Dr Shafi Sahabdeen and the proportionality of communalism

I want Dr. Seigu Shihabdeen Mohamed Shafi cleared of all charges leveled against him with respect to unethical and unwarranted sterilization. I want him cleared because I want to believe that our medical profession made of impeccably honorable and competent people. I want to believe that those who graduate from state universities in Sri Lanka learn the relevant skills and show absolute fidelity to professional ethics. I want him cleared because it would help dial down the lunacy among a certain section of the population to see a terrorist in every Muslim.  

Here’s the caveat: IF HE IS INNOCENT.  Here’s another caveat: HE HAS TO BE PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.  Over and above all this, I concur with Prof Hemantha Senanayake, Head, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, who insists that the absence of impartial, speedy and transparent investigation could have a negative impact not only on Sri Lanka’s achievements in maternal care and health but create a situation where people would be afraid to have babies delivered in hospital. 

Let me flag the key words here: impartial, speedy and transparent. I would assume that ‘comprehensive’ is a given.  

The lengthy submissions by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have been taken as proof positive, irrefutable, absolute and final that Dr Shafi had not blocked the fallopian tubes of mothers on whom he had performed Caesarian surgery, amassed wealth in an illegal manner or maintained links with a terrorist organization.  Having thus concluded, those who are convinced of his innocence have turned their fire on the accusers.  Some have raised the bogey of a massive conspiracy involving women who lodged complaints, even claiming that they have been paid by some ‘somebody’. 

They are forgetting some important facts. First, the investigation is not yet concluded. Secondly, there is nothing to say that CID investigations are always comprehensive and above board. Indeed, in this case, certain salient matters seem to have been ignored. 

On the issue of investigating complaints, CID claims that 468 women (of the 615 who had complained regarding Dr Shafi) had developed complications, but of the 147 complaints investigated, only 13 women were produced before ‘an experts committee’. Two cases, apparently, need to be further investigated while 11 have been deemed ‘false’. In other words, there are 321 cases yet to be investigated and there are questions about two that have already been investigated.  

There are allegations regarding Dr Shafi’s behavior when operating on Sinhala women. There is very personal and emotional elements associated with issues of childbirth and related medical examination. Do these indicate guilt? Not necessarily. 

Dr Shafi’s wife, M.N.F. Imara, herself a physician has pointed out that her husband worked under the supervision of a Consultant. She has, echoing expert views, said that other medical professionals are present in operating theaters. In other words, if he did wrong, then the relevant consultant(s) and others were complicit. However, those who work in such hospitals claim that situations for wrongdoing do arise. It is alleged that consultants often delegate authority to house officers such as Dr Shafi, who, by the way, is not an obstetrician or gynecologist. There is talk of consultants doing so because they engage in private practice elsewhere and therefore could only implicate themselves by revealing all. That, however, needs to be investigated. It does not imply guilt.  

It is certainly disturbing, though, that the CID thought fit not to take into account all relevant statements by the hospital authorities. It is strange also that the CID has not thought fit to do a simple exercise in statistics. The following questions could very well elicit answers that either exonerate Dr Shafi or indicate very strange happenings, short of course of unwarranted, unethical and perverse sterilization: a) How many Caesarean Sections did Dr Shafi perform? b) How many such operations did doctors in similar positions perform during the same period of time? c) What is the ‘ethnic’ breakdown of the patients? d) What is the ‘ethnic’ breakdown of women whose first child was thus delivered and who did not conceive thereafter, in the case of Dr Shafi and in the case of other such doctors? 

It cannot be impossible to find out how many of the 3,479 Sinhalese mothers, 860 Muslim mothers and 33 Tamil mothers did not have children after Dr Shafi operated on them. Of course it could be ‘choice’ but numbers will tell a story, one way or another. We need to know.

I want to know these things. Dr Imara has said that her children are undergoing mental trauma, ‘as they are unable to attend school, due to the threatening situation.” They should not suffer such trauma, but they will until this case is closed and Dr Shafi’s innocent is established.  

Given the circumstances, which of course we need not elaborate but which include the fear, anxiety, doubt and suspicion generated by the Easter Sunday attacks by a group affirming the Islam faith as per their reading of the same, any glaring omissions in the investigation can only make matters worse. The political affiliations of Dr Shafi, the alleged intervention of Rishard Bathiudeen in Dr Shafi’s appointments following electoral defeat, the Health Minister’s tendentious statements with respect to the need for investigation etc., clearly describe a cloud. This cloud needs to be cleared. One way or another. 

