August 3, 2013, 8:09 pm

Following is my response to Mr. Izeth Hussain’s reply published in the Sunday Island of 28th July.


Reading through Mr. Hussain’s reply I was reminded of the saying by the British writer G.K. Chesterton: "All generalizations are wrong, including this one". Mr. Hussain accepts my statement that lack of Rule of Law is a Right denied to all communities in this country, yet he makes out that it is specially denied to the Muslims (apparently, more than to other communities). And in support, he quotes an incident where the police were inactive when a store belonging to a Muslim person was at the receiving end.


I stated clearly in my article that the two incidents I referred to were inadequate to make any generalization. But I mentioned that these were two incidents which are a deviation, which is worth noting, a silver lining in a dark cloud. Mr. H says that a Right is an absolute right. Agreed. It is a great ideal. But where in this imperfect world does one see that happening all the time? Not even in the US as pointed by him; nor even in the Arab countries. That is probably why Human Rights are justiciable and there are institutions empowered to look into such violations.


Yet, in the case where Chief Justice Bandaranayake was denied the right of a fair hearing, no one raised it as an issue that it is a Right denied to the Sinhalese! What would have been the case if Ms. Bandaranaike happened to be a Muslim? So my point is that it is only people who are obsessed with the communal bias who see such an incident as a general right denied to a particularly community. One sees in the way one perceives. I rest my case at that and do not wish to continue this dialogue which I think is counterproductive from the point of view of promoting communal amity. Let the readers draw their own conclusion.


Gamini Gunawardane

island.lk