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In the context of Sri Lanka, a country that has experienced ethnic strife from the time of independence from Britain in 1948, Muslims have had difficulty situating themselves between warring parties, between the Tamils and the State – between rebels and armies. Though there has been a consistent effort to marginalize Muslims as part of the nationalist discourse in Sri Lanka, these tendencies have historically been uniquely articulated, be it with the riots of 1915 between the Sinhalese and Muslims in Gampola in Central Province, said to be the first of its kind on the island between these two ethnic blocks or the experience of the Muslims during the civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealem (LTTE) and the state. Such events have culminated in the current climate, which has lead to the current rise of militant Buddhist propaganda by such movements as the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS). As a means to understand the distinct nature of Islamophobia as it plays out in contemporary Sri Lanka, this paper seeks to advance some of the discussions taking place in the literature on Islamophobia, which often continues to neglect not only the South Asian context, but also the way in which anti-Muslim sentiment and violence can develop in the context of competing nationalisms. While we do not wish to wade into the definitional debates about what constitutes Islamophobia, we do wish to expand the contextual parameters in which much of the debate has thus far taken place.
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