There’s another reason that I need to know such things and it is not directly related to the controversy regarding Dr Shafi. Disturbing as it is to extrapolate the actions of a single individual (regardless of overall context) to paint negatively an entire community, even more troubling is the fact that it is not the preserve of a single community. 

A Facebook post claimed the following: 457 houses, 198 business establishments and 70 vehicles belonging to Muslims were destroyed in 36 hours in Kuliyapitiya, Nikaweratiya, Bingiriya, Panduwasnuwara, Wariyapola, Chilaw and Minuwangoda. That’s a large number. The unknown author may have been liberal in the use of the word ‘destroyed’ and in the numbers tossed out, but let us assume he was not. My contention is that even if it was one house or business premises or vehicle that was damaged (not destroyed) on account of the religious identity of owner, it is disturbing. There is, despite all this, the problem of selectivity. Yes, we have to talk ‘comprehensive’ now. 

It’s as though the Easter Sunday attacks did not take place, that some 300 people weren’t killed and 500 were not wounded, churches and hotels weren’t damaged, and yes, extremism so violent that the ‘faith’ factor overrides any ‘provocation’ did not, does not and will not exist on this island! Instead we have ‘gullible or vindictive racist Sinhala women’ enacting an anti-Muslim drama. We have Sinhala Buddhist hordes creating a bogey of unethical sterilization. We have other such ‘extremist’ elements in paintings that have no room for, for example, the almost 200 children who lost a parent on Easter Sunday. 

Well, we do get the large-print disclaimer ‘terrorism/terrorists have no religion’. True, in a sense, but who’s actually buying that and why should anyone buy that, simply because in another sense, it is rank silly and a disavowal of a serious problem that has created an existentialist anxiety among people belonging to communities that the terrorists were clearly at odds with. This is the other problem: there’s lunacy among a certain section of the population to see all Sinhala Buddhists as intolerant extremists and the one and only villainous collective of the sad, tragic and terrible piece that Sri Lanka has become.  

A swift, comprehensive, independent and transparent investigation would go a long way in sorting out these issue because the truth does that, sooner or later.  Anything less than that will not help. What we have though is cherry-picking by those who want to find Dr Shafi innocent and by those who want to find him guilty.  In the case of the first, we have too much ‘politician’ in the investigation and in relation to the latter, a marked reluctance to assume innocence until guilt is proven. We need a Presidential Commission at this point to keep communalism and extremism at bay and of course to ensure that things are not blown out of proportion.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

[First published in the Daily Mirror on July 4, 2019]

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The 'blameless' (apparently!)

Politics is about inflating the useful and deflating, ignoring, wishing away or denying the uncomfortable. Some of these things are deliberate and some just issue from that powerful impetus giver, political and ideological preference. Alright, let this be the frame of this article. 

Easter Sunday Attacks. They happened two months ago. It was not about a dozen or so people getting together one evening, chit-chatting for a couple of hours, buying a few bombs from a supermarket, deciding on some random locations and proceeding to execute the explosions the following morning.  

No, it didn’t happen like that. This is why people have to deal with the question, ‘how did all this come about?’  Then there is the additional question, ‘how can we prevent such things happening again?’ The questions are inextricably linked. If we unravel that other overused term ‘root causes’ we can get somewhere because it stands to reason that if root causes are eliminated or the soil is removed or is robbed of fertility, that which is objectionable cannot grow.  

We have the Jihaadists and no, they are not limited to the National Thawheed Jamaath. Jihaadism is an ideology and such are not in organizations contained. So what gives rise to Jihaadism? We have elaborate theses on various Western powers creating such groups, but then again the growth has to be accounted for at some level by a particular religio-ideological soil. The fertilization of such soils can take place in opposition to persecution, real or perceived, and that too is a thesis doing the rounds. 

We could say that things complement one another. We also cannot dismiss the fact that operatives rarely know anything about ontology; they don’t always know who set things up, who funded and trained. Regardless, those who blow themselves up do not do so on account of financial benefits or agreement with the interests of the assumed ‘hidden hand’. The hand they know or believe in is the hand of ‘god’. Their calculation is about afterlife benefits as derived, in this case, by their understanding of a religious faith, namely Islam. 

A comprehensive analysis would have take in all relevant factors, global and local; focusing on one to the exclusion of the other can yield erroneous conclusions. Error-prone too is the predilection for single-reasons explanations. On the other hand, the ‘combating’ while it has to be at multiple levels (again global and local) there is a natural tendency to do what is possible within the limitations imposed by geographical and legal realities.  

