October 2000

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

The Sri Lankan Conflict: Broadening the Debate

Asoka Bandarage is author of Women, Population and Global Crisis: A Political-Economic Analysis (London: Zed Books, 1997) and Associate Professor of Women's Studies at Mount Holyoke College. The following is a talk given at the Sri Lanka Symposium held by the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs and Asia Society in New York, June 13, 2000.

The on-going conflict in Sri Lanka is commonly interpreted as an ethno-nationalist conflict by the media, academia, and activist organizations both locally and internationally. It is presented as the expression of an antagonism dating from pre-colonial times, a deeply etched enmity exacerbated in the course of the current conflict.

The ethno-nationalist interpretation of the conflict is not limited to extremist nationalism on each side: it also pervades liberal as well as what is left of Marxist thinking in the country. Thus, some international and local NGOs in the fields of human rights and peace activism focus on the transformation of consciousness and the creation of a new Sri Lankan cultural identity while the Marxists uphold national self-determination as the solutions to the present crisis.

However, narrow ethnically based analyses contribute to further ethnic polarization and hysteria. The framing of the present crisis as a local, primordial phenomenon prevents the development of broader analyses and deeper understanding of the multiplicity of social issues involved. Indeed, the dominance of psychologically-based interpretations, such as Cultural Studies, over political-economic analyses is not peculiar to the Sri Lankan case: it is a global phenomenon. Moreover, the preoccupation with single issues, symptoms of the problem, and immediate concerns such as refugees and humanitarian aid have also contributed to a relative neglect of deeper causes and long-term solutions.

While I am not able to fully develop an alternative to ethno-nationalist thinking here, I would like to stress the necessity for a historical approach that locates the origins of the present crisis in colonialism and its evolution in contemporary processes of political, economic, and cultural globalization.

In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere in the European colonies, economic exploitation, import of plantation labor, the transformation of demographic patterns, the divide-and-conquer policies favoring minorities, andthe privileges assigned to the English language and the Christian religion, among other policies, contributed to uneven and unequal development across regions, social classes, and ethnic and religious groups. Moreover, political structures inherited at independence, including an over-centralized state and an electoral system built on division and conflict, set the stage for continuous competition for power amongst elites within and across ethnic communities.

The post-independence state legislation sought to reverse some of the colonial policies in favor of the Sinhala Buddhist majority with regard to language, religion, and university entrance. These measures were opposed by English-educated upper classes of all ethnic groups, not only Tamils but also Sinhalese, Muslims, and Burghers, as well as the Christian minority. However, as is now well known, it was the opposition of the Tamil minority to these policies that was the most vehement and contributed to the demand for a separate state.

In the current ethno-nationalist debates on Sri Lanka, the impact of contemporary globalization patterns on the present conflict receives even less attention than its colonial origins. Economic inequalities accompanying economic liberalization have deepened poverty and exacerbated ethnic as well as religious antagonisms. Just as we need to ask how militarism contributes to poverty by draining resources from social development, we need also to see how poverty contributes to militarism: indeed, they reinforce each other.

Photo courtesy Muditha Abhaya bhaya@bgnet.bgsu.edu

In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, increasing transnational corporate dominance, privatization, and dismantling of state welfare services have undermined local ecosystems and economies, destroying traditional employment and survival opportunities of the masses. Migration of labor to the Free Trade Zones and the Middle East and the influence of consumerism and western cultural homogenization have weakened family, community, and local cultures, contributing to increasing alienation and despair, especially among the masses of youth.

Privatisation and cut backs in state social services led by the IMF and World Bank have increasingly reduced the government to the role of maintaining law and order while allowing a wide array of foreign funded NGOs to fill in the vacuum. Meanwhile, political authoritarianism of the state increased under the Open Economy, resulting not only in the suppression of organized labor and resistance movements but also resulting in even state-sponsored pogroms against both Tamil and Sinhalese populations, as seen in the anti-Tamil violence of 1983 and the anti-Sinhala violence in the late 1980s. Unlike the anti-Tamil violence, anti-Sinhala violence did not receive wide international attention.

Despite their ethnically-based political mobilization, the economic and political deprivation and cultural marginalization experienced by the Sinhala and Tamil youth are similar. The cadres of both the JVP and the LTTE have been drawn from similar social class backgrounds. In fact, the cadres of the state's armed forces are also poor rural Sinhala youth without alternative economic opportunities.

While middle and upper classes in both the Sinhala and Tamil communities have their own children in expensive international schools and universities in the west, they are promoting an ethno-nationalist war which has turned poor children into an expendable population trained to kill each other. Nowhere is this expendability and lack of respect for life more apparent than in the deployment of poor, young girls as suicide bombers by the LTTE leadership. This connotes not women's liberation, but ultimate violence against women.

