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Towards a radical resolution of the ethnic crisis

by Fr. Mervyn Fernando


Dismal fallout from war-the displaced

Though no historical period has been free of violence, it seems to have struck a new pitch both in extent and intensity in our day in Sri Lanka and the world over. This is, in good part, due to the replacement of the bow and arrow by modern military technology - Johnny mines, T-56s, RPGs, heat-seeking missiles and what have you (not to mention ICBMs and Hydrogen bombs) which have multiplied several-fold the destructive impact of man's inhumanity to man. Whether there has been an increase in innate human viciousness could be debated.

No Sri Lankan would have even remotely dreamt 35 years ago (when Sinhalese and Tamils sat side by side to enjoy the rib-tickling "He Comes from Jaffna") of the violence in the North and East today, mercifully in abeyance now due to the ceasefire agreement. We were supposed to be a peace-loving, non-aggressive people.

The ethnic crisis and its violence has been dissected and analyzed and explanations offered by a host of knowledgeable people, the viewpoint depending, naturally, on the standpoint: where does one stand, in the North, East or South? It is futile to expect a fully objective standpoint, despite such claims by many. But all these deal with what I would call the "physical" causes of the problem; causes touching language, employment, education, the constitution etc.

There is no gainsaying that a complex combination of all these factors coupled with the inevitable aberrations of chauvinistic politics has been responsible for the crisis. But we have failed to recognise a very significant but hidden factor which has played a role behind the scenes. In order to recognise it we have to look beyond our noses to the global scene of the human drama.

It is too difficult to discern that national, racial and cultural entities upon the planet, hitherto relatively isolated, are getting thrown against each other on account of the population explosion and the travel and communication revolutions. The globe is "shrinking" as the population grows, resulting in both, contraction of life-space and increase in the quantity, intensity and complexity of interactions among peoples.

These two factors alone will almost necessarily give rise to conflicts of all kinds. Up to very recent times man lived in what might be called tribal isolation. On a rough calculation more than three quarters of the nation-states of today are less than 300 years old.

That means, for the best part of human history, man has lived in small kinship and language/culture related groups in tribes, petty princedoms, kingdoms etc. Interactions between them sometimes took the form of competition (aggression, local wars) and sometimes cooperation (exchange, alliances) or some mixture of both. There was no scarcity of land and natural resources. Except for short periods of unitary government even our small country saw the co-existence of at least three "kingdoms" in the 2,500-year period of recorded history. Sri Lanka became a nation-state in the modern political sense only with the British conquest of the Island in 1815.

Reactions to the unaccustomed closeness experienced by nations and cultures as a result of the enforced convergence has often been on negative lines. Inner psychological acceptance and genuine friendship lag behind physical closeness and superficial interaction. So we have had, in the recent history of the world, several wars of aggression (two World Wars in the last century), and the subjugation of the weak by the strong by force of arms, particularly in the colonisation of many parts of the Southern world by Northern powers.

War and bloody conflict have not ended but, remarkably, we can see that their character has changed, if we look close enough. Whereas most wars in the past were motivated by aggression and conquest, today, wars and conflicts, limited to specific places and regions, are claimed to be defensive without exception - defence of territory, freedom, human rights, language/culture etc.

In by gone days the strong made no bones about subduing and exploiting the weak, but today peoples are fighting not so much to conquer others as to liberate themselves from servitude of any form or defend their legitimate rights, or in reaction to real or perceived threats and injustice. This does not mean that motives of self-interest and expansionism are altogether absent; the primordial sin of greed and self-interest still bedevils the human condition resulting in man's inhumanity to man. But they are more clearly and easily recognised for what they are and resistance to them in violent (terrorism) and non-violent (protest movements, strikes) forms are readily forthcoming. The silver lining in the dark cloud of violence in our day is the aggressive affirmation of positive human values - human rights, social justice, gender equality etc.; unlike in an earlier age subjugation and repression will not be easily tolerated.

Despite the ugly and the evil in violence and suffering the world over, we should not fail to notice the growth of opposite movements of unification and convergence.

Major political disintegrations have resulted in new integrations or associations of a similar nature; for example, the League of Nations after the disruptions of World War I and the United Nations after the chaos of World War II. During the last few decades a number of regional groupings have come into being to deal with issues of common interest such as the North Atlantic Alliance, the European Union, the Organisation of African Unity, the non-aligned Movement, ASEAN and our own SAARC.

On the one hand we have seen the breakdown of artificial "Empires" e.g. the Soviet Union which was an enforced polity of previously independent national/ethnic entities held together by ideology and state dictatorship; on the other, hitherto free and independent nations are coming together freely to form larger associations e.g. the European Community.

In line with what we would expect in the rising tide of person/community consciousness, those socio-cultural entities which felt secure in their national/ethnic identities are able to come together to form larger voluntary communities. Conversely, those entities often minority groups, which felt insecure in their ethnic identity are struggling to free themselves to be themselves, as manifested by separatist movements the world over. Sri Lanka is a perfect example.