Ultimately, locally, the response has to be two-pronged broadly, eliminating a threat and removal of conditions that could give rise to similar threats. The blame game is inevitable. Shifting blame is also a game. It has its uses because it allows the spectators to read the politics and outcome preferences of the players. In any case, blaming is a convenient tool because it implies that the fault is elsewhere, not with oneself.  Even if one is not at fault, pinning blame can have political uses.  It can be used to justify theories one has constructed for oneself. It can be used to obfuscate and distract. 

And so we have conspiracy theories. We have blame-shifting. Perhaps the question should be, ‘shifting from what/who?’ But first let’s tick off the what/who of ‘shifting to what/who?’ 

There are some prominent ‘culprits’ or rather those narratives that seem to be doing the rounds. It’s the Muslims, as an entire community or a majority, some claim.  ‘Radicalization’ is the operative term and all those who have knowingly or unknowingly facilitated are faulted. First, ‘radicalization’ is putrid word-usage. Using it on processes that produce Zaharans and Prabhakarans makes it easy to vilify radicalism and radicals. More seriously, to use a broad brush and the crimes of association and shared culture, attire and faith as reason enough to assume guilt is plain silly. It is a caricature. It feeds fears and pushes people to seek in ‘likeness’ (cultural or religious) comforts that outweigh the risks of ideological association. 

Then we have the usual (and tired) broad-brush-strokes against Sinhala Buddhists. Such theses are buttressed by those who take the position described above, but they have their own steam. They would pounce on Rev Gnanasara’s last-minute piggybacking on Rev Rathana’s upavasaya (which by the way did not target the Muslims) and go to town with it, forgetting the objectives of the upavasaya. ‘Aluthgama’ and ‘Teldeniya/Digana’ are dragged into the story in ways in which the history of Islamic extremism (global and local)  are not. 

There are sophisticated pushers of such theories. Take for example Harini Amarasuriya’s ‘Shifting the blame’ in www.himalmag.com. This is an important and useful intervention which should spark lengthy discussion. For now, in this piece, I focus on the matter of blame-shifting. 

While decrying ‘narratives[that] are replete with broad generalisations and inaccuracies,’ Amarasuriya herself is not far away from wild claims, generalization and inaccuracy.  She speaks of ‘deep rooted racism and elitism within the Sri Lankan polity’. There is elitism and racism, but ‘deep rooted’?  She claims, ‘Without a serious analysis of how the nation-building project in Sri Lanka consistently failed to accommodate minority communities as equals, we will not be able to understand how institutionalised forms of racism in the Sri Lankan polity have produced and maintained ethnic tensions between communities in Sri Lanka.’  So the minorities are blameless and the majority community is the villain of the piece, it follows. Saying it without saying it at its pernicious best. 

Then she says it direct: ‘What exists in Sri Lanka is a clear pattern where the political establishment regularly resorts to the appeasement of the majority, upholding populist nationalist sentiment as a means of deflecting any accountability towards itself.’  That’s rank simplification. A compelling argument can be made about how the ‘political establishment’ has appeased minorities particularly the bourgeoisie but also the formal Muslim political establishment (flagged here simply because the nimiththa here is the Easter Sunday attacks).   

She is correct — we should hold accountable those responsible for the wellbeing and security of the population. But that can also be a blame-shifting exercise. Incompetence, the rift between President and Prime Minister and other related matters, matter. Existentialist angst, extremism and notions of what makes and/or unmakes the nation, matter. However, it is not as though the Sinhala Buddhists or even the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist fringe, as she puts it, put the fear of god into a coterie of Muslims, giving rise to Jihaadism, local and global.  We do, collectively, as she puts it ‘turn to the easier target of blaming’. She believes we turn to the easier target of blaming yet another minority community for just not trying hard enough to be good enough second-class citizens.  

This is happening, she is correct, and it is not something to be applauded. In fact it should be condemned. It is silly to talk about ‘an idyllic past when Muslims were ‘good’ and there were no problems’. It is silly to treat any community as homogeneous. A lot of it falls into the business of blame-shifting, a ridiculous expression of which is the notion that India was behind the Easter Sunday attack.

