Burka, the Beard and the Bombs

“Mums and Wives drag their sons and hubbies to salon, to have their beards shaved.” Said a tweet a few days ago. Another tweet said “Burka banned but not hijab. Face to be excluded from covering.” Al Jazeera reported “Cardinal Ranjith asked all Catholic schools to be closed till further notice. News from international sources of more attacks, Ranjith said.” 

Those now in their retired life, I mean those who were teens or kids in the 60’s and the 70’s may well remember Muslim ladies young and old coming out of their houses with the “fall” of their saree pulled over their head and the end of it tucked at the waist. “Saree” is a dress borrowed from Indian culture that became the traditional dress of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim women. There was that “commonality” in culture that made little difference in their first appearances, yet carried their own identity within that “commonality”. The “pottu” on the forehead and small white Jasmin flowers on their hair of Tamil Hindu women and the saree covering the head of Muslim women leaving the face uncovered, gave them their own cultural identity, different to Sinhala women. Among Sinhala women too, there is a distinction in how the Low country and the Kandyan women drape their sarees. Kandyan saree draped with frills around the waist is called the “Osariya”.
Muslim men, I mean the ordinary folk, with no long and unruly beards wore a plain “sarong”, a shirt neatly tucked in and a stretchable broad black belt over the sarong at the waist, when they went about their daily work. Some wore an “off white” thick cotton coat over the white shirt. Their Muslim identity can even now be visualised with a red woollen, round cap that had a flat top, commonly called a “Fez” and a pair of painted wooden slippers commonly called “katta sereppu” worn around in their errands. A fair number of urban Sinhala men who wore long trousers for their daily work later switched to the “national” dress after “Sinhalisation” of the Southern society after 1956, again an adoptation from South India. Tamil Hindu men wore a white cloth called the “veitti”, each maintaining their own cultural identity.    
From wherever they came Centuries ago, whether from the Arabic world, from the South of the Indian sub-continent or from the Malaysian-Indonesian island society, they integrated themselves with their own cultural identities into the common Sinhala and Tamil culture that also evolved through Centuries integrating with South and East Indian cultures. In all these cultures, what is called a “Pure Sinhala”, “Pure Hindu” or “Pure Muslim” culture is their own “richness” gained by assimilating “other cultures”. Pre and post independent “Ceylon” was that until the end of the decade of seventy. Slow and restricted life with little contradictions between ethno-religious groups while still co-existing, except that Sinhala Buddhist dominance in politics was quite evident. Exposure to the world in that era was also very much restricted and was not sought for by society. Knowledge and information were very much local even among the English educated small urban elite communities in Colombo. Communication in a very much closed society was restricted to the government owned radio and few privately owned newspapers that provided a fairly well edited, decent news coverage. Personal communication was very much restricted to fixed line telephones rarely available in private homes and that too very much in urban society.

In that less vibrant society, the Muslim community remained what they were from their earliest entry into ancient feudal Lankan society. Traders in most parts of the country and landed agri farmers and labourers in the Eastern province where the concentration was very much more and also expansive. East was comparatively poor and Muslims in the East were less assertive. Within this Muslim culture till the end of the 70’s, higher education was not considered important in life to be successful. Religious education and knowledge were nevertheless very important and that came down within mostly Sunni traditional teaching of the Quran. Muslim religious education was very much traditional, organised around the Mosque. Success in life was measured in how successful one was in business as a practising true Muslim. Muslim people were very much dominant in gemming, hardware, betel and tobacco, small cafeterias and beef and mutton trade. They came down the family line, from generation to generation.

This slow and tidy lifestyle took a deep turn with the introduction of the open market economy in early 1978, at the end of the decade of seventy. With a free market that allowed unrestricted import and export of goods, travel abroad was also unrestricted. The almost dormant private sector thus saw a speedy expansion and new investments coming in, making the private sector more dominant in an economy that had State controls released. This new evolving market brought about many changes and challenges. First, it became increasingly competitive. Two, it gave space for a new growth within the formal sector and a growing new informal sector. It also added new services that brought profits quick and fast. It was becoming diverse beyond imagination and that needed new knowledge, new management skills and improved technology. This became a challenge to the Muslim business community to remain in business.

