Clarifications on Genocide

by Izeth Hussain

( April 24, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I began my article “Genocidal anti-Muslim racism” in the Island of April 1 by remarking that the term “racism” had in recent times suddenly come into vogue, and that there is now recognition among the Sinhalese that there could be racists within their own ranks. The obvious example is the BBS which is widely recognized as racist. I saw that recognition as a step or even a great leap forward holding out promise for the future. It might have seemed to many readers that I was being absurdly euphoric. I believe on the contrary that I am proceeding on a very sound principle. It is that to solve a problem you must first of all be able to recognize the problem. Formerly, it seemed to me, that very few Sinhalese were willing to recognize that at the root of our ethnic problems there was Sinhalese racism, or at least that that was part of the problem. Now, in connection with the BBS’s anti-Muslim campaign, there seems to be a widespread recognition that Sinhalese racism is in this case the real problem. That recognition could lead to more realistic thinking about our inter-ethnic relations. In any case the racism paradigm, as I have been arguing for some time, affords a much better grasp of what is involved in so-called ethnic problems than the ethnic paradigm. Racism is seen as coming from the drive to treat the Other as inferior. There are three recognized ways of doing that, one of which is to confine a targeted ethnic minority to inferior positions in a hierarchically ordered system. That was being done to our Tamils, in a systematic way, for decades. That was also being done to our Muslims in the State sector, as I can attest from personal first-hand experience as a Foreign Service officer. I have details to show beyond contest that the 1977 UNP Government practiced racist discrimination against Muslims in the foreign relations sector to an extent that was probably the worst in the world – all under a bizarre Muslim Foreign Minister who was used to legitimate that discrimination – a record that did not really surprise me as I have long regarded the UNP as a quintessentially anti-Muslim racist party, much more so than the SLFP. The two other recognized ways of treating the Other as inferior is to exclude them or to subject them to genocide. Exclusion could take a mild form or be quite intolerable. For instance the Chinese in the Philippines are not welcome in the State sector nor do they want any significant place there, thriving as they do in the private sector where in fact they have more status than the Bhumiputra Filipinos who strut about in the State sector. I have long believed that that could be a model for inter-ethnic accommodation in Sri Lanka, but for the time being the Sinhalese racists seem to be adamantly averse to allowing their legitimate place to the minorities both in the State sector and the private sector. In a way, what has proved successful with the Chinese in the Philippines is a limited form of apartheid, quite successful and acceptable because it is founded on the ancient principle of an ethnic division of labour that is to be found all over the world. Systematic apartheid on an extended scale is of course the most intolerable form of exclusion. It came a cropper in South Africa and is bound to do so in Zionist Israel as well, no less than Kissinger forecasting that in ten years’ time there will be no more Israel. Exclusion can sometimes slide into genocide. Sri Lanka provided a splendid example when the LTTE drove out a hundred thousand Muslims from the North, an act which has come to be regarded internationally as a horrendous act of genocide. We SL Muslims, however, have never committed genocide during the entirety of our existence in this island of over 1,400 years, for which I can give a convincing explanation: we lacked the means to do it. But we too have done our mite to show that we are solidary with our Sinhalese and Tamil brothers when it comes to the matter of genocide: at the height of the war Muslim Homeguards got together with the STF to drive out Tamils from around seventeen villages. It was certainly an act of exclusion with a genocidal touch to it. The most notorious act of genocide through exclusion in the last century was committed during the First World War by the Turks when they drove out their Armenian minority. It inspired what in my view is one of the great novels of the world, Franz Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. I must add that the Sinhalese are internationally recognized as having committed genocide of the conventional order in 1983. I must now define what is meant by genocide. But before doing that I must provide a clarification. The drive to treat the Other as inferior is so widespread that it can be regarded as practically universal. It is a drive that can erupt anywhere under certain conditions, and it can take a genocidal form anywhere, including in the most civilized countries – such as in Nazi Germany. In fact genocide is a commonplace phenomenon in history. The Kuveni legend points clearly to an act of genocide against the original inhabitants of a country, and so does the fact that a great many dominant majorities in the world are not indigenous to the territories where they are today bossing the show over the minorities. A realistic appraisal of the present situation in Sri Lanka requires our taking into account the possibility that the Sinhalese racists may want to commit genocide against the Muslims. Anyone who regards that idea as being insulting to the Sinhalese can be fairly regarded in one of three possible ways: he is a fool, he is an ignoramus, or he is both. For the definition of genocide I turn to Pierre-Andre Taguieff’s book Racism. The term “genocide” was created by the jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1944, and it has come to be used in two ways. In a narrow technical sense, it is used to mean the systematic extermination, in accordance with an ideological conception, of a human group regarded as deserving it. In the second and wider sense, it is used to mean actions taken with the objective of destroying, wholly or in part, a racial, national, ethnic, religious or other group. The 1983 “riots” against the Tamils were clearly genocidal in the second sense. The big question preoccupying many Sri Lankans is whether there will be another 1983, this time against the Muslims as had been anticipated by many Tamils and Muslims after the 1983 pogrom. It is assumed that in that event we will have another ethnic conflict on our hands. It is arguable that it was not anti-Tamil discrimination but the State terrorism after 1977, mounting to a genocidal crescendo in 1983, that ignited the Tamil armed rebellion. Likewise, in the case of the Muslims, mass violence against them could become the catalyst for armed rebellion. It is difficult to imagine a more submissive – indeed abjectly submissive – minority than our Muslims. But changes are taking place, as suggested by the spectacular success of the Eastern Province hartal organized by Azath Sally and Mujibur Rahman. Reportedly that provoked the anger of the Sinhalese extremists, and some believe that the attack on Fashion Bug was their riposte meant to demonstrate Muslim vulnerability to the Sinhalese majority. There are hard facts that seem to favor an anti-Muslim pogrom. Hardly anyone today doubts that the Government has been complicit with the BBS. The police blatantly play the role of spectators while anti-Muslim action is going on, and the Government takes no action against them. On the other hand, when Buddhist moderates engage in a peaceful candle-light vigil, the police immediately arrest them. Some conclusions might be drawn, rightly or wrongly: the Government wants no opposition to the Buddhist extremists, and as for the Muslims they are beneath and outside the Law, a people who should not expect the protection of the State when Buddhists target the Muslims. The reason for this position is of course that the Government’s power rests mainly on Buddhist support. It is a consideration that applies to all the other political parties as well, except for the minority ethnic parties. The Muslims can expect no meaningful support from the Opposition. Nor can they expect such support from the civil society, which is simply not dynamic enough for that purpose. As for the people, they need a scapegoat and the Muslim is the ideal candidate for that role as I argued in my last article. In brief, everything points to a genocidal anti-Muslim pogrom which can be carried out with total impunity. Fortunately President Rajapakse is obviously against that, and very probably there is an understanding with the BBS that the anti-Muslim program can proceed merrily but without violence. I believe that his reason for taking up that position is concern about possible foreign reactions. I must also say that I have come to suspect more and more strongly that behind the nonsense about halal and the anti-Muslim program sinister foreign forces have been at work.

