If you were to go by the international headlines, the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict appears to engage only the two main communities, the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Yet when the conflict exploded into war in 1983, and in the more than two decades following, it was not just the two communities locked in battle that suffered. The impact of the internal war on the island's Muslim community has been massive – and severely overlooked.
In Colombo, when issues of politics or peace deliberations arise, the 'Muslim question' has long been confined to intellectual debates and dinner-table discussions. This continues to this day, despite the fact that representatives of the Muslim community have for decades worked with the country's majority-led governments. This has included the premier Muslim party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which reached a position of veritable kingmaker during the early 1990s. Nonetheless, Muslim concerns today appear as invisible at the national level as they ever have.
"There is a great disconnect," admits veteran Muslim politician and current governor of the Western Province, Alavi Moulana. "Somehow, even combining forces has not helped provide powerful representation to Muslims." Moulana says that Sri Lanka's Muslim community is a peaceful one, and has regularly sought to adopt a conciliatory position on the ongoing conflict. As such, the seniormost Muslim politicians were always identified with the country's two main political parties – the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) – before the need for separate Muslim-only political parties became an overt requirement.
The political landscape in Sri Lanka has changed drastically since 1983. "The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress was the answer to a huge political void created by the previous Muslim political leaders, who allowed themselves to be completely absorbed into mainstream political parties that had little sympathy for the Muslim cause," recalls the SLMC's head, Rauff Hakeem. The SLMC is the country's largest Muslim party, enjoying significant support in eastern Sri Lanka, where Muslims make up about one-third of the population.