Mr. Hakeem’s stand and ethnic enclaves

The leader of the Muslim Congress Rauff Hakeeem, has flashed a light at the government with regard to the proposed talks with the Tamil political parties on finding a ‘Political solution to the ethnic issues’. He has reiterated the need to include Muslim political parties in the ongoing dialogue and has maintained that, ‘it was the forming of the Muslim Congress that prevented the Muslim youths from taking to arms’.

Hakeem however has been consistent on this stand and even during the so called ‘Peace Talks’ the UNP government had with the LTTE, Hakeem, being a minister of that government, continuously advocated the need to ‘include Muslim participation in those discussions’, much to the embarrassment of the Wickremesinghe government. That time however we had this problem of ‘how could we neutralize the terrorism of LTTE and bring them to the negotiating table?’ and hence all government eyes were focused on winning that ‘unwinnable war’ over Prabhakaran. Thus Hakeem was never entertained in those talks between the LTTE and the government and it may be the fact that Hakeem had only some political power devoid of that all important military clout that made his voice less audible to the then UNP government.

National leaders

Come to think of it, that was the era where our national leaders fell over one another in offering Prabhakaran ‘anything, provided you do not attack us’. At that time our leaders, placed under the duress of the world’s most brutal terror outfit, had no time for reason, common sense and wisdom and the new fangled ‘Peace NGOs’ played on their forebodings suggesting that the only solution possible with Prabhakaran was ‘political’ meaning that we have to concede ‘whatever Prabhakaran was demanding’. That naive era, however, is now over and Hakeem should thank his stars that the Presidential candidate he supported in 2005 did not win that election for had he won, the history of Sri Lanka would have been different and Hakeem, like the rest of us, would be living under the dictates of the LTTE.

Rauff Hakeem

M. H. M. Ashraff

The idea of forming a political movement to protect the interest of the Muslims was first mooted by late Ashraf in 1990. That was the time President Premadasa had commenced talks in earnest with the LTTE to find a ‘political solution’ to the conflict. Mr. Premadasa in the process conceded the Northern and Eastern Provinces to the LTTE as a ‘confidence building measure’ and the talks dragged on creating a situation where LTTE could vandalize on the interest of Sinhalese and Muslims in the East. That made the Muslims feel ‘orphaned’ in the hands of the LTTE and this was the background to the attacks on Muslims by the LTTE at Kaththankudy and Palliyagodella. Thus we see that the exigencies of the time created a situation where a political party, on ethnic or religious lines, was warranted. Yet the larger message of this whole scenario is that, it was the attempt to placate some rabid racists under the pretext of a ‘political solution’ that invited another group of peaceful Sri Lankan citizens to group themselves under an ethnic/religious banner!

Armed struggle

Hakeem further states about ‘preventing the Muslim youths from taking to arms’. True, there was some musing about some armed youths in the East at that time but the reality of a Muslim armed struggle is easier said than done as the Muslim youth in Sri Lanka did not have the advantages of the Tamil youths had at the time they armed themselves. It was the Tamil expatriate community that financed the activities of the LTTE and the Muslims did not have such a committed organization to back them. Further it was Tamil Nadu, only 22 miles away from the Sri Lankan shores, that gave the Tamil youths their training and succour and the Muslims did not have such a facility in the proximity. More than all that it was the need to have country for Tamils, as articulated by the Global Tamil Forum based in Canada, that spurred the LTTE on with the blessings of Tamils dispersed over 60 plus countries in the world.

All this points to the most important issue any discussions on a ‘political solution’ should pose to the Tamil politicians who have consistently demanded a ‘political solution’ to their ‘grievances’.

What are the political rights that the Tamils of Sri Lanka have been denied as against the Sinhalese and the Muslims who live with them in this country? Declaring a part of Sri Lanka as a Tamil homeland is certainly not a solution to any political problem and that on the other hand would be a fundamentalist racial stand that could lead to the denial of political rights of the other communities in that part of the country.

Thus Hakeem’s stand is loud and clear; we should not enact non-existent ethnic enclaves in any part of this country in the guise of a political solution to an ethnic problem which again does not exist in this country!

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