Wahhabism not the root cause for anti-Muslim violence – experts

Sri Lanka’s civil society activists and legal experts have rubbished a news report citing the spread of Wahhabism as the root cause for the recent spike in anti-Muslim violence in the country. 

They say the argument is often used by apologists of the intolerance and violence to detract from what the real causes and that claims Sri Lankan Muslims are anywhere close to any sort of insurgency is absolutely “rubbish and nonsense”.

A news report by India’s World Is One News (WION) had claimed that while Sinhalese intolerance is on the rise in Sri Lanka, as apparent in the recent communal violence, the root cause for the distrust of Muslims in Sri Lanka lies in the alarming spread of Wahhabism among one of the most tolerant and peaceful Muslim communities of the world. 

“It is true that Sinhalese intolerance is on the rise and this time it is not Sri Lanka’s Tamils who are the targets but the country’s nearly 2 million Muslims. There can be no justification for violence of course, but one must examine the root cause of the distrust of Muslims in Sri Lanka since 2009.” 

“And that root cause lies in the alarming spread of Wahhabism among one of the most tolerant and peaceful Muslim communities of the world, that of Sri Lanka,” WION’s Padma Rao said. 

However, the executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu stated that the argument that at the root of anti-Muslim violence in this country is the rise of Wahhabism in the Muslim community is not one that he agrees with at all. 

“I think this argument is used quite often by sympathizers and apologists of the intolerance and indeed sadly of the violence to detract from what the real causes are,” he said, speaking to Ada Derana.

He stated that an increase in Wahhabism undoubtedly fuels the Islamophobia that exists in the country, but he believes if one looks at the violence the main reasons are largely economic which are then fueled, exacerbated and reinforced by various cultural and religious arguments of one kind or another. 

“Perhaps it is very much the fear of the unknown.” He stated that the Goebbelsian type of propaganda about this country fast becoming a Muslim-majority country, the ridiculous arguments about infertility pills and all such suggest that there is a very “organized group” of people who are concerned with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Sri Lanka. 

The civil society activist said that the incumbent government needs to give out a vision of this Sri Lanka as being multi-ethnic and multi-religious and will be protected and defended as such and that the full force of the law will be brought to bear upon them without fear or favor.

Dr. Saravanamuttu stated that the rise of Wahhabism within the Muslim community of this country is something that first and foremost needs to be dealt with from within the Muslim community and it is indeed incumbent on them to deal with any signs of extremism as it is incumbent on any religious or ethnic community within this country to do likewise. 

“We mustn’t detract from the cardinal fundamental question ‘do we or do we not want a multi-religious and multi-ethnic Sri Lanka and are we not going to bring the full force of the law of the land to bear on those who do not want it?’”. “We need to act fast and fierce,” he stressed. 

Deputy President of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) President’s Counsel M.U.M. Ali Sabry meanwhile believes that there are regional and international players with regional and international agendas trying to create divisions and diversions of the real cause and the real problems amongst the Sri Lankans. 

“Of course we need to address the root cause. But to exaggerate that Sri Lankan Muslims are somewhere close to any sort of insurgency is absolute rubbish and nonsense,” he told Ada Derana. 

In the meantime, he said, Sri Lankan Muslims have a duty to resurrect there Sri Lankan Muslim sub-culture which they have inherited because “alienating our own culture during the last few years played into the hands of extremists” who are hell-bent on creating problems for the Muslims. 

“Need not go after anybody else’s culture. Culture is different, religion and ethnicity is different. Our nationality is Sri Lankan.” 

The WION news report claimed that Saudi Arabia has reportedly trained and been dispatching English-speaking Wahhabi speakers around the world and that most people are concerned that immigration control is not doing enough to prevent such known radicles from entering the country and slowly indoctrinating and poisoning the minds of Sri Lanka’s second largest minority.

Mr Sabry said that there is absolutely no basis at all to the reports “painting a very bleak picture” about certain well-known Islamic priests who have come to Sri Lanka, probably one a year. “They never ever advocate any sorts of hardlining.” 

He stated that some of the well-known international secret services and intelligence agencies are in operation in Sri Lanka and that in some of the elections they have privately and also publicly proclaimed to being involved in certain regime changes which had taken place in Sri Lanka. 

“So they are hell-bent on creating divisions within the communities in Sri Lanka so that instability of the region and instability of the country. We should not play into this agenda,” he said.