Can a Muslim vote for Ranil - buddy of Bush, Blair and Brown?
In the period leading up to the elections in the east Rauf Hakeem,
the leader of the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress, flew to Mecca, presumably
to impress the electorate that as the latest Al Haj he has a better
claim for Muslim votes in the east. Of course, this is his way of
showing that he is the champion of Islam and Muslims. But is he? As they
say, you are known by the company you keep. Or to put it another way,
birds of a feather flock together.
So is it surprising to find Hakeem flocking together with Ranil
Wickremesinghe? All in all, there is, in his pilgrimage, an element of
politicizing his religion for political gain.
His political buddy Ranil Wickremesinghe, on the other hand, flew to
Sydney, which is in the opposite direction, to participate in the
International Democratic Union (IDU) - the Mecca of the leading
anti-Muslim Club in the world.
The IDU is the gigantic fortress of Conservative right-wing Christian
Democrats who have a vested interest in keeping the Muslims and the
Arabs down both abroad and in their own countries.
The IDU website states officially: “The International Democrat Union
(IDU) is a working association of over 80 Conservative, Christian
Democrat and like-minded political parties of the centre and centre
right.”
Both have returned to contest the elections in the east on a common
platform of defeating President Mahinda Rajapaksa - the only political
leader who has a street named after him in Palestine. In Ramallah where
our embassay is situated a street was named after President Rajapaksa.
This significant honour bestowed on President Rajapaksa is a
remarkable and unambiguous symbol that should make any Muslim sit up and
ask: why hasn’t Wickremesinghe or his buddy Hakeem achieved such a
distinction in the eyes of the oppressed Palestinians and Muslims
abroad? Besides, the late Arafat was a close friend of President
Rajapaksa.
He has gone out of his way to cultivate the friendship of the Muslim
leaders the world over. Among other Muslim leaders, he has met President
Musharaff, rulers of UAE and Emir of Kuwait.
Wickremesinghe, on the other hand, rushes to hobnob with the likes of
Bush, Jacques Chirac and John Howard, well-known anti-Muslim leaders who
have publicly demanded that the Muslim community should conform to
Christian values in their countries. For instance, at a time when
President Rajapaksa was issuing free hijabs to cover the heads of Muslim
girls Chirac Blair and Brown insisted that Muslims must not wear the
hijab and the buraka.
This anti-Muslim attitude is common to most Western political leaders
who dominate the IDU. Here’s a short list of the IDU leadership:
Chairman, John Howard; Deputy Chairman Jan (pro-Tiger) Petersen, Norway,
right-wing Conservative Party; Assistant Chairman, William Hague,
Conservative Party, UK; Vice Chairman, Brendt Bendtsen, right-wing
Conservative Party, Denmark; Helen C. C. Lin, right-wing, anti-China,
Kuomintang, Taiwan; Sen. Carlon Holguin, Conservative Party, Columbia;
Edmund Stolbar, Christian and Social Democratic Party, Germany;
Secretary, Eirik Moen, Conservative Party, Norway; Stepehen J Hunter,
Conservative Party, Cananda, etc., etc.Which one of them is a friend of
the Muslims?
So how can Hakeem stand on the same platform with Wickremesinghe who
stands shoulder to shoulder with all the anti-Muslim forces of the
world? Hakeem and Wickremesinghe come from opposite directions not only
geographically (Mecca and Sydney) but also politically and
ideologically, unless one has totally surrendered to the other? If so
who has surrendered to whom?
Has Hakeem surrendered totally to the anti-Muslim, anti-Arab politics
of right-wing Wickremesinghe who is a regional leader in the IDU? Can he
be a leader of the IDU if he is not committed (covertly in Sri Lanka and
overtly abroad) to the anti-Muslim politicies of the right-wing
Christian democrats in the IDU?
Facts and figures
In contrast, take also the visit of Iranian President Dr. Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. It is a clear signal to the Christian fundamentalists like
Bush, who claims that his (Christian) God speaks to him, that Sri Lanka
is ready to find other friends if the West rejects its legitimate claims
to conduct its own affairs without kow-towing to Western dictates, or
surrendering to the Tiger terrorists.
In fact, this issue has even provoked Stepehen Sackur of BBC HARD
TALK, to raise concerns about it, trying his level best to corner Nivard
Cabraal, the Governor of the Central Bank.
To the credit of Nivard, it must be said that he not only fended off
cleverly and effectively questions of Sackur who was trying to bully him
but also turned the tables on him by bamboozling the BBC bull dog with
disarming facts and figures.
If Sri Lanka is swinging the other way it is the Western diplomats
who are to be blamed. They have handled Sri Lanka insensitively,
arrogantly and immorally. When one of Sri Lanka’s leading
representatives visited the State Department he wasn’t even given a
chance to make his case. The pompous Yankee panjandrum wagged his finger
and laid down the law that should be obeyed by Sri Lanka.
Reacting to this insensitive and bullying approach Sri Lanka has been
forced to go on the diplomatic offensive and change course. Sri Lanka is
also refusing to roll over like a puppy, with it legs in the air, and
whimper pitifully for the masters to scratch its belly. No.
Whenever the opportunity arises Sri Lanka is giving back as a good as
it gets. For instance, the word buzzing in diplomatic circles not so
long ago was how the Dutch ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office
in Colombo and given a dressing down.
