{"id":128650,"date":"2014-08-03T03:59:48","date_gmt":"2014-08-02T22:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=128650"},"modified":"2014-08-11T02:47:23","modified_gmt":"2014-08-10T21:17:23","slug":"beyond-the-black-and-white-of-vilification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/beyond-the-black-and-white-of-vilification\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond The Black And White Of Vilification"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Ask anyone the question \u2018Are you a racist?\u2019 and the answer would be \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0 You can replace racist with communalist, fundamentalist, extremist, chauvinist or any other derogatory term and you\u2019ll get the same answer.\u00a0 \u2018No\u2019.\u00a0 You can ask \u2018Are you arrogant, jealous, wicked, deceitful etc etc\u2019 and you will still get \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0 No one ever does anything wrong.\u00a0 Act and word are generally justified to self beforehand.\u00a0 Arrogance tends to trump humility.\u00a0 And the world stays as it is apart from appearances and frills of the times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right here in Sri Lanka, we had what are called ethnic-tensions.\u00a0 That should be in the present tense.\u00a0 There are also tensions between followers of different faiths. There is apprehension, fear and distrust.\u00a0 And there is response to these; response to the real and imagined, histories and extrapolations.\u00a0 And it\u2019s mostly of the \u2018Us vs Them\u2019 kind.\u00a0 More precisely it\u2019s mostly \u2018We are the victims, they are the aggressors\u2019.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, when \u2018Aluthgama\u2019 happened, there was not just condemnation of the Bodu Bala Sena but a tagging of all Buddhists to exercises of censure.\u00a0 There was absolutely no mention of Welipenna where Muslims attacked a Buddha statue and houses and establishments owned by Buddhists.\u00a0 There was footage of Buddhists \u2018on the rampage\u2019 but carefully edited out was footage of Muslim youth throwing stones from the roof of a building.\u00a0 No one asked the question, \u2018how did stones get there?\u2019\u00a0 The fact is that there was premeditation on both sides, perhaps out of fear, but that\u2019s a different story.\u00a0 The story is that there were stories and people chose what to pick and what to ignore.<\/p>\n

The Buddhist response, if you want to call it that, was similar.\u00a0 Pick and choose is the name of the game.\u00a0 Footage of Welipenna and weeping Buddhist women but none of the Muslim shops and houses attacked or the associated lamentations; footage of stone-throwing Muslim youth but not of attack-mode Buddhists.<\/p>\n

It was all overshadowed by \u2018Gaza\u2019.\u00a0 The condemnation of Israel was absolute.\u00a0 Very few Muslims criticized Hamas.\u00a0 There\u2019s no question about it, the Israeli \u2018response\u2019 (bad word because it presumes innocence and victimhood and edits out known aggression on the part of Israel) is genocidal in intent and product.\u00a0 What\u2019s interesting is that even those who footnoted Hamas remained absolutely silent on Muslim-Muslim violence.<\/p>\n

Ali A Rizvi, in an article published in www.huffingtonpost.com<\/a> titled \u20187 Things to Consider Before Choosing Sides in the Middle East Conflict,\u2019 gives us some sobering facts.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bashar al-Assad has killed over 180,000 Syrians, mostly Muslim, in two years — more than the number killed in Palestine in two decades. Thousands of Muslims in Iraq and Syria have been killed by ISIS in the last two months. Tens of thousands have been killed by the Taliban. Half a million black Muslims were killed by Arab Muslims in Sudan. The list goes on.\u00a0 But Gaza makes Muslims around the world, both Sunni and Shia, speak up in a way they never do otherwise. Up-to-date death counts and horrific pictures of the mangled corpses of Gazan children flood their social media timelines every day.\u2019<\/p>\n

Ali asks some pertinent questions: \u2018If it was just about the numbers, wouldn’t the other conflicts take precedence? What is it about then?\u2019<\/p>\n

The anger of Muslims regarding Israeli aggression is understandable.\u00a0 That anger and solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza even prompted some people to commend the unity of Muslims.\u00a0 Ali\u2019s piece shows that underneath anti-Israeli sentiment are deep fissures.\u00a0 If the harm done to others in the community prompts umbrage, though, what can explain the near total silence on Muslim aggression against Muslims?\u00a0 Is it something on the following lines: \u2018outsiders need not worry about mattes within the family\u2019?\u00a0 But is there any debate within \u2018the family\u2019?<\/p>\n

