The Easter Sunday Bombings and the Crisis Facing Sri Lanka’s Muslims

Abstract

This paper primarily examines the Easter Sunday bombing plotted and executed by a group of Sri Lankan Muslims and post-war Sri Lankan conditions among Sri Lankan Muslims, also known as Moors. The article will attempt to argue that (a) the post-war violence and organized Islamophobia among non-Muslim communities in general and the Sinhalese in particular increased fears and distrust among Sri Lankan Muslims in general; and (b) state concessions to Muslim political leaders, who supported successive Sri Lankan 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 its 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. 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.