Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa’s statement on Muslim extremism By Latheef Farook

Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s statement on what he described as the “emergence of Muslim extremism” has shocked and dismayed the island’s besieged and helpless Muslim community. Addressing a defense seminar at Galadari Hotel on Tuesday 3 September Mr.Gotabaya Rajapaksa stated that the country was faced with an uphill task of tackling Sinhala hardliners as well as Muslim extremists.

He added that “it has been observed that there are some foreign groups that wish to encourage Sri Lankan Muslims to identify themselves more with the global Muslim community, thereby reducing their integration with the rest of the population. It is a known fact that Muslim fundamentalism is spreading all over the world and in this region”.

Sinhala extremists playing havoc in the country with official patronage is common knowledge. However the question is who are these Muslim extremists? According to Muslims of all walks of life extremism is nonexistent among them and such allegations only serve to encourage Sinhalese extremist elements to continue their mayhem pitting Sinhalese against Muslims.

If Muslim women are turning to Burka it is a sign of modesty and not extremism as claimed by anti Muslim elements. No Muslim woman was forced to wear burka. They do it out of    convictions as they become aware of their religious obligations.

If a handful of wahhabis, salafis or any other form of fundamentalist pose threat to the country it is left to the government to deal with them rather than blaming the whole community. Dress code has undergone changes among all communities as many non Muslim women who once wore traditional dress started wearing tight jeans and t shirts. No Muslim ever commented about it.

Those brainwashed by Western   war mongers’ propaganda machine demonizing Islam and Muslims should try to learn little bit about the forces behind this campaign before parroting   the Western media to justify their evil agenda on Muslims here in Sri Lankan and worldwide.

Under such circumstance Defense secretary’s statement , at a time when Sinhalese extremists spearhead an extremely dangerous campaign demonizing Islam and Muslims, attack mosques, religious schools, Muslim shrines, Muslim owned business establishments, forces Muslim students to worship Sinhalese teachers in predominantly Sinhalese schools and  many such crimes cause  fear and insecurity among Muslims.

The island’s Muslim community, as once pointed out by former Chief Justice Sarath N Silva, has been the most peaceful of all the three communities. However they suffered a great deal due to racism of the two major communities. Muslims did not come yesterday on visit visas to Sri Lanka .They have been integral part of the island’s society ever since they settled down as peaceful traders more than 1000 years ago.

Like all other peace loving citizens they also expected since May 2009 some relief after the end of the 30 year war which subjected them to immense sufferings. Instead they were harassed, attacked and sidelined.

These Sinhalese extremists have also become the biggest impediment for   integration of communities .The ongoing overall Sinhalisation, by and large, excluded and sidelined Muslims from government, semi government, armed forces and even private sector establishments. Now some Sinhala traders are using extremist elements, as pointed out by JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe, to crush the Muslim trade.

The patience with which Muslims endure all these political, religious, economic and cultural onslaughts on them remains the best testimony for their peaceful and tolerant nature. The frightening question is how long?

Today the island’s centuries old social fabric is senselessly destroyed by Buddhist extremists poisoning the minds of mainstream Sinhalese. The need of the hour is to stop their attacks on Muslims to prevent the widening gap between communities. 

 Muslim organizations do have religious, social, economic and cultural links with similar organizations abroad. However there is hardly a Muslim organization which poses threat to the security of the country. 

 Muslims suspect that these extremists suspected to have been funded by anti Muslim forces such as Israel and it’s US and European partners, have been behind this baseless allegation as it suits their foreign and local masters global agenda to justify their global military designs on Muslims countries.

Even in the region Muslims remain victims of vicious propaganda. There is hardly a country in the region where Muslims resorted to extremism though they were subjected to atrocities and brutalized.

In the international scene peaceful Muslims were forced to take to arms to assert their dignity and rights from Israeli, US and European invaders who have destroyed one Muslim country after another, killing millions of innocent Muslims and pushing many   millions of Muslims who once led very peaceful and happy life into refugee camps to suffer in appalling conditions.

In the aftermath of the collapse of former Soviet Union in 1989 and the US emerging as the sole super power with unprecedented military might in known human history, people all over, sick and tired of wars, hoped and prayed for peace and harmony.

Unfortunately for humanity, the economy of US, having hoodwinked the world as champion of democracy, freedom, justice and human rights, has been based on wars, senseless destructions and ruthless exploitations. Thus the corporate conglomerates from weapons industry, oil companies, banking and finance industry, media and Jewish lobbies to other forces which rule the West and thus the world had their own agenda.

On the other hand under the new international order Israel and its US and European partners wanted to divide Middle East into bits and pieces to create small states to ensure the supremacy of Israel, the international pariah came into being over the blood, flesh and dead bodies of Palestinians in the robbed Palestinian lands by manipulating US, Europe and the United Nations.  

 The 9/11 tragedy, suspected as the work of Israel’s secret service Mossad in coordination with FBI, was ruthlessly exploited as a launching pad for unleashing a ferocious global campaign demonizing Islam and Muslims to justify their military designs on Muslim countries.

