{"id":75474,"date":"2018-03-09T16:52:40","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T23:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=75474"},"modified":"2018-03-09T16:53:18","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T23:53:18","slug":"thank-you-srilanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/03\/09\/thank-you-srilanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Thank you Srilanka!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai, Dehiwela<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The week that went by has been a severe trial for the Srilankan Muslims.\u00a0\u00a0Needless to elaborate, a small incidence was falsely\u00a0\u00a0blown out of proportion and riots erupted in an unexpected way which definitely points to the fact that this was a well- pre planned, well-orchestrated attack on Muslims in a systematic way. It definitely was not an ad hoc uncontrolled angry mob\u00a0\u00a0reaction to the incidence.<\/p>\n

Actually two incidences are related to the riot. The first one, where the kothu rotti shop owner is accused of mixing fertility control tablets for the males (!) in the kothu is, if not for the tragedy it brought about, is very comical. Comi \u2013tragedy indeed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To think\u00a0\u00a0not even\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0one single person of the 500 youth who went massacring innocent civilians, absolutely\u00a0\u00a0unrelated to the incidence,\u00a0\u00a0did not stop to verify whether such a thing is even possible,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0is mindboggling. Our Srilankan youth are not that stupid. No, they were already programmed to attack, irrespective of a cause, is the only conclusion one can arrive at.<\/p>\n

What followed was nightmare for the Muslims in the whole island. But how the Sinhalese reacted \u2013 albeit a little late –\u00a0\u00a0is heart warming. Generally the Sinhalese condemned the attack but were not expressing the protest openly. However from day one, there were bhikkus who actively, bravely protected the Muslims in some areas. The civilians held protest meetings. By and by, some of the Bhikkhus, famous cricketers and other personalities spoke up on cameras and the videos went viral. While there was a real threat of attack on Friday during the Jumu’a prayers, it was heart warming that monks and Sinhalese youth stood vigilant protecting the Muslims.\u00a0\u00a0Sinhalese youth who comprises the\u00a0\u00a0majority in the law enforcing groups performed their duty well.\u00a0\u00a0JVP performed a silent protest against ethnic violence.<\/p>\n

So, Srilankans are humans \u2013 excellent humans. They have not forgotten the war torn days. Common sense prevailed and people came forward to respond.\u00a0\u00a0It warms the cockles of our heart that after all humanity is not dead, karunawa is not dead, Buddhist principles are not dead in our blessed country. This is the beginning of mutual protection of different ethnic groups, different religious people and different language speaking citizens\u00a0\u00a0in our country. This will set the precedence. If ever there is another incidence \u2013 may Allah forbid \u2013 next time people will be quicker to respond. Quicker to rise to the occasion to express resistance and act against\u00a0\u00a0civic violence.<\/p>\n

Long live Srilanka! Long live Srilankan brotehrhood!<\/p>\n

Sent by:<\/p>\n

Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai,<\/p>\n

\u00a0Dehiwela<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai, Dehiwela The week that went by has been a severe trial for the Srilankan Muslims.\u00a0\u00a0Needless to elaborate, a small incidence was falsely\u00a0\u00a0blown out of proportion and riots erupted in an unexpected way which definitely points to the fact that this was a well- pre planned, well-orchestrated attack on Muslims in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}