindus, as well.While it is the shrill discourse emanating from the hardliners that has captured mediaattention, there are several ongoing efforts to build religious tolerance in Sri Lanka.Several candle-light vigils and public rallies opposing religious extremism are beingheld, as are inter-faith dialogues. Significantly, it is Sinhalese-Buddhists that constitutethe bulk of these initiatives, signaling that extremism does not define the community,only a vocal section of it.

Dr. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore,India. She writes on South Asian political and security issues and can be contactedat [email protected]
http://thediplomat.com/2013/07/30/in-sri-lanka-will-mass-grave-case-be-buried/http://thediplomat.com/2013/07/30/in-sri-lanka-will-mass-grave-case-be-buried/http://thediplomat.com/2013/07/30/in-sri-lanka-will-mass-grave-case-be-buried/https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/us-religious-freedom-report-says-attacks-on-christian-churches-by-buddhist-extremists-is-still-going-on-in-sri-lanka/http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=4839mailto:[email protected]://thediplomat.com/2013/07/30/in-sri-lanka-will-mass-grave-case-be-buried/http://thediplomat.com/2013/07/30/in-sri-lanka-will-mass-grave-case-be-buried/https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/us-religious-freedom-report-says-attacks-on-christian-churches-by-buddhist-extremists-is-still-going-on-in-sri-lanka/http://www.tamilguardian.com/article.asp?articleid=4839mailto:[email protected]

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Sri Lanka’s Muslims in the Cross Hairs