Post-War Conflict in Sri Lanka: Violence against Sri Lankan Muslims and Buddhist Hegemony

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Following the end of the thirty years old civil war in Sri Lanka, there were expectations that the post-war period would usher in peace, development and reconciliation. The last four years have witnessed several positive developments including resettlement of people and rehabilitation of infrastructure. Nonetheless there are range of problems and policy gaps that have hindered the transition from war to sustainable peace. A key post-war challenge is that of violence against religious sites and members of religious communities. More recently, from last year, there has been an unprecedented level of violent attacks, demonstrations and hate speech targeting Sri Lanka's Muslim population. It noted a 'sharp uptick' in religiously-motivated violence and said the authorities are 'passively and sometimes actively' condoning extremist Buddhist groups, Mainly perpetrated by Buddhist-fascist fundamentalist groups, such as the 'Bodu Bala Sena' or 'Buddhist power force' and the Hela Urmaya or Sinhala Heritage Party are the main groups behind these targeting of Muslims. The events have left the country's second largest minority community -the Muslims feeling afraid and vulnerable which forcing a concerted campaign against them. In addition to attacks on places of religious worship there are calls to boycott Muslim shops and establishments, all of which is increasing tensions, particularly in areas where Muslims and Sinhalese live close to each other. These were virtually programmed by some prominent and influential personalities in governing circles, besides others who had a vested interest in seeing Sri Lanka imploding amid heightening 'communal tensions.' On this context, this study focuses on the recent incident of violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka. The primary objective of this study is to examine the motive for violence against Muslims as well as impact of the violence. The fundamental questions of this research are the following: why does post-war violence and hate propaganda arise against Muslim in Sri Lanka? In which ways the violence against minorities, particularly Muslims impact on reconciliation process? And why does Buddhist nationalist hegemony arise soon after civil war in Sri Lanka? This study is based on an interpretive approach. The data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. In addition to primary sources, qualitative interviews were conducted with selected specialist on this particular research area. I conclude that after end of war against LTTE by government of Sri Lanka, religious tension has been increased in the recent past and the government's reluctance even to take firm action against to perpetrators which would be helpful in restoring the rule of law and security of Sri Lankan minorities has been a big hurdle in the post -conflict situation and government are perceived to serve only the Buddhist side and to marginalize those holding legitimate grievances.

Post-conflict interfaith activities, combatting religious extremism and mass atrocity in Sri Lanka

“…Much anti-Muslim rhetoric in recent years has focussed on issues of halal foods, forced marriage and religious conversions, high birth rates, and Islamic violations of Buddhist sanctity (Stewart 2014; Sarjoon et al 2016). There has been a disconcerting rise in hate-speech and anti-Muslim propaganda (Aliff 2015 acknowledged (Uyangoda 2007). The complex relationship between Islam and politics has generally suffered from a lack of integration with other scholarly works on Sri Lanka, which goes some way to explaining the divisions in the Muslim community, including their weakness to collectively confront enemies (Klem 2011): Buddhist extremists, political propaganda, or LTTE atrocities.…”

“…I n p a r t i c u l a r , " t h e marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from the peace talks" (McGilvray & Raheem 2007:48) was a major feature of the exclusionary post-war approach by adopted by the government. Post-war reconciliation discourse in Sri Lanka tends to only identify Sinhalese and Tamils as conflict actors (Aliff 2015) and overlook Muslims and other minorities. "The government has embraced international peacebuilding frameworks" (Cox et al 2014:iv), but only to show adherence to global norms, without undertaking any of the economic, structural or cultural reforms necessary for post-war social change (Aliff 2016).…”

“…32 Domestic fears of 'Islamification' and Islamic ideologies are influenced by global events. Buddhists point to ethnic cleansing of Christians in the Middle East, anti-Buddhist 33 violence in countries such as Bangladesh or the demographic changes in Indonesia and Afghanistan following Muslim invasions (Aliff 2015) to show a possible scenario of Sinhalese becoming a minority in their own homeland if the demographic growth of Muslims is not contained.…”

Anti-Muslim Sentiments and Violence: A Major Threat to Ethnic Reconciliation and Ethnic Harmony in Post-War Sri Lanka

“…All this indicates that Sri Lanka might be moving toward another conflict between religions [14]. There has been serious sectarian and religious antipathy activities and violence against Muslims in many parts of the country.…”

Framing analysis of government crisis communication in terrorist attacks (Case in New Zealand and Sri Lanka)

“…Instead, the existing law kind of protects the violent offenders who are mostly the members of Buddhist Sinhala extreme group. Islam in Sri Lanka itself is a minority with 10% from the total population (Aliff, 2015).…”