Time for Muslims to rise against the traitors -Part 01

By A.A.M.Nizam

(April 09, Matara, Sri Lanka Guardian) Displaying the deep heartfelt gratitude for the gallantry and firmness of the Commander in Chief President Mahinda Rajapkse for unwaveringly commanding our heroic forces who are on the last leg of totally annihilating the tiger terrorists, people from the East, Sabaragamuwa, North Central, Central and North Western provinces eschewed all their political, ethnic and other petty differences and rallied round the ruling party candidates and voted for the betel leaf absolutely rejecting the treacherous candidates of the opposition parties who directly and indirectly attempt and endeavour to throw a lifeline to the terrorist outfit. Now it is the turn for the people of the Western Province for expressing their deep hearted appreciation and gratitude for almost eradicating a menace that forced them to live in eternal fear for over three decades making it uncertain of their safe return home in the nights or after work, or return of their cherished children after schooling.

In the three districts that comprise the Western Province there is a very significant and sizeable percentage of Muslim voters, especially so in the Colombo District. It becomes evident that the main opposition party the treacherous UNP and the communalist SLMC are making all efforts and ruse to mislead, divide, and beguile the Muslim voters as they hope to find salvage only through Muslim votes to mitigate their historical defeat in the Western Province.

These two treacherous parties have been the worst enemies of the Sri Lankan Muslims. With confidence that Muslims would blindly vote for their parties the leadership and parliamentarians of these two parties have abandoned the Muslims immediately after every election in the past and the communalist gang had umpteen times betrayed the Muslims for personal and pecuniary benefits for their leadership, whereas the governments led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) had continued to serve the Muslim community and emancipate the poor Muslims from the bondages of merchant mafia in the cities, and money-lords in the agricultural and fishing villages.

It was only the SLFP government of the late Prime Minister Mr. S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike that broke the shackles of bondage and changed the entire life pattern of Sri Lankan Muslims from that of the traditional bi-segmentary money-lord/servants life pattern to a diversified life pattern in which even the Muslim girls were able to hold office and obtain employment in almost all fields of government and private sectors.

A major structural change in the life pattern of Muslims were made by this first purely Sri Lankan government devoid of Kalu Suddhas by categorizing the schools where majority of students were Muslims as “Muslim Schools” and Muslim youth who possessed a minimum qualification of having passed SSC were appointed to these schools as Teachers. There was an acute shortage of Muslim youths with SSC passed qualifications at that time, and it is said by many that in the 1958 and 1959 years many Muslim boys and girls got their teaching appointments along with their SSC passes.

Although ethnic based schools should not be encouraged and all children of an area should have the right to receive education in the school of that particular area the establishment of Muslim Schools was a need of the era at that time in order to make a mass educational upliftment in the Muslim community. This was a giant step taken by the truly Sri Lankan Bandaranaike government to emancipate the Muslim community from the bondage to Mudalalis and open a new vista for Muslim children to pursue higher education.

This massive teaching employment drive produced at least one teacher in each Muslim family, and completely changed the educationally backward Muslim society. It is the children of this new generation of Muslims innovated by the SLFP government that occupy seats of employment today in many fields including those in the professional fields and even in Foreign Missions. Otherwise majority of Muslim youths would have ended up as shop servants or labourers, and the girls as housewives or cleaning pots and pans in the houses of the riches.

It was the SLFP that legitimized the rights of Muslim girls to wear a school dress in conformity to their religious norms even when attending to non-Muslim schools. The Endowment Board known as Waqf Board was created to administer the affairs of mosques thereby providing the opportunity for the commoners to participate in the affairs of administering the mosques, and making them qualified to receive government assistance.

In the Radio Ceylon, the only broadcasting station existed then, a Special Unit known as Muslim Service was created solely dedicated for the Muslims to broadcast religious and cultural programmes and enlighten the Muslims with religious knowledge, their cultural values, and educate them about the affairs of fellow Muslims in other countries.

A new set of teachers known as Maulavi Teachers, similar to teachers of other religions was appointed to teach religion to Muslim students in non-Muslim schools. Two hours permission for Muslims to attend Jumma Prayers was granted. Days prominent for Muslims were included in the list of Public Holidays.

It was the government of late Prime Minister Mr. Bandaranaike that appointed a Muslim as Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. The UNP which fools the Muslims in every election and get their votes is yet to appoint a Muslim to such a prestigious position.

In the olden days Labour Ministry was the insignificant Ministry in the whole Cabinet. The UNP governments always kept this Ministry reserved for Muslims as nothing could be done to serve the community through this Ministry. It was the Bandaranaike government that changed this discrimination and appointed Mr. C.A.S.Marikkar to the prestigious position of Minister of Post and Telecommunications. Also the Bandaranaike government has the credit of appointing for the first time a Muslim as the Speaker of Parliament. The late Mr. H.S.Ismail was appointed as the Speaker of Parliament although he was not elected to Parliament from the government party.

At present a record number of Muslim Parliamentarians, over ten in number serve as Ministers and Deputy Ministers in President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government. The number of Muslim Ministers in the present Cabinet amounts to 27% which is in far excess of the Muslim population in the country. Despite a Supreme Court ruling to dismiss the veteran Muslim politician Mr. A.H.M.Fowzie, from his Ministerial portfolio, President Mahinda Rajapakse used his prerogative not to act according to the SC ruling as such an action would have hurt the feelings of this amiable politician as well as the Muslim community.

One of the reasons that led to the dismissal of Mr. Mangala Samaraweera from the ministerial portfolio by President Mahinda Rajapakse was due to the fact that Mangala Samaraweerra made Sri Lankan representative in the UN to vote for a resolution against the Palestinians. This had been done without the knowledge of President Mahinda Rajapakse and this incident infuriated the President much and even led to the replacement the UN representative with veteran foreign service officer Mr. Palihakkara.

Even in the international arena, SLFP led governments from the very inception had continued to be friendly with Muslim nations and stand solidly in support of Muslims and Muslim countries unlike the UNP regimes. Digressing from the Western slavery foreign policy of UNP governments, the late Prime Minister Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike speaking at the United Nations in 1958 strongly condemned Britain, France and Israel for waging war against Egypt (then United Arab Republic) when President Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. Mr. Bandaranaike warned these nations that Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) will not even hesitate to despatch units from the country’s armed forces to fight the imperialists along with the Egyptian army.

SLFP Governments of Mr. Bandaranaike and Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike staunchly supported the National Liberation Struggles of the Palestinian and other Islamic Movements in their struggles against the Israeli and Western occupation armies. The National Liberation Front of Algeria received wholehearted support from SLFP governments in getting Algeria liberated from the French occupation army as a free and sovereign nation.

During the 1967 Middle East War the late Prime Minister Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the only non-Muslim world leader who severed Diplomatic relationship with Israel. She was immensely loved by the people of Middle Eastern countries than some of their own leaders. In the 70s and 80s Sri Lanka was known among the commoners in many Middle East counties only as “Madam Bandaranaike Country”. Even the leaders of Middle East countries held her in high esteem. It was for this reason that almost all leaders of the Middle East countries attended the 5th Non-Aligned Conference held in Sri Lanka in 1976.

To be continued

( The writer , former Vice President of SLFP Central Committee, Matara Electorate)

-Sri Lanka Guardian