The Eelam war was not an ideological or religion-based conflict. It was more territorial and for self-determination. The Muslims neither claimed geographical territory nor an independent government.
by Mass L. Usuf
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Marie Curie.
Fear is instinctual to man. It surfaces when something is not known, not understood or not rightly comprehended. The initial fear factor is therefore not a bad thing but a natural phenomenon. The best practical example can be taken from the practice of medicine. When there is an unusual formation of a mass of tissues in the body of a patient, the medical practitioner may not know if it is benign or malignant. The patient will also fear as to what it is because the patient is also not aware. In order to know the unknown, to understand the abnormality and rightly comprehend the situation, a tissue specimen of that mass will be sent for a biopsy. Once the result of the biopsy has been obtained, the prevailing condition becomes clear to the doctor and the patient.
This is the scientific method which can be verified in a laboratory setting. The matter is manifestly straightforward. No doubt, no grey areas, no space for speculation and no suspicion.
The Invisible
An interesting contrast is a condition where there is no scientific procedure for direct examination, to arrive at that unassailable evidence of knowing, understanding or comprehending. Such incidences very commonly arise in the realm of human interaction. The fear of the invisible religion of Islam may be identified as one such instance. Invisible because it is not a mass of tissues attached to a distinct physical body, as in the above example. It is not matter. If at all what is evident is only the manifestation of this invisible reality. This is a common phenomenon for all religions.
The very fact of its invisibility makes it microscopically untestable. This condition conveniently facilitates for various types of unscientific, untestable and falsifiable hypotheses to be spread against Islam. Like the bacterium which requires a medium for it to thrive, the Islamophobic content maligning Islam flourishes through the channels of racial politics, ethno-nationalism and the unethical media – both mainstream and social. These negative perceptions are calculatedly put through the Goebbels’ process in order to cultivate an environment of fear. By triggering the primordial instinct of fear among the people, hatred and intolerance towards the other is systematically cultured.
“A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi, Joseph Goebbels. The intangibility of Islam makes it impossible to aim and shoot at it like a target. However, the Muslims are the manifestation of Islam. Thus, the physically existing Muslim becomes an easy victim. All the negatively attributed unscientific and unfounded claims of a Muslim invasion of this country, proselytization, population explosion, diminution of the Sinhala race and many such assertions are directed against the Muslims.
“Our minds are prey to the illusion of truth effect because our instinct is to use short-cuts in judging how plausible something is. Often this works. Sometimes it is misleading” says psychologist Tom Stafford.
Create An Enemy
With the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the racists, ethno-nationalists and politicians had to have a new enemy over which to sustain their own existence. For this purpose, a non-existent enemy has to be cautiously and progressively be constructed. The invisible Islam and the visible Muslims were the only substantially relevant minority group readily available for this project.
The Eelam war was not an ideological or religion-based conflict. It was more territorial and for self-determination. The Muslims neither claimed geographical territory nor an independent government. Therefore, the strategy to stigmatise the new enemy has to be drastically different from those of the LTTE. The task was not difficult since much of the Islamophobic content was prevalent globally. It was a matter of merely selecting preferences to espouse the cause of negatively branding Islam and the Muslims locally. In this pursuit, insider information sourced by the vested interests from within the local community played an invaluable role. Intra community conflicts namely, Muslims who claim to be marginalised or consider themselves victims of the mainstream was a value addition.
The tools used for the creation of this new enemy were spurious assertions, conspiracy theories, exaggeration, reinterpretation, and misinterpretation of facts. Easy pickings on beliefs, values, cultures, behaviour of the Muslims were readily available to infuse hate thoughts and fear against Islam and Muslims. The Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Volume 9, refers to Islamophobia as:
- Political and/or media discourse against Islam (criticism and sometimes hate speech and traditional racism against Muslims based on the idea of superiority of another ethnic or racial group).
- Discrimination and actual physical attacks against those perceived Muslims (irrational fear of Muslims, i.e. Muslimophobia and/or cultural fundamentalism and/or social class oppression).
- Mocking religious taboos and social values of Islam (blasphemy).
Fools Rush
In this context, from the beginning of this decade the build-up of socio-cultural stereotyping of Muslims and unfounded biases targeting Islam and Muslims proliferated. These schemes were cleverly designed to gain acceptance of the people through the mediums of instilling fear and evoking emotions of the people. Professor Elizabeth Phelps, Cognitive Neuroscientist at Harvard University observes that fear can be learned through direct experience with a threat, but it can also be learned via social means such as verbal warnings or observing others. (Association for Psychological Science). Thus, clearly denying the recipient of such information the opportunity for logical or rational thinking.
Like the idiom ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’, the last few years witnessed how various monks became versatile pseudo exegetes of the Quran – The Revealed Scripture of the religion of Islam. By doing so, they were absolutely displaying their abject ignorance of the Ontological (study of existence) aspects of Divinity, Epistemology (study of the nature and scope of knowledge and justified belief) of the Divine injunctions and the etymology (study of the origin of words) of the Arabic words used. Moreover, most of the Quranic commands are universal with an organically interwoven correlation and contextualisation with relevance to eschatology (death, judgement, and the final destiny) and the awakening of God consciousness.
What they said
Even world famous non-Muslim scholars and linguists of Quranic Arabic marvel at its presentation. “I have been at pains to study the intricate and richly varied rhythms which - apart from the message itself – constitute the Koran’s undeniable claim to rank amongst the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind…” Arthur J. Arberry, “The Koran Interpreted”.
Dr. Maurice Bucaille, writing in “The Bible, the Qur’an and Science” said: “ …… Such considerations are part of what gives the Qur’anic Revelation its unique place, and forces the impartial scientist to admit his inability to provide an explanation which calls solely upon materialistic reasoning.”
To contrast the puerile attempts of some of these monks with the intellectual calibre of our own Justice C.G. Weeramantry is appropriate at this point. Justice Weeramantry, the author of the famous work, “Islamic Jurisprudence, An international perspective”, himself once stated: “The range of experiences to which I was exposed, bring to mind the observation of Socrates that “I know nothing except the fact of my own ignorance”.
Renewed Hope
The Muslims as a community have been continuously under fire and victimised for quite over a decade. This country cannot afford any further radicalisation within its polity be it Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim. The government must restrict all forms of overt and covert racist incitement, religious discrimination and stereotyping of the minority Tamil and Muslim communities. The mainstream media and the social media are clearly responsible for these. Most importantly, the government must stamp out vigilantes operating with an assumed authority of their own.
Since it takes two hands to clap, the Tamil, Muslim and all other minority communities too should act their part with honour.
The new President must ensure that he sits above all these manipulations and intrigues. He should portray himself as the President of this entire country and this includes all those who exercised their democratic right not to vote in favour of him. The people are also looking forward towards a stable and pluralistic society. A society where one will not be looking over the shoulder of the other in suspicion.
End.
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