On the other side, we see Israel\u2019s allies, especially the USA and Britain showing utter disregard for the atrocities committed by Israel.\u00a0 The support has been absolute.\u00a0 Scandalous would be a kind word in this context especially since these countries are self-proclaimed champions of human rights.<\/p>\n

What is the logic of this black-white logic?\u00a0 It is an inevitable outcome of a preference for Cartesian logic?\u00a0 Well, from that point to sweeping statement and castigating of collectives for the perceived crimes of a few is a very short distance.<\/p>\n

Not too long ago, Prageeth Ekneligoda (\u2018disappeared\u2019 they say), came up with a powerful cartoon.\u00a0 Now Prageeth is powerful when he uses lines, although his commentary borders on pornography and his political practice (sending human ash to perceived enemies) even laughable.\u00a0 But take a look at the caricature he offers. There\u2019s a Buddhist bikkhu <\/i>being \u2018creative\u2019 with the dharmachakra<\/i>, subtly turning it into the Swastika, the sign that has come to represent fascism.\u00a0 So all of a sudden we are not talking of some fringe group but the entire Buddhist order.\u00a0 That\u2019s offensive.\u00a0 Avantha Attygalle, another brilliant cartoonist also does himself much disservice by playing with iconography in similarly careless, crass and sweeping manner.<\/p>\n

When an entire collective is thus vilified, one has to expect the majority to be offended.\u00a0 But strangely, in Sri Lanka, Buddhists are supposed to \u2018grin and bear\u2019 because Buddhism after all is about non-attachment.\u00a0 Non-Buddhists regularly preach Buddhism to Buddhists even as Buddhists are vilified.\u00a0 They do not, likewise, ask Christians to turn the other cheek or direct Muslims to non-violent, compassionate and change-cheek type of content in the Quran.<\/p>\n

Those who share and even use Prageeth\u2019s caricature as Facebook profile pictures do not see anything wrong in it.\u00a0 Would they feel offended if their faiths are subjected to similar caricature?\u00a0 History, after all, is full of blood-letting by Christians and Muslims, in the name of God, Allah, Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammed.\u00a0 US President\u2019s bless troops thus: \u2018May god bless the United States of America\u2019.\u00a0 That\u2019s just before they are sent to kill people.\u00a0 Non-Christians.\u00a0 How many Christians have the United States of America killed in the past 10 years and how many non-Christians?\u00a0 The ratio will tell a story.\u00a0 Is it correct to paint all Muslims with ISIS colors?\u00a0 Are all Muslims supporters of Hamas?\u00a0 Is objection of Zionism qualification enough for the label \u2018Jihadist\u2019?\u00a0 Is objection to the hate speech of Bodu Bala Sena by a Muslims good enough reason to call him\/her a Jihadist?<\/p>\n

But would it be right to paint all Christians and Muslims as fascists?\u00a0 Would Christians and Muslims be offended?<\/p>\n

There are questions we don\u2019t like to hear and are very reluctant to answer, aren\u2019t there?\u00a0 But if we looked deep enough within and in the doctrines we\u2019ve chosen to guide us, there\u2019s ample content to provoke self-appraisal, inculcate patience and too see self in enemy and vice versa.\u00a0 The problem is that it\u2019s hard work.\u00a0\u00a0 Caricature is far easier.\u00a0 Mobs are attractive.\u00a0 Safety in numbers, unfortunately, also amounts to offering blank checks to the movers and shakers of number-aggregates and they typically are black-white creatures who perceive any self-criticism as ill-affordable weakness.<\/p>\n

These are mob days.\u00a0 Collective days. Days of arrogance.\u00a0 These are days of treating Cartesian frames of logic to be superior to anything else, never mind the fact that they are full of holes and have functioned as justifiers and approvers of all kinds of crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

Debating is easy because debating points are cheap.\u00a0 It gives ego a fillip.\u00a0 Neither cause nor the greater good of humanity gets a boost, in the long run.\u00a0 If we stop to think about it, that is.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hate speech\u2019 is an easily tossed around term these days.\u00a0 It\u2019s something \u2018others\u2019 do, everyone thinks.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason why there\u2019s at least that kind of \u2018agreement\u2019.\u00a0 Human sloth.\u00a0 Identity-fascination.\u00a0 Chauvinism, disguised and undisguised.\u00a0 We could do better but have not.\u00a0 And that\u2019s something to worry about.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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