Imagine for a moment Gunadasa Ameresekera, last of our novelists in the great tradition, writing a tirade against the Muslims:giving the title “....... Mr. Rauff Hakeem”. Imagine if it is published in a leading Sinhala newspaper. Can you imagine the reaction? The entire phalanx of the NGO moralists would come out screaming like bats out of hell to condemn it. In one voice they will argue that this is not the language for reconciliation, peace or to maintain common decency.
Prof. Savitri Gunasekera, Prof. Arjuna Aluvihare, Dayan Jayatilleka, Paki Saravanamuttu, Jehan Perera and their fellow-travellers will denounce it from the rooftops. Even NGOs, INGOs, Yasmin Sooka, ICJ et al will front up before international media to brand it as “virulent Sinhala nationalism, a century-old phenomenon one could trace back, to name just one person, to Don David Hewawitharane, also known as Anagarika Dharmapala”, or weep saying “the Muslim is today’s object of Sinhala nationalist war of terror.”
The quote above was written by Prof. Quadri Ismail, who teaches English at the Minnesota University, USA. He didn’t stop his accusations against Sinhala-Buddhists at that. He went all out to hurl abuse at President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
He labelled Sinhala-Buddhists disparagingly. The Sinhala Buddhist had said many things about the minorities but I can’t recall anyone of them spitting foul obscenities on any Tamil or Muslim leader.
The minorities may have been called ‘pariahs’ at worst by the Sinhalese. But that, of course, is a Tamil word used by Tamils to describe their own outcasts.
The Professori’s article was carried in the on-line publication, GROUNDVIEW— the micro-mini organ of Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu. At all times he parades as the high priest of public morality. He also claims to provide decent alternatives to indecent politics. His Centre for Policy Alternatives has been pontificating on the need for decent discourse on public affairs.
But when it comes to Sinhala-Buddhists and the Rajapaksas he delights in abusing them with no-holds-barred obscenities. Obviously, the Professori and “Paki” seem to be birds of a feather who flock together! What is equally obnoxious is that the Professori has nothing new to say in demonising the Sinhala-Buddhists and, in particular, the President. In his piece he has been vomiting the same old anti-Sinhala-Buddhist venom expectorated earlier by his partisan hacks in the NGO circuit.
Apart from that, he has brought the English Department of the MU into disrepute by abusing those whom he hates with the four-letter words. It is not the lack of refinement that is worrying. After all, the ‘F-word’ has many uses. One of them has been to release the frustrations and anger of pompous professoris who have failed to find the mot juste to target their bete noirs.
At a higher level, it gained a celebrity status when D. H. Lawrence used it in Lady Chatterly’s Lover. The use of it was challenged in courts and it passed the test with flying colours at the trial. In the Lawrentian sense, with shades of Freud kicking in, it acquired an earthiness and respectability.
Inexcusable crudity
Lawrence picked the F-word appropriately to express the rawness of Lady Chatterly’s sensuous relationship with her virile gardener – unlike her paralysed husband -- watering her grassy patch. When Lawrence uses it, it is literature. When our Professori uses it, it’s an obscenity because it is packed with hate. Anything packed with hate is an obscenity.
When our Professori used the cheapest word in the richest language of the world to express his anger it means that he has either to (1) go for some training in anger management or (2) go for a refresher course in English to express his anger with a more effective and elegant verbal punch in keeping with the declaration of the English Department of MU: “enlarging our understanding of the human condition and power of creative imagination.”
What is offensive is the Professori’s inexcusable crudity which arises from his inability to express his anger in measured tones and tempered terminology. That is appalling. It is possible to tolerate it if it came as an explosion of anger at the sophomoronic level but not from the professoriate of the English Department of MU. By using that trite obscenity, he is obviously trying to emphasize his anger with what he thinks is the most effective weapon in his verbal armoury. In other words, he is trying to impress that he is master of the English language.
His use of the four-letter word is a reflection on the standards maintained by the English Department of MU. It boasts that “by studying or creating literature in English we enlarge our understanding of the human condition and power of creative imagination.” This statement is inspiring and incontrovertible. But in what way has the MU Professori contributed to its ideals? Leaving aside all other considerations, it is only fair to judge him by the ideals outlined by MU.
