VeeraBahadur
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After three Sri Lankan Muslims were killed and thousands more were forced to shelter in mosques and schools, many having lost everything in the worst communal violence in decades, the minister of Public Relations, Mervyn Silva, went on TV and offered to marry a Muslim woman to make up for it.
The minister has a habit of unsuitable proposals. Not long ago, he offered to marry the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, an ethnic Tamil from South Africa, to teach her about Sinhala Buddhism and Sri Lanka’s ancient culture. No matter that she already had a husband, or he a wife.
Silva’s flippant remarks came after he went as an envoy of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to tour the troubled coastal areas where scores of shops and houses have been torched. “Even if my wife or children tell me off, I am prepared to marry a Muslim for the sake of national harmony,” he said, disguising ethnic chauvinism with mock gallantry.
His statement is little comfort for the deeply traumatized families of once comfortable Muslim shopkeepers and traders, now waiting for handouts in mosques and schools. Some have homes literally reduced to ash; others are too fearful to return in case the violence reignites. Just as in the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom which triggered full-scale civil war, Muslim shops and homes were attacked while nearby Sinhalese owned properties were largely left alone by the mob. Muslims says their Sinhalese neighbors must have passed on the information about the owners, though local Sinhalese blame outsiders for all the violence. In several instances the victims allege the security forces stood by and watched the destruction—again a disturbing echo of what happened to the Tamils in 1983 on a larger scale.
“So much misinformation has systematically been dished out against Muslims with the result that the average or innocent Sinhalese has built up hatred toward us,” says a Muslim lawyer practising in Colombo, “even an ordinary policeman might believe it; they think all Muslims are wealthy, resort to unfair business practices and don’t pay taxes, but it’s not true—many Muslims are living below the poverty line.” The lawyer credits the Sri Lankan army with restoring sanity but is angry that at times even the Special Task Force of the police failed to stop the violence. “It’s shocking that even the Special Task Force stood by and allowed the mob to attack. They were complicit,” he says.
Read more at
The Agony of Sri Lanka’s Muslims ‹ Newsweek Pakistan
The minister has a habit of unsuitable proposals. Not long ago, he offered to marry the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, an ethnic Tamil from South Africa, to teach her about Sinhala Buddhism and Sri Lanka’s ancient culture. No matter that she already had a husband, or he a wife.
Silva’s flippant remarks came after he went as an envoy of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to tour the troubled coastal areas where scores of shops and houses have been torched. “Even if my wife or children tell me off, I am prepared to marry a Muslim for the sake of national harmony,” he said, disguising ethnic chauvinism with mock gallantry.
His statement is little comfort for the deeply traumatized families of once comfortable Muslim shopkeepers and traders, now waiting for handouts in mosques and schools. Some have homes literally reduced to ash; others are too fearful to return in case the violence reignites. Just as in the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom which triggered full-scale civil war, Muslim shops and homes were attacked while nearby Sinhalese owned properties were largely left alone by the mob. Muslims says their Sinhalese neighbors must have passed on the information about the owners, though local Sinhalese blame outsiders for all the violence. In several instances the victims allege the security forces stood by and watched the destruction—again a disturbing echo of what happened to the Tamils in 1983 on a larger scale.
“So much misinformation has systematically been dished out against Muslims with the result that the average or innocent Sinhalese has built up hatred toward us,” says a Muslim lawyer practising in Colombo, “even an ordinary policeman might believe it; they think all Muslims are wealthy, resort to unfair business practices and don’t pay taxes, but it’s not true—many Muslims are living below the poverty line.” The lawyer credits the Sri Lankan army with restoring sanity but is angry that at times even the Special Task Force of the police failed to stop the violence. “It’s shocking that even the Special Task Force stood by and allowed the mob to attack. They were complicit,” he says.
Read more at
The Agony of Sri Lanka’s Muslims ‹ Newsweek Pakistan
