By Latheef Farook –
Latheef Farook
The 17 August 2015 parliamentary elections brought Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, SLMC, and its more than half a dozen splinter groups to the end of the road as most of them entered parliament through UNP Muslim votes. This happened more than a quarter century of SLMC’s wheeler dealer politics of taking the community for ride with long list of lies, deception and hypocrisy for positions and perks.
Violence and hooliganism in Kattankudy within twenty four hours after the elections, disputes between SLMC and its splinter groups, disputes within splinter groups for power, positions and perks, long history of compromising and ignoring community’s interest and the never ending allegations of corruptions and deal resulted in the current pathetic performance of SLMC in this month’s parliamentary elections
The SLMC has won only one seat while the other SLMC members managed to enter parliament through the United National Party with which the SLMC has entered into an agreement, perhaps a deal, as usual to ensure positions and perks and not seek solutions to burning issues of the community.
Commenting on the performance of the recent elections Dr Ameer Ali who hails from the east and now resides in Australia had this to state in an article;
“If members of a political party surrenders that party’s original manifesto and symbol and embrace those of another party to win entry to the legislature, and possibly to the cabinet, what does it convey to that party’s dedicated supporters and to the supporters of the party that now accommodated them? Aren’t they a bunch of traitors to their own party and birds of passage to the accommodating party? Who can trust these instant-party-switchers or turn coats?
These are questions that now arise regarding the position of SLMC and towards its future. With one or two exceptions almost all SLMC candidates who won in this week’s elections did so under the UNP symbol.
In doing so, did these contestants embrace only the UNP symbol and not the manifesto of the UNP? If they had only embraced the symbol for the sake winning the contest, then UNP should not accommodate any of them in the new cabinet because they have no commitment to UNP manifesto. On the other hand, if these birds of passage had accepted the manifesto of UNP and its symbol, then they had treacherously betrayed the trust placed on them by those Muslims who believed in SLMC as the only hope for the community’s political survival.
The time has come to take a serious stock of the current status, costs and benefits of SLMC. Muslims are betrayed by their own politicians and exploited by all to suit their agendas. The selfish politics of the SLMC and its more than half a dozen splinter groups have brought nothing but disaster. As a result Muslim politicians have become irrelevant. In fact this has been the more than a quarter century history of SLMC.
When the late SLMC founder M.H.M. Ashraff first mooted the idea of a separate political party for Muslims more than quarter century ago Muslims in general were against it as it was bound to strain Sinhala Muslim relations.
The party came into being in the aftermath of the Indo-Lanka Accord which paved the way for the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces and the establishment of provincial councils. Several senior politicians from the area said, that the Indian High Commission in Colombo handed over cash donations to Tamil militants and the SLMC.
The 1998 provincial council election was fought on bitter and destructive communal lines and both Tamil militants and the SLMC were fully responsible for dividing the two communities and the price innocent people from the two communities were made to pay later.
Ash raff claimed that “Holy Quran, Shariah and Unity” were the slogan of his party. However Islam and Shariah disappeared at birth. Since inception it was the case of wheeler dealer politics hood winking the community.
For example in the 1988 presidential elections, the SLMC agreed to support the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, but at the eleventh hour supported the UNP candidate, causing deep disappointment within the SLFP circles
This won the wrath of the SLFP towards the Muslim community. Furious Muslims in Colombo and other areas blamed the SLMC for harming their relations with the majority Sinhalese community. There were speculations that Ashraff was bought over by late President Ranasinha Premadasa.
During the 1994 elections the SLMC tied up with the SLFP-led Peoples’ Alliance [PA], under the leadership of then Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga. Around this time Muslims began losing faith in the SLMC that built up an image as a political party joining the winning side to suit its leader’s personal agenda.
In the 1994 elections, the SLMC won seven seats and Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga formed the UPFA Government, with SLMC support, providing the SLMC with an unprecedented bargaining power and influence that was not to the liking of the majority community, especially the hardliners.