We need to discuss who we are and who we ought to be. We need to talk about identity and identities. We need to unpack what’s taken to be homogeneous. We need also, at this point, to address the threat. The Jihaadists. The security apparatus. The breeding grounds. Who funded whom. All the factors that produced Zaharan and the NTJ. The entire process and apparatus of ‘education’, training, suicide-readiness and execution. We can and should talk about all the issues and categories that are being flagged, but not at the expense of ignoring the Jihaadists and Jihaadists as though they are entirely a product of something external.  That’s ‘displacement’ is happening and is being orchestrated by blame-shifting of all kinds, including the easy targeting of Sinhala Buddhists whose homogeneity, interestingly, is not talked about at all.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com 

[First published in the Daily Mirror on June 27, 2019]

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Ranjan Ramanayake is an outspoken UNP parliamentarian. He’s so outspoken that sometimes he gets into hot water. Occasionally, though, he is spot on. Just the other day, he was at his blunt best when he took on Mahamood Hizbullah and other Muslim politicians who are all of a sudden playing ‘Representatives of the Victimized Community’ and worse, issuing threats to one and all non-Muslims. Here’s a gist (in translation): “They say they are in fear…aren’t we scared? The attackers didn’t say ‘Buduhaamuduruwane’ or ‘Jesune’…they said ‘Allahu Akbar.’” That’s ‘God (as per the Islamic faith) is greater (or ‘the greatest’).  The Muslim politicians have not shown any remorse or humility about what was done in the name of Muslims by a tiny minority of that community.’'

Make no mistake, the terrorism unleashed on Easter Sunday was planned and executed by those who were (in their minds and in their convictions) of the Islamic faith.  They deliberately targeted churches. They also targeted hotels. The majority of the dead and wounded were of the Christian faith and in the Batticaloa blasts, the victims were mostly Tamils. Sinhalese died. Buddhists died. Muslims also died. Given the rhetoric of the terrorists, given the well-planned and executed nature of the attacks, given the fact that successive governments have turned a blind eye to their operations for well over a decade and that they’ve indoctrinated and recruited hundreds to their cause, it would be folly indeed to assume that they are done and dusted. They, first and foremost, were instrumental in regenerating a nation-wide fear psychosis.  

Ironically and tragically but not necessarily surprisingly, their operations particularly instilled fear among the very community they belong to and in whose name they act(ed), never mind the fact that, arguably, a significant section would not identify with them. Indeed, many Muslims have openly condemned the attack and have named the attackers as the primary source of the anxieties that the Muslims suffered and continue to suffer on account of their actions. I said ‘not surprising’ because following the example of the LTTE, any fear that is generated could, theoretically, facilitate recruitment. Also, given that the ISIS is a global operation, even the decimation of a community could be seen as a worthy sacrifice in terms of the possible broader objective of enhanced recruitment elsewhere.  

It is precisely because of this that regardless of the shameless communalism of Muslim politicians, everyone in other religious and ethnic communities should do everything possible to a) ensure the safety of Muslims and b) to allay all fears they may harbor. It does not matter what their political affiliations are. It does not matter whether or not they were opposed to NTJ, vocally or otherwise. It does not matter whether or not they identify with the Wahhabism that gave rise to the Jihaadists. 

This is precisely why the statement of the Chief Prelate of the Asgiriya Chapter is unfortunate. Indeed, the call for attacking Muslims should be roundly condemned, even as we must treat with suspicion the chapter-verse quotes of the ICCPR by those who selectively do so.  Any statement that generalizes about any community can only aggravate anxieties. They can only agitate the worst DNA strains of the human being. They can only empower the extremists. They can only disempower the peaceful. Fear begets fear. Communalism feeds off communalism. Affirmation of identity does not necessarily mean you have to attack or say anything negative about any other identity based community. We an do without all that.  

And yet, we need to understand that we will have ‘all that’.  We have to work keeping in mind that ‘all that’ is and will be part of the story. Even a cursory read of human history will teach you this uncomfortable truth. This is why we have laws and they are amended from time to time. This is why the business of national security has to be handled by professionals and not politicians. This is why no one should a) take the law into his/her hands, and b) push others to do so.  

More seriously, it cuts a road for outsiders with dubious agenda to write themselves into the overall political narrative. Mangala Samaraweera, a man who does not have what it takes to note that he uses hate speech even when he berates those who do, is small fry in this regard. No, when we have a government that is ever ready to welcome with open arms such operators, the causes for concern are that much more serious and more dangerous than anything that Samaraweera can do; he is but cat’s paw. Cats, ladies and gentlemen, abound.  

For example, just the other day, the European Union mission in Colombo issued a statement of ‘concern’. They are concerned ‘by political and religious pressure being directed at Sri Lanka’s Muslim community which is undermining peace and reconciliation in the country’. They add, ‘prejudiced and unsubstantiated allegations repeatedly published by media serve only to fuel intolerance.’  These views, the EU claims, were shared at a meeting with the Prime Minister. They have urged the President, Prime Minister and all political leaders ‘to reassert the state’s commitment to mutual respect, tolerance, and equal treatment under the law for all, irrespective of faith or ethnicity.’ 

