Muslim activists in Jaffna caution Tamils about sinister designs of southern chauvinism

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 May 2019, 21:16 GMT]
Jaffna-based Muslim grassroots activists have urged Tamils to be cautious on what they read on certain Tamil-language media outlets, which show signs of succumbing to the hidden agenda of the forces in South seeking to set the Tamils against the Muslims. Senior trader and grassroots activist Mohammed Uzinar Tahir and Jaffna Municipal Council member Muththu Muhammathu Nibahir were reacting to false and twisted news reports. They were also responding to the propaganda that the SL military was wooing some ex-LTTE members to collaborate with it as informants. The SL military's latest move is seen as Colombo Intelligence establishment's political counter-insurgency seeking to create communal disharmony among the Tamil-speaking people in Jaffna and elsewhere in the island. The activists were talking to media on Friday.



Both the community activists condemned the Easter Sunday attacks as terrorist attacks, and as acts that contradicted the religious philosophy of Islam.

The Muslims would never regard the suicide attackers who carried out the attacks on Easter Sunday as anyone representing Islam, according to Mohammed Uzinar Tahir.

Muhammathu Nibahir, who is elected to the Municipal Council on a ticket from the Tamil National Alliance, provided examples of news titles that appeared in the Tamil language media.

Uzinar Tahir was referring to a news report which claimed as SL military locating a bunker at the premises of a house belonging to a resettled Muslim in Jaffna. He pointed out that it was the SL military that had constructed the shelter during the times of war.

The SL State has failed to punish the culprits of anti-Muslim pogrom that spread from Kandy to Digana, he said.

Tamil people never attacked Muslims as the Sinhalese had done, he pointed out.

He said the SL military was humiliating four Muslim women who were coming to Jaffna in a bus from the East this week.

The LTTE instructed the Muslims to leave Jaffna in 1990. It was a tactical move. The Muslims were afraid of the LTTE. However, the LTTE did not humiliate the Muslims for their religious values nor their clothing, Mr Tahir said.

Even after the Muslims were instructed to leave Jaffna in 1990, it did not oppose their return in 1997. The Tamil people welcomed the Muslims back, he observed.

Mr Nibahir said the Muslims who were evicted from Jaffna and settled in Puththa'lam and other places were also assisting the Tamils during the times of war. The Muslims uprooted from Jaffna did not choose to collaborate with the SL military, he said.

“Certain chauvinstic forces want to project it like that. However, it is not the case,” he said.

The Tamil people were welcoming the Muslims back in Jaffna after 1997, both the activists observed.

Now, the Muslims were at the receiving end of the majoritarian chauvinism. They are experiencing the trauma of being confronted with an attitude of ‘collective punishment’, Tahir explained.

However, it must be the politicians and not the soldiers who should be blamed for the trend, he said.

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