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By Izeth Hussain

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the term "racism" has come into vogue. I myself have been using it for years, in preference to the term "ethnic" in connection with our famous ethnic problem. But otherwise it has been normally used in Sri Lanka only to allege "Tamil racism", the assumption behind which is that the Sinhalese of course have never been racist towards the Tamils, or towards anyone else for that matter. But now, in connection with the anti-Muslim hate campaign and the halal problem, - which involve Buddhist monks and a political party that is part of the Government - many including no less than the President have used the term "racism". There is therefore recognition among the Sinhalese power elite that there could be racists within their own ranks. I see this as a step or even a great leap forward, the beginnings of a possible sea-change, holding out promise for the future.

In ethnic discourse there is a very striking lacuna – or rather what ought to be regarded as a very striking lacuna but is not. Most ethnic problems arise from perceptions of discrimination among ethnic minorities. They don’t generally believe that all the members of a majority ethnic group want to discriminate against them: only some do, and that becomes a serious problem when they belong to a power elite. What is the term to designate those who want to discriminate? In ethnic discourse there is no such term as "ethnicist", nor is there any other term to designate such persons. In the discourse of racism, on the other hand, there is the term "racist". Therefore, it becomes arguable that ethnic discourse neatly elides away what is at the very core of ethnic problems: the racist.

Racism discourse is more illuminating than the ethnic one about the problems faced by ethnic minorities in other ways as well. For instance there is the problem that many members of the ethnic majorities are not even aware of their own racism. Some Western countries find that so significant a problem that they have programmes for RAT (Racism Awareness Training). We badly need such programmes in Sri Lanka. In connection with the anti-Muslim racism prevalent in Sri Lanka today, I am particularly interested in the distinctions made in Western racism discourse between different kinds of racism. But before getting to that I must make some preliminary clarifications.

We in Sri Lanka badly need a proper understanding of what racism means in the contemporary world.During the several centuries when the West dominated the world, racism was seen as something that the whites do to the coloured, never as something that the coloured could do to the coloured. It was believed that humanity consisted of different races, and that they could be genetically graded as superior and inferior, with the whites being regarded as superior to all the rest. Under Western imperialism, racism became a way of legitimating the domination and economic exploitation of the coloured by the whites. It was all supposed to be for the benefit of the coloured, the white man having assumed the burden – in Kipling’s phraseology – of uplifting the coloured natives.

That notion of racism was no longer in vogue after the Second World War and the demise of Western colonialism. Hitler’s holocaust against the Jews made racism thoroughly unfashionable. Besides it was shown scientifically that there are no distinct races, and that it is impossible to establish that people are genetically superior or inferior. But racism, or what amounts to racism, persists finding its new ground in culture. People are said to be superior or inferior in terms of their culture, and culture is seen – by today’s racists I mean – as something comparable to genes, as something that is unchanging or changing only very slowly over a long period of time. In the meanwhile racists classify people as superior and inferior. In the contemporary world therefore we have, paradoxically, racism without race as Colette Guillaumin put it.

I come now to the distinctions made in Western racism discourse to different kinds of racism, in which I have a particular interest as I stated above. The reason is their possible application to the problems facing the SL Muslims today. The present-day racist is someone who regards the Other – that is, members of another ethnic group – as inferior and wants to treat them as such. There are three recognized ways of treating ethnic groups as inferior. One is to confine them to inferior positions in a hierarchically ordered society. That was the position of the Shudras in the traditional caste order of India. The second way is to exclude them, treating them as virtual out-castes – the fate of the Dalits in India. The third way – which comes into operation particularly when the Other is seen as threatening – is to exterminate them, committing what is familiarly known as genocide. It is pertinent to recall that during July ’83 the worst mass killings took place on Black Friday, in response to the threat perception caused by the story that the Tigers had come into the South.

