{"id":89097,"date":"2019-05-20T20:16:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T02:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=89097"},"modified":"2019-05-20T13:14:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T20:14:31","slug":"the-long-history-of-tamil-hate-culture-persecuting-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/20\/the-long-history-of-tamil-hate-culture-persecuting-muslims\/","title":{"rendered":"The long history of Tamil hate culture persecuting Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"

H.L.D. Mahindapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The\nfirst ever persecution of Muslims in Sri Lanka occurred way back in history. It\ntook place in Jaffna, the birth place of hate politics against the other\u201d,\nwhich included even the Tamils of the low-castes. Details of Tamil hate\npolitics need a whole book.  This essay is focused on Tamil persecution of\nMuslim throughout their history. The historical records relate the bitterness\nof the Tamils against the Muslim vividly and dramatically. The anti-Muslim\npolitics of Tamils was driven by a relentless and venomous ideology which began\nwith a feudal tyrant, Sankilli, and came right down, through generations, to\nVelupillai Prabhakaran\u2019s Kattankudy massacre.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamils of Jaffna were also the first to deny the\nidentity of the Muslims. It dates back to feudal times. Quite surprisingly,\nanti-Muslim hate politics is recorded in the most respected historical text of\ncolonial times : Yalpana Vaipava Malai<\/em><\/strong>.(A historical garland of\nJaffna). Yalpana Vaipava Malai<\/em><\/strong> (YVM<\/em><\/strong>) was written by\nMayilvakanm at the request of the Dutch Governor Jan Maccara, (1736). Its\ntranslator, C. Brito (1879) wrote in his preface: The work is looked upon as\none of the great authority among the Tamils of Jaffna, and there are several\nmanuscript copies of it extant in the peninsula.\u201d. YVM<\/em><\/strong> is quite\nforthright in telling the story as it is. Mayilvakanam wrote at a time when\nhistory was not politicised to serve political agendas. Unfortunately, the\nhistory of Jaffna is wrapped in secrecy to this day for fear of exposing its\nhate politics against the other\u201d. The other\u201d in the Tamil political culture\nconsists of Muslims, Christians, Sinhalese and even its own Tamil people who\nwere rejected by Tamil Vellala elite  as untouchable outcasts. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time like this when identity politics of Muslims\nis in the spotlight again it is necessary to trace the critical Muslim\nrelations with the other communities to gain some perspectives on  the\ninter- ethnic dynamics at play.  As for the origins of the hate politics\nagainst the Muslims there isn\u2019t a better place that records the plight of the\nMuslims than the Yalpana Vaipava Malai.<\/em><\/strong> Historian Mayilvakanam\nrecords what happened to the Muslims in the following paragraphs which are\nquoted in full. He says: During the supremacy of the Ulanthesar (Dutch), a\ncolony of Sonakar (Muslims), came from Kayilpaddanam and other places and\nsettle in South-mirisuvil, the name of which they changed into Usan.They were\noriginally Tamils by race but had embraced the Muhammathu-matham by compulsion\nor persuasion of one Santhach-chaiva. Their chief means of subsistence was\ntrade, which they carried on from fair to fair, in Savukach-cheri, Kodikumam,\nEluthu-madduval,and Muhavil. After a time they abandoned Usan, and founded a\nnew settlement in Nallur, on and around the site of Kantha-Suvami Koyil. The\nTamil viewed their presence with displeasure as they thought that it might be\ndetrimental to the cause of their religion when the time should come for the\nrestoration of the temple. They tempted the Sonakar to leave the place, with\nmoney and entreaties, which when they found unavailing, they had recourse to a\nplan that proved effectual. They put a quantity of pig\u2019s flesh into the wells\nof their enemy by night. When the defilement was discovered, the Sonakar were\nin great distress of mind. They could neither drink the water nor cook their\nmeans with it, and they saw themselves driven to the necessity of choosing\nbetween starvation on one hand and emigration on the other. They chose the\nlatter and sold the place for whatever money could get from the Tamils and\nretired to the east of Navanthurai. Before they left, they, however, had made a\ncompact by which they retained to themselves the right of visiting the4 spot,\nat stated times, for purposes of Muhammathan worship even when a Tamil\ntemple  should happened to be afterwards built upon it.\u201d( p. 55 \u2013 Yalpana\nVaipava  Malai<\/em><\/strong>, translated  by C. Britto, Asian Educational\nServices, 1999).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referring to the Malays, Mayilvakanam says: : In the\nreign of Vijaya Bahu (the usurper) there was a numerous army of Yavakar\n(Malays) in the king\u2019s pay. Their numbers underwent constant diminution by deadly\nfeuds among themselves and by the oppression of kings. The remnants of them\ninhabited the villages of Savakach-cheri and Savang-kodu. But Sangkili (who had\nalready driven out the Sinhala-Buddhists) drove them also out of his kingdom.\u201d\n(p33-34 \u2013 Ibid). