Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racism

Observations on Muslim-Tamil relations -3

by Izeth Hussain

I am going to write this concluding part of my article partly in notation form, for brevity because many newspaper readers are impatient with articles that extend into several parts. My focus in this part is on the reasons why the Tamil attacks on me should be regarded as racist. I will begin by setting out facts, most of which point unambiguously to racism. 1) They were concerted attacks, not random. They did not begin with my first article but after some weeks. After several weeks they subsided, to revive again with the old fury. In the present phase they have subsided again, but attacks are continued with the old fury by a lone straggler and a couple of newcomers. The lone straggler recently wrote, "Reading you, Sir, against our wishes so boringly often …..", which gives the impression that he has been acting under instructions. These Tamils have given the impression that they are expatriates who are devotees of the LTTE, which of course has been utterly racist.

2) Since people are nowadays deeply concerned about foreign meddling in our internal affairs, the question has arisen whether RAW has been behind the concerted attacks. I doubt it. But I must say that for some reason that is still beyond my comprehension the Tamil racists have always been grimly determined to project me as anti-Indian. It seems to be an obsession with them. I certainly have been critical of India when that has been necessary, but my stance on India has been far removed from that of the so-called Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists. 3) One point has emerged in the exchanges over my articles that points to an implicit racism. The point has been frequently made – not only by Tamils – that as a Muslim I should write on the IS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, and the horrifying spread of fundamentalism in parts of the Eastern Province: therefore It is not for me to pontificate to the Tamils on how their problems should be solved. I claim the right to deal with national problems just like any other Sri Lankan national. I am horrified, and disgusted, by the assumption that I should not deal with the Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic problem even though it led to the genocidal eviction of Muslims from the North and grim butchery in the EP.

4) One fact that in my view points very clearly to racism is the intensity of the Tamil hatred directed against me, not matched by anything from the Sinhalese. Soon after the attacks began I asked the question "Why such hatred?" because there was nothing in what I had said or written to justify it. I found myself using the phrase "a total annihilating hatred" but did not revise it because there did seem to be a genocidal rage behind the Tamil attacks. I am not being thin-skinned because there is nothing comparable in the attacks on other articles in the CT. For instance frequent articles by a well-known political analyst almost invariably attract flak, even when they are of the highest quality. But for the most part the flak consists of sneers, jeers, and imputations of ulterior motives with little or nothing of the hysterical hatred and mad dog rage inspired by my articles. It is legitimate to conclude that there is racism behind a hatred that cannot be explained on any other rational ground.

5) The most frequent allegation against me by the Tamil racists is that I am and have been for decades anti-Tamil. The only evidence cited by them to substantiate that allegation is that I had advocated the use of famine as a weapon to subdue the Tamil rebels. I protested that I had in fact advocated the opposite and they kept on repeating the charge. Recently I made it clear that I had the documentary evidence to support my position, and they have not repeated that charge. But one of the worst of the Tamil racists a few days ago referred to my "inhumane recommendations to GOSL during the war" without daring to specify what they were. It’s all nonsense. In an earlier article I have mentioned that sometime before the air-drop two lorry loads of rice were sent to Jaffna, the result of my persuading Foreign Minister Hameed to take such action. The Tamil racists have been reduced to blatantly concocting evidence to show that I am anti-Tamil.

6) They could try to distort the import of my article Rationale for 13A minus plus in the Island of April 18, about which I must make some clarifications. Some improvements and extensions may be possible on 13A, but a wide extension up to federalism and more is not a realistic expectation in the foreseeable future. Let the Tamils by all means continue to struggle for that extension. But let us at the same time try to implement 13A minus as thoroughly as possible, mounting a crash program like Dudley’s Green Revolution or the Mahaveli Accelerated Program. In addition let us establish a fully functioning democracy with special safeguards for the minorities such as Race Relations Boards etc. I can’t see anything anti-Tamil in any of that.

7)So far from being anti-Tami; I have in fact been regarded as pro-Tamil, even to the extent of endangering myself. A) I have consistently berated Sinhalese racism against the Tamils, and Muslim support for that racism. B) I have refused to regard the LTTE as a terrorist movement. I have written two articles arguing that it should be regarded as a nationalist movement. I have written many articles on the ethnic problem over the decades, but I don’t think I have used the term "terrorist" about the LTTE even once. C) I am probably the only non-Tamil who has acknowledged in writing that the genocidal eviction of the Muslims from the north was preceded by Muslim Homeguards getting together with the STF to drive out Tamils from allegedly sixteen villages in the EP. D) I have been in favour of a common commemoration of our dead soldiers and the dead LTTE fighters. In that connection I had the temerity to cite the inscription on the tombs built by the ancient Chinese to honor the bravery of their fallen enemies: "May you be born among us in your next birth".