Muslim community that did not give higher education much importance previously, immediately adopted to the changing socio economic situation and took education more seriously than ever before. In the following 02 decades after trade liberalising, Muslim youth went into higher education and became qualified professionals in many disciplines; IT experts, Medical doctors, lawyers, Financial managers, Chartered and CIMA qualified Accountants and in many more areas including Mass media. Most qualified themselves in professional fields from foreign universities than from State universities here in Sri Lanka. Also, the emphasis on education in the urban middleclass paved way for more Muslim girls to enter higher education, stepping out of their conservative Muslim homes and then getting employed in various fields of their choice.

As it did to the Sinhala and Tamil communities, all this opened up the once docile, traditional Muslim community to a new world with new ideas, new debates, new knowledge and a new culture. Information and knowledge about their own religion that was once the privilege and the monopoly of the Mawlawi, opened up for other educated people to participate in. Unrestricted travel allowed personal interactions with other Islamic societies outside Sri Lanka. Radicalisation of Islam in the Arabian and North African societies, could be watched and studied from anywhere in the world within a hi speed communication belt. The internet allowed access to numerous debates and discussions and also dissenting arguments that were taking place within the Muslim world. While the new generation Sri Lankan Muslims got exposed to this radicalisation, they also got access to a new culture that evolved in the Arabian world, including the dress.  

It wasn’t much different in the Sinhala society as well. Sinhala culture also evolved both in terms of food and dress. If one dares to compare general consumption of food and beverage in this free market economy with those in the 60s and the 70s, there is a massive change we have not even noticed while we evolved to who we are now. While Chinese type food is now served by roadside little “hut cafes” in every nook and corner, “fried rice” has almost replaced “rice and curry” lunch for the urban employed. From “Kottu” to “Coca Cola”, from “Broiler chicken” to “BBQ chicken”, the whole eating culture in Sinhala society has changed. Bakery chains, Takeaway shops and lunch parcels add more to a new food culture. The ordinary man on the street who had a “bun and a plain tea” is no more. Now it’s the “Chinese roll or a pastry and a Nescafe”.

So has the “dress” changed in Sinhala society. The long skirt and blouse or the “Cheeththe and hatte” (cloth and jacket) that was just ordinary wear of women in the 50s and the 60s are no more. With no difference in age and gender, the “denim slack” has replaced all that and has come to stay. Mostly in urban Sinhala society, extremely short “shorts” are in vogue among young girls. T-shirts, short blouses, baggies, skinnies, tights are common words in the dress market. The lingerie market has lately become one of the most profitable markets in apparels with designer wear sought for. Mothers and Grandmothers in urban and semi urban Sinhala households who were in saree almost the whole day even as housewives, now live only in memories. Now they are also in slacks, even at home. 

All societies “changed”. Yet within the Sinhala and Tamil majority life, these cultural changes don’t stand out as visually different. All that “change” over the past three decades seems just common and normal and is taken for granted. It’s the ‘burka’ and the long unruly ‘beard’ that stands out visually different from the norm that new changes made. The “beard” came with the long tunic. This “change” in Muslim attire, the black “burka” and also the “niqab” became conspicuous over 25 years ago. The change in Muslim attire is sometimes explained as the result of large numbers of Housemaids leaving regularly to the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. This explanation tends to say those “housemaids” returned with the “burka” and the “niqab” and that made it a common dress among the Muslim community.

