Post war Sri Lanka has been vigorously
concentrating efforts of marketing the country as a safer destination for the
tourism and the investments, targeting at attracting a large number of tourists
and foreign Direct Investments (FDI). Obviously, these were two prerequisite
for the boost of post war economy. Understandably, these targets were unlikely
to materialize unless the long term economic stability is ensured and the post
war reconciliation efforts were completed.
Building up investor, tourist and employee
confidence takes a long term. When there is a sudden disrupt, it takes time for
the recovery and ends up in the potential barrier for the post war economy to
boost. Recent attacks on Muslims in Beruwala and Aluthgama have done similar
damages for the image of the country internationally, for which the racist
groups should take responsibility. However, still not having any idea of
accepting their mistakes, they accuse the victims, the Muslim community, for
the international publicity, which is very much justifiable given that the
racial campaign against the Muslim minority community for the last three years
is endangering their very own existence without any reasonable official
interference.
Post war Boost of Nationalist Sentiments
When LTTE was defeated militarily in 2009,
post war atmosphere gave a momentum to the extreme nationalist feelings, which
was often associated with the slogans of Sinhala Buddhist domination, citing
that the past 2500 years of Lankan history proves that Sri Lankan soil is
purely a Sinhala Budhdhist country.
Similar sentiment was expressed by the
Former army commander Sarath Fonseka, who later portrayed himself as a protector
of minority interest, in the forthcoming election as the presidential
candidate. He had said in an interview to a Canadian newspaper ‘National Post’
that Minority Communities are not more than just gests, and they should not
expect more rights. “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the
Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our
people…. We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and
we have the right to protect this country… We are also a strong nation. They
can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext
of being a minority, demand undue things”, he said.
Present government’s election victories in
the post war polls, clearly demonstrated that the government can be formed
without allying with any minority party, such as Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and
Ceylon Worker’s Congress and such minority parties lost their previous king
maker status. It further accelerated this ever growing ‘nationalistic’ trend.
Many voices within the government raised
that 13th amendment of the constitution should be abolished. Thanks to the
power vested in the government (Two Third Majority needed for the
constitutional amendments), it is in a position to go forward with such a
plan though, it was something which is similar to take a U turn in the history
of ethnic conflict. It was completely forgotten that many Tamil separatist
movements other than LTTE gave up their struggle, only after the promise of
ensuring the delegation of power in the form of provincial council system
established by 13th Amendment after the Indo- Lanka accord. Presently voices
are heard here and there saying that 13th amendment was forced by India on Sri
Lanka. However, the appropriate solution for the ethnic problem was rarely
addressed by anyone, if not 13th amendment at
least.
It must be said that there was an
atmosphere for nurturing the BBS type of fascist organizations in the post war
Sri Lanka. The prevailing nationalistic hot atmosphere gave a much easier
platform for the racists to flourish. However, the current scene was of vacuum
for a villain, in the absent of Tamil tigers. Fairy tales and the stories
in this part of the world always portray a hero and a villain character. Then
who are the villains?
New Villains
Three decades old conflict with the Tamil
tigers did not provide the leisurely atmosphere to consider of beginning a new
conflict with another community. Once the LTTE was militarily defeated, which
also created a superiority psychological impact on the Sinhalese, the apparent
performance of minority in the business and many sectors captured the
attentions.
Though Muslims are portrayed as dominating
the whole business arena in Sri Lanka, it is not, for the best of my knowledge,
supported by any reliable statistical evidence. Though in quantitatively for
the normal observation, it seems that to be true, many Muslim owned businesses
are short surviving partnerships and sole trade businesses. Their market share
must be lesser than it is thought.
Educationally backwards since modern
education was introduced in Sri Lanka, Muslims in Sri Lanka showed seldom
interest in education. Though the Nineteenth century Muslim leader and the
national hero, Sidhdhee Lebbe’s efforts gave some dividends, his dreams did not
materialize to its fullest extent. Until the trade liberalization in 1978
during UNP regime, backwardness in their education did not seem to have had any
significant impact on their businesses, however, liberalization has created a
very great setback for the Muslim owned businesses.
The international competition and the
modern trend in the business culture were very slowly adopted and therefore
they had to loss their competitive advantage. Indeed, Muslims ‘genetically’ had
the business sprit, but failed to adapt themselves for the rapidly changing
environment. However, they picked the fruits from another opportunity which the
trade liberalization facilitated them, i.e. foreign employments. Many
developments observable in several Muslim villages today is, in many instances,
thanks to the foreign employment, not their businesses. Thus at this junction,
they give up their ancestral businesses, and make them busy into a new
profession.
