That argument must be confronted and defeated. Yet, it is an individual’s choice and wearers may argue quite rightly that is their human right that has been invaded by this ban. They are alien to the cultural climate of multicultural Sri Lanka. However, these two pieces of cloth are novelties introduced only after 1980 as a result of the “Black Wave” that spread to many parts of the Muslim world after the Islamised Revolution of Iran in 1979. Today’s weapons of mass destruction are produced in so many shapes and sizes that they don’t need a burqa or niqab to hide them. If those two pieces of female attire is a security threat then the yellow robe of a Buddhist monk should have been banned in 1957, because it was a monk Somarama Thera, who concealed his gun under that robe and assassinated Prime Minister Bandaranaike. What will the proposed measures by the minister going to achieve? Consider the issue of banning burqa and niqab, which is yet to be approved by the cabinet. It is to hide these facts from the public and divert its attack on the regime, Muslims have become the scapegoats. The economy is contracting, country is facing financial bankruptcy, households are finding it extremely hard to make both ends meet, foreign relations are in shamble and uncoordinated and ad hoc infrastructural development has destroyed the nation’s ecological balance. And thirdly, by focusing on Muslims, the regime is trying to deflect the rising criticism and opposition against its own failure to deliver what it promised to the people before coming to power. The government’s lackadaisical approach to this vital question has obviously angered the Catholic church, and the Archbishop has every reason to argue that the report is incomplete and he may even go international and plead for justice. The entire Kattankudy and those who knew Zahran personally would vouch for the fact that he was absolutely incapable of planning and executing such a complex operation, even though he had the motive.
Secondly, by picking only those recommendations that deal with the philosophy, objectives and methodology of the killers and their supportive organizations, by ignoring those recommendations that call for the ban on extremist Buddhist groups like Bodu Bala Sena ( BBS), and by recommending some ill-thought out preventive measures such as the banning of burqa and madrasas, the regime shows no interest in the larger question of bringing to justice those who masterminded the Easter massacre, and funded and facilitated the operation. Firstly, those measures would go to some extent to appease the supremacists and satisfy their Islamophobic appetite so that they would continue to back the ruling regime. The latest set of measures announced by the Minister of Public Security, in the wake of the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI), and which is yet to be released to the public in its entirety, are intended to accomplish at least three objectives. Unless an enlightened leadership emerges to warn and educate the Buddhist masses in particular about the dangers inherent in this poisonous ideology the future of this nation will not be one of “prosperity and splendour” as the President promised, but more realistically, of misery and gloom. This is the reason why Muslims are facing an existentialist crisis today, after living cheek by jowl with Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and other religious and non-religious groups for more than a millennium. married to this ideology, are on an ethnic cleansing mission. The One-Country-One-Law (OCOL) slogan is that ideology’s newly discovered propaganda weapon to mislead the Sinhala Buddhists, trap power hungry politicians, and confront and eliminate eventually all socio-economic, cultural and political phenomena that bear any Islamic or Muslim semblance. Politicised Buddhism in bed with Islamophobia has metamorphosed into an anti-Muslim ideology especially since 2009, that it has no tolerance for anything that is Islamic or Muslim in this country. The community is essentially facing an existential crisis. Never in the history of Sri Lanka, since the arrival of Muslims in circa 8 th century, did this entrepreneurial community experience such a stressful period of existence as it is experiencing today.
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