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These passages reveal the origins of the hate politics\nof Tamils against the Muslims that ran deep throughout their history. On the\ncontrary, the relationship between the Muslims and the Sinhalese has been, on\nthe whole, cordial from the beginning. The Sinhalese kings not only opened\ntheir historic al space to accommodate the Muslims persecuted by the Portuguese\nand the Dutch but also facilitated their path to peaceful co-existence. There\nis no record of persecution of Muslims or ethnic cleansing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overall harmonious inter-ethnic relations between\nthe Muslims and the Sinhalese has been the common thread shared by both\ncommunities, leaving aside the occasional tensions.  Most of all, they\nwere given refuge by the Sinhalese when the colonial masters and the Tamil\nrulers persecuted them and expelled them forcibly, treating them as\nuntrustworthy enemies. When Prabhakaran gave the Muslims 24 hours notice to\nquit Jaffna, and  robbed them of their property and treasures, they didn\u2019t\ngo to the Middle East or Malaysia. They were given homes and refuge in the\nSinhala South. The latest events of Digana and Aluthgama which figure\nprominently in the political calculations now because it is fresh in our minds,\npales into insignificance compared to the ideological onslaughts denying the\nMuslim identity, repeated massacres of Muslims, Muslim persecution and forcible\nexpulsion by the Tamils from what they considered to be the Tamil\nhomeland\u201d..  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tragic event of anti-Muslim riots of 1911, under\nBritish rule, was another story which has to be dealt with separately. Even\nconsidering that as the worst point in Sinhala-Muslim relations the Muslims\nnever faced the horrors of ethnic hatred and persecution as under the Tamil\nstates. Besides, the riots of 1911 were not directed by a Sinhala state. It was\nan ethno-religious clash caused by estranged community feelings and, therefore,\nwas confined to lower-level ethnic rivalry without hierarchical forces\ndirecting violence for political gain.  And like all inter-ethnic clashes\nwith the Sinhalese these sporadic events fizzled out like the soda bottle.\nThese inter-ethnic clashes were neither visceral nor permanent.  As\nopposed to this the violent acts against the Muslims by the Tamils took place\nat state levels, based on predetermined political policies officially adopted,\nlike the Nazis eliminating the Jews. Ethnic cleansing and hate politics of the\nother\u201d has been a part of Tamil political culture ever since Sankilli turned\nhis wrath first against the Tamil Catholics, then against the Sinhala-Buddhist\nand finally against the Tamil-speaking Muslims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Prabhakaran, who inherited the Sankilli\nculture of hating the other\u201d, was repeating the culture of hate initiated by\nSankilli when he consistently and deliberately targeted the Muslims to cleanse\nhis so-called Eelam from the alien and evil Muslims. Like the Tamil kings of\nthe past Prabhakaran was hero-worshipped as the undeclared Tamil king of the\nVanni for carving out an ethnically cleansed quasi-state for the Tamils . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hate culture of peninsular politics surfaced under\ndifferent reasons and labels at different times. But the underlying force of\nall Tamil ideologies was hate politics of the other\u201d. Sankilli marched down to\nMannar on the eve of Christmas 1544 and massacred 600 Tamil Christians \u2013\nchildren, pregnant women and the old and the feeble — because they owed\nallegiance to the Christian king of Portugal. Sankilli claimed to be the sole\nrepresentative of the Tamils and he decimated all Tamils who owed allegiance to\nan alien power. It is the helpless Tamils who paid for his arrogance and hate\npolitics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vellala rulers of Jaffna, who wielded total power\nduring feudal times and as subalterns during colonial periods, justified their\nfascist caste culture that reduced their own people to subhuman slaves as a\nreligious duty coming down from God. In the divinely ordained Vellala regime\nthe outcast Tamils, the Turumbas, could not even walk during daytime in case\nthey polluted the pure eyes of the Vellalas. They were not allowed to sit on\nthe seats of busses. They were forced to sit on the floor of the bus \u2013 a sign\nof hate politics not found even in the deep south of racist America. The\nAfro-American were forced to sit in the back of the bus because the front seats\nwere reserved for the whites. They invoked the Hindu Saivite ideology revised\nby the caste fanatic Arumuka Navalar to rule the Tamil outcasts as an inferior\nbreed of Tamil not fit for the society of the high-caste Vellalas. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vellala casteist elitism assumed a sense of\nsuperiority, ordained by God, which was not validated by any civilised or moral\ncode. These self-appointed supremacists despised all other Tamil-speaking\ncommunities within the peninsula and outside it. The Saivite Jaffna Vellala\n(SJV) elite were anointed by their new religious guru, Arumuka Navalar, as a\nsuperior breed. He elevated them even above the few Brahmins of Jaffna and also\nto the Batticoloa Tamils, the Indian Tamils and the Tamil-speaking Muslims.\nTamil intransigence, arrogance and the false sense of superiority intertwined\nas a solid force of Tamil hate politics to keep Jaffna as an exclusive domain\nfor the SJV elite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Jaffna there was no space for non-SJV politics.