He was told that the Dutch government gives a pittance of two million
dollars and has the gumption to tell the Sri Lankans how to behave.
He was told that if the Dutch have any complaints they should make
representations through normal diplomatic channels and not make
offensive public statements against the government of Sri Lanka. The
lame excuse of the Dutch Ambassador was that they were merely responding
to the pressures of the (hypocritical) “civil society” at home.
Dr. Ahmadinejad’s impending visit also has a great significance to
Sri Lanka’s foreign relations. He is now taking on the mantle of
speaking up for the nations fighting for their rights. He is down
grading US like the way US is demonizing Iran. He has dismissed the US
dollar as mere paper after switching over to euros as his means of
exchange.
His visit to Sri Lanka comes at a time when the West is attempting to
twist the arms of Sri Lanka with its obsequious hired agents in the NGOs
and some anti-Sri Lankan hired hacks in leading media.
Rightly or wrongly, Malaysia’s Mahathir earlier was the only leader
of the non-Western world who had the guts to challenge the arrogance and
the monopoly of power in the West. Of course, George Soros, the mega
multi-millionaire, undercut him by triggering the Asian melt down.
But that was only a temporary set back.
It should be remembered that Wickremesinghe too boasted of how he
went with his begging bowl to Soros and invited him to invest in Sri
Lanka. He didn’t get a penny from him. Dr. Ahamadinejad is coming with
almost a $700 million investment. So with whom should Hakeem be? And
with whom should the Muslims be?
Hakeem is trying to bluff his way through by going to Mecca to
impress that he has the interests of Muslim and Islam at heart. But his
alliance with pro-West Wickremesinghe says otherwise. Will Mahathir or
Dr. Ahamadinejad ever go down to the level of seeking membership with
IDU, let alone becoming its regional head? Also, Wickremesinghe has
traveled the world over and grabbed every photo opportunity to pose with
Bush, Blair and others in the anti-Muslim IDU. How many times has he
visited Iran or talked to the Arabs involved in the Middle East
conflict?
Even Jimmy Carter, the former President of USA, has met the Syrian
President and the Hamas leaders.
Wickremesinghe has no record of building special ties with Muslim
countries. Nor has he stood out as a protector of Muslims persecuted by
the West. His interest in the Muslims, like Hakeem’s, is to get their
votes and then give them the karapincha treatment. Hakeem’s alliance
with Wickremesinghe can be as productive as a buffalo mating with a
donkey.
When Wickremesinghe begins his campaign in the east he will be
talking to the Muslims about their aspirations their interests.
Presumably, he will be visiting Saddam Hussein village.
Since he had access to the White House has he ever told his buddy,
Bush, that his invasion of Iraq on cooked up evidence was unacceptable
to him? Did he have the guts to tell Bush when he met him in his Oval
Office, or when he meets his ambassador in Colombo, that America, driven
by Christian fundamentalism of Bush, is aiding and abetting the
persecution of Muslims?
As one of the heads of the IDU has he ever spoken openly about the
failure of the West to recognize the democratically elected heads of
Hamas? So how can Hakeem fight under the UNP symbol and ask the Muslims
to vote for Wickremesinghe who is seen as one of the figures leading the
global campaign against the Muslims?
Hakeem’s unholy alliance with Wickremesinghe is anathema to all
communities, just not the Muslims. The reality is that all three
communities who are equally divided in the east have a stake in its
future.
The Tamils, who aspire to integrate the east into their elusive Eelam,
will resent the rise of the Hakeem with his focus on consolidating his
position in the east.
If the TNA has any political nouse they should view
Wickremesinghe-Hakeem combination as a permanent threat to their claims
to the east. The Muslims, on their part, view both Sinhala and Tamil
communities as obstacles to their claim to carve out the east as their
exclusive domain.
The Sinhalese too fear that Wickremesinghe, by tying up with both
communities, would go for another CFA handing over the east to one or
the other.
He doesn’t care which as long as he can get votes. After the
ill-fated CFA in which Wickremesinghe donated the east to Prabhakaran
the Sinhala community is wary of Wickremsinghe’s agreement with minority
communities. They have a genuine fear, after the grim experiences of the
CFA, that they are the ones who will have to face the bullets and the
harassment of the dominant community in the east.
All said and done, the big question for the Muslims is this: where
does Hakeem and Wickremesinghe stand in relation to the global and
national interests of the Muslims? How genuine are both in fighting to
protect the interests of the Muslims?
Can Hakeem fight under the UNP symbol and ask the Muslims to vote for
Wickremesinghe who is seen as one of the leading partners in the global
campaign against the Muslims?
Hakeem’s political and personal links to Wickremesinghe makes him an
enemy of Islam and the Muslims in the global context.
No Muslim who is committed to the cause of Palestinians or the Middle
East can vote for the Hakeem-Wickremesinghe alliance. With each bomb
that falls in the Middle-East Wickremesinghe says:
“Allahu Bush!” (“Bush is great”!). And Hakeem says: “Allahu
Wickremesinghe!” Hakeem scratches Wickremesinghe back and Wickremesinghe
scratches Bush’s back.
Both are tied to each other like two bulls yoked to the same cart
going up the lawns in the White House.
How many Muslims will want a ride in this cart? |