This imagination has led to a blurring of certainty and identities and has become a flash point for insecurities. This paper will argue that in doing this, the Muslim community led by the political elites, institutionalised their identity founded on an imagined assumption. This imagined geography for the processes of cultural intervention of the Sri Lankan Muslim narrative has been shaped by a long tradition of efforts to forge effective political formations in times of global crisis, in other words, efforts with transnational ambitions that have profoundly shaped the history of the 20th century – including, in particular, the legacies of anti-colonial movements and other internationalist thought. Thus, the formation of the Sri Lankan Muslim identity is one of perception – a perceived link to history, time and space to define oneself against the “other”. In this sense they are unique in that they have become an “imagined community” (Anderson 1983) with an “imagined geography” (Said 2000). The Muslim identity in Sri Lanka has emerged from a constructivist perspective, constructing an ethnic identity for political reasons but also instrumentalising religion for the same reason to achieve that political end.
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