Ethnic Conflict and the Politics of Culture in Sri Lanka Sujata Ramachandran
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The F'ragmented Island: Ethnic Conflict and the Politics of Culture in Sri Lanka Sujata Ramachandran This article examines the role of culture revolutionary struggle for Tamil na- votion. It can have the character of a reli- in the ethnic conflict and strife in Sri tionalliberation, demandingthe creation gious fetish, an idol, a thing that has self- hh.The general aim is to achieve an of a separate state of Tamil Eelam. contained magical properties (Kapferer understanding of the nationalist process, The role of culture and its effective- 1988,4). the force of nationalist ideas and tradi- ness in legitimizing the rival national- Culture in nationalism becomes the tions in motivating action-action that is isms in Sri Lanka remains largely focus of this article and is seen in a par- often violent and intolerant-and to unacknowledged. This article attempts ticular way here. The dramaturgic ap- demonstrate the value of a cultural ap- to examine the function or the politics of proach has been adopted relating to the proach to the understanding of modem culture in this ethnic conflict pertaining expressive or communicative properties societies. Culture has been examined in to the generation of opposing ethnic of culture(Wuthnowl987,13). Cultureis two ways here, namely, the dramaturgic identities, the role of the historical past, identifiable as the symbolic-expressive approach to culture which emphasizes political myths and elite1interest groups dimension of social culture and social the expressive dimensions of culture, in symbolic construction, and the mean- relations that communicates informa- and the politics of culture or the political ings these provide for the groups inques- tion about morally binding obligations culture approach, whereby cultural tion. and is, in tum, influenced by the struc- manifestations are utilized effectively to ture of these obligations. Culture, in this maintain power between groups. The The Culture of Nationalism and the approach, consists of utterances, acts, ob- article concludes that the Sinhalese- Politics of Culture jects and events-all of which are ob- Tamil conflict is a product of modem To inquire into the truth of the political servable. What is significant is the politics, and culture has been used effec- myths is, therefore as meaninglessand capacity of the various elements of cul- tively to legitimate rival nationalisms in ridiculous as to ask for the truth of the ture, including rituals, ideologies and Sri Lanka. machine gun or a fighter plane. Both other symbolic acts, to dramatize the na- are weapons and weapons prove their ture of social relations. Symbolic acts are Introduction truth by their efficiency. If political myths could stand this test they need likely to be meaningful if they articulate For nearly a decade, the island of Sri no other or better proof. In this respect, the nature of social relations. Lanka hasbeen involved in the" continu- the theory was beyond attack and in- Political culture "consists of the sys- ing hemorrhage of a Lebanon-or-Ul- vulnerable. All it had to do was to put tem of empirical beliefs, expressive sym- ster-style internecine civil war" (Wilson the political myths into action and to bols, and values which defines the 1982,295), where the Sinhalese majority show their constructive and destruc- situation in which political action takes and the Tamil minority are in violent tive power. place" (Pye and Verba 1965, 9). In this conflict. This opposition is often por- - Emst Cassirer, "Judaismand article, I refer to the importance of poli- trayed as a product of ancient history or Modem Political Myths" tics as an independent variable shaping the outcome of animosity that has alleg- Culture has assumed a place of pride in ethnicity, one that pits ethnic entities edly existed unchanged for centuries. the litany of nationalisms everywhere. against one another and offers ethnic en- The majority has turned to the elements Almost universally the culture that na- trepreneurs high incentive for the cul- of culture and cultural symbols, includ- tionalists worship include the founding tural mobilization of their groups. ing religion, language and the historical myths, legends, customs, traditions and Ethnicity has been highly politicized in past, to justify their actions of subordi- language of the nation. These are at once Sri Lanka, and cultural mobilization is nating the minority. The Tamils eventu- constituted within the nation and consti- used effectively in the competitive pur- ally retaliated by engaging in a armed tute the nation. They are integral to na- suit of wealth, status or power. Political tional sovereignty and are made sacred culture refers not to what is happening in in the nation as the nation is made sacred the world of politics and society per se, in them. Culture in nationalism becomes but what peoplebelieveabout these hap- Supfa Ramachandran,from New Delhi, India, has an object, a reified thing, something that can recently completed her