The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka: Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political Economy (review)

[ 168 ] asia policy The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka: Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political Economy Asoka Bandarage London: Routledge, 2009 • 288 pp. author’s executive summary Based on careful historical research and analysis of policy documents, this book explains the origin and evolution of the political conflict in Sri Lanka regarding the struggle to establish a separate state in its Northern and Eastern Provinces, and presents a conceptual framework useful for comparative global conflict analysis and resolution. main argument The book argues that the Sri Lankan conflict cannot be adequately understood from the dominant bipolar analysis that sees it as a primordial ethnic conflict between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority. Instead, a multipolar analysis of the complex interplay of political-economic and cultural forces at the local, regional, and international levels is needed. This book argues that a host of relatively neglected variables—such as intra-ethnic, social class, and caste factors at the local level; India and South Indian nationalism at the regional level; and NGOs and civil society at the international level—all play a role in this Sri Lankan conflict. policy implications • Federalist solutions seeking to create exclusive ethno-religious regions will perpetuate the conflict. The pluralism of the island and changing demographic realities—such as the decreasing numbers of the Sri Lankan TamilpopulationintheNorthernandEasternProvincesandtheirincreasing numbers in the rest of the island—need to be taken into account. • Greater control over economic resources and access to education and employment must be made available to local people of all ethno-religious groups and regions. • Tamil nationalist aspirations, including language and cultural rights, need greater incorporation within the union of states and society in India. • Also required are the incorporation of the Sri Lankan diaspora as partners in the island’s long term socio-economic development and the strengthening of cultural pluralism and democracy. [ 169 ] book reviews The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka: Understanding the Conflict Beyond the Iron Law of Terrorism A.R.M. Imtiyaz A review of Bandarage’s The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka The ethnic civil war between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities that has ravaged Sri Lanka since 1983 has attracted a considerable number of inquiries from scholars interested in exploring the complexities of ethnicity in Sri Lanka.1 Asoka Bandarage’s book The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka: Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political Economy, however, attempts to “demystify ethnicity as well as religious identity (p. 5).” The book directs special attention to portraying the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a brutal terrorist movement. In addition, Bandarage’s work on the separatist conflict in Sri Lanka provides alternative explanations to the key events and activities that have taken place from the British colonial period to the present. Bandarage attempts to explain the ethnic conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese beyond the existing ethno-political analytical frameworks that primarily include primordialism and contextualism. These broad scholarly approaches provide useful explanations for understanding the conflict between different groups. For primordialists, ethnic identity is inborn and therefore immutable, as are culturally acquired aspects (language, culture, and religion).2 Contextualists view ethnic identities as a product of human actions and choices and thus argue that these identities 1 For detailed accounts of the history and the origin of the ethnic civil war in Sri Lanka, see K.N.O. Dharmadasa, Language, Religion, and Ethnic Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese Nationalism in Sri Lanka (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992); Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Books, 1986); Kumari Jayawardena and Jayadeva Uyangoda, “Special Issue on the National Question in Sri Lanka,” South Asia Bulletin 6 (1986): 1–47; D.H. Rajanayagam, “Tamil ‘Tigers’ in Northern Sri Lanka: Origins, Factions and Programmes,” International Asian Forum 7, nos. 1 and 2 (1986): 63–85; Neil DeVotta, Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); K.M. de Silva, Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Politics in Sri Lanka (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998); A.R.M. Imtiyaz and Ben Stavis, “EthnoPolitical Conflict in Sri Lanka,” Journal of Third World Studies 25, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 135–52; and Ananda Wickremeratne, Buddhism and Ethnicity in Sri Lanka...