\nJaffna did no embrace socialism, Marxism, Maoism, liberalism,\npeople-oriented humanism and not even deep-rooted Gandhism which was\nsuperficially fashionable for a brief while. There was no  other brand of\npolitics other than SJV-driven hate politics, derived from the San-kill-i<\/em><\/strong>\nculture. As seen in history the San-kill-i culture came with the emphasis on\nthe kill\u201d part of it. The Tamil political culture hit the lowest depths when\nthe Tamil branch of the Catholic Church embraced and promoted openly SJV hate\npolitics which morphed into Prabhakaranism. Under the Vellala suzerainty of\ncolonial times the Church maintain the supremacy of the Vellalas by allocating\nthe front pews for the Vellalas and the back seats for the low-castes.\nPresumably, they must have thought that Jesus was a Vellala!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this brand of hate politics that came down like\na devastating juggernaut and destroyed peaceful co-existence among all\ncommunities in the post-Independent period. It was this brand of hate politics\nthat was unleashed on the Muslims in full measure. The 20th<\/sup> century\nhorrors of the blood-thirsty Tamil supremacists are recorded in graphic details\nby Prof. Rajan Hoole, a latter-day Mayilvakanam. He had to run away from Jaffna\nand seek shelter in the Sinhala South because intrepid intellectuals like him\nwere hated by the Prabhakaranists, the successors to the SJV supremacists. .\nHis reports records in minute detail what happened to the Muslims under the Pol\nPotist regime of Prabhakaran. In Report No.11 of the University Teachers for\nHuman Rights (Jaffna) (15th<\/sup> April, 1993), titled Land, Human\nRights & The Eastern Predicament<\/em><\/strong>, he painstakingly records the\nunending atrocities faced by the Muslims. The anti-Muslim violence came from\nthe San-kill-i culture of hate revived and enforced ruthlessly by the Tamil Pol\nPot. The Tamil hate culture reached its barbaric peak under the iron-fist of\nPrabhakaran and next to the Tamils (he killed more Tamils than all the other\nforces put together \u2013 S.C. Chandrahasan, son of S. J. V. Chelvanayakam) it is\nthe Muslims who faced the full force of its violence and hate<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the attempt to ethnically cleanse the North and the\nEast the San-kill-i political leadership did not hesitate to drive the Muslims\nout of Jaffna and it is estimated that 75,000 Muslims had to flee with only\ntheir clothes on their backs. Without meaning to excuse or justify any kind of\nviolence, compare that to Digana and Aluthgama. In these instances, leaders of\nboth sides rushed to put out the fires before it could burst into an\nuncontrollable conflagration. But there was no room for accommodation and flexibility\nin the hate culture of the Tamils. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Apocalyptic horrors were recorded Prof. Hoole. In\nchapter after chapter of his Report 11 he documents the numerous acts of\npersecution, oppression, hate, expulsion, abduction, racist taxation,\ndiscrimination, shooting of Muslim farmers who went to cultivate their fields\nin the morning and never returned home etc. The worst, of course, was the\nmassacre of the Muslims at the Kattankudy mosque. The following paragraph is\nrepresentative of the hate politics of the Tamils directed against the Muslims.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quoting the report of the Federation of Muslim Mosques\nand Institutions (FMMI) of Kattankudy submitted to the UNCHR he wrote: The\nreport gives details of loss of life and property among Muslims of Kattankudy\nfrom 1985 to October 1991 and gives us an insight into their feelings of\nalienation and anxiety: 1985 \u2013 20 lives lost due to violence, 1986 \u2013 10,\n1987\/88- 85, 1989 \u2013 10, 1990 \u2013222, Kurukkalmadam massacre \u2013 72, Mosque massacre\n\u2013 104, 1991 (up to October) \u2013 22,Isolated cases and abduction \u2013 10. Total \u2013\n379.\u201d (sic). (p, 49, Ibid).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added: The 379 killed in Kattankudy (a\npredominantly Muslim town) were nearly all killed by their Tamil brethren who\nhope to dominate a political entity in which Muslim have to live. This is a\nserious complication (pp,.49 -50, Ibid) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the FMMI presented their report to UNCHR our\nforeign-funded moralists like Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu did not jump from\nWestern city to city demanding that the LTTE should forthwith stop the killing\nof Muslims. Nor did any moral panjandrums in USA and UK move any resolutions in\nthe UNCHR to bring the Tamil Pol Potists to book. Oh, no!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applying morality on a universal scale is expensive,\nespecially if it is promoted by  those who make a living out of\n counting the corpses of the victims of their fake theories for peace and\nhuman rights. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H.L.D. Mahindapala The first ever persecution of Muslims in Sri Lanka occurred way back in history. It took place in Jaffna, the birth place of hate politics against the other\u201d, which included even the Tamils of the low-castes. Details of Tamil hate politics need a whole book.  This essay is focused on Tamil persecution of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89097","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=89097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}