Leadership Crisis
Ashraf’s sudden death triggered off the inevitable leadership crisis between Rauf Hakeem and Mrs. Ferial Ashraf. According to reports President Chandrika Kumaratunga exploited the power struggle in the SLMC to her own advantage by making Mrs. Ferial a minister leading the NUA.
On the eve of joining the government, on 28 January 2007, SLMC members negotiated as individuals and groups and got ministerial portfolios. By now the Sinhala leadership has realized that SLMC politicians could be bought over and manipulated to serve their interests.
For example, according to speculations, it was former President Mahinda Rajapaksa used Rishard Bathiudeen to form a splinter group and further divide the SLMC by offering a ministerial portfolio and other incentives.
The community was raging with anger at the SLMC and its splinter groups for refusing to leave former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government despite its atrocities towards the Muslims culminating in the Aluthgama pogrom. Speculations were that they were bribed to be with the government.
They continued to remain with the Mahinda Rajapaksa government and in the eleventh hour began supporting Maithripla Sirisena during the presidential context on 8 January 2015. The allegations were that they supported the Maithripala Sirisena camp following a better deal.
As a result Muslims were fed up with SLMC and its splinter groups.
During this month’s parliamentary election campaign there were intense nationwide discussions on burning national issues. However SLMC and its splinter groups were more interested in infighting and humiliating each other rather than airing Muslim viewpoints in these discussions.
However this very same discredited lot has got into parliament once again through UNP. In the nationalist too SLMC nominees were selected and many Muslims feel that it would have been better if a UNP Muslims given the chance especially in view of the increasing Muslim votes for UNP all over the island and especially in places such as kurunegala, Kalutara and Puttalam electorates.
Thus the time has come for mainstream Sinhalese political parties to deal with their Muslim supporters and attend to community’s burning issues.
Amarasiri / August 30, 2015
Latheef Farook
RE: SLMC Unfortunate Liability On The community
“This happened more than a quarter century of SLMC’s wheeler dealer politics of taking the community for ride with long list of lies, deception and hypocrisy for positions and perks.”
Remember, even at its heights after the formation of SLMC in 1980 or so, SLMC never got more than 18% of he Muslim Vote.
Before the formation of SLMC, the Muslim votes were captured by the UNP, SLFP and LSSP in that order.
The question to be asked by Muslims and SLMC, is that will the UNP or UPFA take the Muslim note for granted and marginalize the Muslims ad to their needs as they have done for the Tamils for a long time.
Will there be a truly National Government that will look into the needs of All its citizens in an Egalitarian manner.
It has to be a give and take by all citizens.
Otherwise, the Para-Sinhala racists, and the so-called Sinhala “Buddhists” who are an insult to Buddhism will be exploited again by the politicians to get back to power.
Remember, MaRa MaRa et al.?
MaRa MaRa Chatu MaRa
MaRa MaRa Amana MaRa
MaRa MaRa HoRa MaRa
MaRa MaRa Dhushana MaRa…………
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Amarasiri / August 30, 2015
Latheef Farook
RE: SLMC Unfortunate Liability On The community
“However this very same discredited lot has got into parliament once again through UNP. In the nationalist too SLMC nominees were selected and many Muslims feel that it would have been better if a UNP Muslims given the chance especially in view of the increasing Muslim votes for UNP all over the island and especially in places such as kurunegala, Kalutara and Puttalam electorates.”
“Thus the time has come for mainstream Sinhalese political parties to deal with their Muslim supporters and attend to community’s burning issues”
Yes. The Mainstream Parties should not marginalize and take the Muslim citizens for granted. They are citizens too, just like the others.
Apart from the Local Political problem faced by Sri Lankan Muslims, there is greater threat to the Community posed by the
Wahhabis and Their Clones (Salafis, ISIS, Taliban, Boko Haram etc.) who follow
Iblis, Satan, Shaitan, Lucifer, Devil and Mara.
Just the same way the SLMC has misled many Muslims, the Wahhabis and their clones, who follow Iblis, Satan, are trying to establish themselves in positions of power.
