{"id":94046,"date":"2019-10-18T15:28:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T22:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=94046"},"modified":"2019-10-18T15:28:38","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T22:28:38","slug":"foreign-power-influence-and-impact-on-presidential-election-a-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/18\/foreign-power-influence-and-impact-on-presidential-election-a-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreign power influence and impact on the presidential election – A response"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Latheef Farook (\u2018Foreign power influence and impact on\npresidential election\u2019\/ The Island, October 16, 2019) asserts that a number of\ncountries \u2018including China, India, United States, its European allies\nespecially United Kingdom and France, Russia and Israel\u2019 \u2018competing to control\nthe Indian ocean\u2019 (he identifies these countries collectively as a new global\nanti-Muslim \u2018axis\u2019) \u2018have entered Sri Lanka in view of its strategic\nimportance\u2019. While his broad subject is what the title indicates, his specific\nthesis seems to me to imply a warning that the success of a pro-Mahinda\nRajapaksa candidate at the forthcoming presidential election is going to be\nunfavourable to local Muslims because, in his opinion, what he calls the global\ncampaign against Muslims made its entry into Sri Lanka under the previous MR\ngovernment. This is a very simplistic generalization made on the basis of\nwoefully inadequate evidence, hence devoid of meaning, to say the least!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The names of the countries and the order in which they are listed\nhere reveal the writer\u2019s pro-Islamist and anti-nationalist bias (something\nobvious to readers who are familiar with Sri Lanka\u2019s current political scene\nand its relation to foreign power interests in the region). In my opinion,\nthese countries may be safely described as economically and\/or militarily\npowerful ones. But I don\u2019t know whether all of them are equally interested in\nSri Lanka for strategic reasons. Neither do I subscribe to the view that there\nis a global anti-Muslim campaign as such. It is a quixotic claim.  Can\nLatheef suggest any convincing reason\/s why global Muslims should attract\nspecial hostility from other nations as he seems to claim? Islamic extremists\ndo excite disagreement, fear, and anger among people of other faiths and among\nmoderate Muslims themselves through their dangerous fanaticism.. But not all\nMuslims – the overwhelming majority – are extremists. There certainly is this\nglobal problem of religious extremism involving Islam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be that as it may, three of the countries named are heavily\ninvolved in a partly cooperative and partly competitive or even adversarial\nregional engagement with each other that entails important economic and\nnational security implications for themselves, and most critically of all, for\nSri Lanka as a small independent sovereign state: these three powers are, of\ncourse, India, China, and America. It can be said in retrospect that Sri Lanka\nhas been reaping both good and bad outcomes from its interactions with these\npowers. Probably, the greatest benefits have come from China over the seven\ndecades since independence, and both good and bad results from America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Meanwhile, a politically and economically stable and\nindependent Sri Lanka that is secure from external aggression and internal\ndivision is a sine qua non for its close neighbour (and Big Brother) India\u2019s\nown stability. An unwelcome offshoot of the inevitable interplay between Sri\nSri Lanka and the superpower presence in its neighbourhood is the unnecessary\nforeign intervention (sometimes amounting to interference in its internal\naffairs) that transforms itself into a conducive background for the divisive and\ndestabilizing forces of separatism and religious extremism, both drawing\nsustenance from abroad. These evils would be easily manageable for Sri Lanka\nbut for the cover that forced mediation intentionally or unintentionally\nprovides for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here I would like to refute categorically two manifestly false\nclaims that  Farook makes in support of his main point. These are: (1) the\nalleged coming of \u2018Islamophobia\u2019 to Sri Lanka in the wake of the  Easter\nSunday attacks and (2) the establishment of relations with Israel and the\npermission of connections between the Hindutva Movement in India – as part of a\nglobal anti-Muslim \u2018axis\u2019 composed of the countries mentioned above -, and the\nso-called \u2018racists\u2019 in Sri Lanka (presumably, BBS monks) against Muslims, as\nFarook complains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About (1), for want of time and space, I will not say more than\nthe following: Latheef Farook may be unaware that the so-called Islamophobia\nhas been well and truly debunked by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars. There\nare numerous books and articles written about the subject by Muslim, ex-Muslim,\nand non-Muslim researchers into the global Islamist problem. The internet\nprovides an easily accessible interface for proponents and opponents of the\nconstruct of \u2018Islamophobia\u2019 to advance and exchange their arguments, and the\nrational minded have no difficulty in deciding which side to agree with. \nA phobia is an unhealthy fear, like agoraphobia (fear of being in places that\ncause unreasonable anxiety and panic in the sufferer) or claustrophobia\n(irrational fear of closed spaces). A person\u2019s fear of a venomous snake is not\na phobia, it is a healthy fear that can be sourced to our evolutionary history\nthat causes the person to avoid contact with dangerous snakes. If there is any\nreal Islamophobia (an unhealthy fear of Islam) at all, it has to be among\nnon-Muslims. Isn\u2019t it up to the Islamic scholars themselves to dispel this fear\nby explaining matters to them as they surely must be able to? Non-Muslims do\nnot fear a non-literal peaceful interpretation of the Koran, but they do fear\nthe literalist version of the fundamentalists (which is apparently not accepted\neven by moderate Muslims, who far outnumber extremists), and this is not a\nphobia. What Muslim fundamentalists actually attack as manifestations of\nIslamophobia are criticisms of extremist interpretations of Islam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latheef Farook claims that \u2018……the global Islamophobia entered\nthe island with all its ferocity in the wake of the Easter Sunday bombings and\nkillings on April 21\u2019. This is a deliberate distortion of the true situation.