β Scribed by Jayadeva Uyangoda
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict has become protracted and intractable. The twenty five- year-old civil war has been interrupted numerous times for a negotiated peace and political settlement, yet the conflict has defied deescalation. All failed attempts at negotiated peace have propelled the civil war forward with greater vitality and intensity. Both war and peace appear to be mutually sustaining dimensions of a single process of conflict produced and sustained by two defining dynamics: (1) intense competition for state power between state-seeking minority nationalism and state-asserting majority nationalism; and (2) the fact that the ethnic war has acquired relative autonomy from the political process of the ethnic conflict. Against this backdrop, attempts at negotiated settlement, with or without ceasefires, have not only failed but have redefined the conflict. This study suggests that early deescalation or a long-term settlement is not possible at present. A protracted conflict requires a protracted process of political transformation. Since the question of state power is at the core of the conflict, a credible short-term path to peace should begin with negotiations that aim at, and lead to, reconstituting state power along ethnic lines. This will require a grand ethnic compromise among Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim elites, backed by the people in the three main ethnic formations.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
Looks at how a spiritual tradition can be appropriated by those involved in ethno-nationalist conflict.
Looks at how a spiritual tradition can be appropriated by those involved in ethno-nationalist conflict.
This book is an outcome of South and South-east Asia regional workshop on 'Minorities in Buddhist Polities: Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma'. It mainly focuses on policy issues. The key theme of the book is the role of religions play in both the exacerbation and amelioration of ethnic conflict.
In the mid-1950s, Sri Lankaβs majority Sinhalese politicians began outbidding one another on who could provide the greatest advantages for their community, using the Sinhala language as their instrument. The appeal to Sinhalese linguistic nationalism precipitated a situation in which the movement to
<p>In the mid-1950s, Sri Lankaβs majority Sinhalese politicians began outbidding one another on who could provide the greatest advantages for their community, using the Sinhala language as their instrument. The appeal to Sinhalese linguistic nationalism precipitated a situation in which the movement