It is with deep concern and understanding that I made a comparative study of Dr. A.R.M. Imtiyaz’s “Tamil-Muslim Relations and Unity for Peace” a paper presented during the conference “Ending the war and bringing justice and peace to Sri Lanka” held at the Steelworkers’ Hall in Toronto, September 13, 2008 and the article “Why Tamil-Muslim unity crucial for peace –“excerpts” which was published in the last issue of this paper.

In fact, I attended a panel presentation on Sunday, September 14, 2008 where Dr. Imtiyaz highlighted some of his views on his presentation.

While respecting Dr. Imtiyaz as an academic, I am much concerned about the credibility of references and citations presented by selected academics and their vocal presentations with regards to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.

I am particularly concerned with the references made to the Sri Lankan Muslim community of the North and North Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, to which I belong though currently domiciled in Canada.

Cause of conflict

In page 1 of his circulated hard copy and e-mailed paper presented at the conference Dr. Imtiyaz states:

“However, Sri Lankan Muslims claim majority in Amparai district of Eastern province, and regularly develop social and political tensions with the Tamils of the East. Muslims of the North and East became regular victims of ethnic instability that generated ethnic civil war between the Tamils and the Sinhalese”.

But Dr. Imtiyaz gives another contradictory view in para 4 of the Excerpts published in the Sunday times article by stating:

“However, they claim they are the majority in the Amparai district of the Eastern province, where exist social and political tension between the Tamils and the Muslims. The Northern and Eastern Muslims became victims of a vicious cycle of ethnic instability that led to the ethnic civil war between the Tamils and the Sinhalese”.

 These two statements are highly contradictory of each other in the comparative study of academic understanding.

Later in his original presentation, under the sub-heading “Tamil-Muslim Divide”, Dr. Imtiyaz states:

“Sinhalese politicization of ethnic emotions by the Southern parties of Sri Lanka failed the country and it eventually drove the Tamils and the Sinhalese into grisly ethnic civil war.

This statement again contradicts and nullifies his claim that it was the vicious cycle of ethnic instability that led to the ethnic civil war between the Tamils and the Sinhalese

There had always been harmony between the Tamils and Muslims, specially in the North and NorthEasternProvinces. This was true even before the island gained independence from the British. As even Dr. Imtiyaz notes:

“Sinhalese politicization of ethnic emotions by the Southern parties of Sri Lanka failed the country and it eventually drove the Tamils and the Sinhalese into grisly ethnic civil war.

So the alleged ethnic instability between the Muslims and Tamils – which did not exist – in no way contributed or led to the Sinhalese-Tamil conflicts.

Further analysis of Dr Imtiyaz’s statements reveals that one (that Muslims became ‘regular victims of ethnic instability that generated ethnic civil war’ between the Tamils and the Sinhalese) is a accusation against the Tamils, while another – that there was social tension between the Tamil and Muslims – is an assumption.

The Tamils and the Muslims were in the best of cultural, political, socio-economics and territorial rights relationships at all times and were not in conflict as argued by Dr. Imtiyaz. Various researchers have proven this.

The Muslim identity

Further in the presentation, Dr. Imtiyaz states that:

“Muslims have their own concerns and issues pertaining to their identity and security. A notable feature of the Tamil-Muslim relations in contemporary Sri Lanka, according to McGilvray, is Muslim desire to develop a non-Tamil identity based on Islam, a religion which strictly calls obedient only to Allah, a profound emotional message that relentlessly resists any forms of obedience to all other human and spiritual powers. Muslims’ decision to seek own identity based on the Islamic religion triggered Tamil anger.

But in the excerpts published last week, Dr. Imtiyaz states:

“A notable feature of the Tamil-Muslim relations in contemporary Sri Lanka is the Muslim desire to develop a non-Tamil identity based on Islam, a religion which strictly calls obedience only to Allah, a profound message that relentlessly resists any forms of obeisance to all other powers. The Muslims' decision to seek their own identity based on Islam triggered Tamil anger.”

These statements are contradicted by other researchers. For example, Dr. Imtiyaz has not referenced Dr. Dennis B. McGilvray, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, in his original presentation. Dr. McGilvray in the publication titled “Muslim perspectives on the Sri Lankan Conflict”, written with Mirak Raheem, contradicts Dr. Imtiyaz’s statements.

In Policy study 41, 2007 of the East-West Centre in Washington, Dr. McGilvray states that: “The essential point is that Sri Lankan Muslim politics is not infused with religious ideology or sectarian jihadism. Humanitarian solidarity with fellow-Muslims who are endangered or opposed is strongly felt, as when the 2004 tsunami tragedy struck the east coast, inflicting roughly a third of Sri Lanka’s tsunami deaths on a community that is 8% of local population.”

Therefore, Dr. Imtiyaz’s statement that the Muslims sought a non-Tamil identity based on their religion, and that it was this that “triggered Tamil anger” is, in my opinion, defamatory of the Sri Lankan Tamil-Muslim political relationship.

Muslim political alliances

In his original presentation Dr. Imtiyaz states:

“The political establishment of the Muslims supports the Sinhala political leaders for political and commercial purposes: they vigorously oppose the Tamil demand for self-autonomy in the merged North and East and support successive Sinhala-dominated governments' military actions against the Tamils.”