\nThe (alleged IS) terrorist bombings killed 270 people, worshippers in churches\nand others in hotels (bombs went off in eight places around the country)\nincluding men, women, and children, and injured over 500, some grievously. What\ndoes Farook imply when he asserts that \u2018the global Islamophobia entered the\nisland with all its ferocity\u2026\u2019? The uncountable noun \u2018ferocity\u2019 does not refer\nto the terrorist attacks. He actually suggests that there was a very violent\n(\u2018ferocious\u2019) reaction to these attacks by the (newly created) local\nIslamophobes! But this is not at all what actually happened after the bombings.\nWhat Farook describes as ferocious seem to be the few isolated incidents in\nKuliyapitiya and Minuwangoda – indiscriminate attacks on shops and houses of\nboth Muslim and Buddhist residents by strangers (charged by some Opposition\npoliticians to be agents provocateurs doing the bidding of some interested\nparty close to the government for fomenting the communal conflagoration that\nthey wanted to flare up after the bombings, but didn\u2019t). It is also noteworthy\nthat these incidents happened a week or more after the attacks on April 21.\nFrom that very day onwards, Opposition politicians pointed out, there was an sinister\nattempt in certain quarters to somehow suggest that Sri Lankan Buddhists were\nbehind the Easter Sunday bombings, but later evidence showed that Islamic\nextremists were responsible. Ordinary Sinhala Buddhist citizens from the\nmajority community led rescue operations immediately after the attacks. It was\nBuddhist Sinhalese residents who successfully prevented those incidents at\nKuliyapitiya and Minuwandoda from escalating into major incidents. A young\nSinhalese Buddhist gem businessman (owner of the commercial establishment\n\u2018Priyan Manik\u2019), Priyanga Pushpakumara, offered to rebuild one of the damaged\nchurches at his own expense, but the Cardinal gracefully declined that\noffer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no Islamophobia in Sri Lanka in the past, and there is\nnone at present either. Buddhist monks have been turned into hate figures by\nanti-Sinhala Buddhist propagandists through misinformation. These monks have\nbeen protesting for many years now against the unacceptable activities of some\nChristian and Islamic extremist sects that are trying to make inroads into the\ncountry\u2019s traditional Buddhist religious space. N. Arunkanthan, president of\nthe All Ceylon Hindu Federation, a close ally of Bodu Bala Sena (which, in\nactuality, is not the violent extremist entity it is usually made out to be in\nthe biased media), says Hindu Tamils have the same problems as Buddhist\nSinhalese with these extremist groups. Actually, Sri Lankan Muslims are\npersecuted by Islamic extremists, not by fanatical Buddhist monks or lay\nBuddhists,  as the fundamentalists and some Muslims sympathetic to them\nclaim. Ordinary Muslims harrassed by them seek the help of monks to save them\nfrom the depredations of the extremist minority among themselves, who promote\nsomething different from the traditional Islam that they have been following\nfor centuries in Sri Lanka in peaceful coexistence with the exceptionally\ntolerant Buddhist and Hindu religions. A Muslim resident from the Eastern\nProvince has given a scholar monk, a well known Buddhist activist, as he publicly\ndeclared a weeks ago, a written claim that some twenty Muslims have been\nexecuted under Sharia in that province for such alleged offences as lending\nmoney at interest, adultery, being a member of Sri Lanka Army etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning point (2), Farook writes: \u2018This global anti-Muslim\ncampaign entered the island under the Rajapaksa regime, when it opened the\ncountry to Israelis and India\u2019s Hindutva forces who have established close ties\nwith government backed local racist forces\u2019. Spelling out fears of \u2018growing\u2019\nIsraeli connections being potentially detrimental to Sri Lanka\u2019s minority\nMuslims, he says: \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019s growing ties with Israel have also become cause\nfor serious concern among the Muslims, who always fear that this may spell\ndisaster for communal harmony, in view of Israel\u2019s extreme hostility towards\nMuslims.\u2019 He makes a similar charge about alleged ties between Indian Hindutva\nand Sri Lankan Buddhist organizations: \u2018Meanwhile, extreme right wing militant\nHindus working tirelessly to eliminate Muslims in India, have also entered Sri\nLanka with their Hindutva agendas during former President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s\nregime.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farook\u2019s complaints are baseless and ridiculous. Ordinary Muslims\ndo not share his concerns. Muslims of his mentality are a dwindling tribe in\nSri Lanka today. All racial and religious communities are uniting against\nIslamic extremism, which seems to have grown particularly during the past five\nyears with the connivance of the authorities despite the desperate warnings of\nthe Buddhist monks, who were always held down as racists, lunatics, and\nintolerant religious extremists. The vast majority of Sri Lankans are waiting\nfor the arrival of the leader who, they are sure, will be able to resolve the\ncountry\u2019s numerous crises including nascent IS terrorism. It is the eagerly\nexpected coming of this leader that Latheef Farook seems to have misgivings\nabout.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala Courtesy The Island Latheef Farook (\u2018Foreign power influence and impact on presidential election\u2019\/ The Island, October 16, 2019) asserts that a number of countries \u2018including China, India, United States, its European allies especially United Kingdom and France, Russia and Israel\u2019 \u2018competing to control the Indian ocean\u2019 (he identifies these countries collectively […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94046","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=94046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}