8) It seems bizarre in the extreme that I of all people have come to be perceived as anti-Tamil, even though it is only by lunatic fringe Tamils. A clue to an explanation is provided by an episode in the world of cricket. Umpire Darrell Hair of Australia could see evidence of ball tampering where none else could. Cricketing legend Geoff Boycott provided the explanation: racism. Tamil racists perceive me as having been an anti-Tamil racist – and notoriously so – over many decades. No one else shares that perception. The Boycott explanation applies: racism. 9) I cannot go into theories of racism to set out the grounds on which that explanation applies. I will here provide a few pointers only. The racist perceives the Other in terms of stereotypes, which are seen in essentialist terms as virtually unchanging. The Other is also seen as inferior and/or threatening.

10) The stereotype of the Muslim is that he shines at trade, the gem business, and illicit trafficking in narcotics. He is a very poor performer in practically every other field. He is educationally backward and is seriously under-represented in the upper echelons of the State and the professions. Intellectually and culturally he is null and void. In politics he produces politicians who have been utterly self-seeking and devoid of principle. He holds himself apart, and has not much of a national sense. He is conservative, particularly in religion except that he is taking to fundamentalism in a big way in the Eastern Province 11) I am talking only of the stereotype about the Muslims, not of the changing realities that now make the stereotype largely irrelevant except in a few particulars. This factor of change is crucial in understanding Tamil anti-Muslim racism. The point is that the Muslims are getting more educated and could become competitive in practically every field. This is a time of socio-economic decline for the Tamils, which could make them apprehensive that the Muslims might gain ascendency over them, particularly in the Eastern Province. 12) Why have I in particular become the focus of so much Tamil hatred and rage? I am in most ways the diametrical opposite of the stereotypical Muslim drawn out above. I could be the forerunner of a new type of Muslim whom it would be impossible to hold in contempt as essentially inferior.

13) My purpose in this article is severely pragmatic. As I have stated earlier the Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racists are a tiny segment of the Tamil people, but we have to bear in mind that the lunatic fringe can easily slide into the center, and furthermore that it can serve as a catalyst to ignite a conflagration in the Eastern Province. On the other side, the Muslims there are increasingly falling prey to Wahabism and its clones, which means that they are among the most stupid and potentially violent of human beings on earth. In earlier articles I have several times referred to Islamic fundamentalism as Yanko Zionist Petro Islam. I rather doubt that a new Government will take effective action to prevent a conflagration in the EP. Since 1948 the basic policy of our Governments has been to allow ethnic problems to fester. Therefore action has to be taken by the TNA and the SLMC, and the civil society. I would like to end this article on a bright note by pointing out that it would not be over-sanguine to expect the civil society to play a significant role in the EP: it did play such a role in bringing about the revolutionary transformation of January 8. – Concluded.

Izethhussain@gmail.com

Tamil Lunatic Fringe Anti-Muslim racism – Observation On Muslim-Tamil Relations – II

By Izeth Hussain 

Izeth Hussain

A clarification is required about the title of this article. I refer only to a narrow segment, a very narrow segment, of the Tamils, not the totality of them, or the generality or the majority of them. Does that very narrow segment of Tamils merit a two or three part article? I believe they do for several reasons. By and large the relations between Muslims and Tamils are quite satisfactory. In fact, I am told, that there is better rapport between the Muslims and the Tamils – the Tamil-speaking peoples – than there is between either of them and the Sinhalese. It is only in the Eastern Province that Muslim-Tamil relations are troubled, already I suspect to a fairly serious extent. There the Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racists could come to play a catalytic role in creating yet another monstrous ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.

We must also bear in mind that what today seems to be the lunatic fringe can tomorrow become the center. The French Prime Minister forecast some weeks ago that the National Front – which for decades was regarded as belonging to the lunatic fringe – could come to power in a couple of years. In India the RSS was for decades regarded as belonging to the lunatic fringe but today its idiotic Hindutva ideology reigns in the state, mosques and churches are being destroyed, and moves are afoot to build temples in honor of Godse the assassin of Gandhi. The most distressing example of the commutation between the lunatic fringe and the center has been that of Sri Lanka. For here the lunatic fringe has always been at the center, on both sides of the ethnic divide. The result has been a quarter century of war with 100,000 dead. It would be very foolish of us to ignore the incendiary potential in the Tamil ant-Muslim lunatic fringe on the ground that they are numerically not very significant.

