PATHETIC

The sinister attempt to father the attack on the Pepiliyana Fashion Bug store goes on in the teeth of the strongest statements being made by the government in recent times, decrying any attempts by sinister forces, to create ethnic tensions between the Sinhalese and Muslims.

Despite the Bodhu Bala Sena Bhikkus vehemently denying having anything to do with the attack, the desperation of the usual suspects to father the incident on the state and on the Sinhala majority community is apparent.

The extent of this desperation is almost bordering on the maniacal. These desperados have not got a handle as convenient as this to try and pummel a popularly elected government with, for a very long time now.

There are also the lunatics, who may not have an agenda but who are no less insane than the power hungry set of regime change maniacs. One ex-diplomat now in his dotage writing to a national daily yesterday, comes up with this mind numbing claim that there is genocidal anti-Muslim racism in the country.

Nobody has accused any recent regime of this country of so much as laying a finger on a Muslim, and yet this man thinks nothing of flinging the G-word as if genocide was a something meant to be used with the abandon that farmers use the word pesticide or housewives use the word insecticide.

This ex-foreign ministry factotum who seems to harbour a sense of grievance that he did not end up being deified as one of the top five diplomats of the world, by attempting to introduce the G-word into the discourse on the recent Bodu Bala Sena and Jaimiathul Ulema Halal issue, demonstrates that race baiting has a crazed momentum of its own.

Such persons should be brought before the law for mooting patently false and dangerous theories in the public print, but also those who afford them newspaper space need to be questioned on their motives, and the ethics of their bahaviour as responsible senior hands in their profession.

The sudden attempt to on the one hand rant about a 'genocide of Muslims' and to father the recent attack on a clothing store on the regime, in light of the facts regarding the Sms campaign that was triggered by mischievous racist elements, point to a orchestrated effort to cause a repeat July 83 -- this time involving Muslims -- and pin responsibility for it on the elected regime.

The political motivation for the effort is not confined to destabilizing the country. In one deft move, those who are responsible for pulling the strings in this shadowy campaign hope to alienate the government's most ardent support base in the international community, the Muslims countries, those in the Middle East in particular.

The frenzy to pin the blame for the recent events on the government however is undermined by the overreach of the commentators, who, while they salivate and wait for the day there is regime change as a result of the recent events such as the Fashion Bug attack, cannot hide their desire to invent the narrative as they go along.

In spite of repeated denials by the monks, they say that the BBS was behind the Fashion Bug attack, and that this organization is being in some way sponsored by the Defence Secretary. The Defence Secretary's crime in this whole matter was to be present at a BBS event, to which he was invited.

If that is the determining criteria for active support of an agenda of a host, a lot of us including the Defence Secretary would be Muslims of a fundamentalist bent by now -- as we have been invited to and been present at functions organized by various Muslim organizations, which in the eyes of most non-Muslims would be out on limb 'extremist' groups.

In sum the impatience of some of the regime change hopefuls is so palpable that they look child like when they go down on their knees, and pray that there be a roaring fight between the Muslims and Sinhalese, which can bring about political change that they have repeatedly failed to trigger with their own policies or national agendas.

There are no signs that the people will oblige them with a riot, even though after all their trying, there may be a few incidents that should cause all of us the right-thinking, to be all the more vigilant.