Neo-Fascism and SL Muslims

by Izeth Hussain

(December 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Our Muslims have been perplexed by the antagonism shown towards them by the JHU, and more particularly by Minister Champika Ranawaka, which led to some demonstrations recently. The reason for the perplexity is that according to their perceptions - and certainly by international standards - their behaviour towards the Sinhalese majority has been exemplary. It has to be acknowledged that some aspects of Muslim behaviour have been irritants to the Sinhalese, but all that is on a minor scale and cannot possibly explain the depth of the antagonism. I believe that the explanation is to be found in the fact that the JHU is a neo-fascist party.

I will set out very briefly some of the reasons why Muslim behaviour towards the Sinhalese can be regarded as exemplary, before dealing with the neo-fascist aspect of this problem. The Muslims went along with the drive for Independence while totally rejecting the Tamil 50/50 demand, and later they supported the Sinhala only policy and standardization for University entry. They totally rejected the Eelam demand, and asked for a devolved Muslim unit in the Eastern Province only as a consequence of the Tamil demand for devolution. The collaboration of Muslim Homeguards with the STF led to the eviction of Muslims from the North and the mosque massacres in the EP. Pakistan, a Muslim country, has been more helpful militarily in the struggle against the LTTE than any other country, and at least once saved our armed forces from major disaster. In tertiary education our Muslims are still comparatively backward, which means that they are far from being over-competitive in the State sector and the professions, and they are far indeed from having a dominant position in the economy.

That sets out broadly the reasons for Muslim perplexity over JHU antagonism. What is now required is obviously dialogue - the need for which seems to be clearly recognized by the JHU itself - and the obvious major forum for it is the Parliament. But here we come up against a major problem, which is the refusal of the Muslim Parliamentary representatives to represent the Muslims. That refusal was dramatically illustrated by the fact that while Minister Ranawaka was reportedly fulminating against our Muslims for months, nothing was said about it by the Muslim representatives in Parliament. I suggest that Mujibur Rahman hold another Friday demonstration - a peaceful one of course, this time asking for a JHU-Muslim dialogue in Parliament.

Undue demands

However, a dialogue should be possible through the media and other means as well. The JHU can then make specific charges about the ways in which the Muslims have been making “undue demands”, in the language used by Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, and have shown “ingratitude” - in the language reportedly used by Ranawaka - for all the compassionate generosity shown towards their ancestors by the Sinhalese kings of yore. The JHU can come out with details about the Jehadi groups that are said to be dangerously pullulating in the EP, and so on and so forth. I am sure that most of the JHU gripes about the Muslims can be cleared up through rational dialogue.

However, I do not believe that all the misunderstandings and problems between the JHU and our Muslims can ever be cleared up through rational dialogue. Here I come to the major problem posed by the fact that the JHU is a neo-fascist party. The problem is that irrationality is at the core of fascism, which is understood in the West as arising out of a reaction against the Enlightenment ideology which has rationalism as one of its core values.

What I have in mind can be clearly illustrated by the fact that the JHU lumps together the minorities - that is both the Tamils and the Muslims - as making “undue demands” and showing “ingratitude”. But the LTTE has been fighting a separatist war, with evident strong Tamil support, while the Muslims have opposed it, and paid for it by being evicted from the North and suffering massacres in the East. Furthermore, if the war eventually goes badly for the Government, the Tamils could come to assert de facto dominance in the EP, which could mean the mass eviction of the Muslims from there. The equation therefore of the Tamils and the Muslims as making undue demands and so on is surely irrational in the extreme. It seems quite mad to me.

Apart from irrationality, there are also other reasons why the JHU can appropriately be classified as a neo-fascist party. In my article in the Lakbima News of November 30 I pointed out that there are two kinds of nationalism. In the first, based on the cardinal values of liberty, equality, and fraternity - the political expression of the Enlightenment ideology - you become the equal of everyone else by assuming the citizenship of a nation-state. It is a form of nationalism that leads to the unity of the peoples of a territory and their emancipation. In the other the majority ethnic group, conceived of as a race, is supposed to have a very special, exclusive, “organic” relationship with the soil, and consequently the ethnic minorities are forever “visitors” however long-established they may be in a country - to use Ranawakan terminology. It is the worst political manifestation of the West, and it is a kind of nationalism that is one of the defining characteristics of fascism. It is the nationalism of the JHU. The Brown Sahib imitates the worst of the West and therefore it is legitimate to regard the JHU as pre-eminently our Brown Sahib nationalist party.

Hatred of equality

I will now point to two other characteristics of fascism. One is a xenophobic over-valuation of one’s own group, and the other is hatred of equality, both of which can be identified in Ranawaka’s reported claim that the entry into Sri Lanka of the non-Sinhalese was never challenged because of Buddhist compassion. But how about the compassion shown towards the Rodiyas? If that was how the Sinhalese treated some of their fellow Sinhalese, are we to believe that compassion was really shown to non-Sinhalese immigrants? It looks like the numerically preponderant Goyigama caste got hold of most of the land and its resources, and thereafter assigned lower positions in a caste hierarchy to new waves of immigrants who got assimilated as Sinhalese.

The low-country castes - namely the Karawa, Salagama, and Durawe - escaped integration into the system as service castes only because for the most part they inhabited areas that were under the control of the Western powers. Even so, the Goyigama did their utmost to treat them as inferiors. To speak of “compassion” amounts to an over-valuation of traditional Sinhalese society, and betrays anti-egalitarian attitudes in the JHU. And certainly, it is too much to expect us to believe that the non-Sinhalese were allowed into the country because of Buddhist compassion.

I come finally to the most notorious characteristic of fascism, namely racism. It is there blatantly in the JHU notion that the Tamils and the Muslims are no more than “visitors” to this country. According to the criteria for judging which parties belong to the extreme right in Europe today their position on the rights of recent immigrants is crucial. Le Pen of France’s National Front wants immigrants who came from the North Africa in recent decades to be repatriated, and on that ground his party would be classified as belonging to the extreme right. But there is no question of repatriating immigrants who came in earlier decades or centuries.

To regard such immigrants as alien because they lack an “organic” connection with the soil, as no more than “visitors”, was a feat of the Nazis who proceeded on that ground to subject Jews and Gypsies to mass extermination during the Second World War. The JHU has not spoken of exterminating our Tamils and Muslims, but it has wistfully hoped that they will go back to Tamil Nadu and Saudi Arabia.

It is above all the JHU position that our Tamils and Muslims are only “visitors” to this island despite their centuries or more of residence here that declares the JHU to be - in my view indisputably - a neo-fascist party. It means that for the JHU what is objectionable about our Muslims is not what they say or do, but that they are. On that ground a dialogue would seem to be pointless. But it could help change the minds of JHU members who are not hard-core fascists. It could also make other Sinhalese realize that the JHU needs to be watched and kept in check. The historical record - a frightening one - shows that fascism can be very dangerous. - Sri Lanka Guardian