How are you addressing this threat to the general Muslim Community in Sri Lanka and Globally?
The Evidence and references are there in support of
1. Wahhabis and their clones Follow Iblis, Horners, Najadis, Satan from Hadith.
2. Quran warns over 25 times against Iblis and Satan’s trickery
3. The actions of Wahhabis and the desires of Iblis, Devil.
So, my question is, How are the Muslims addressing the Challenge of the Iblis following Wahahabis and their clones?
Claim Darwin was wrong and behead anybody who has Darwin’s books on Evolution?
Do the Wahhabis and their clones have 48 or 46 Chromosomes?
Ken Miller on Human Evolution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk
Uploaded on Feb 14, 2007
Dr. Ken Miller talks about the relationship between Homo sapiens and the other primates. He discusses a recent finding of the Human Genome Project which identifies the exact point of fusion of two primate chromosomes that resulted in human chromosome #2.
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Ice Cream QUDDUS / August 30, 2015
The SLMC and all its splinter groups are a disgrace to the muslim community which since independence had been aligned either to the SLFP or UNP..Ahroff was an opportunist and Rauff Haks is a greater opportunists.
Now its time that the UNP and SLFP embarks on a stratergy of bringing back to their fold their muslim vote banks.This could easily be done so that the SLMC and its splinter groups could be dispensed with once and for all and the community itself saved.
The Uva muslim voter first showed this bunch of their disgust at the PC elections.Now the entire muslim community has told them to[Edited out]
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Paul / August 30, 2015
Look how Dravidian/Tamil all these people look and yet these people want to falesely call themselves descended from Arabs and discard their ancient rich Sufi Tamil Muslim culture and become a some pale imitation of some extremist Salafist Wahhabi Arab dessert culture that is completely alien to them . It here lies all the problems. Denying their real Tamil/Dravidian origins by all their selfish power hungry politicians, conniving with each successive racist Sinhalese governments in their genocide against their fellow Hindu and Christian Tamils, so that they can get crumbs from the Sinhalese table. The British and the Sinhalese craftily used them and their fake Arab origin myths, created a fake identity called Sri Lankan Moors( Sic nothing Moorish or Arab about them) Just like they have now created a fake new identity called Colombo Chetty,(People who were correctly classified as Tamils until very recently) ,for the descendants of the Tamil Chetties who migrated from South India to the island during medieval times, settled along the western coast and became Christians for their divide and rule policy of the island’s
Tamil population.
It is these fake Arab largely immigrant Indian Tamil origin, Muslims their parties and their selfish politicians, who are one of the main impediments for the Tamils, especially the indigenous Tamils of the north east, not getting their just rights. They do not do anything other than conniving with the Sinhalese to discriminate commit genocide and ethnically cleanse Tamils from their lands. Wait for the Tamils to fight for their just rights that was denied to them losing hundreds of thousands of lives lands ETC whenever there is a potential agreement is reached between the Sinhalese and the Tamils come as party poopers, demanding rights for their immigrant refugee community, especially in the east where they were only settled a few centuries ago as refugees fleeing Sinhalese persecution. They then deliberately, completely spoil any potential peace agreement, as they do not really want any peace between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, because they feel their immigrant community from Tamil Nadu /Kerala will loose the crumbs that they received from their backstabbing the Tamils.
You can see this last provincial elections the TNA won the largest amount of seats in the east, instead of supporting their fellow Tamils these, backstabbers joined the illegal Sinhalese settler racists in the east to form a coalition to marginalize the indigenous Tamil population in the east, who still are 40% and are the real owners of the east.
The east is ancient Tamil land. Always occupied by Tamils since prehistoric times, ruled by Tamil chiefs and kings. At times it parts of it may have come under the Kandyan kingdom, under a loose overlordship , however its essential character has always remained Tamil. The Sinhalese population here in 1948 was only 2%. This was recognised by the British. The Bandaranaike/Chelvanayagam pact. The Dudley Senanayake/Chelvanayagam pact and in the international 1987 Indo/Sri Lankan signed by Rajiv Gandhi and J R Jayewardene.