Now the last seems above board, even though the word ‘urge’ is distasteful. This comes, one notes, from a group of nations that are the mothers and fathers of intolerance, racism and religious fundamentalism in roughly equal standing to the worst in that category among any other nation. Interestingly, they’ve taken a leaf from the Hizbullah strategy: ‘everyone is to blame but all Musims are innocent!’ Nothing of the rank intolerance, brutality and savagery of those who started all this. Instead, the media is targeted!

Nevertheless, the EU is only ‘Malli’ in the business of ‘boradiye maalu baema’ (roughly, ‘striking while the iron is hot’). The ‘Aiya’ in all this is the Grand Mother of Meddling. The USA. In the midst of all this, made worse by the fact that this country is being run by most incompetent government in post-Independence history, there are matters that can wreck the nation in ways that the Jihaadists cannot even dream of.

Here are questions that perhaps Eran Wickramaratne and Harsha De Silva (I expect) would answer, since they are ‘the economists’ in this government.

Has the Government entered into one, and is in the process of finalizing two other agreements with the USA? If there has been or is any discussion in this regard, does Cabinet know of it? Is the Government planning to introduce several laws and is at least one of them already in place? What is the final version of the ‘Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)’? Does it or does it now award  diplomatic immunity to US armed forces and civilian employees of the U.S department of Defense and will they be permitted to wear uniforms and carry arms while performing official duties? 

Would the said personnel be permitted to import, export and use any personal property, equipment, supplies, material, technology, training or services in connection with their activities according to the agreement, without any inspection, license, other restrictions and or duties? Can vessels, air crafts and vehicles enter Sri Lanka without any restriction/inspection? Will the agreement become binding the moment “a minister” of the S.L. Government sings a letter of willingness.  What is the status of and the full text of the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA)? What is the status of the full text of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact (MCC Compact)?

These are grave matters. They are causes for serious concern. They ought to generate fear and would certainly do so if these agreements come into effect.  We can retire all our favorite definitions of ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Sri Lankans’ (Sinhala Buddhist, Part of the IS Caliphate, Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Religion with the Sinhala Buddhists ‘Rabble’ as Servants of the Kolombians or Colombots).  Vassals we would be. For a long time to come. And the pot shots that extreme elements of various communities take at each other would seem like pebble-throws compared to the multiple violations and depravations we would have to suffer. Remember the Chagos Island and the Chagossians. Haven’t heard of them? Well, that might be our fate too.  

malindasenevi@gmail.com

[First published in the Daily Mirror on June 20, 2019]

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In the year 2019, sometime in the month of May a chance investigation threw up a name: Shanthilal Silva.  Dr Silva, attached to the Peradeniya Teaching Hospital. Although not an Obstetrician and Gynecologist, he was known to be one because he had performed caesarian sections and delivered babies. The name was thrown up, but no one picked it up.  

Now this Dr Silva, capitalizing on lax oversight at the hospital and of course able to cash cheques on account of superiors who got him to ‘cover’ when they went to earn a buck or two doing private practice, enjoyed his work. He liked to cut up expecting mothers. Mothers and of course the fathers of the children they delivered were extremely grateful to Dr Silva. After all, he ensured they could take healthy infants home.  

At one point something hit the fan. The ‘good’ doctor apparently had some skeletons in his cupboard which spilled out. Women ‘treated’ by Dr Silva suddenly remembered. Some claimed that they didn’t have babies after this doctor performed Caesarian Sections on them. Did he fiddle with their tubes, they asked themselves and others. Was he some kind of communalist (because all these people who claimed victimization happened to belong to some other community), they asked themselves and others.  

Immediately the big-name watchdog nations on human rights (never mind their sorry track record on this subject) got the wind up. They issue statements (politely) demanding that the Sri Lankan government provide speedy justice and reparation to the victims of this unfolding tragedy. Minister Mangala Samaraweera issues a 10 page statement against enemies of peaceful coexistence. He gaily indulges in essentialist terminology vilifying all Sinhalese and all Buddhists, especially the bhikkus. The US Ambassador immediately visits ‘victims’. There are howls of horror from ‘Civil Society’ especially women’s rights outfits. Demonstrations are held in Colombo by Born Against Democrats, Candlelight Ladies and Funded Voices at Lipton’s Circus. The UNHRC boss powwows with representatives of big-name nations to draft yet another resolution against Sri Lanka which Mangala and others of his ilk are itching to champion and endorse. 

Alright. None of the above happened. And neither were such revelations preceded by the bombing of churches and hotels by a group claiming to be the purest and only true adherents to the doctrine of the Buddha. 