Up to the beginning of British colonial rule the Sinhala and Tamil peoples lived as juxtaposed, intermingling groups in conditions of relative peace, with occasional episodes of war.

The partiality of British rule to both Tamils and Christians (minorities) gave rise to a strong assertion, understandably, of Sinhala-Buddhist consciousness which swiped at both Tamils and Christians. Leaving aside the Christian question, the policies followed by successive Governments specially with regard to language and land, consolidated fears of insecurity in the Tamil community as a minority ethnic group in the national polity. Naturally these fears led to tendencies of separation which came to a head in the mid-seventies with a section of the younger Tamil generation taking to arms for the cause of a separate state.

On the other hand the Tamil separatist cry and its violent militancy evoked strong fears of insecurity in the Sinhala people vis-a-vis the combined Tamil population of the North and East and of Tamilnadu (South India), especially in the eighties when India was openly supportive of the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. In my opinion, both communities are gripped by fears of loss of identity and of human space for racial/cultural survival and well-being.

This is the root cause of the problem. As long as such fears are operative they will not be able to come together from within, in mind and heart. No forced or imposed political "solution' will last. The radical (touching the roots) resolution of the conflict lies in removing these feelings of insecurity which have been aggravated by continued violence on both sides in the past few years. If the greater responsibility lies, in this regard, with the majority community, the co-operation of the minority community towards that goal is also vital for success.

The painful question is, how much more violent struggle the two communities will have to go through before realisation dawns that both can be enriched only in a symbiotic relationship, each allowing the other to be itself as Sinhala/Tamil (and now also Muslim) - a unity in diversity. In other words what is called for is an enlightenment of mind and a conversion of heart, both of which are very foreign to politics and politicians.

The prevalent socio-economic and political orders in the world are revealing their discordance with the rising new consciousness by the violence they generate. Just as pain reveals pathology in the body so violence manifests pathology in the body of humankind. It is in need of healing; but healing of the spirit comprises both enlightenment and conversion - enlightenment about the truth of mankind's ascent to a more free person community level of "being human" and conversion of heart from the petty ego of the self (personal/racial) to the larger whole of the human family and finally of the whole universe.

From the above considerations it is clear that both the Sinhala and Tamil peoples are being challenged to "die" to their present confrontational and "separatist" modes of being to rise to a higher level of unity which will paradoxically enhance the specificity of each. At the level of spirit, that is at the human level (unlike at the level of matter) union, does not obliterate the uniting elements, but differentiates them.

The deeper, for example, the union between husband and wife the more the personality of each will be enhanced. But the "un-redeemed" or "unliberated" man seeks to grow by isolating himself; he is afraid that communication and sharing will diminish personality and destroy identity; but in reality the opposite is true, whether it be an individual or a group.

Violence is the price we pay for resistance to this fundamental law of being, which has been preached by all the religions, but little practised. It is therefore at bottom a religious and spiritual endeavour demanding a painful personal and collective sacrifice. But the religious authorities in the country have not shown evidence of serious attempts to enlighten and educate their faithful in this spiritual aspect of the problem. More seriously the standpoints taken by some of them, both Sinhala and Tamil, clearly smack of racial chauvinism, the antithesis of the spiritual dimension. Will the present impasse open our eyes to see the path of true liberation and fulfilment in a higher order harmony of pro-existence.

Finally I do not believe that the existing machinery of an allegedly democratic system, born in a by-gone era, can serve the demands of a different consciousness which is growing in vigour at this point of human evolution. The direction of this evolution towards persons-in-community and "natural" small-scale groupings, for the maximisation of human well-being, goes counter to the demands of a political system geared to macro-entities, to majorities and to impersonal, social, economic and legal structures.

If the future of personal and social fulfilment lies in the direction of mirco-social entities, in voluntary congenial associations of peoples in community (common-unity, whatever the bond of unity) which balance and reconcile maximum freedom with mature responsibility, in caring and sharing, the national socio-political order will have to serve that goal.

Democracy, in its representative form (as opposed to the participatory) though superficially justifiable, is really divisive of the social body and dismissive of personal concerns and needs, and tends to a tyranny of the majority (might is right), again Sri Lanka being a good case in point. Can we hold on to divisive processes when the future is beckoning us to unitive goals?

The nation-state which dovetails with the democratic system, is too much of an impersonal macro-body which is ill-equipped to provide sufficient breathing space for diverse small groupings within it to flourish, except where the scale and combination of geographic area, population size and culture (s) happen to be "naturally" congenial.

We are being challenged to work out an alternative which will be more consensual than confrontational, with the macro becoming less and less in a process of devolution across the board, and micro becoming more and more in enhanced freedom and responsibility, both processes serving the total, holistic well-being of person and society.

(The author is Director, SUBODHI Institute, Piliyandala)

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