The Dissertation Committee for Hyojin Han certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Sacred Bodies, Profaned Bodies: Psychology, Politics, and Sex in the Literatures of Sri Lankan Ethnic Conflict Committee: ___________________________________ Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski, Supervisor ___________________________________ Katherine Arens ___________________________________ James B. Brow ____________________________________ Snehal Shingavi ___________________________________ Helena Woodard Sacred Bodies, Profaned Bodies: Psychology, Politics, and Sex in the Literatures of Sri Lankan Ethnic Conflict by Hyojin Han, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2010 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to these individuals for their support and assistance in completing this dissertation. My deepest gratitude is to my advisor, Dr. Hannah Wojciehowski, whose unfailing encouragement, patience, and guidance made this project possible. I am also indebted to the Graduate Advisor, Dr. Wayne Lesser, and the English Department for their support throughout my graduate career. My committee members, Dr. James Brow, Dr. Helena Woodard, Dr. Snehal Shingavi, and Dr. Katherine Arens, have been extremely generous with their time and offered many constructive criticisms of my arguments. Dr. Sankaran Radhakrishnan was an invaluable resource on Tamil language and culture. Many friends have helped me navigate through the difficult years of writing this dissertation. I would like to acknowledge Elizabeth Pommier and Catalina Popescu in particular for their patient listening and timely assistance. Finally, the dissertation would not have been possible without the loving support and understanding from my family. I am grateful to my parents, Junsoo and Okhee Han, for their unconditional love. Also, my husband Steve Boyles helped me push through the last critical phase of completing this dissertation. iii Sacred Bodies, Profaned Bodies: Psychology, Politics, and Sex in the Literatures of Sri Lankan Ethnic Conflict Hyojin Han, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: Hannah Chapelle Wojciehowski This project examines the literal and literary bodies associated with the Sinhalese- Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka as they are represented in literary, journalistic, and anthropological accounts. These texts are populated by historical personages and fictional characters spun from imagination or based on actual people who serve as representatives of those who live in the day to day reality of violence. The goal of this project is to offer a re-visioning of the power relations between the aggressor and victim, the victor and vanquished, in violent conflicts. Island of Blood: Frontier Reports from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Other South Asian Flashpoints, a memoir by Anita Pratap, and The Terrorist, a feature film by Santosh Sivan, illustrate how Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, fashioned his own absent or invisible body and the bodies of the suicide iv bombers as the focal point of Tamil nationalism. Prabhakaran developed the cult of personality around himself by fostering an aura of mystery and employing religious symbolism. In particular, feeding emerges as the quintessentially nurturing function misappropriated by this malignant maternal figure Prabhakaran. The other category of bodies is comprised of the victims: the dead, the raped, and the other defiled bodies that are anomalous in military conflicts. These are the profaned and violated bodies. In Michael Ondaatje‘s Anil’s Ghost, the unidentified bodies of human rights violations provide forensic evidence for legal proceedings and in turn attain sanctified status as the survivors use their remains to build legal cases against the atrocity. Their mute presence serves as a powerful amplifier for the survivors. A. Sivanandan‘s When Memory Dies has as its focal point an ethnically incited rape and murder. During intergroup conflicts rape is often used to weaken the enemy group‘s integrity. However, I argue that When Memory Dies challenges this norm and suggests that those who are considered threats to group integrity, whether they be minorities, outcasts, unwed mothers or raped women, could paradoxically be the agents of social integration, especially in the time of unrest. v Table of Contents Map of Sri Lanka……………………………………………………………….............viii Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….1 Chapter One: ―Mother, Father and God All Rolled into One‖: the Charisma and Danger of Velupillai Prabhakaran………………………………………………………..21 Chapter Two: Recovering the Dead: Victims of Political Murders in Michael Ondaatje‘s Anil’s Ghost………………………………………………………………………79 Chapter Three: Polluting Bodies and Redeeming Bodies: Raped Women and Bastard Children in A. Sivanandan‘s When Memory Dies………………………………128 Conclusion……………………………………………………….