Just because successive racist Sinhalese Sri Lankan governments used their political military powers to illegally settle hundreds and thousands of Sinhalese by ethnically cleansing and killing Tamils in the east or by deliberately decoupling Sinhalese areas and division from the Uva province and adding them to the newly created southern Amparai district in the east to create a Sinhalese division called Amparai, or the large scale population increase in these immigrant Tamil Muslims due to a very high birth rate and again illegal colonisation during the 1970s SLFP era, does not deny the historic and ancient rights of the Tamils to the east, where they alone have lived and ruled their from ancient times. You cannot steal another persons land and claim it by using all these illegal methods. It may have worked a centuries ago but now. People who were given refuge just because they were fellow Tamils despite being Muslim and illegal Sinhalese settlers have no right to claim another persons home and land. They can live there but it is not theirs
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Al Baghdadi / August 30, 2015
Here goes this idiot Paul again. he is copy/paste-ing his drivel against the Muslims whereever he can. Somewhat like leaving his excreta behind as he goes along. The bugger doesnt realize that sooner or later he is going to step on his own left-behind mcuk and then be forced to bear the stench of his own ‘doings’ through his posterior. Hop along till Boko Haram catches you and packs you off to Saudi where they will first lop off your -you-know-what, before they put your sick head under the sword.
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Sinhala_Man / August 30, 2015
I try to maintain a sense of equanimity when writing, but I feel it is you who deserve garroting or worse. Paul writes sense, and I hadn’t seen his contribution when I asked Latheef whether he was Sinhalese or Tamil. The import of what he says, at greater length, is the same as my thoughts.
We are not racist, but we are fed up with hearing about how you, and you alone have special communication with this Allah, and you are idolators yourselves: why venerate the Kabaa so much? Well, I couldn’t care much about what you do among yourselves, although I’m not so sure that you have the right to treat your women as chattels, and once a person becomes an apostate you have no right to go after him.
Anyway, the pity of it is that you are bound to provoke a backlash, and given the scatology that has just escaped from you, I don’t think that I’m going to bother to counter it either – unless I know for certain that the victim is one of the vast multitude of secret apostates.
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Amarasiri / August 31, 2015
Al Baghdadi
1. Wahhabism and their clones are an Insult to Islam.
2. Abdul Wahab and his Guide Ibn Taymiah are insults tp Prophet Mohamed.
3. Saudi Arabia is not a Muslim state. Is is an Iblis, Satan, Devil,following state.
1. Wahhabism is NOT Islam. Those who follow Wahhabism are called Wahhabis. It is called Iblism, Satanism, Shaitanism, Luciferianism, that is followed by Wahhabis and it’s clones, and was followed by many Christian sects as well.
Wahhabis are NOT Muslims. They called Muslims who follow Islam Apostates and non-Muslims, and killed them. Remember the Christian Inquisition especially the Spanish Inquisition, as to how they called some people Apostates and killed them or burned at the stake?
Same idea. History repeats itself here. You may call it the Wahhabi Inquisition, guided by the Satan. Iblis.
Hadith of Najd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith_of_Najd
Text of the hadith
According to two narrations in Sahih Bukhari, Muhammad asks Allah to bless the areas of Bilad al-Sham (Syria) and Yemen. When his companions said “Our Najd as well,” he replied: “There will appear earthquakes and afflictions, and from there will come out the side of the head (e.g. horns) of Satan.”[1][2] In a similar narration, Muhammad again asked Allah to bless the areas Medina, Mecca, Sham, and Yemen and, when asked specifically to bless Najd, repeated similar comments about there being earthquakes, trials, tribulations, and the horns of Satan.[3][4]
“Christian” Inquisition Wahhabi ISIS Iqquisition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition
The Inquisition is[1] a group of institutions within the judicial system of the Roman Catholic Church whose aim is to combat heresy. It started in 12th-century France to combat religious sectarianism, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians. Other groups which were investigated later include the Spiritual Franciscans, the Hussites (followers of Jan Hus) and Beguines. Beginning in the 1250s, inquisitors were generally chosen from members of the Dominican Order, to replace the earlier practice of using local clergy as judges.[2] The term Medieval Inquisition covers these courts up through the 14th century.
