Muslims are Tamils, the UNP concludes?

Sri Lanka Muslim Congress founder M H M Ashraff, long before he embraced a political position that sought unity and togetherness was an ardent Eelamist. He said even if the LTTE gave up the Eelam project, he would not.

The Eelamists roped in the Muslims for purposes of number exaggeration; it was not about Tamils but ‘Tamil speaking people’. Politicians are not exactly lazy intellectually when it comes to these things; they know what works for the moment and they are not shy about playing the odds. They win some, lose some. The Muslims lost this one, badly.

The LTTE gave Muslims just 24 hours to leave the Jaffna Peninsula, i.e. after relieving them of all cash and valuables, getting the female cadres to strip search the women (‘Such courtesy, such thorough courtesy!’ did someone exclaim?). This was ‘ethnic cleansing’ that preceded the horrors of Rwanda and the Balkans. The ‘parting of ways’ included annexing properties owned by Muslims in the Eastern Province and the butchering of hundreds of Muslims on many occasions. Those who talk about ethnic fratricide, don’t readily admit that one in 10 Muslims (until very recently) belonged to that unflattering and unhappy category, IDP, Internally Displaced Persons.

This can happen when one confers proxy rights lazily. It allows the ‘proxy’ to define one’s reality and there can come a point one is forced to accept the proxy’s version of one’s reality and also inhabit it! The Muslims had to ‘inhabit’ death, dismemberment and displacement.

A Muslim friend sent me a story this morning (July 18, 2010). It was a letter about a ‘Muslim concern’ addressed to the UNP’s General Secretary, Tissa Attanayake. It referred to a story highlighted by a daily paper on July 17, 2010: ‘The United National Party (UNP) is mooting the idea of setting up a Tamil Unit within the party to benefit the Tamil and Muslim communities. A proposal to this effect has been submitted by Tamil party representatives, and party Treasurer D M Swaminathan is tipped to head the body.’

I am not a UNPer so I will not pretend that I know what’s best for that party. I merely observe, as an outsider, that a party with a ‘united’ tag to its name has to be slipping if it has to set up internal structures to facilitate voices specific to various communities. Perhaps different times warrant different strategies.

My friend, Ruvaiz Haniffa, had apparently mooted such an idea in 2002/2003 but it had been shot down by the UNP leader/leadership. He believes nothing has changed in the overall political atmosphere to warrant a change of stand. More crucially, he states that he ‘as a Sri Lankan and UNP Muslim (in that order) wish to state that it is politically, ethnically and morally unacceptable for the UNP to authorize the “Tamil Unit to represent both the Tamil and Muslim Communities”’.

The logic escapes me, I must admit. If it was about ‘Tamil speaking people’ (and not all Muslims speak Tamil), and if that category of people needed a special unit to articulate grievance/aspiration, one can understand this move. That’s not been specified though and therefore a clarification would be in order, not just for the Muslims and Tamils but the Sinhalese as well, and since the UNP is the largest Opposition Party, for the general citizenry as well.

Ashraff, back in the 80s would not have anticipated all the events that took place in the 20 years following that rash statement. It was, one could argue, ‘an internal matter’ of the LTTE, just as this issue can be called ‘an internal matter of the UNP’. Things spill out of parties and party headquarters though and Dr Haniffa’s concerns should be taken seriously by all Sri Lankans.

Would the UNP leader/leadership set up a special unit to ‘benefit’ Christians of all denomination and Hindus? If such a unit was set up, would Ranil Wickremesinghe put a Christian or a Hindu in charge? If various Christian denominations agitated for similar ‘voice’, would he set up a unit and put a Catholic in charge? Or would he put someone from the Assembly of God, like Eran Wickramaratne to represent all Christians, the Catholics included? How about a ‘unit’ for non-Govigama castes? How about a unit for non-Colomboans? And one for those who did not go to Royal College? These are not questions that Dr Haniffa has asked, but ones that people will raise.

The party is in crisis, this everyone knows. The crisis lies in the name. The United National Party is not united. There is nothing ‘national’ in it. Recent events indicate, also, that it can hardly be called a ‘party’.

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