By

Udaya Gammanpila

I spent my teenage at Sadasiripura, Athurugiriya. It is a middle-class housing scheme and as a result pluralistic in character. The house facing our house was occupied by the Jayasinghe family who were Sinhala Buddhists. The house to the left was occupied by the Zinnen family, who were Malays. The house to the right was occupied by the Ali family who were Moors. The house at the rear was occupied by the Muspret family who were Burghers.

We were always together and never felt that we belonged to different ethno-religious groups. We were separated only by religious celebrations. Nevertheless, such celebrations made us closer and inseparable.

During the Sinhala New Year, we sent plates filled with milk rice and oil cakes to our neighbours. In turn, our Muslim neighbours sent us Biriyani and Watalappan during the Id festival. The Catholics would invite us over for Christmas dinner. During the Wesak season, we organized Danselas (Donations of cooked food) and non Buddhists were invited to start the proceedings. We celebrated all religious ceremonies by sending and receiving food and enjoying food together.

I had a similar experience at my alma mater, D. S. Senanayake College. We had classes in the Sinhala, English and Tamil mediums. Hence, it was an essentially multi-ethnic and multi-religious school. Our Muslim community was only second to that of Zahira College, Colombo, which is a Muslim school. When I was the Deputy General Secretary of the Sinhala nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), my schoolmate, Nizzam Kariyappar was my counterpart in the Muslim nationalist Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).

Observe Ata Sil

We used to observe Ata Sil (eight precepts) on Esala Poya day at school. Our Muslim brothers were there to offer us alms and to attend to our needs. They attended without fail because of the tasty vegetarian lunch offered to all of them. Similarly, we tasted Christmas cakes during the Carol Service and enjoyed Biriyani on Ramazan day. We were offered different Vadei on Thai Pongal day. Non Buddhists impatiently waited for Esala Poya to enjoy alms. Similarly, we eagerly followed the calendar for Thai Pongal, Ramadan and Christmas because of the tasty food on offer.

The food exchange culture built and cemented the inter-religious amity without any coercion. No Norway funded NGO lectured us about religious unity or amity. We were neither forced to read books on religious co-existence nor watch movies. Frankly, we had never heard of the term ‘religious co-existence’. Nevertheless, we had built a classic example of religious unity thanks to our food exchange culture.

Class D in every grade had been allocated for the Tamil medium at our school. We were in Grade 8 when ethnic riots began in July 1983. In fact, the riots commenced at the Borella Cemetery, which is right in front of our school. We reached the school on 25 July passing burning shops. Soon after commencing our school work, it was announced the administration had decided to close the school and advised us to wait in the class rooms till the arrival of our guardians to pick us up. However, when my aunt came to pick me up, I was not in the class room. A group of us had a mission to accomplish.

We feared that rioters would enter the school since we had the Tamil stream. Hence, we wanted to be with our friends in Class 8D till the arrival of their guardians. The students were in fear. But they had a sense of protection as we were around. We were compelled to protect them risking our lives because of the bond created by our food exchange culture. I must gratefully recall the strong brotherhood among the DS students was built by our founder principal, R. I. T. Alles, through various projects, in addition to the food exchange culture.

Food exchange culture

The food exchange culture, the very foundation of national unity in Sri Lanka is under attack because of Halalization. We will not be able to send plates of milk rice and oil cakes to our Muslim friends in the forthcoming Sinhala New Year as we do not use Halal ingredients. We are now confident that our Muslim friends would not consume non-Halal food. However, we do not want our milk rice prepared at the auspicious time for the New Year to end up in a waste bin. Similarly, they are not in a position to open dansala at the forthcoming Wesak festival since we do not use Halal ingredients. Hence, Halalization would distance our Islamic brothers and they would be in isolation in the Sri Lankan society.

Reactionary religious movements have been very common in Sri Lanka’s recent history. The Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA) was established in response to the fast growing Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in the latter part of the 19th century. Buddhist Bhakti Geetha was introduced in response to Christmas carols. Hence, we can expect similar response to Halalization.

Buddhists may declare they would consume products only with the symbol of Wheel of Dhamma indicating products have been produced after chanting Buddhist sutra. Similarly, Christians may declare they need a symbol of a cross on the products to indicate those were produced with prayers to God. Hindus may demand the thrishool (trident) symbol on the products to indicate they were produced after singing sthothra (thanksgiving) to the Gods.

In the above scenario, there will be different products in the market for different religious groups. It would be further developed to different shops and restaurants for different religious groups since they do not have any common products or foods causing social segregation on religious lines. This kind of isolation will result in suspicion and tension among religious groups. Hence, social segregation caused by the Jamiyyathul Ulamas is more dangerous than the territorial segregation attempted by Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The Portuguese decided to expel more than 4,000 Muslims from the coastal Sri Lanka, which was under their rule, in 1624. King Senarath came forward to accept the expelled Muslims. They were accommodated in temples and offered food by Buddhists before they were settled in Ampara. No Muslim demanded Halal food at that time. When the LTTE expelled Muslims from the North in 1990, they were initially accommodated in government schools in the Anuradhapura and Puttalam Districts and offered food by non-Muslims. They thankfully accepted the food without questioning whether Halal ingredients were used for the food preparations.

The majority of tsunami victims in 2004 were Muslims and they were accommodated in temples. Most of these temples had supported the JHU at the parliamentary election in that year. Hence, the monks sought our assistance to provide food for the tsunami victims sheltered in temples. Minister Champika Ranawaka and I visited temples from Panadura to Galle housing the tsunami displaced, with medicine and underwear as those were in short supply. Our party supporters prepared food and brought it to the temples. No Muslim questioned us as to whether the food on offer was Halal.

Muslims in Sampur and Thompur were attacked by the LTTE in 2006. As a result, tens of thousands of Muslims fled Kantale. I was with a team led by Minister Basil Rajapaksa who rushed to Kantale by a chopper. Divisional Secretaries had enough allocation to purchase dry rations. However, there were no adequate pots to cook food for such a massive crowd. Hence, Grama Niladharis arranged Kantale residents to cook the food in domestic pots for the refugees. Muslims gratefully accepted the food offered by us without questioning Halal conformity.

Halalization of every consumer product from paint brush to water bottle is of course a recent trend. During the Western Colonial rule, the Muslim society was also subject to rapid westernization. Not only food, clothing and celebrations but also attitudes and values were westernized during this period. The Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 was the first successful challenge against this cultural invasion. Ayatollah Khomeini’s triumph in Iran arrested the westernization trends in the Muslim world. Re-embracing Muslim culture began to spread like a virus. Growing beards, wearing Hijab (headscarf) and burqa (full body cloak) by women suddenly became the trend. The Muslim world began Arabization, giving up local attires and habits. Halalization is an extension of this trend.

While respecting the Muslims’ right to request to Halal food, I request the Ulama Council to prevent fundamentalizing the practice of Halal as it isolates our Muslim brothers and sisters from the society as explained above. Further, it causes an irreparable damage to our food exchange culture, which is the very foundation of national unity.
COURTESY:CEYLON TODAY