……………………..171 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….181 vi List of Figures Fig. 1.1 Malli cradling her stomach after she finds out that she is pregnant…………… 70 Fig. 1.2 Malli getting dressed for the assassination…………………………………….. 71 Fig. 2.1 The Head of Medusa by Caravaggio…………………………………………... 90 Fig. 2.2 Perseus holding up Medusa‘s head by Benvenuto Cellini……………………. 92 Fig. 2.3. Perseus (Wit has Triumphed over Grief)[Der Witz hat uber das Leid gesiegt]..93 vii Map of Sri Lanka Online source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Sri_Lanka- CIA_WFB_Map.png viii Introduction This project examines the literal and literary bodies associated with the Sinhalese- Tamil conflict in Sri Lanka as they are represented in literary, journalistic, and cinematic accounts. The Sri Lankan civil war is but one of the several violent conflicts of the last century incited by ethno-religious differences and complicated by social inequalities. In this project, I trace the unique contours of the Sri Lankan situation and also draw some affinities with other large-group conflicts. In analyzing the role of the leader, the fate of the victims, and the treatment of the marginalized that appear in these texts, I offer an understanding of the trajectory taken by this particular conflict and explore a revisioning of the power relations between the aggressor and victim, the victor and vanquished. I argue that the two types of bodies examined broadly in this project, the perpetrators of violence and their victims, are indistinguishable at times. Yesterday‘s victims are today‘s aggressors. The works I discuss focus less on apportioning blame than on examining how hatred and violence have vitiated all those involved. Literature and other creative works provide a space to envision and gradually actualize an end to the vicious cycle of retribution by altering our perspective and inviting us to acknowledge our own responsibility. Since the latter half of the twentieth century, the domestic politics of the island off the southeastern coast of the Indian subcontinent currently known as Sri Lanka has been mired in a civil unrest, largely between the Sinhala Buddhist and the Hindu Tamil sections of the population. Sinhala Buddhists, the numerical majority, are viewed as 1 claiming the island for their own while relegating minority groups to the place of second- class citizens based on the argument of historical precedence: the island has traditionally belonged to the Sinhalese ever since the legendary north Indian prince Vijaya landed on the island with his crew of seven hundred around the fifth century B.C. In response to the Sinhalese dominance, the Tamils, who constitute the second largest ethnic group, have advanced a similar claim for the northeastern third of the island, demanding the creation of a separate state for the Tamils in this region, which had been ruled by Tamil kings before the colonial occupation and where they make up the majority of the population. S. J. Tambiah points out in Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy that the violent ethnic clashes on the island are a modern phenomenon that started after the independence from Great Britain in 1948. Since then there have been seven massive destructions carried out by the Sinhalese civilians against the Tamils, culminating in the July 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom which started on the night of July 24 and ended on August 5.1 Also known as the ―Black July‖, this brief two-week span generated the death toll that amounted to 350 by the Sinhalese government count and 2,000 by the Tamil estimates,2 and left between 80,000 and 100,000 people homeless (19-22). The consequence of July 1983 was the civil war that plagued the island for twenty-six years involving three military powers: the Tamil guerillas, the Sinhalese army, and the Indian 1 The immediate ―provocation‖ of this attack was the killing of thirteen Sinhalese soldiers by Tamil guerillas. 2 Jonathan Spencer writes ―between 300 and 3,000 people dead, nearly all of them members of the minority Tamil population‖ (―Collective Violence‖ 603). 2 Peace Keeping Forces. The UN estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 were killed during the civil war that ended in May 2009 (―Up to 100,000 Killed‖). Although the number of deaths in the Sri Lankan conflict cannot rival those of other mass ethnic violence of the twentieth century that were given the term genocide, the intent and consequences are the same. According