{"id":87049,"date":"2019-04-09T00:36:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T06:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87049"},"modified":"2019-04-08T16:37:42","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T23:37:42","slug":"diaspora-terrorists-threaten-mayor-of-harrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/09\/diaspora-terrorists-threaten-mayor-of-harrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Diaspora terrorists threaten Mayor of Harrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ;A.A.M.NIZAM \u2013 MATARA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The first Muslim female Mayor of England, Kareema Marikar\nwho functions as Mayor of Harrow since 2010 hails from a political family in\nSri Lanka.  Reports said that one thing\nyou notice in Kareema Marikar\u2019s personality is her bubbly nature, infectious\nsmile and down-to-earth simplicity. It said that despite creating history as\nthe first female Muslim mayor in England, she is not yet ready to rest on her\nlaurels, judging by an interview she gave to the BBC recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a Marakkala woman from Sri Lanka,\u201d Marikar told Saroj\nPathirana of the Sinhala Service of the BBC in the interview conducted in a\nquaint, leafy British park on a bright Spring day, clad in a white \u2018osari\u2019, a\ntraditional sari originated among the nobility in her native area of Kandy\nabout a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marikar, who was elected on the Labour Party ticket in north\nLondon\u2019s Harrow city in May, hails from a well-known political family in Sri\nLanka. She is closely related to the former Minister of Posts, Broadcasting and\nInformation, Mr. C. A. S. Marikar, who served in the Bandaranaike government\nand was popularly known as Sinhala Marikar, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kareema Marikar – Mayor of Harrow<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was educated at Kandy High School in\nSinhala medium,\u201d said Marikar, who has five brothers and two sisters. One of\nher elder sisters lives in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marikar was born at a time when Sri\nLanka knew perfect ethnic harmony, before racial-minded politicians with narrow\n agendas led the country to the brink of disaster\nwith a terrible war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though a Muslim, my uncle, my father\u2019s\nelder brother, who was Minister of Posts, Broadcasting and Information, created\nhistory by organising the first ever all-night Buddhist \u2018pirith\u2019 chanting\nceremony over Radio Ceylon in the 60s,\u201d said Marikar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Kandy, Harrow is\nethnically-mixed. Out of 248,000 inhabitants, 20,000 are Gujaratis, more than\n8000 are Tamils, in addition to many other nationalities, including a large\nnumber of Sinhalese. Ethnic diversity is our strength, and everybody lives in\nperfect harmony. This is the 21st century, and today it is difficult to live\naccording to old ways. The world is fast-changing and we also have to adapt to\nchanges fas t. We have 80 places of worship of various religions in Harrow, and\nI also serve in the Inter-Faith Council,\u201d says Marikar, who is a trained mental\nhealth nurse in Oxfordshire Alsbury. She studied hotel management in Sri Lanka\nbefore coming to England, and worked briefly at Queen\u2019s Hotel, Kandy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She still keeps in touch with her\nrelatives, classmates, teachers, and other friends, who have helped her to lay\nthe foundation to create history in a foreign country. She became emotional\nwhen speaking about her late parents, commenting, How can I forget the country\nwhere my parents are buried?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the recent floods in Sri Lanka,\nshe launched a fundraising drive in Harrow to help the victims. A firm believer\nin women\u2019s greater participation in politics, Marikar says though Sri Lanka has\nambitious plans to increase women\u2019s share in the Government up to 25%, still\nthe target falls well below expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to a question as to what\nshe thinks is the secret of her success, Marikar, who played hockey as a goal\nkeeper for her school and the Sri Lankan national team, says she thinks it is\nher smile, patience, and love for racial and ethnic harmony that has helped her\nto become the city\u2019s mayor. I manage to smile often,  and take care not to react when people are\ncritical of me. On such occasions I lie low, go home and reflect, trying to\nanalyse what makes someone critical of me. That way, I am able to keep minor\nheartaches at bay, and correct myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A frequent visitor to her native\ncountry, she attended a local Government association in the Eastern city of\nBatticaloa, chaired by chief executive Hemanthi Goonesekara, whom Marikar\ndescribes as one of her good contacts in the island. The main discussion at the\nconference revolved around increasing female representation in the local\nGovernment and Parliament, which hovers around 4% today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her deep attachment to the culture of\nher native land was evident when she walked into the Harrow council chamber to\ntake oaths on her first day in office as Mayor, accompanied by Sri Lankan\ntraditional dancers, drummers and conch shell blowers, while the council\nmembers and the public watched in rapt attention as history was being made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to her Facebook page, she is\na regular at all the cultural and religious events in her council area. Several\nposts show her being welcomed at Buddhist events at numerous temples, and\nIslamic functions held to mark important religious events like Eid. In one\npost, she is seen dancing with a South African group opposite late freedom\nfighter Nelson Mandela\u2019s Soweto home while she was visiting the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She has also taken causes close to her\nheart to national prominence. Marikar is urging Conservative Prime Minister\nTheresa May, who made cut backs to police services as the Interior Minister, to\nincrease funds and manpower to improve the deteriorating law and order\nsituation in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging by her enthusiasm and\npopularity, the present political office does not look like Mayor Marikar\u2019s\nlast frontier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite her enormous service to Harrow,\nfor Britain, for her native country Sri Lanka and in the Global Arena, the\nracist Tamils (the diaspora terrorists) have demanded her to resign fromher\npost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A petition with\nsignatures of diaspora elejments in Harrow have been handed to Harrow Council in\nFebruary calling  her to step down from\nher role and threatening her after she was pictured with senior military\nfigures during a visit to Sri Lanka, Harrow based newspaper, Local London\nreported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newspaper added\nthat the Tamil community in Harrow \u2018are upset\u2019 that she met Commander of the\nSri Lankan Army, Mahesh Senanayake, and Brigadier Priyanka Fernando during a\ntrip to Sri Lanka last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petition has read: “Most Tamil residents in Harrow escaped the\nwar and came to the UK as refugees, (economic refugees, otherwise they can\nreturn now as the war was over 10 years ago) and they still carry the scars of\nthat war which killed many of their kith and kin in their former home country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was\nextremely upsetting to learn that Ms Marikar, who represents a large number of\nTamils in Harrow and claims to have a detailed knowledge of Sri Lanka, chose to\npublish photographs with these senior military officials.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a report published on 7th<\/sup>\nAugust 2019 datelined from Kandy said that \nthe Kandy born Sri Lankan Mayoress of the City Council of Harrow,\nEngland Kareema Marikar was felicitated by the Kandy Mayor Kesara D. Senanayake\nand the Municipal Council on the previous \nday.  It said that  Kareema Marikar is a member of the famous\nMarikar family in Kandy and gave her family detail and said that she younger\nsister of Kandy Municipal Council member Asmin (Mathali) Marikar The report\nsaid that Kareema, after receiving her education at Kandy Girls\u2019 High School,\nleft for England, where she received higher education and took to Labour Party\npolitics, Addressing the meeting held to felicitate her Kareena has said that she\nwas where she was due to hard work and service to the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ;A.A.M.NIZAM \u2013 MATARA The first Muslim female Mayor of England, Kareema Marikar who functions as Mayor of Harrow since 2010 hails from a political family in Sri Lanka.  Reports said that one thing you notice in Kareema Marikar\u2019s personality is her bubbly nature, infectious smile and down-to-earth simplicity. It said that despite creating history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aamnizam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87049","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=87049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}