The facts arguably contradict this statement. Indeed, in the North and North-East, Muslims were supportive of Tamils and federalism – then.

Again quoting Dr. McGilvray and Mr. Raheem:

“The Federal party retained a degree of popular support over its Muslim population in the North East until the goals of the party became confrontational. Yet even in 1960’s and 1970’s not all Muslims distanced themselves from the Federal party. For instance at the Vaddukoddai Resolution meeting in 1976, M.H.M.Ashraff, who was to later establish the SLMC as the first successful Muslim political party, reportedly said “If elder brother Amirthalimgham [then Tamil leader of the TULF coalition in Parliament] failed to get Tamil Eelam [a tamil-speaking homeland in North east], the younger brother Ashraff will get it”

It is further stated by these two academics that:

“The Federal Party even adopted a resolution at the Trincomalee Convention in 1956 in favour of both a TamilState and a MuslimState with a Federal set-up.”

Another of Dr. Imtiyaz’s defective view is his statement in both the presentation and the article is when he states that the Muslims had “deep distrust in S.J.V. Chelvanayakam's federal demand”. Again this is countered by Dr. McGilvray and Mr. Raheem, who report of a “Muslim-Tamil Alliance … [that] emerged in the North East”.

Further, Dr. Imtiyaz makes no reference to the fact that it was a Muslim parliamentarian who won the parliamentary seat of Mutur (Trincomalee district) in the 1950's. He made his maiden parliamentary speech in the Tamil language, which is arguably an expression of Muslim-Tamil solidarity, understanding and respect which still remains to date.

It can be argued that some academics are trying to forget this longstanding accord, with the possibility of fanning discord between the two Tamil Speaking communities in Sri Lanka.

Other challenges

The following statements, made in the presentation and the excerpts, can also be challenged as deceptions that could become disastrous and potentially destroy the fundamentals of a minority community.

1.      “The political establishment of the Muslims supports the Sinhala political leaders for political and commercial purposes: they vigorously oppose the Tamil demand for self-autonomy in the merged North and East and support successive Sinhala-dominated governments' military actions against the Tamils”.

2. “All of which goes to show that the irrational approach of the Tamil resistance movement towards the Muslims of the North and East was the key component of the Muslim frustration, and thus some (affected) Muslim youth eventually resorted to violence against the Tamils and joined the state security forces, either as low-level cadres or as informants”.

3. “The bottom line is that the minorities in Sri Lanka have some special problems. These problems are associated with the issues of identity and existence, and thus they need special solutions”.

4. “During the 1983 riots, a Muslim Minister is said to have disgraced Islam by unleashing his thugs in central Colombo against the Tamils. The Muslims of the EasternProvince were alleged to have got together with the STF in terrorist exploits against the Tamils there”.

5. “As a result, Muslims have changed their preferences and strategies to contain the ethnic Tamils' cultural and political domination.  This suggests one key rational for the formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) in the mid of 1980’s, when the Muslims also established some informal contacts with the Sri Lanka state forces”. 

Further reading

The following short list of publications will allow any concerned reader to begin revealing the flaws in Dr. Imtiyaz’s arguments.

·       "The Muslims of Sri Lanka, 1000 years of ethnic harmony 900-1915 AD" by Lorna Dewaraja, (Lanka Islamic Foundation, 1994),

·       The Muslims and Sri Lanka by Ms. Kamalika Pieris, available at  http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/srilanka.htm

·       Sri Lankan Muslims: Ethnic Identity within Cultural Diversity by Prof M A Nuhuman.

·       The article - Sri Lanka 's Muslims, Homeless and homesick, Oct 11th 2007,
From The Economist print edition, An unhappy and forgotten minority,

·       Ameer Ali, "The Genesis of the Muslim Community in Ceylon (Sri Lanka): A Historical Summary", Asian Studies, Vol. 29, April-December, 1981, pp. 65-82,  

·       M M M. Mahroof, "Sri Lanka: the Arab connection", Journal of Islamic History, New Delhi, 1/2 Oct-Dec., 1995, pp. 305-316,

·       M M M. Mahroof, "Sri Lanka: the Arab connection", Journal of Islamic History, New Delhi, 1/2 Oct-Dec., 1995, pp. 305-316,

·       Ameer Ali, "Politics of Survival",

·       The Article by Farah Mihlar in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper titled “Britain is failing Sri Lanka's Muslims”, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/01/post331  

·       Dr. Ameer Ali - Politics of survival: past strategies and present predicament of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Volume 7, Issue 1 January 1986 , pages 147–170

·       Article on “Muslims in Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Conflict”, by Ms. Farzana Haniffa (Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Sociology, University of Colombo), published in Review 19, Spring 2007 - ISIM, University of Amsterdam.

The author is a Tamil Speaking Canadian citizen, hailing from Trincomalee. He is a scholar of Communication Science who was a NORAD-Fellow in 1971. He is currently teaching Communication Studies in Canada, where he is also a freelance writer very much involved in the Peace Activities, especially concerning the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.