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Focus on Sri Lanka
9 May 1996
published by the Massey University
Extramural Students' Society (New Zealand).
Professor Margaret Trawick of the Department of
Social Anthropology recently visited Sri Lanka.
The experience left such an impression that she felt a need to share
it with extramural students.
Dear Students
It's been over a month now since I got back from Sri Lanka. This was
my first time spent in the midst of a war.
The things I saw included countless miles of barbed wire; countless
armed soldiers stationed at bridges, at crossroads, in front of the
houses of MPs, in front of all government buildings, at the doorways
of banks, shopping malls, hotels, at all the roads leading into and
out of every city; scores of checkpoints through which civilians on
their way to work or to school or to the homes of friends had to
pass, open their parcels, show their IDs and answer questions posed
by the frightened soldiers; scars on the wrists and ankles of
civilians who had been bound and tortured; scars from old bullet
wounds on the bodies of young freedom fighters; a loaded rifle
pointed at the belly of a small girl; young boys selling fried
sweets to passengers on buses stopped at checkpoints; a bus driver
arguing with an armed soldier in defense of the children's rights to
sell things on buses at checkpoints; fragments of mortars fired upon
villages; fresh human blood coating the stems of delicate
wildflowers.
The danger to me in observing these things was not so much physical
as professional. If I speak too much about what I have seen, I might
not be allowed to return, to see and write more. To be denied the
opportunity to revisit the Tamil people whom I have grown to love
would be a greater hardship to me than to have an arm or a leg shot
off. But a greater hardship still would be to lose the ability - the
courage, or the foolishness, or whatever - to speak my mind. What to
do? What to do? Such are the painful decisions of life.
New Zealand has much in common with Sri Lanka. Both are exquisitely
beautiful island nations, both have been likened to paradise by
travellers from abroad. Like the New Zealand population, the Sri
Lankan population is culturally diverse. For a while people of
different cultures, creeds and languages lived together in relative
peace.
Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims, speakers of Sinhala and
speakers of Tamil, businessmen, fishermen, farmers, fine
universities and a great tourist trade flourished. People were
friends. They got along. But, also like New Zealand, Sri Lanka was
not really paradise. There were social problems.These problems could
and should have been addressed and ameliorated decades ago.
Everybody agrees about that, now.
But the problems were not treated as concerns that the whole society
had to face together and solve: instead they were made worse by
political parties and ethnic groups blaming one another for
everything. The majority-based government (Sinhala) passed
legislation making it more difficult for the largest minority group
on the island (Tamil) to obtain education and employment.
Descendants of Tamil plantation-workers (about half the Tamil
population on the island) were denied citizenship and voting rights.
Tamil leaders petitioned for legislation that would be more fair to
the Tamil people. Sinhala leaders reasserted the right to majority
rule. Sinhala was declared the national language and a high degree
of proficiency in Sinhala was required for government employment.
The claim was that members of the Tamil minority had been too
successful, they did too well on exams, they did too well at making
money, there were too many of them in high office. This was not fair
to the majority Sinhala people, it was claimed. Affirmative action
had to be undertaken to help the majority perform as well as the
minority, one way or another.
There were demonstrations on the right and on the left. Sinhala
conservatives said that, by the mandate of history, the island
belonged exclusively to the Sinhala majority; "Sinhala Rule" was
their slogan. Sinhala people got to the island before Tamil people,
they said; moreover, the island of Sri Lanka was the cradle of
Theravada Buddhism, the religion of most of the Sinhalese people
(most Tamils were Hindus or Christians). Simmering discontent among
Tamil youth began to take shape as an armed struggle when in 1976
the Tamil political parties collectively called for the formation of
a separate state. Sinhala youth, also discontent, organized a
militant uprising against the government.
The government responded by torturing, jailing, and executing
militant youth of both sides. The Tamil militants got more serious,
and went abroad for arms and training. The government responded by
building up its own military Then one day a small group of Tamil
militants ambushed and killed thirteen Sinhala soldiers. When word
spread about what had happened, the nation exploded. Sinhala mobs,
assisted by onlooking policemen and armed with electoral lists to
identify Tamil homes attacked Tamil families and Tamil businesses,
killing thousands. Many Tamils fled the country then. Some of them
are now in Zealand. Others stayed in Sri Lanka, and suddenly angry
young Tamil people began flocking to join the Tamil militant
organizations. Sri Lanka had a full-scale civil war on its hands.
The ambush and retaliatory massacres happened in July 1983, and
still the war rages through the country. The rebel militants have
grown stronger, so has the government military. To date about 50,000
people have been killed in the war, the vast majority of them Tamil.
Another half million have been driven from their homes, not counting
those who fled the country entirely. How to stop the war now? Nobody
knows
.The government army is absolutely determined to destroy the Tamil
rebels. The rebels are absolutely determined to fight until the last
of their fighters is dead. The Tamil civilians in the north and east
of Sri Lanka have lived for thirteen years under the rule of two
armies at war with each other. The Sri Lankan military wants the
civilians to say that they hate living under the thumb of the Tamil
militants. The Tamil militants want the civilians to say that they
hate living under the thumb of the Sri Lankan military. Both armies
claim to be liberating the civilians over whom they fight. Thousands
of Tamil civilians have "disappeared," thousands have been tortured,
thousands imprisoned, and hundreds of thousands deprived of shelter,
food and medicine, as the army tries to flush out and kill the
rebels, and the Tamil rebels find support among the Tamil civilians,
who include the rebels' own parents, siblings and loved ones.
Because most of the Tamil rebels are young men, and all of them are
the sons of Tamil parents, Tamil people refer to the rebels as "the
boys." A combination of fear and affection is conveyed by that term,
"the boys." If a young person joins the rebels, his or her whole
family is at risk, even if the family is opposed to the rebellion.
But many young Tamil people have joined the rebellion because their
closest family members have already been killed by the government
army, or by mercenary gangs supported by the army, or by the Special
Task Forces of the Sri Lankan police.
Many Tamil civilians, caught between "the boys" and "the forces,"
are exhausted with rage and grief. That they can still laugh, still
offer each other solace, still raise their children in hope, is one
of humankind's quiet miracles.
But what does all this have to do with you, extramural students of
Massey University? Maybe nothing. You decide. I am one of your
teachers: my job is to give you something to think about. I've been
doing a lot of thinking myself in this past month, and felt it might
be appropriate to share some of my thoughts with you.
Margaret Trawick
Professor of Social Anthropology
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