There is a major misconception in this common, simplified explanation. Till the Eastern province was “cleared” in 2008, large majority of the housemaids who went to Mid East were Sinhala Buddhists and they never came back with either the “burka” or the “niqab”, even if they had to wear it in their country of employment. The “burka”, the “niqab” and the “hijab” had become popular long before increased numbers of Muslim women went to the Mid East as housemaids. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful housemaids from very poor Muslim families even if they came back with the “burka” or the “niqab” could influence the urban middle class. Norm is the other way round. It’s the urban middleclass that brings in new fashion and is then copied by others. The urban Muslim middleclass had left their conservative homes and was exposed to the world before the “burka” and the “niqab” came.  There is also the OPEC factor and Saudi Arabia that adds more ideological support for this change. With the first Summit of Heads of State and Government in Algiers in 1975, that called for “cooperation in international relations in the interests of world economic development and stability”, led to the establishment in 1976 of the “OPEC Fund for International Development”. Saudi Arabian support for religious education is seen in the increase thereafter, especially in countries that are majority “Sufi”. Dissenting voices among Sufi Muslims, those who believed the Quran has a different interpretation than what they are taught by conservative “Sufi” Mawlawis, perhaps came with cyber browsing and more with scholarships and religious education through Saudi Arabian sponsorship. Rich and pro US Saudi Arab is the home of “Wahabism” and is opposed to the type of moderate “Sufism” in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. In late 80s the Sufi faith experienced a new order within them as the “All Ceylon Thareekathul Mufliheen” led by M.S.M. Abdullah, popularly known as “Rah.” His new Muslim sect ran into conflict with the traditional Sufi Muslims and with Kattankudi based Wahabism.

By then the Eastern Muslim community was coming out of their limbo after armed Tamil politics emerged in Tamil parts of the East. First Muslim political party was formed by Lawyer A.H.M Ashraf from Kalmunai East giving them a political voice they never had. Conflicts with Tamil armed groups and then the LTTE provoked Muslim youth to counter Tamil dominance with their own identity given a militant upgrading. Meanwhile Wahabism faced dissent within them creating many organised Sects commonly called “Tawheed Jama’ath”. They were being influenced by different fundamentalist ideologies that came from Saudi Arab and from other radicalised Wahabi streams. They all picked on the long tunic and the “beard” for their identity. They not only wanted to be different in “beliefs” but also wanted to look different to the traditional, conservative Sufi Muslims. The “burka” and the “niqab” followed long unruly bearded men in long tunics, with wives and sisters falling in line.

But that alone wouldn’t make a “burka” and “niqab” trend grow. Middleclass and markets grow together. When the middleclass choose to change their attire for whatever reason, market responds quite quickly. Market response then creates a vogue too. We therefore saw shops specialising in “burkas, niqabs and hijabs” coming up in predominantly urban middleclass Muslim areas. The fast growing “burka” and “niqab” is thus a milieu of religious radicalising and the market response for profits.  

Increasing visual presence of especially the black “burka” was propping up Sinhala perception that the Muslim community is fast growing and is taking over space the Sinhala people should have. This was in the backdrop of Sinhala Buddhist politics looking out for a new “bogey” after they declared the Tamil Tigers completely annihilated in 2009 May. “Burka” and the “niqab” therefore became visual icons in daily life in lifting the anti Muslim campaign.

This in fact is a “cultural factor” that was politically exploited by Sinhala Buddhist extremism as the “burka” and the “niqab” stands out as “alien Islamism” in Sri Lankan popular culture. As one that took the traditional Muslim identity away from Sri Lanka. One that dragged the Muslim identity into conflict in a context where traditional Muslim majority was perceived as compromising with “extremist ideology”. There is definitely no complete turn around possible now and immediately. Yet compromising with Sinhala extremism will not help the Muslim community to challenge Islamic extremism within their own community. Muslim leadership both religious and community, needs to be more open and assertive within their community in challenging bomb laden “extremism” and not be part of decisions the government takes in pleasing Sinhala extremism. Compromising with extreme Sinhala demands will only lead to more dissent and strengthen explosive Islamic extremism. Having wasted time, this conflict now need time to turn around and determined, uncompromising neutrality in social interventions. For now, that patience and determination seem absent in both Sinhala and Muslim leaderships. A readymade decoction for further crisis.

(Kusal Perera)