Not Just a Minority Community in Sri Lanka

Recent events call into question the political position of the Muslim community within Sri Lanka, and the historical context which put them there

Last Friday a mob of about 2000 Sinhalese, led by a group of Buddhist monks, stormed into a mosque in the historical city of Dambulla. They caused disturbances so severe that Friday prayers had to be cancelled. Reports suggest that the mosque had been hurled at with petrol bombs the night before, causing minor damage, and security forces were deployed to control the situation. The targeting of the Muslim community was instigated by a group of racist Sinhalese individuals, consisting largely of hooligans, who were motivated by the uproar and attention such an act would create, rather than by any identifiable ideology.

The Sinhalese group that attacked the mosque claimed that it was an illegal structure, although reports have suggested that the mosque is more than 50 years old. This claim is further validated by the local parliamentarian for the Dambulla district, incidentally, a Sinhalese, who is reported to have stated that the mosque has existed in its current location even before he, himself, was born.

Assuming that the mosque is an illegal structure or is tainted by legal controversy (which, indeed, it is not), due process has to be adhered to and there are legal procedures that need to be observed in order to remove the building or evict its inhabitants.

Social media sources are running amok with reports of increased Sinhala-Muslim tensions. There is however, a far deeper context in which these need to be seen.

This history of Muslims in Sri Lanka is not just another story of a minority community. Sadly and very inaccurately, the term ‘minority’ is used to describe Sri Lankan Muslims, in the same vein as European Muslims are described as minorities.

The Muslims in Europe or the US, in addition to being a numerical minority, do not have a history that spans more than a few centuries, and are largely insulated by other cultural distinctions different to the country they live in. Terms like ‘of Asian origin’, for instance, reinforce this notion. This history of Muslims in Sri Lanka, on the other hand, is as old as Islam itself.

Geographically, Sri Lanka previously held a central location in ancient trade routes, and was the traditional resting spot of sailors and merchants who were travelling from the east to the west. Therefore, Arab merchants had been frequenting Sri Lanka long before the advent of Islam in Arabia. With the ideological transformation of Arabia, the same Arabs coming to Sri Lanka were now Muslims, and in addition to marrying local Sinhalese and Tamil women, helped create the Sri Lankan Muslim population on the island.

Furthermore, unlike their other Muslim ‘minority’ counterparts, the Sri Lankan Muslims bear the exact same physical resemblance to the rest of the Sri Lankan communities and speak the same local tongue. Traditionally, Muslims in Sri Lanka have had the best of relationships with the two other communities in Sri Lanka – the Sinhalese and the Tamils – and have a history spanning well over a millennium.

There are several dimensions to this particular incident that took place. The Sinhalese that attacked the mosque are a part of an extremely small lunatic fringe, and are neither a reflection of the vast majority of the peaceful Sinhalese who have always been good neighbours to the Muslims, nor a reflection of an anti-Muslim agenda of the Sri Lankan state.

This is an extremely delicate situation. There are numerous instances in modern political history where the motivation to foster and nurture extremism is not purely a local construct, but facilitated through the hidden arm of an alien force. Am I insinuating that this incident is a verse in a larger conspiratorial event? No – but I will not rule out the possibility.

In the US sponsored motion against Sri Lanka at the UN Security Council last month, all the Muslim countries voted in support of Sri Lanka, or abstained from voting, thereby sending clear signals of solidarity with the country.

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