-Izeth Hussain

Genocidal anti-Muslim racism

By Izeth Hussain

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the term "racism" has come into vogue. I myself have been using it for years, in preference to the term "ethnic" in connection with our famous ethnic problem. But otherwise it has been normally used in Sri Lanka only to allege "Tamil racism", the assumption behind which is that the Sinhalese of course have never been racist towards the Tamils, or towards anyone else for that matter. But now, in connection with the anti-Muslim hate campaign and the halal problem, - which involve Buddhist monks and a political party that is part of the Government - many including no less than the President have used the term "racism". There is therefore recognition among the Sinhalese power elite that there could be racists within their own ranks. I see this as a step or even a great leap forward, the beginnings of a possible sea-change, holding out promise for the future. In ethnic discourse there is a very striking lacuna – or rather what ought to be regarded as a very striking lacuna but is not. Most ethnic problems arise from perceptions of discrimination among ethnic minorities. They don’t generally believe that all the members of a majority ethnic group want to discriminate against them: only some do, and that becomes a serious problem when they belong to a power elite. What is the term to designate those who want to discriminate? In ethnic discourse there is no such term as "ethnicist", nor is there any other term to designate such persons. In the discourse of racism, on the other hand, there is the term "racist". Therefore, it becomes arguable that ethnic discourse neatly elides away what is at the very core of ethnic problems: the racist. Racism discourse is more illuminating than the ethnic one about the problems faced by ethnic minorities in other ways as well. For instance there is the problem that many members of the ethnic majorities are not even aware of their own racism. Some Western countries find that so significant a problem that they have programmes for RAT (Racism Awareness Training). We badly need such programmes in Sri Lanka. In connection with the anti-Muslim racism prevalent in Sri Lanka today, I am particularly interested in the distinctions made in Western racism discourse between different kinds of racism. But before getting to that I must make some preliminary clarifications. We in Sri Lanka badly need a proper understanding of what racism means in the contemporary world.During the several centuries when the West dominated the world, racism was seen as something that the whites do to the coloured, never as something that the coloured could do to the coloured. It was believed that humanity consisted of different races, and that they could be genetically graded as superior and inferior, with the whites being regarded as superior to all the rest. Under Western imperialism, racism became a way of legitimating the domination and economic exploitation of the coloured by the whites. It was all supposed to be for the benefit of the coloured, the white man having assumed the burden – in Kipling’s phraseology – of uplifting the coloured natives. That notion of racism was no longer in vogue after the Second World War and the demise of Western colonialism. Hitler’s holocaust against the Jews made racism thoroughly unfashionable. Besides it was shown scientifically that there are no distinct races, and that it is impossible to establish that people are genetically superior or inferior. But racism, or what amounts to racism, persists finding its new ground in culture. People are said to be superior or inferior in terms of their culture, and culture is seen – by today’s racists I mean – as something comparable to genes, as something that is unchanging or changing only very slowly over a long period of time. In the meanwhile racists classify people as superior and inferior. In the contemporary world therefore we have, paradoxically, racism without race as Colette Guillaumin put it. I come now to the distinctions made in Western racism discourse to different kinds of racism, in which I have a particular interest as I stated above. The reason is their possible application to the problems facing the SL Muslims today. The present-day racist is someone who regards the Other – that is, members of another ethnic group – as inferior and wants to treat them as such. There are three recognized ways of treating ethnic groups as inferior. One is to confine them to inferior positions in a hierarchically ordered society. That was the position of the Shudras in the traditional caste order of India. The second way is to exclude them, treating them as virtual out-castes – the fate of the Dalits in India. The third way – which comes into operation particularly when the Other is seen as threatening – is to exterminate them, committing what is familiarly known as genocide. It is pertinent to recall that during July ’83 the worst mass killings took place on Black Friday, in response to the threat perception caused by the story that the Tigers had come into the South. The first kind of racism – confining ethnic minorities to inferior positions – is probably widespread, though to varying degrees ranging from the slight to the extreme and intolerable. Wherever there are dominant ethnic majorities, it has to be expected that their members will show a propensity to grab the goodies to an inordinate extent. However, for the most part, ethnic minorities can live with discrimination provided that it is not taken to extremes. The case is very different with the kinds of racism that require that ethnic minorities be excluded or exterminated. Unfortunately it is these kinds of racism that today predominate in Sinhalese racism towards the Muslims. I will now cite examples of insights provided in studies of racism that illuminate the anti-Muslim campaign going on in Sri Lanka. The drive to exclude them is shown by the clamour that has been going on for quite some time that the Muslims are not indigenous to Sri Lanka and that therefore they should go back to Saudi Arabia or wherever it was that they came from. It is alleged among other things that they are multiplying so fast that within a few years they will become the dominant majority in Sri Lanka. All that suggests that the anti-Muslim racists want to make the SL Muslims the scapegoat for what has been going wrong in Sri Lanka. According to the Bible story the sins and shortcomings of the society were heaped on a goat regarded as blamable for them, which was thereafter driven into the wilderness and on to a cliff from which it fell to its death. In contemporary studies of racism the scapegoat theory has come to have a different meaning – or rather the meaning implicit in it has been brought out with insights provided by psychology. The following is the explanation of scapegoat theory given in the book Racism by Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a leading and very impressive theorist on racism. The theory is founded on the hypothesis that frustration is a necessary and sufficient condition for aggressiveness. It is supposed that situations of social and economic crises favour the augmentation of frustration, and therefore of aggressiveness, which is displaced and fixed on the most rejected outsider-group, seen as the most different and the most weak, which is falsely identified as the cause of the frustrations. The victimization of such minority groups makes possible a reduction of the tendency to commit aggression. The scapegoat theory in its modernized version provides in my view a very plausible explanation of the anti-Muslim campaign, for which there seems to be no rational motivation. This is certainly a time of social and economic crisis in Sri Lanka. We have lost the peace, the process of ethnic reconciliation has not even begun, and a political solution is not visible on the horizon. We seem to be getting isolated internationally to a dangerous extent. Combining neo-liberal economic growth with equity is proving to be too difficult. And so on. This certainly is a time of frustration for the Sinhalese, which according to the theory will increase their aggressiveness. The JVP could be raring to have another go at saving Sri Lanka by massacring their fellow-Sinhalese. This surely is the time to find a scapegoat, and the obvious candidate is the Muslim. The SL Muslims are certainly "the most rejected outsider-group", and they are certainly seen as "the most different" as there is no commonality between Buddhism and Islam as there is between Buddhism and Hinduism. There are Sinhalese – the late Regi Siriwardene for instance – who hold that the Sinhalese hate the Muslims even more than they hate the Tamils. The SL Muslims are also "the most weak" because they have no India to come to their help. The SL Muslim is the ideal scapegoat. Exclusion can take mild forms, such as in the exclusion of minority members from certain prestigious posts. Exclusion in the form of the driving out of a people from a territory can border on or actually become genocide. On the other hand, fears that the Muslims will become the majority within a few years have behind them, implicitly but clearly enough, a genocidal drive. The relevant Department has recently issued statistics showing beyond dispute that such fears are totally unfounded. My guess however is that after some time the same fears will again be articulated vociferously. The supposed fears are the excuse. The underlying reality is the genocidal drive. I suspect that some aspects of the halal problem have an implicit and unrecognized genocidal drive behind them. A Sinhalese schoolboy tells another not to drink water from a bottle brought by a Muslim schoolboy because that is "halal water". It seems a silly schoolboy notion that the water brought by a Muslim becomes Muslim halal water. But Sinhalese adults also seem to believe that the halal logo on packaged food somehow makes that food Muslim halal food. Obscure notions about purity and pollution seem to be lurking in the subconscious there. It makes me think of the distinction between the pure and the impure in the Indian caste system and the notion of untouchability. I am trying to get hold of Mary Douglas’ classic Purity and Danger which might throw some light on some aspects of the halal problem. Izethhussain@gmail.com