Confronting the Complexity of Loss

Buddhist nationalists began to focus on consolidating their political and economic
dominance.
The Muslim community’s experience of conflict and violence is multifaceted. Muslims
did not accept the ‘countervailing notion’ of a traditional Tamil homeland in the North
East region. 31 However, some historical accounts claim that the founder of the Sri Lanka
Muslim Congress, M.H.M Ashraff actively campaigned for the TULF in 1977 before
later rejecting the idea of a separate state. 32 Cooperation between the security forces and
Muslim home guards prompted the LTTE to attack Muslim villages in the East and
eventually to expel approximately 75,000 Muslims from the North in 1990. 33 Relations
between Tamils and Muslims were strained due to these circumstances. Accordingly,
clashes between the two communities have occasionally erupted during the past decade,
particularly in the Eastern Province.
The post-war era witnessed a radical increase in anti-Muslim sentiments in the country.
By 2013, the country had witnessed an unprecedented spate of anti-Muslim attacks. 34
Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism, which focused on dismantling Tamil separatism for
several decades, had turned its attention towards Muslims.
Anxieties have traditionally existed amongst the Sinhalese community with respect to the
Muslim community’s control over trade. These anxieties underscored the Anti-Muslim
riots that took place in 1915, and have lingered throughout the century to follow. 35 Yet in
the post-war era, new fears began to emerge due to an apparent increase in the overall
population share of Sri Lankan Moors since 1981—an increase from 7% to 9.3% of the
total population. This new apprehension perhaps exacerbated the perception that Muslims
were controlling the economy—particularly visible parts of the economy, such as trade.
Additionally, global ideological trends in Islamophobia strengthened and contributed
towards local Anti-Muslim sentiments during the post-war era. Ahilan Kadirgamar offers
the following explanation for the precise timing of these sentiments:
While globally and in India, Islamophobia and a war on the Muslim world had
been gaining ground for decades, particularly with the global ‘war on terror’,
31 Sasanka Perera, ‘The Root Causes of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka’ World Bank Background Paper
(2001).
32 D.B.S. Jeyaraj, ‘M.H.M. Ashraff: The legendary Muslim Congress Leader’, dbsjeyaraj.com, (September
2010), at http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/1694.
33 See The Quest for Redemption: The Story of the Northern Muslims – Final Report of the Citizens’
Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province by the LTTE in October 1990, Law
& Society Trust (November 2011).
34 See Oral update of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on promoting reconciliation and
accountability in Sri Lanka, A/HRC/24/CRP.3/Rev.1, 25 September 2013; Promoting reconciliation and
accountability in Sri Lanka: Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights, A/HRC/25/23, 24 February 2014. In the February 2014 report, the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights expressed concern, stating that she was disturbed by ‘the significant surge in attacks against
religious minorities and the incitement of violence by Sinhala Buddhist nationalist groups, led
predominantly by certain extremist Buddhist monks’. She observed that reports by the Secretariat for
Muslims recorded 280 incidents of threats and violence against Muslims in 2013.
35 See Kumari Jayawardena, op. cit.
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