I come now to a relevant autobiographical detail. Sometime in the first half of the ‘nineties, I was one of the three speakers at a meeting organized by the Church of Sri Lanka, the other two being Sarachchandra and Dr.Devanesan Nesiah. The latter stated that as an official I had had a blameless record but thereafter I was somehow at the center of controversy. He added that he was in agreement with ninety percent of what I wrote. He clearly meant that my writings proving to be so controversial was difficult to understand and required explanation. I will not venture on an explanation at the moment. The point that I want to make is that my peculiar capacity for being at the center of controversy, spotted by Dr. Nesiah, has continued over the decades, so that I have plenty of experience enabling me to assess the peculiar character of Tamil attacks on me.

My weekly articles in the Island are published simultaneously in the Colombo Telegraph where, unlike in the print media, there is ample space for responses. I have received many encomiums directly through email, disproportionately from Tamils which I thought was easily understandable because for decades I have been outspokenly critical on Sinhalese racism against the Tamils. Quite suddenly my articles in the Colombo Telegraph started receiving extremely negative responses. I noticed after some time that all those extremely negative responses came from writers using nom de plumes, and invariably those nom de plumes declared a Tamil identity. When I pointed this out the reply was that I had been attacked also by several others whose non de plumes did not suggest a Tamil identity. Quite true, but those responses registered sober dissent and nothing of the rage and hatred that characterized the Tamil responses. For instance a writer with a Burgher name was very critical of me but he declared nonetheless that I had “much to contribute”. That would have been unthinkable from a Tamil racist. A Sinhalese, who I know hates my guts, declared that I am “well read and readable”. That too would have been unthinkable from a Tamil racist.

Some features struck me as rather curious about the Tamil attacks. They were invariably written in fluent English and obviously came from educated professionals. The emails I get – very infrequently -from Sinhalese racists are usually written in poor English. I had the impression that the Tamil attacks came from expatriates – I made the point and it was not denied. The most interesting feature to which I want to draw attention is that the Tamil attacks seemed to be organized, not just a random phenomenon. They did not start with my first article in the Colombo Telegraph, it took a little while for them to get going, after which for several weeks every article of mine provoked attacks by around seven to ten Tamils. Suddenly they subsided for some weeks, after which they erupted again with the old fury. In the present phase they have subsided again, but a couple of newcomers have entered the fray with the same fury as the old-timers. Recently one of the old-timers blurted out a detail that clearly indicated that he was attacking me under instructions. I leave it to others who may be better informed to make sense of all this.

I am afraid that this article will be excessively long if I go into details to substantiate my charge – made on the basis of the attacks on me in the Colombo Telegraph – of Tamil lunatic fringe anti-Muslim racism. The interested reader will have to access the relevant material through the internet. I can do no more here than provide just a few pointers. A consistent feature of my exchanges with the Tamil racists has been a total imperviousness to fact and reason and a total absence of moral scruple on their part. I will provide an instance. I wrote more than once that if not for India the Tamils would be treated like a conquered people – that is to say like dirt. A Tamil reader claimed that I showed disrespect for the Tamils in using the term “like dirt”. Another, one of the worst of the Tamil racists, declared that in using such language I showed up my very low upbringing, unlike that of my former colleague Bandu Silva. The racist hated was so strong that he failed to understand – although he is fluent in English – that I was deploring the ways of the conqueror, not of the conquered. In reply I cited the case of Somerset Maugham, a life-long Francophile, who fled France when the Nazis invaded that country. When asked what would be the fate of the French under Nazi occupation, he replied tersely “Eat shit”. I pointed out that Maugham was deploring the ways of the Nazi conqueror, not of the conquered French. In fact he was showing contempt for the Nazis. Instead of accepting that clarification, the Tamil racist burst out that my choice of an example using the word “shit” only showed what a low degraded fellow I am. He clearly displayed a total imperviousness to fact and reason, a total absence of moral scruple, and also a savage racist compulsion to view the Muslims as low degraded people.

I will provide one more example to illustrate the depth of the Tamil racist hatred. The ostensible reason for the attacks on me is supposed to be that I am anti-Tamil and that I am widely notorious for being anti-Tamil. I will show in the next part of this article that the truth is the very opposite. I have in fact been dangerously outspoken on Sinhalese racism against the Tamils and on Muslim support for that racism. It is a mystery why the Tamil racists feel under some sort of compulsion to project me as anti-Tamil. Anyway they are unable to provide any evidence to substantiate their charge. Therefore they picked on a charge made against me by a Tamil that I had advocated famine as a weapon to subdue the Tamil rebels. I showed in an article in the Island that in fact I had advocated the very opposite – that the Government should not use famine as a weapon. In recent months the Tamil racists have repeatedly made that charge. I challenged them to produce the documentary evidence but they were unable to do so. Actually the document can be easily accessed by clicking on my reply to Arvind in 2006. I believe that the Tamil racists were deliberately lying all along. It must take a terrible hatred to try to incriminate someone by imputing to him the very opposite of what he had advocated.