Such is the destiny of every society on the
earth. Changing circumstances create some losers as well as some winners. It is
the normal economic process. Some Muslims view their present ‘defeat’ as a
scandal though; it is their failure to address the modern challenge, indeed.
Same is true for the Sinhalese. They were
traditionally into agriculture unlike their Muslim counter parts. The changes
in the socio – Economic aspect of the country have changed their livelihood and
the life style to a great extent. It is true for the other societies as well.
The bottom line is that economic performance of a group of people is not
necessarily always being based on fraud as some rigid leftist thinkers might
sometimes express.
According to western Economists, the
economy in Simple term is just like a cycle. The macro economic performance/
under performance in one sector has wide range of impacts on many other sectors
and vice versa. The people who expressed their great concern for the small
annual fee collected for Halal Certificate (in many instances it was indeed
lesser than the payment for a single colour page advertisement in a national
daily), seldom condemned the public sector corruption, ineffective performance
of public workers, etc, which is one of the major contributing factor for the
economy’s under performance and thus the sorrows of the poor.
The bottom line is that Muslim society was
abused of being expropriating the Sinhalese money and eventually comfortably
fits into the villain character in the scene.
I agree that there are both unethical and
honest business practices among the businessmen, despite their religious
background. However, punishing a whole society and creating the panic situation
for the mistakes few committed, is unacceptable (it is true that Muslims are
spending their time in the panic since the anti Muslim campaign started).
Inequality among Sri Lankan society is
increasing rapidly according to several indicators, and is one among the
highest in South Asia. Therefore, targeting just Muslims is something seems to
have a political agenda without the genuine desire for a change. Baratiya
Janatha Party (BJP) in India has also set an excellent example for the Sri
Lankan fascist in this regard, how to use racist propaganda to capture the
power.
In other words, thanks to the International
Anti Muslim sentiment created by ‘Islamophobia’ globally, they might have
picked Muslims as easy targets to be the new villains.
Religious Slogans
In addition to economic slogans, cultural
and religious slogans were also raised very strongly.
It was said that Buddhism is in danger
because of Christianity and Islam, which will definitely create panic among
Buddhists.
Unlike Europe, where frequent inter faith
dialogue is much encouraged; we have rarely taken time for such kind of dialogues.
Even in the personal settings, we rarely exchange correct religious and
cultural knowledge and the least amount exchanged is also inadequate in content
and ill – informed. Therefore, it is not surprise that the baseless messages
are passed to the community, some section of the community accept those
messages in their face value.
The multi cultural societies often face the
identity crisis, for which often minority societies are vulnerable. However,
comparing the Sri Lankan context to French, a country where Muslims and
Sinhalese are living for centuries side by side and already integrated to the
national culture, to an environment, where Muslims have started migrating very
recently, is something which is too misleading the public.
Weather it is economic or cultural concern,
it was predicted that the progressing status quo is not absolutely healthy for
the country. The suppressed bomb will blast somewhere. Aluthgama and
Beruwala incidents were part of the chain of many incidences occurring for the
last three years. Should the free functioning of these racist elements continue
in the same manner, it is not difficult to predict, where all these heroisms
will end up.
Government Feels Uneasy
The unexpected coverage for the Aluthgama
and Beruwala incidences from the side of international media has definitely
created an uncomfortable atmosphere for the government which is trying market
the country to attract the tourists and the FDI. On the part of the government
and BBS, the displeasure was conveyed in this regard. BBS secretary has said
that Muslims internationalized ‘this small incident’ (in his vocabulary) and
have created a bad image to the country.
The present need of the time is not
controlling the news coverage from spreading out to the world. News suppress is
always dangerous. This is especially true in the case of minorities. We have to
create an environment where equality and freedom is enjoying all its privileges
within the boundary of Sri Lanka, which will create the necessary atmosphere
needed for the economic development.
Without the religious and ethnic tolerance,
which Sri Lankans have had enough historically other than few incidences, the
country cannot witness any economic development. These racist elements do not
have to do anything good for the country, if they shut their mouths tight and
keep quit.
Rather than just summoning not to approach
the international media, it is worth considering taking some appropriate
measures to control the racist elements in this important turn in the history,
so that the international media could identify Sri Lanka as one of the greatest
places to live. It is the only way for a sustainable marketing strategy
available for the state, to market the country as a safer tourist and
investment destination.
End
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