CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN SRI LANKA AND ITS IMPACT ON THE REGIONAL CULTURAL LANDSCAPE Social Affairs: A Journal for the Social Sciences (original) (raw)
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Cultural Transformation in Sri Lanka and Its Impact on the Regional Cultural Landscape
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The process of cultural transformation in South Asia has witnessed many phases both in terms of political power and religion. Presently the Islamic faith seems to be forming the newest phase of cultural transformation in South Asia whereby followers of Islam in the region are increasing rapidly. This paper analyses the conditions which have prompted this trend and their implications for the South Asian region with a focus on Sri Lanka. It maps the social, economic, political, and cultural means by which the Islamic faith is spreading in the country and region, and argues-drawing from previous studies-that Islamization can have an adverse impact on the political stability of South Asia.
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Conflict in Sri Lanka between the Tamils and the Sinhalese brought the Eastern Muslims into the crossfire. Muslim elites and politicians generally cooperate with the Sinhalese ruling class. Such cohabitation irritated the Tamils. Since 1985, relations between the Tamils and the Muslims in the Eastern region have become strained, and Muslims claimed they have some problems to be solved. This study attempts to identify some special problems of the Eastern Muslims. A questionnaire on the special problems of the Eastern Muslims was distributed to the Eastern youth, students, unemployed Muslims and farmers. The population of the target group was selected randomly. More than 150 questionnaires were issued with a 75 percent response rate. Interviews were also conducted on the phone with an educated section of the Eastern Muslims. This study also suggests solutions to the protracted ethno-political conflict based on power sharing. consociationalism, divided societies, ethnic relations, mobilization, modernization, power sharing
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2014
Islam and Muslims in Sri Lanka have a history of more than a millennium. During this long period their economic and religious experience had been one of fluctuating fortunes beginning with harmony and prosperity under Buddhist monarchs to repression and misery under Western colonialists. Economic freedom under native rulers, mercantilist restrictions under the Portuguese and Dutch and open economy under the British brought alternative episodes of economic affluence and depression to Muslims. After independence however, under a democratic polity the community adopted a pragmatic approach to the new situation which allowed Muslims and Islam to enjoy once again decades of peaceful coexistence and relative prosperity, until political and economic circumstances of the country changed dramatically to create an environment of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic phobia. What follows is a historical narration of these vicissitude retold from a religio-economic and political perspective.
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Sri Lanka is a nation in which multi-religious, multi-ethnic multi-language people live. Buddhists are the majority, while Muslims form the second minority group next to Tamils. Since historical times, the community relationship between Buddhists and Muslims has been prevailing. However, recently, a disturbing trend has been widely spreading among the Buddhists and Muslims. This situation has emerged during the aftermath of the anti-Muslim campaigns set by a number of Buddhist Nationalist Groups (BNGs), with their main goal being to propagate incorrect opinions about the Muslims to promote negative views about their socio-culture, and to distort the idea of a peaceful relationship between Buddhists and Muslims in the country. Accordingly, in the past several years, they have campaigned against halal certification on consumer goods, hijab and niqab of Muslim women, cattle slaughtering, places of worship and prayer services, among others. Moreover, they spread out the illusion that th...
Islam, Politics and Violence in Eastern Sri Lanka
This article bridges Sri Lankan studies and the academic debate on the relation between contemporary Islam and politics. It constitutes a case study of the Muslim community in Akkaraipattu on Sri Lanka's war-ridden east coast. Over two decades of ethnically colored conflict have made Muslim identity of paramount importance, but the meanings attached to that identity vary substantively. Politicians, mosque leaders, Sufis and Tablighis define the ethnic, religious and political dimensions of "Muslimness" differently and this leads to intra-Muslim contradictions. The case study thus helps resolve the puzzle of Sri Lankan Muslims: they are surrounded by hostility, but they continue to be internally divided. Akkaraipattu's Muslims jockey between principled politics, pragmatic politics and anti-politics, because they have to navigate different trajectories. This article thus corroborates recent studies on Islam elsewhere that argue for contextualized and nuanced approaches to the variegated interface between Islam and politics.