The first question that comes to mind is: How can a member of the MU’s professoriate ‘enlarge our understanding of the human condition and power of creative imagination’ by spitting the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist ideology he had swallowed from the hate-mongers of his ilk. Among the Sri Lankan literati he is known to have circulated in circles that lived on a diet dished out by anti-Sinhala-Buddhist NGOs – a diet that consisted mainly of the grass that came out of the other end of bull. So, it is not surprising that there isn’t a single original thought in his bitter attack that can elevate him to the ideals laid out in the laudable declaration of MU.
Second, how can anyone ‘enlarge our understanding of the human condition’ when it is laced with only venomous hate. He would also know that when he spits at the President he is also spitting at the nation – in particular, the Sinhala-Buddhist voters who elected him. He should also know that in the overheated inter-ethnic environment of Sri Lanka his vulgarity can be explosive. It is provocative and the Professori has no moral right to act as a pyromaniac throwing verbal sparks into a field saturated in Wahabist/Arabic fuel.
For the sake of those who had not read his bitter bile let me summarise it. The first thing to note is that the Professori too has joined the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist queue that is raving and ranting against the newly elected President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who won the Presidential election on November 19, 2019 exclusively on the Sinhala-Buddhist vote. It is a victory that has stunned Professori’s mob, the Muslims, who claimed that they were the makers-and- breakers of governments with their minority votes.
The victory of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority has thrown off balance the two major minorities – the Tamils and the Muslims. The Muslims who always had a share in one or the other governments in the past have suddenly found themselves without even a toe-hold in the present administration. The loss of political leverage by not being in the government is unbearable to them. Their reaction to the majority winning on its own is predictable: they are crying that the Sinhala-Buddhist majority is overpowering the minorities.
This, however, is only fear-mongering – a common game played by minorities against majorities. But in case it happens who is to be blamed? The minorities boastfully joined the anti-Rajapaksa side hoping to dictate their terms and conditions as king-makers. But when they lost the election they also lost the power to manipulate power at the centre. Their next move was to cry foul and complain that majoritarianism is threatening the minority – an allegation which is yet to be proved. Well, as in all politics, those who make the bed can’t refuse to lie on it, can they?
Muslim terrorists
On top of losing the political clout they had in the past, the Muslims are facing the anger of the nation for breeding covertly the multi-millionaire Muslim terrorists who, for no reason arising from local conditions, blew up Churches on Easter Sunday (2019) killing 270 Tamils and Sinhala worshippers. Our Professori is now angry that there is a backlash against the Muslims as a result of the brutalities caused by some of the richest terrorists of the world, next, of course, to Osama bin Laden.
The angry reaction that has stirred the nation against Muslims is predictable. The aggressive and provocative actions of a minority trying to impose their will on the majority ineluctably causes friction and tensions. The government has kept the lid on it preventing any violent reaction against the innocent Muslim civilians.
No mass murders of Muslims have taken place despite the angry reaction of the Buddhist monks and the public at large against the Muslims in the wake of Muslim terrorists blowing up innocent civilians. However, when the Professori points a finger at the Sinhala-Buddhists he fails to realise that the other four are pointing at him. He paints all those whom he hates (mainly the Sinhala-Buddhists) in unparliamentary language.
He proclaims that he considers “dissent a virtue”. If so why does he label dissentients whom he hates (mainly the Sinhala-Buddhists) in unprintable language?
What is the virtue in that, eh Professori?
He is also bitter that the Buddhist monks and the majority have reacted angrily at the Muslims by staging public protests against the Muslim leaders holding public office – leaders who are being investigated for maintaining close political links with the Muslim terrorists. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing the Easter Sunday morning bombings was told that Rifkhan Bathiudeen, brother of former Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, had assisted National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) Leader, Zahran Hashim in fleeing to India by sea in 2018. (The Island).
Arabification of the East
They launched the Arabification of the East with the fanciful notion of creating a Wahabist caliphate for the Muslims. Also, with Saudi money, madrasas mushroomed to radicalise young Muslims. Books were distributed to schoolchildren instructing them to kill Muslims who change their religion and cut the hands off of those who steal. In November 2018 they killed two Policemen in Vavunathivu, Batticaloa. In a provocative act, Muslim radicals vandalised Buddhist statues, a la Bamian barbarism, in central Mawanella. Muslim leaders are accused of raping the virgin forest of Wilpattu to plant Muslims who destroy the environment. These and other violent acts have roused fears and suspicions about the next move of the Muslims.