We don’t have to listen to the not-so-veiled threats of ex Governor of the Eastern Province, Mahamood Hizbullah to understand that there is a real and abiding danger of a kind of terrorism this country did not know before Easter Sunday.  And yet, the noises made in English, in and out of the media (mainstream and social) are almost exclusively directed at the majority community, the Sinhala Buddhists. 

We know what happened. A large number of Sinhala women (close to 800) who complained about Dr Shafi (who is not, contrary to reports, a gynecologist and obstetrician) have been vilified. People have asked why only some 60 odd of them have agreed to submit themselves to examination, never mind that concern is one thing and anxieties about probes and related publicity are two different things. Pregnancy, childbirth and the ability to deliver are extremely personal matters which are surprisingly ignored in the relevant discourse.   

An academic, attached to an English Department in a state university no less, asks ‘where did all these women turn up from?’  

And we know what didn’t happen. We haven’t had a single Muslim woman ‘treated’ by Dr Shafi coming forward to say ‘I too was unable to conceive following the C-Section done by him’. Note that this doctor operated (!) in areas where there is a sizable Muslim population.

We know what is unlikely to happen too. Many have pooh-poohed allegations against Dr Shafi. Many of this ‘many’ were reluctant to pooh-pooh allegations against the Sri Lankan security forces during the last stages of operations against the LTTE. Innocent until proven guilty is a selectively applicable thing, apparently. Anyway, if they are so convinced, could they do the following: if they are of child-bearing age and inclination or have wives, daughters and friends who are, would they, by way of putting money where their mouths are, name themselves and say ‘Dr Shafi is my first choice medical practitioner in this regard!’? 

Today we have many lecturers on coexistence, harmony, reconciliation, peace and such things, just as there were when the LTTE played ‘Poor relation of the ISIS’.  Terrorists have no religion, we are told. Don’t conflate Muslims with the Jihaadists, we are told. Don’t alienate Muslims. Don’t isolate them. We are told. 

I am in agreement with all of the above, in general. Isolation and alienation would, as argued, most certainly play into the hands of the extremists. There’s no doubt that we have to deal with the terrorists as they ought to be dealt with, from processes and structures that feed ideology and facilitate recruitment to detecting and dismantling operations. With respect to ‘processes’ anything that isolates and alienates the relevant community will be an obstacle.  Perhaps the error is in exaggerating the possibility of the latter and pretending that isolation and alienation can only be inflicted and not chosen.  In any event (and this is a generous reading), we have seen a lot of this exaggeration which has in fact snowballed into two things: a) a crass generalization and vilification of the majority community, and b) scandalous silence on all other factors including the threat at hand and the relevant complicities of the Hizbullahs of the Muslim community, apart from the odd and token reference.  

It is a script that we’ve read before. It is a film we saw during the nineties and the early part of this century. And those who wrote and read and play it out call themselves or would have us believe they are ‘moderates’.  

I firmly believe that there are some who are in fact ‘moderate’. Vilification of an entire community, in this case the Sinhala Buddhists, is probably not THEIR intention. Neither would they advocate the alienation and isolation that could result and indeed seems to be the outcome preference of their fellow travelers. In fact I believe the majority of the moderates are, well, moderate. I am not talking about them but those moderates who give a bad name to moderation.

What’s their beef, though? Who are they, though? Among them are people who are neither Sinhalese nor Buddhists. Among them are people who for whatever reason believe and worry that the ‘Sinhala Buddhist community’ is the preserve of those opposed to the current government led by the United National Party. In other words, they are politically inclined to support or are affiliated with that party. Among them are people who talk of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious Sri Lanka while carefully avoiding numbers and percentages and of course brushing aside history and heritage.  They talk about a Sri Lankan identity in public, but fervently affirm their ethnic or religious identities in private. Many are wont to believe (although they won’t say it) that Sri Lanka is Colombo and vice versa, and assume (without saying it) that the affairs of the country should be managed by the English-speaking, Anglicized and relatively wealthy class.  

Many of them consciously or unconsciously are ashamed of their own skin and DNA traces, talk about how great things were under the Europeans (never mind ethnic-cleansing, genocide, extraction of resources and the fact that the ‘great works’ were funded by taxing the people and through their underpaid labor), and find the vilification of Sinhala Buddhists a means to self-isolation and self-alienation that makes them ladies and gentlemen.  They would shop, to put it a bit crudely, in the high end department stores like Odel (for instance) but would not be caught dead at Uptown Kandy in case (to use oft used derogatory epithets) ‘gode’ or yako’ rubs off on them. There are also among them people who do not belong to this class, people who are Sinhalese and Buddhists, who can’t afford high-end consumerism but want to be ‘posh’ and therefore do the costless thing of mimicking the ‘posh’, namely taking up the vilifying chant. They would be sneered at by the ‘Real Deal’ in private, but they won’t know it.   