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International Journal of Islamic Thought, 2018
Caste exists in all South Asian societies. Although the caste has become contentious among Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, it suffered a fatal blow among the Tamils during the civil war. However, it has re-emerged once again during the postwar context. In contrast, the caste among Muslims in Sri Lanka gained no significance, since Islam has not subscribed to discrimination and inequality in the form of caste. Nevertheless, one may come across endogamous groups analogous to caste and such groups are subjected to certain discrimination among Muslims. As such, this study explores whether caste still exists among the Eastern Muslims of Sri Lanka and examines the role of Islamic revivalist movements in the caste dynamics. This study employed qualitative method for data collection such as observation, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. It was found that various groups occupying a higher or lower strata of Muslim society in the Eastern Sri Lanka existed in the past, thanks to the influence of non-Muslim neighboring communities such as Tamils, as they live side by side in the Eastern Sri Lanka. However, such caste divisions do not exist anymore, given the Islamic revivalism that swept through South Asia including Sri Lanka in 1970s. Moreover, the study has also found that the advancement of education, westernization and globalization contributed significantly to erosion of caste discrimination among the Muslims in Eastern Sri Lanka.
Muslims in the Post-War Sri Lanka: An Opportunity Lost for Conflict Transformation
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
This paper examines the postwar Sri Lankan conditions among Sri Lanka Muslims, also known as Moors. The article will attempt to argue that state concessions to Muslim political leaders who supported the successive Sri Lanka's ruling classes from independence through the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, have meant an isolation of the community from the other two main ethnic communities. The concessions that the Muslim community has won actively helped the Muslim community to be proactive in their religious practices and t hus paved the way for exclusive social and political choices. The rise of Islamic movements and mosques in the post-1977 period galvanized Muslims. In time this isolation has been reinforced by socio-religious revival among Muslims whose ethnic identity has been constructed along the lines of the Islamic faith by Muslim elites. Despite this revival it has been clear that the Muslim community has been reluctant to use Islamic traditions and principles for peace building, which could have helped to ease tensi ons, brought about by the 30 year old ethnic conflict. On the other hand this paper will briefly discuss some reactions from the majority Sinhalese to Islamic revival as well as some issues between the Tamils and Muslims and the reintegration of Muslims in the North. Finally, some pragmatic ways to
The Eastern Muslims of Sri Lanka
Conflict in Sri Lanka between the Tamils and the Sinhalese brought the Eastern Muslims into the crossfire. Muslim elites and politicians generally cooperate with the Sinhalese ruling class. Such cohabitation irritated the Tamils. Since 1985, relations between the Tamils and the Muslims in the Eastern region have become strained, and Muslims claimed they have some problems to be solved. This study attempts to identify some special problems of the Eastern Muslims. A questionnaire on the special problems of the Eastern Muslims was distributed to the Eastern youth, students, unemployed Muslims and farmers. The population of the target group was selected randomly. More than 150 questionnaires were issued with a 75 percent response rate. Interviews were also conducted on the phone with an educated section of the Eastern Muslims. This study also suggests solutions to the protracted ethno-political conflict based on power sharing.
J A A S Identity, Choices and Crisis: A Study of Muslim Political Leadership in Sri Lanka
This study attempts to understand the choices made by Muslim political leaders in general, and after independence in particular. Muslim leadership has been broadly classified into two categories based on their respective agendas. This paper looks critically at the choices made by Muslim leaders, as well as some state concessions that could have contributed to growing Islamic fundamentalism. It finally suggests some measures to the current problems of (North and East) Muslims: socio-economic concessions and local power-sharing.
Muslims in Post War Sri Lanka: An Opportunity Lost for Conflict Transformation
This paper examines the post-war Sri Lankan conditions among Sri Lanka Muslims, also known as Moors. The article will attempt to argue that state concessions to Muslim political leaders who supported the successive Sri Lanka’s ruling classes from independence through the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, have meant an isolation of the community from the other two main ethnic communities. The concessions that the Muslim community has won actively helped the Muslim community to be proactive in their religious practices and thus paved the way for exclusive social and political choices. The rise of Islamic movements and mosques in the post-1977 period galvanized Muslims. In time this isolation has been reinforced by socio-religious revival among Muslims whose ethnic identity has been constructed along the lines of the Islamic faith by Muslim elites. Despite this revival it has been clear that the Muslim community has been reluctant to use Islamic traditions and principles for peace building, which could have helped to ease tensions, brought about by the 30 year old ethnic conflict. On the other hand this paper will briefly discus some reactions from the majority Sinhalese to Islamic revival as well as some issues between the Tamils and Muslims and the reintegration of Muslims in the North. Finally, some pragmatic ways to ease tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims in the greater discipline of conflict resolution are explored using traditions within Islam.