In the Late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the concept and scope of the Inquisition was significantly expanded in response to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Its geographic scope was expanded to other European countries,[3] resulting in the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. Those two kingdoms in particular operated inquisitorial courts throughout their respective empires (Spanish and Portuguese) in the Americas (resulting in the Peruvian Inquisition and Mexican Inquisition), Asia, and Africa.[4] One particular focus of the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions was the issue of Jewish anusim and Muslim converts to Catholicism, partly because these minority groups were more numerous in Spain and Portugal than in many other parts of Europe, and partly because they were often considered suspect due to the assumption that they had secretly reverted to their previous religions.
Except within the Papal States, the institution of the Inquisition was abolished in the early 19th century, after the Napoleonic wars in Europe and after the Spanish American wars of independence in the Americas. The institution survived as part of the Roman Curia, but in 1904 was given the new name of “Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office”. In 1965 it became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
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Thumbiya / August 30, 2015
Be careful, bullshit “high command” of SLMC might re tipcut you.
That bloody Ashraf ruined us all trying to become a self styled messiah.
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Maghribi / August 30, 2015
Sri Lankans should give up on this ridiculous mockery of entrusting their livelihood to politicians and start building their lives on productive efforts. Politicians by their very nature and their very presence distort, destroy, sodomize economic order and they also steal from the unborn and create economic distortions in the future, kind of like meddling time travelers, literally the mother of all economic screw ups.
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Sinhala_Man / August 30, 2015
Dear Latheef Farook,
You seem to grant that if the “Muslim Community” embraces the UNP, it should do so consistently. I remember you writing rubbish earlier, and I’m afraid that despite my first sentence being complimentary what I have now to say will not be so.
For you “community” seems to mean either “Muslims” or “Muslims of Sri Lanka”. That is the real problem! I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we should regard, in our day to day activities, all life forms as being equally important. However, most thinking people put humanity at the apex, and National, Ethnic and Religious affiliations below that. You don’t seem even to understand that the World of Humans ought to take that as their starting point.
I know that there are some Sinhalese who claim to own the whole of Sri Lanka. Those calling themselves Buddhists are similarly guilty. A few days ago there was a Dr Gnana Somebody claiming that ethnic Tamils had higher intelligence; fortunately another Tamil speaker put the guy in his place, after I, too had disagreed. After the elections, even some “Born Again Christians” made crazy fundamentalist noises.
Why, oh, why can’t we start by acknowledging that higher than everything else is our identity as human beings? Oftentimes it is unconscious. A relative who is British (not English!) was recently talking about Sri Lankans who contested the U.K. elections. Although her residence is in the adjoining electorate of Barnet (I think, I’ve never been to Europe) she was unaware that a young “Sri Lankan” lady, Ms Uma Kumaran, ran a pretty good campaign. Why this ignorance? All her acquaintances must have brushed her out of their minds because she was a “Tamil” – although I read up a bit of her campaign. Uma was Labour, and was talking about common social problems, but was conscious that she would have special support from “Asians”.
Race is a factor in the world today, unfortunately! By the way, are you Sinhalese or Tamil? No wonder you Muslims have problems in every location on this planet. You’ll probably create problems even if you were on the Moon! There are some “born-Muslims” who agree with me. Apostates!
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Idroos Mohamed / August 31, 2015
You cannot trade on the name of Muslims for political
gains all the time. That is the lesson Al Haj Rauff
Hakeen has to learn from his election debacle.
Has anyone bothered to take a close look at Rishad
Bathuuddin’s performance? He and his party have made
more gains as a Muslim party.
The interesting point is this – the Bathiuddin group
is replacing Hakeem’s SLMC. Bad news for collectors
like Nazeer Ahamed.
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