However, the creation of this expendable population cannot be attributed simply to internal class dynamics or the cult of martyrdom. It is a global phenomenon, a product of the widening economic divide between the rich countries in the North and the poor countries in the South. The increasing concentration of economic, political, and cultural power in a handful of transnational corporations underlies the turning of 1.6 billion or more people living in absolute poverty into a surplus population. The statistics are now familiar: the industrialized North which has less than 20% of the global population controls over 85% of the global income while the poor countries in the South with over 80% of the global population have access to 15% of the world's income. These disparities are widening. The Sri Lankan crisis has to be understood in this broader international context.

Ultimately, this unequal global social order is maintained through militarism. The military is the biggest sector of the global economy. Not only is it a highly profitable industry, it also helps control the global population. While espousing human rights, freedom, and democracy, the industrialized countries and the US, the military super power, in particular, are pushing weapons on the Third World. These weapons coming from the west and from other small arms producers around the world end up in the hands of children who use them to kill each other. While we need to question the costs of war and who bears those costs, we need also to ask who benefits from war. The arms producers and arms traders and a small group of politicians and armed personnel benefit from war. They want to continue war. Today, in many war-torn regions, weapons are more readily available than food: an AK 47 can be exchanged for a chicken or even a loaf of bread.

Although economic inequality is the main issue, resistance around the world is most frequently being directed at the ethnic Other rather than the pinnacles of corporate power and the global military-industrial complex. This certainly helps unbridled corporate expansion without the constraints of ecological, social, or ethical criteria. In Sri Lanka, the preoccupation with ethnicity, cultural identity, and the war has diverted attention from the massive environmental, social, and cultural destruction associated with contemporary globalization.

We need to look at the usefulness or functionality of ethno-nationalist analysis for the maintenance of the global status-quo. It helps locate causes of social crises within the local population and in so-called primordial consciousness rather than in external sources and material circumstances. Likewise the solution offered which is frequently fragmentation of local political entities can be an effective tool of divide and conquer. Fragmentation weakens local resistance against the forces of global economic concentration.

It is in this context that local skepticism towards the hundreds of international NGOs and foreign-funded local NGOs in a country like Sri Lanka needs to be understood. Although NGOs can be important in safeguarding the rights of oppressed groups, they are not always impartial saviors providing the middle ground between the extremes. They may have their vested interests; they may also add further confusion in an already confused and complicated situation. Most NGOs are not in a position to challenge the economic fundamentalism of corporate expansion or develop alternative models of development.

Indeed, local people without literacy in English and other means of access to the outside world such as electronic media may be suspicious of attempts to change their thinking, seeing that as a neo-colonialist attempt to destroy their culture, especially when those attempts are led by Christian NGOs working in a predominantly Buddhist and then a Hindu country. This may be particularly so when there are attempts to introduce a new national identity at the expense of fundamental socio-economic changes. On the other hand, some individuals may in fact accept changes in cultural identity especially if they are accompanied by economic benefits. Indeed, for poor people struggling to survive, changing cultural identity--conversion to another religion, for example--may be a small loss compared to the burdens of economic survival. Cultural identities are not always as fixed as is assumed by dominant ethno-religious perspectives.

If we are truly committed to an ethical approach to international affairs, then we need to redress the economic divide underlying many of the so-called cultural and identity conflicts in the world today. If we are truly interested in ethics and peace, we need to stop the global arms trade and the pouring of weapons into a country like Sri Lanka. Nonviolence is not a precept just of Buddhism: it is a fundamental tenet of most of the world's major religions. To separate realpolitik from ethics is a betrayal of all the religions.

In this regard, NGOs operating in countries like Sri Lanka need to approach the charge of imperialism sometimes hurled at them from a broader historical perspective and with a sensitivity to North-South issues. They need to join hands with citizen groups in their own countries in struggles to infuse ethical, social, and ecological criteria into corporate decision-making, including the shifting of investments from military to civilian sectors through shareholder resolutions, campaign finance reform, and the like. Such actions would have global repercussions.

However, Sri Lankans can no longer leave the responsibility of resolving the terrible crisis to outside forces or the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the two parties which have dragged the horrific war costing so many lives and so much destruction over the last two decades. Civilian groups need to come forward with creative, nonviolent alternatives to explore the shared burden and suffering of the masses. The Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, and other people have all suffered from policies and actions of the LTTE, successive Sri Lankan governments, and global political and economic and cultural powers.

The Sri Lankan diaspora in the west can play an important role in this task of broadening the discussion beyond ethno-nationalism. Without playing into the arguments of primordial tribal enmity, we need to reinforce our historical traditions of co-existence, tolerance, and shared culture. We need to recognize that devolution is not a panacea: it could solidify rather than ameliorate nationalism. Regardless of political demarcations, we are bound together in one living breathing organism, the ecological entity that is the island of Sri Lanka.

Instead of sending hard-earned money to buy weapons to continue the killing, expatriates can send money to create alternative economic opportunities for the poor. The armed cadres need to be demobilized, their strength turned towards life-enhancing endeavors. Even if the war ends tomorrow, the pain and suffering unleashed will continue for generations. We owe it to the younger generations to stop the carnage. Let there be a future for all the children.

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