July 27, 2013, 7:47 pm

In his article A DIG a Contract Killer?! In the Sunday Island of July 21, Gamini Gunawardene states that I wrote something to the effect that the "rule of law is not a right for the Muslims". In refutation he cites the case of a recently deceased Muslim in which the suspects are another Muslim, a senior police officer who is politically very powerful, and other senior police officers, and he points out that due process of law is being applied to all of them regardless of their communal affiliations. That does not amount to a refutation of the point I made at all. It is clear from his argument that GG does not understand the meaning of the term "right". By "right" is meant an absolute entitlement, something without ifs and buts about it, something that applies always. But the fact is that the rule of law applies to the Muslims in general but not always. In that sense the rule of law is not a right for the Muslims.


Of course in today’s Sri Lanka the rule of law is not a right for the Sinhalese either. GG quite rightly makes that point, and in making it he says something extraordinary that I will not let pass. He writes that "all such opinion-makers" – meaning minority persons such as myself – don’t seem to realize that the rule of law has collapsed for all, including the Sinhalese, not just the minorities. Now what on earth leads him to that notion? All our newspapers, except for the pro-Government ones, have been fulminating about the collapse of the rule of law for months on end. What on earth makes him suppose that minority members such as myself don’t agree that there has been a collapse of the rule of law for all, not just the minorities? We have to be first-class morons not to agree. Behind GG’s extraordinary notion I sense the typical racist drive to dehumanize the Other.


The important point, of course, is that there are differences of degree. The rule of law has collapsed for all, but it has collapsed for the Muslims to a far greater degree than for the Sinhalese. I have video footage showing Buddhist monks leading Sinhalese mobs in attacking Muslim business establishments. No action has been taken against them. What would have happened if Muslim religious dignitaries led Muslim mobs in attacking Sinhalese business establishments? I will not give the answer. It suffices to pose the question.


GG refers to the appreciation and admiration extended to DIG Latiff, a Malay, and to the iconic status given by the Sinhalese to Murali. In his mind, that shows that the Sinhalese are not racist. It is clear that GG does not understand even the basics of racism. Way back in the ‘thirties Joes Louis became an American icon by defeating the English boxer Tommy Farr, and later so did Mohammed Ali despite his conversion to Islam and his refusal to fight the Vietcong. Several black writers have been much admired by white Americans: Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Gwendolyn Brooks, and the best of them all the Nobel prize-winning Toni Morrison. And of course there were all the jazz greats who created the classic music of the oppressed, including Duke Ellington who was described by Stravinsky in the ‘thirties as America’s greatest composers. They were all admired and loved by the white Americans. All the same white American racism, of the most despicable order, continued to flourish mightily.


Izeth Hussain


Izethhussain@gmail.com

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