Monday, June 03, 2013

Sri Lanka: what is the new halal?

Remember halal?

The mighty roar against halal sprang up, literally out of nowhere, and occupied the public square with lightening speed. For three months, the anti-Halal campaign raged, subsuming all other concerns and devastating everything in its path, including the decades-old amity between Buddhists and Muslims (without which the Eelam War could have taken a different trajectory). Then, as abruptly as it came into life, halal died.

Today Halal lays forgotten, in an unmarked grave, in the graveyard of bogus issues.

Before its sudden and momentary elevation to the political centre-stage, halal languished in a stagnant pool of Sinhala-Buddhist extremist slogans, the sort which are either too impractical or too divisive for any sensible government to touch. And there are plenty of slogans left in that quagmire, quite a few even more inane and insalubrious than halal.

Someone with a surfeit of power and a dearth of principles may decide to select another of those slogans, and turn it into the issue of the hour. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Sri Lanka hardline group calls for halal boycott...
  2. Sri Lanka: no progress four years on...
  3. No Fire Zone: the killing fields of Sri Lanka...(Graphic)
  4. Handed a snack, and then executed: the last hours of the 12-year-old son...
  5. Sri Lanka's killing fields 2. Unpunished war crimes. (Graphic)
  6. Sri Lanka's killing fields (Graphic)
  7. Thousands missing in Sri Lanka as people continue to disappear...
  8. Dark days in Sri Lanka...
  9. Free press under siege in Sri Lanka...

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