They rant and rave against isolation and alienation, but in fact isolate and alienate. Caricature is their watchword. And this is why those like Rev Gnanasara and outfits like the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) are ‘heaven-sent’ to them. Such individuals and outfits, however rejected they may be by Buddhists, are used as proxies for that community. No caveats. No specifics. Totalizing, instead. Generalizing instead. Caricatured. And that’s ‘moderation’ and ‘moderates’ for you, ladies and gentlemen. Part of the problem. Sri Lanka must rise up, but to do that Sri Lanka must wise-up to these fake-moderates for they endanger everyone. That’s fundamental. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com

[A shorter version of this article was published in the 'Daily Mirror,' June 13, 2019]

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Reconciliation does not grow in the Valley of Lies

Negombo. May 5, 2019. Two weeks after the Jihadist attacks. Who attacked Muslims, who boycotted Muslim shops?   

Half a truth here, half a truth there

armed with half-truths onward

all in the Valley of Lies

rode the six hundred.

‘Forward the Lie Brigade!

Charge for the monks!’ he said.

Into the Valley of Lies

rode the six hundred.

Sorry, Alfie. Couldn’t resist. These are tense times and a half-chuckle here and there you would pardon, I am sure. I was reminded of the verse by a number: 300. Half, yes, but this is only half the story. Read on.

In June 2014, 300 Sri Lankans petitioned the then Government to ‘take urgent action to stop attacks on Muslims’. This was in the aftermath of incidents in Aluthgama, Beruwala, Welipenna and Dharga Town, and pointed out to inflammatory speech by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS).

Aluthgama, Beruwala, Welipenna etc was followed a few years later by Theldeniya and Digana as names associated with violence. Anti-Muslim violence. Violence perpetrated by those who affirmed the Buddhist faith, as per their convictions and understanding. 

In both instances, the Buddhists are made out to have clapped with a single hand, the statements would have us believe. We could quibble about who cast the first stone or who cast more stones, but there are few who are blameless. Well, no one need cast stones and even if ‘the other’ did so, it does not justify retaliation (if indeed that was what it was) of the kind we saw. That said, the popular narrative among the English twitterati is that stone-throwing or rather the casting of the first stone is a Sinhala Buddhist preserve, a ‘fact’ that even  absolves suicide bombers. 

Today, however, it seems that stones have been gathered a long time before ‘Aluthgama’ with or without the knowledge of people living in these areas. ‘Without’ let’s assume. No, let’s say ‘Without!’ with conviction, for grand generalization is a curse.   

What happened to the ‘300’  worthies (and their ilk, numbering well over 600) after the Easter Sunday attack by Muslims who claim to be affirming to the letter their faith? Not all such petitioners are in the practice of issuing statements at every turn, although the Easter Sunday attack was not exactly something trivial. Still, typically, there are signature-solicitors in such exercises. What happened to them? Why was Aluthgama, Theldeniya etc., ‘hot’ and ‘Easter Sunday’ cold? How did the anti-Muslim violence in Negombo following the attack and the boycotting of Muslim business  establishments go unnoticed? Was it noticed but ignored because the perpetrators did not belong to the community such people love to hate, namely the Sinhala Buddhists? Only D.B.S. Jeyaraj talked of what happened in Poruthota, Periyamulla and Dalupotha on May 5, 2019. Is it that our anti-Buddhist anti-Sinhala mobs didn’t find a mouth-watering story to tell? 

Anyway, all of a sudden, in the name of inter-communal amity, we are told to desist from naming the religion of the terrorists, the religion in whose name they killed. So we have a nameless commentator in the state media talking about ‘the hidden hands behind the anti-Muslim riots’. This print warrior will hopefully, even belatedly, tell us about all the hidden hands behind the terrorists affirming their Islamic faith, i.e. the terrorist-spawning educational institutions, mosques and most importantly the teachings, which sadly amount to a perversion of Islam (according to Islamic scholars) but nevertheless taken to be that doctrine in its purest form.  

Jehan Perera, writing in late April believes that Sri Lanka was dragged into a global conflict with Islamic extremism. His biggest worry was that the present government would lost the Catholic vote!  As has always been the case, and evidenced by subsequent missives, Perera is upset by the inconvenience of security measures. Happily he is not in charge of the subject. Again, in a piece about engagement being the price of reconciliation, he expresses his greatest worry — the ouster of this regime. More pertinent is the this human rights warrior’s marked reluctance to engage with the reality of religion-based extremism, how religious freedom was and is being abused to churn out terrorists, and how the problem is deeper than a bunch of people itching to blow themselves up. 