The first kind of racism – confining ethnic minorities to inferior positions – is probably widespread, though to varying degrees ranging from the slight to the extreme and intolerable. Wherever there are dominant ethnic majorities, it has to be expected that their members will show a propensity to grab the goodies to an inordinate extent. However, for the most part, ethnic minorities can live with discrimination provided that it is not taken to extremes. The case is very different with the kinds of racism that require that ethnic minorities be excluded or exterminated. Unfortunately it is these kinds of racism that today predominate in Sinhalese racism towards the Muslims.

I will now cite examples of insights provided in studies of racism that illuminate the anti-Muslim campaign going on in Sri Lanka. The drive to exclude them is shown by the clamour that has been going on for quite some time that the Muslims are not indigenous to Sri Lanka and that therefore they should go back to Saudi Arabia or wherever it was that they came from. It is alleged among other things that they are multiplying so fast that within a few years they will become the dominant majority in Sri Lanka. All that suggests that the anti-Muslim racists want to make the SL Muslims the scapegoat for what has been going wrong in Sri Lanka. According to the Bible story the sins and shortcomings of the society were heaped on a goat regarded as blamable for them, which was thereafter driven into the wilderness and on to a cliff from which it fell to its death.

In contemporary studies of racism the scapegoat theory has come to have a different meaning – or rather the meaning implicit in it has been brought out with insights provided by psychology. The following is the explanation of scapegoat theory given in the book Racism by Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a leading and very impressive theorist on racism. The theory is founded on the hypothesis that frustration is a necessary and sufficient condition for aggressiveness. It is supposed that situations of social and economic crises favour the augmentation of frustration, and therefore of aggressiveness, which is displaced and fixed on the most rejected outsider-group, seen as the most different and the most weak, which is falsely identified as the cause of the frustrations. The victimization of such minority groups makes possible a reduction of the tendency to commit aggression.

The scapegoat theory in its modernized version provides in my view a very plausible explanation of the anti-Muslim campaign, for which there seems to be no rational motivation. This is certainly a time of social and economic crisis in Sri Lanka. We have lost the peace, the process of ethnic reconciliation has not even begun, and a political solution is not visible on the horizon. We seem to be getting isolated internationally to a dangerous extent. Combining neo-liberal economic growth with equity is proving to be too difficult. And so on. This certainly is a time of frustration for the Sinhalese, which according to the theory will increase their aggressiveness. The JVP could be raring to have another go at saving Sri Lanka by massacring their fellow-Sinhalese. This surely is the time to find a scapegoat, and the obvious candidate is the Muslim. The SL Muslims are certainly "the most rejected outsider-group", and they are certainly seen as "the most different" as there is no commonality between Buddhism and Islam as there is between Buddhism and Hinduism. There are Sinhalese – the late Regi Siriwardene for instance – who hold that the Sinhalese hate the Muslims even more than they hate the Tamils. The SL Muslims are also "the most weak" because they have no India to come to their help. The SL Muslim is the ideal scapegoat.

Exclusion can take mild forms, such as in the exclusion of minority members from certain prestigious posts. Exclusion in the form of the driving out of a people from a territory can border on or actually become genocide. On the other hand, fears that the Muslims will become the majority within a few years have behind them, implicitly but clearly enough, a genocidal drive. The relevant Department has recently issued statistics showing beyond dispute that such fears are totally unfounded. My guess however is that after some time the same fears will again be articulated vociferously. The supposed fears are the excuse. The underlying reality is the genocidal drive.

I suspect that some aspects of the halal problem have an implicit and unrecognized genocidal drive behind them. A Sinhalese schoolboy tells another not to drink water from a bottle brought by a Muslim schoolboy because that is "halal water". It seems a silly schoolboy notion that the water brought by a Muslim becomes Muslim halal water. But Sinhalese adults also seem to believe that the halal logo on packaged food somehow makes that food Muslim halal food. Obscure notions about purity and pollution seem to be lurking in the subconscious there. It makes me think of the distinction between the pure and the impure in the Indian caste system and the notion of untouchability. I am trying to get hold of Mary Douglas’ classic Purity and Danger which might throw some light on some aspects of the halal problem.

Courtesy: The Island (31/03/2013