Sunday Times 2
President bans the burqa: Learn to live in peace
The Sunday Times editorial “Let’s resurrect ourselves from this catastrophe” provides timely advice, since only opportunists would attempt to hijack this calamity to advance their goals.
The editor is on target that “this is a terror outfit that can still be tackled with a fingernail before we need a machete”, and is factually correct considering the fact that it took many years for Sri Lanka’s government to eliminate the barbaric acts of the JVP in the 1970s and 80s, and to end the gruesome 30-year civil war of the Tamil Tigers who perfected the deadly art of suicide bombings.
Sri Lanka now has the necessary military expertise to swiftly eradicate this hitherto unknown Islamic terror group.
The editor had the foresight to mention that “The banning of the burqa is a minor issue”, compared with the need to act decisively on intelligence reports and monitor the mushrooming madrasas in the country, which are funded from abroad and have foreign teachers.
The next morning, we learned that President Sirisena had banned “all forms of clothing that cover a person’s face and prevents them from being identified” – obviously directed at burqas and niqabs.
It is a knee-jerk reaction to his unpardonable failure to act on explicit intelligence warnings about an imminent terrorist attack against churches and tourist destinations in the country – complete with names and addresses of potential suspects, several of whom turned out to be the real attackers. But the bigwigs did nothing.
Why target the burqa and niqab?
The burqa is an outer garment that leaves a semi-transparent mesh in front of the woman’s eyes, and the niqab is minus the mesh.
Muslim scholars opine that a face covering veil is not required by Islamic law. The Quran requires Muslim women to wear a hijab – a headscarf that covers the hair, ears and throat, but not cover the face. Headscarves are seen as a sign of modesty by people who wear them, and a symbol of religious faith.
In the 1960s to the 1980s, when I often traversed across Europe and Central Asia – including Muslim republics (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) of the former Soviet Union, I hardly noticed women in burqas or niqabs.
For example, in 1953, Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser was told by the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood that they wanted to enforce the wearing of the hijab, to which Nasser responded: “Sir, I know you have a daughter in college – and she doesn’t wear a headscarf or anything! Why don’t you make her wear the headscarf? So you can’t make one girl, your own daughter, wear it, and yet you want me to go and make ten million women wear it?”
However, the burqa became a global phenomenon – perhaps a political or religious weapon – after the war in Afghanistan, having escalated in the 1970s beginning with the Iranian Islamic Revolution, and the Arab Spring in 2011 that led to the devastation of several Middle Eastern countries by the West that caused a mass migration of Muslims to Western Europe.
Today, when you visit countries where the burqa is not banned, you see a few Muslim women wearing burqas – in public places – to the resentment of many Westerners who see it as a sign of “political Islam”, “radicalism” or “fundamentalism” against secular governments, giving rise to Islamophobia.
The situation has been further exacerbated by high-profile terrorist attacks in Europe carried out by Muslim extremists, and the inescapable fear that men could be dressed in burqas to carry out terrorist attacks.
Consequently, several countries including Austria, Denmark, France, Belgium, Tajikistan, Latvia, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Netherlands, China, and Morocco have banned the burqa (not to be confused with the hijab).
However, people in many countries with issues of terrorism and security concerns demand that both the burqa and niqab should be banned because they can be used as a disguise for criminal and terrorist purposes.
Last week, following the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, Sri Lankan media reported that “burqa-dressed men created panic at the BIA Arrivals lounge, and in Wattala”.
Therefore, it is no surprise that following the recent carnage, Sri Lanka’s parliamentarian Prof Ashu Marasinghe has – citing security reasons – submitted a motion calling for a ban of the burqa across the country.
Saying that “Our Muslim leaders have also accepted that burka is not traditional Muslim attire and some places even have notices [requiring visitors] to remove the burka before entering” Marasinghe said that the face-covering burka is used around the world by men to hide behind and carry out acts of terrorism.
A Muslim parliamentarian, Mujibur Rahman also opined that the burqa and niqab were never part of the traditional attire of Muslim women in Sri Lanka.
If the burqa is alien to Sri Lankan Muslim religion and culture, it is evident that this is a garb influenced by radical Arab teachings in foreign-funded madrasas that have mushroomed in Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately, our vicious world demands that we make sacrifices (religious or otherwise) when it comes to our personal choices and preferences.
Political blunders: Galore
Sri Lankan politicians have always been problem creators and not solvers.
Historically, we know that feuding in multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious Sri Lanka began in 1956 with the Sinhala Only Act – that gave birth to the bitter enmity among the Sinhalese and the Tamils, leading to a 30-year civil war.
Since English was widely used for official and commercial purposes, this myopic Act gravely impeded the Sinhala-medium educated rural youth of the 1960s to find gainful employment. That caused youth to embrace the JVP insurgency, leading to tens of thousands of deaths.
Our politicians also ignored intelligence reports about the clandestine activities of the JVP and the LTTE until death and destruction ruined the country.
Another moronic act of political expediency was declaring 12 Poya (full moon day) public holidays – never realising the adverse impact on our economy. Sri Lanka is the only country with 25 public holidays.
Now, once again, our politicians have caused an unpardonable blunder costing 253 lives and injuring over 500 innocent civilians by not acting on the precision intelligence report they had 10 days prior to the Easter Sunday massacre.
This proves our corrupt, self-absorbed politicians’ incompetence to run this country.
In a democratic country, civilized politicians responsible for blunders of this magnitude would have resigned.
Since that never happens in our country, it is crucial for the leaders of all religions, media and civil organisations to work together to live in peace without condemning, or denigrating others, especially the Muslims who have for generations exhibited a friendly and peaceful attitude towards the Sinhalese and the Tamils.
The writer is an international lawyer who worked in the UN system (IAEA, FAO, UNESCO and WHO/UNAIDS) from 1973-2000.