Features

All communities should be treated equally without distinction

Published

5 years ago

2021/04/20

by Jehan Perera

The government was elected on a platform that stressed national security and unity. The elections took place in the aftermath of the Easter suicide bomb attacks of 2019 that caused the highest numbers of casualties in Christian churches. As the bombers were all Muslim, the Muslim population in the country came under public suspicion which was spontaneous and widespread. There was also equally widespread fear and anxiety about follow on attacks that could target Christians in particular and also the population in general. The cause of the attacks and the master minds behind them were a mystery then as they are now.

Due to the timely intervention of Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo, in whose diocese the two most serious attacks took place, there was no retaliation against the Muslim population by those who had lost their kith and kin. However, in the weeks that followed, there were mob attacks against the Muslim community in parts of the country that were distant from the bomb attacks. These attacks were not spontaneous but organised and intended to loot Muslim property and cause fear in them. The government, which was under political siege for having failed to prevent the suicide bomb attacks, failed once again to adequately protect the Muslim community.

It is in this context that Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith’s statement on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Easter bombings takes on significance. About two months ago he gave a deadline by which he asked the government to identify who was behind the Easter attacks and the cause for them. The Cardinal has consistently spoken up on the issue of the Easter bombing, first to ask for restraint on the part of the victims, then to ask the government to identify the perpetrators and prior to the elections to take the position that the people needed a government that could protect them. Now he has said that “Our brethren were attacked not by religious extremism, but by a group that exploited it to use the attackers as pawns in order to strengthen their political power.”

MUSLIM OUTREACH

Two years after the Easter bombings in which they were branded as supporters of religious extremism, the Muslim community seeks in many different ways to overcome the suspicion that once engulfed them and which they fear can do so again. The use of the black Islamic dress that was an increasing trend among Muslim women has been much reduced. Muslim organisations are making energetic efforts to network with other religious organisations, join inter-religious groups and to liaise with civil society. They make available to them the Islamic teachings on peace and coexistence. This weekend I was invited to the opening of a community centre in the Kurunegala District by a Muslim organization.

On the walls of the community centre there were panels put up with sayings from the different religions on a number of important matters, such as how to treat others, and the role of spiritual values in everyday life. The foremost place at the opening ceremony was given to Buddhist monks who had come to attend the ceremony along with government officials and police officers. The monks who spoke said that the Muslim community living in the village had good relations with the Sinhalese living in the neighbouring villages, and this had continued for generations. Another monk said that after the Easter bombings they had heard there were violent gangs heading in the direction of the Muslim village, they had come there to ensure no harm would befall those people.

In this context, the announcement that the government will ban 11 Muslim organisations sends a negative message to the country at large about the Muslim community. It creates an impression that Muslims organisations are under suspicion and possibly even close to performing acts of violence which necessitates them being banned. Of the 11 banned organisations, two are foreign ones, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda which have been reported internationally as engaging in violence. However, the other nine are Sri Lankan organisations which do not have a track record of violence or illegality. Four of them have the name “Thowheed” in them, which in the Arabic language means “faith.”

DIFFERENT TREATMENT

The ban on these Thowheed organisations may be due to the fact that the leader of the suicide squad, Zahran, was part of an organisation that had the name “Thowheed” in it. The ban on them may also be due to the fact that the Commission of Inquiry into the Easter bombings recommended such action against them. However, the Commission also recommended that other non-Muslim organisations be banned which has not happened. This suggests that the Muslim organisations are being treated differently. The danger is that when it treats organisations differently, the government may be generating resentment in the Muslim community, especially the youth. If the words of Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith are correct, the problem lies not in Muslim extremism but in partisan power politics.

Sri Lanka has experienced Sinhalese youth insurrections twice and even the Tamil militant movement was started by youth, who were once called “the boys.” Perhaps in anticipation of such a radicalisation phenomenon, the government has recently passed an add-on called the “De-radicalisation from holding violent extremist religious ideology” to the Prevention of Terrorism Act. This will permit people who fall into its ambit to be send to rehabilitation centres for up to two years without trial. This may provide the government with an opportunity to release up to 250 Muslim citizens currently under detention on suspicion of being involved in the Easter bombings and send them for rehabilitation. On the other hand, this regulation may be used in the future in regard to other persons and other groups. The better way to prevent radicalization is to make people feel that the law is even-handed to all, and also to encourage engagement between communities.

During the discussion that took place at the opening of the community centre in Kurunegala, it was noted that the younger generation had fewer inter-community linkages than those of older generations. This may be due to the changing nature of society and the economy where people spend less time with other people and more time with machines or doing narrow and specialised jobs. In multi-ethnic and multi-religious societies in which there is conflictual relations, the tendency on the part of those from different communities will be to live in their own silos rather than interact with those of other communities. Living in peace in plural societies requires purposeful and energetic interaction which is organised. Where there has been ethnic and religious strife the world over, the better answer has been to provide people with encouragement and incentives to mix together, which is what the Muslim organization in Kurunegala was trying to do.

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

23 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

23 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

23 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.