One after the other US, Israel, Britain, France and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, member countries invaded   Muslim countries  from Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Albania, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and now Syria  while Pakistan too being turned into living hell .The latest being the bombing of gold and uranium rich West African country of Mali. Perhaps Iran is next in their agenda.

The people, Muslims, killed by US-NATO bombs and weapons are of no concerned and their deaths don’t exist to the war mongers. They are blank and not even recorded as being dead as stated by American General Tommy Franks that “we don’t do body counts”.

Peaceful Muslims worldwide  who had seen their countries destroyed, their loved ones raped, tortured and slaughtered in their presence have taken to arms to sacrifice their lives to win back their rights and  take revenge on the  perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

War mongers and their media label them as terrorists. Islamophobia spread like wildfire and the frightening situation prompted professor Wolfram Richter, the Economic Professor of the University Dortmund, to express his fear that” the next holocaust would be against Muslims”. However that holocaust is now underway at the rate Muslim countries were turned into wastelands.

Thus rivers of Muslim blood flow all over Middle East while Western weapons industry thrives on the misery of Muslims.

The so called western free media, owned predominantly by weapons industry, fools the world including countries like Sri Lanka where the mainstream media depends on this very same western media for its coverage of international events.

This very same Israel which has been sneaking into Sri Lanka time and again, since 1950s, only to have been expelled, found a foothold in the island now. The island’s growing ties with Israel have become cause for serious concern among many especially within the Muslim community which fears that this may spell disaster for them.  

Unfortunately most politicians, journalists, businessmen and others who hob knob with   their new found Israeli friends do not know who they are, what their crime records are, what is their Nazi type background and what they are capable of. All what the Israelis do wherever they go is to carefully screen and pick up anti Muslim elements to unleash violence against Muslim and pit communities against each other to flourish in violence.

For example, New Delhi based fortnightly “Milli Gazette” of 1-15 December 2009, stated that Hindu extremist organizations get lot of money from Israel via Europe to kindle communal riots against Muslims. Indian Home Ministry disclosed that in 2008 alone RS 7877 crores were received by Hindu organizations which were used for subversive activities in the form of riots, bomb blasts and creating circumstances detrimental to Muslims. The report added that “investigation give credence to the belief that Hindu terrorists are poisoning the socio-political atmosphere in India and Israel is helping them through financial help”.

In his famous prophecy at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin,one of the founding fathers of United States warned of the danger of allowing indiscriminate migration of Jews to United States .He said;

"  We must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. That menace, gentlemen, is the Jews. If you do not exclude them from   United States in the Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance, and jeopardized our liberty. Our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen your children will curse you in your graves”.

When asked to be careful not to upset the Americans by his then foreign minister, Shimon Peres, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, oscillating between life and death for almost a decade said. “We, the Jewish people control America and the Americans know it.”-October 3 2001.

True to Benjamin Franklin’s prediction Jews are the real rulers of US today.   It is the Jewish lobbies make and unmake governments and it is they decide who should be in the White House. American congress is called the Israeli occupied area as most congressmen are in the payroll of Jewish lobbies and serve the interest of Israel than their own country. No American dare speak about Jewish hold on America.

Now the question is what is the guarantee that the Israelis would not do the same thing in Sri Lanka.Can the island afford this risk?  It is in this context one ought to view the ongoing anti Muslim campaign in Sri Lanka and the plight of victimized Muslims.

The Israeli strategy has been to commit the worst of crime and project victims as perpetrators. This has been the policy of BBS and other extremist elements in the island. They attack Muslims and blame them as extremists.

The response of BBS to Mr. Gothabaya’s statement on the so called Muslim extremism is not something unexpected. Hailing Mr.Gothabaya Rajapaksa’s statement the BBS stated in a statement issued on 3 September following its executive committee meeting that; 

“The BBS has considered this (statement of defense secretary) as an important victory in the ideological battle BBS waged against the Islamic extremism. It is the idea of BBS that this statement gives sufficient answers to all the political leaders and other forces who accused the BBS as a terrorist organization.  If the LTTE extremism had been identified 40 years ago, then the 40 year war would not have happened. In the same way, BBS says that if the Muslim extremism is not properly identified, then its effects will come into light in another 20 years. They thus see this revelation as a fortunate incident.BBS says that at a time telling the truth is not  part of politicians' and state officials' agenda, Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa's bold speech must be admired by all the non extremist Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and other ethnic groups.BBS further emphasizes that this statement can be considered as the first step in leading the country to become a peaceful place, defeating all forms of extremism including Muslim extremism “.Thus concluded BBS statement.

Under the circumstance it is worthy no note that this paradise of island was turned into one of the worst killing fields   due to racist politics of major political parties either to retain or to win power. Judging from the freedom with which Buddhist extremists attack minorities today the inevitable conclusion is   that we have not learnt any lesson from the 30 year ethnic carnage.

Under this chaotic political environment unless Sinhalese extremists are brought to book all talks of reconciliation, peace and stability will remain distant dreams. Mood among the Muslim community is one of frustration and a feeling of being abandoned. One thing is certain and the country is heading towards a period of instability to the detriment of all.