postgraduate work at the penings. And these beliefs be of sev- Centre for South Asian Studies, University of can be separated or abstracted from the eral kinds: they can be empirical beliefs Toronto.An earlier draft of this article was deliv- flow of social life. Made into a religious about the actual state of political and so- ered at the centre's symposium in October 1992. object, culture becomes the focus of de- cial life; they can be beliefs as to the goals Refuge, Vol. 13, No. 3 (June 1993) and values that ought to be pursued; and they?" These questions involve the basic 1981 census was the first to treat they may have an important expressive processes of cognition, perception and Sinhala as a unity. Although re- and emotional dimension. People re- symbol formation. This identity can be spondents had been classified in spond to what they perceive of politics an individual phenomena, but is also separate Up Country and Low and its use of culture and they interpret applicable within the social grouping to Country categories by the enumera- what they see. From the cultural point of which the individual belongs. Indeed, tors, this division was not main- view, for instance, we would look at identity "is a process located in the core tained in the published records. these events in the political history of Sri of the individual and yet also in the core Interestingly, no such unification of Lanka, not so much as a series of objec- of his communalculture:a process which the Tamil population was effected in tive events but as a series of events that establishes, in fact, the identity of these this census. may be interpreted quite differently by two identities" (Young 1976,20). One manifestation of this biological different people, and whose effects on The basis of these solidarity group community is the sharing of a com- future events depend on their interpreta- ings are commonalities or affinities of mon language. tions. The terms, "meaning" and "inter- ethniaty, language, race, caste, assumed pretation", here, are relational terns. blood tie, custom andlor territory "True Sinhalese" also share a com- They refer to the interaction between (Young 1976,12). The main formal crite- mon religion: i.e., they areBuddhists. what exists in the mind of the individual rion of membership of the rival Sinhalese Sri Lanka is in its entirety the land of or collectivityand to what happensin the and Tamil collectivities today appear to Sinhala and of Buddhism: it is the outside world. be linguistic, religious and historical an- Sinhalese-Buddhistnation. The peo- Ethnic conflict is, therefore, related tecedents. Although four different ple, language, religion, culture and primarily and sometimes solely to the ethno-religious-linguistic collectivities territory are all intimately linked. problems of social organization that are reside in Sri Lanka, more than 92 percent conceived in terms of politics and the of the inhabitants idenhfy themselves These ideas are paralleled among the allocation of scarce resources. More spe- with one of the two distinct groups, Tamil community (Nissan and Stirrat cifically, ethniaty is said to be inherently Sinhalese and Tamil. In 1981, the esti- 1990,30). related to competition and conflict. Eth- mated population of the island was 14.85 The groups involved here are not nic actions are actions in which a claim to million, of which the Sinhalese andTamil necessarily permanent, frozen common provenance (or origin), ances- communities account for 74 and 18.2 per- collectivities, but are in a state of flux in try or culture are potent (Shlomo 1974, cent, respectively. The Tamils them- response to long-term forces of social 281-84). In the case of Sri Lanka, ethnic- selves have been divided into Sri Lankan change and shorter-term alterations in cultural symbols are activated or ma- Tamils and Indian Tamils which form political context. For example, the nipulated in the framework of political 12.6 and 5.5 percent of the total popula- Sinhalese themselves were a divided conflict. tion, respectively. The other group, i.e., group not long ago and the development the Muslims (Moors)form 7.1 percent of of a common Sinhalese identity took Who Is Tamil? Who Is a Sinhalese? a the total population. The last three cat- time. In the 1920~~there was still a sizable The Question of Collective Identity egories are all speakers of Tamil, but are number of Kandyan Sinhalese who de- All nice people like Us, are We, differentiated by religion and/or puta- manded separate representation from And everybody else is They. tive origin. Indigenous Sri Lankan Low-Country Sinhalese and who also -Rudyard Kipling (Ceylon) Tamils are settled in the north favoured a federal system of government and the east; Indian Tamils are the de- (Nissan and Stirrat 1990,45). Similarly, The emergent nationalities in Sri Lanka scendants of estate workers brought in the Tamils themselves were divided into indicate the tendency of individuals to from South India during the British pe- the SriLankanTamils and IndianTamils, identify with particular collectivesor eth- riod (Spencer 1990, 14).