It is the irrational crimes committed by the Muslim terrorists that have provoked the wrath of public at large against those wearing the hijab, nijab, abaya and bisht, the long white robe worn by men.
Besides, the Muslims have generated fears, suspicions and anger against them through their own violent actions. It is a global phenomenon. But with his cock-and-bull theories the Professori tries to make out that the anger against the Muslims is a vicious reaction of only the Sinhala-Buddhists.
In support of this accusation he traces the origins of anti-Muslim anger to Anagarika Dharmapala, who revived Sinhala-Buddhism as an anti-colonial, anti-Western ideology over a century ago. Pretending to be a political scientist who knows the undercurrents of the social forces at play he says: “The Rajapaksas, of course, don’t bear sole responsibility for virulent Sinhala nationalism, a century-old phenomenon one could trace back, to name just one person, to Don David Hewawitharane, also known as Anagarika Dharmapala.”
This is hilarious. He is parroting the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist venom that was first bruited by G. G. Ponnambalam in the thirties. It was his attack on the Mahavamsa and Sinhala-Buddhist history that sparked off the first racial riots in Ceylon, as it was known then. And the Professori wants to be taken seriously for regurgitating the hatred propagated by an antiquated Tamil politician from the Jurassic Park.
I do not know whether Minnesota University is a chunk hived off this earth and fired out to float among the debris circulating in outer space. But if the Professori’s feet are planted firmly on our planet he would know that the Muslims should take full responsibility for the fear they have created among citizens of the world wherever they may be.
The Muslims have brought down the wrath of the public upon themselves with their violent politics. In Sri Lanka they lived amicably with the rest until they began to aggressively confront the rest with their new radicalism, rituals, practices, dress code, and violent anti-Sinhala-Buddhist politics threatening their traditional place in history.
Even in Kattankuddy the traditional Muslims resisted the violent aggression of Wahabist radicalism. In fact, Zaharan had to flee from the East and hide in Mawanella, Kurunegala.
Was the internecine warfare between the traditional Muslims and the Zaharan’s also caused by Dharmapala? Is the global antagonism towards Muslims also caused by Dharmapala? The vast majority of the innocent Muslims too have become victims of the ideological fanaticism and indiscriminate violence of a few suicidal maniacs, an issue that needs to be explored by our Professori who is obsessed with Fraud – oops, Freud!
Provocative obscenities
The last thing the nation needs now is provocative obscenities from a trousered mullah in Minnesota. If he is genuinely interested in serving the interests of the Muslims should he provoke the Sinhala-Buddhists with his obscenities? Can he explain how his obscenities can help the security of the Muslims? Isn’t he merely showing off that he is a great hero by throwing obscenities at the Sinhala-Buddhists knowing that he has the freedom to do so in the Sinhala-Buddhist democracy? Since he displays a serious concern about Sri Lankan journalists, can he show us how brave he is by holding the Prince of Saudi responsible for the torture and killing of Jamal Kashoggi?
All what he has done so far is to rap the knuckles of the Muslim terrorists who killed 279 Tamil and Sinhalese worshippers, including 45 children, with a wet tissue.
He says that the Muslims “must be understood in a global frame – its targets were Christians and westerners – represents the antipolitical as such, solicits only antipathy from anyone on the left or, indeed, any decent human. In their case, suicide constitutes a passport to paradise. Since Islam prohibits suicide, they conjure jihad as their visa.” He hurls such abuse only at the Sinhala-Buddhists for resisting Muslim fanaticism and violence.
As stated earlier there is nothing original in Professori’s anti-Sinhala-Buddhist ravings to convince the readers that he is a creative product of MU.
This is jejune stuff repeated umpteen times by every Tom, Dick and Ismail. Sadly, he has proved to be nothing more than a vulgar ventriloquist trained to repeat what his counterparts broadcast in the NGOs circles. He is, in short, a disgrace to the Minnesota Department of English.