By Hameed Abdul Karim

According to Western public discourse there are two types of Muslim. One is a ‘fundamentalist’ the other is a ‘moderate’ Muslim. The former is one who wants to be independent from Western hegemony and the latter is one who cozies up to the Western agenda, wittingly or unwittingly. But now there is a new kid on the block. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Rand Corporation Muslim. ‘Who the heck is he’, you might ask and quite rightly so. Well, for starters he or she is a Muslim or, more appropriately, one who wears the ‘Muslim’ name tag and one who is trained and financed by America’s Rand Corporation to dilute Islam to a point where its adherents will no longer be a stumbling block to the empire’s plans for total world hegemony. And Manzoor Ahamed, writing under the title ‘China, Pakistan and the Iranian Bomb’ (Ceylon Today’ Sat.  24 March, 2012) fits the description of a ‘Rand Muslim’ like a glove going by his vilification of Pakistan’s much maligned nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan  who  gave his country its ‘Islamic bomb’.

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The Saudi government paid SR72, 000 (approximately 2.5 million rupees) in compensation to a stranded Sri Lankan housemaid whose Saudi sponsor had not paid her wages for the last 17 years, the Arab News reported.

Kusuma Nandini, 57, who had come to Riyadh in 1994, was kept a virtual slave in the house of her employer.  She was not paid her wages and was not allowed to contact anyone including her relatives back home.

The late Professor Allama M M Uwise was a catalyst among the Muslim-Sinhala communities in creating a new literary culture in the promotion of a close relationship between both communities. He was also the doyen in the field of Tamil literature, said A H M Azwer, MP addressing the 16th memorial meeting of Dr M M Uwise at Colombo Tamil Sangam, Wellawatte, on Sunday.

Making the keynote address on the late Professor, Azwer said Dr Uwise was a great emissary of peace and had he lived today, he would have been the happiest person regarding the historical role played by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in eradicating terrorism and consolidating peace despite unpatriotic elements conspiring to harm the motherland.