Thisaranee Gunasekara, who loves to chew out Sinhala Buddhists, writing in April unequivocally lays the blame on that community for anti-Muslim violence. It was the BBS that gave birth to Wahhabism, the ISIS and the NTJ, doctrines and outfits that pre-date ‘Aluthgama,’ she would have us believe. Sinhala Buddhists created the hell that is Syria, she might even conclude one day. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu is a bit cuter than Gunasekara: ‘The violence, the animosity, Sinhala Buddhist versus Muslim, certainly could have led to these people becoming much more radicalized.’ 

They haven’t gone as far as Taylor Dibbert of www.foreignpolicy.com to say ‘Buddhist anger could tear Sri Lanka apart’, but that’s exactly where they are heading.  Susan Ormiston of CBC news who interviewed Saravanamuttu and others interjects, casually, ‘Buddhism is the majority religion and has seen the rise of ultra-nationalist groups.’  Interestingly and tellingly, the CBC news item covering an inter-faith event following the terrorist attack huffs and puffs before mentioning the ISIS and even then only in relation to some uniforms being found. Until then it’s about ‘bombings’ and ‘the Easter Sunday attack’. However, CBC is determined to ‘explain how this network of homegrown terrorism grew’. 

There you have it — homegrown. Home. Sri Lankan, exclusively. So it has to be something here. And then we have ‘the experts’ who are either non-Buddhists, anti-Buddhists or feel compelled to be on the bahu jaathika - bahu aagamika (multi religious, multi ethnic) bandwagon, never mind percentages. They relate the ‘Buddhists are to blame’ story.  Terrorists have no religion, we are told, but those who attack Muslims are Buddhist extremists (if they are not Buddhists, as mentioned above, such stories are killed). 

A more sophisticated (but as pernicious) analysis has been offered by Anuk Arudpragasam (‘A state of disorientation: dispatch from Sri Lanka after the Easter Bombings’), who mentions the ‘global factors’ but insists that it is all about ‘the country’s unwillingness to see how it has inflicted wounds on minorities.’ He speaks of deeply engrained racism and unexamined history of violence. All of a sudden, we have the old, tired and pernicious text, ‘the Sinhala Buddhist are to blame!’ And the unsaid but racist, ostrich-like  corollary, ‘minorities are blameless’.  He is right, however, when he says, ‘it is easier sometimes to follow a script, after all, even when it comes at the cost of peace.’ He’s a proponent, and he’s not alone.

All this makes it impossible to address ALL THE FACTORS because few in this drama are blameless.  ‘We are all guilty therefore we are all innocent’ is also a cover, we must insist. However, a preference for half-truths or downright lies (for laudable or vile reasons) takes us to the Vale of Deceit and that is where mistrust, anxiety and hatred are spawned. Looking for root-causes is one thing, but to say, for example, that the LTTE, BBS or NTJ (and no, they are not equals for multiple reasons) gave birth to the other two (or different ‘others’) or, alternatively, they all fell from the sky, is to pass the buck (that was always with all of us) to one another.  

So we get to a point where we cannot entertain any doubts whatsoever about any non-Sinhala non-Buddhist doing wrong. That would be racist. That would be intolerant. That’s what we are being told about Dr Shafi Shihabdeen, the man accused of performing forced sterilization following Caesarian surgery.

One must wonder what happened to the women’s rights outfits that are constantly looking for a protest-op. We all know that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ has not stopped them before. 

Are Sinhala Buddhist women ‘untouchables’ if they suspect someone from another community abusing professional trust (to put it mildly)? Why can’t they ask all women ‘Caesared’ by Shihabdeen and who gave birth subsequently as well to come forward, so we can get an identity-related breakdown of the numbers and thereby get to the truth of the matter? 

The tireless efforts to hang the Sinhala Buddhist as the one and only villain in this drama cannot help reconciliation. Indeed, it allows those who in the name of identity plan and execute violence of one kind or another on religious or other minorities the perfect cover. They would be, simply, just a bunch of villains in a villainous majority community. 

On the flip side, it allows (as it has allowed) the quiet rise of racist and bigoted ideologies and attendant violence. They have the cover of the classic justification: ‘in self defense!’   

The bottom line: identity should not be a cover or an excuse for infringement of the law or abuse of constitutional safeguards such as religious freedoms. The ‘600’ (or more) are not helping. Well, they are helping all extremists, one could add. Half-truths do that. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com

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