by DHARISHA BASTIANS
Concerns are being raised internationally about the growing intolerance of Muslims, led by a Sinhala chauvinist group calling themselves the Bodhu Bala Sena with a heavy contingent of saffron-robed monks at their helm. The group is agitating against what it calls Muslim infiltration of the Sri Lankan food and cosmetics industry, the alleged conversion of Sinhalese girls marrying Muslim youth and all manner of other atrocities being allegedly perpetrated on the majority community by conspiring fundamentalist Muslims.
Incongruously, a leader of the Bodhu Bala Sena group is advocating that Sri Lankans laws be changed to permit a Sinhalese man to wed five women, in order to propagate the Sinhala race.
Many of the claims by the groups would be funny if they did not project disastrous communal tension and if they were not being given a free pass by the authorities to rage against Muslim places of worship and Muslim enterprises. Justice Minister Rauff Hakeem denounced the violence in front of No Limit Maharagama this week. Not a single arrest has been made following the riot.
Minister Hakeem bemoans the impotence of the law and order machinery that remained mute in the face of this hate speech and violence perpetrated by a minority community. But critics say his Party continues to be a key ally of a ruling regime that is – even tacitly – promoting this demonisation of the other without acting with decision against those who try to inflame communal passions.
DBS Jeyaraj for more
(Thanks to Harsh Kapoor of South Asia Citizens Web)