Last Monday (29 April), I had the chance to attend a function at the BMICH, which was organised to mark the first anniversary of a tabloid newspaper. Though the prevailing security conditions in the country did not encourage such a public gathering, participation was considerable.
I noticed the attendance of many opinion-makers who helped this Government into power in 2015. In that sense, it is correct to “read” this event as a gathering of the “ideological front” of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe Government, which was confirmed by the six speakers at the head table. These were none other than M.A. Sumanthiran, Prof. Jayadeva Uyangoda, Dr. Deepika Udugama, J.C. Waliamuna, Ashoka Handagama, and Javed Yusuf.Although I have not been engaging with this group politically, I was keen to participate in this event to identify how they understood the Easter Sunday attacks.
Firstly, I need to mention that I was shocked to hear many of their thoughts on the attack and their suggestions to eradicate this new threat of Islam fundamentalism.
Failure to achieve ‘positive peace’
Prof. Uyangoda’s view was mainly based on the premise that although LTTE terrorism was eradicated in 2009, the political grievances of that group (minorities in this country) were not addressed adequately by the establishment.
It was due to this failure, he claimed, that the possibility and potential for another terrorism war to erupt had materialised within the Sri Lankan social structure. Further to this, he argued that peace gained in 2009 can be academically called “negative peace”, where the war was just ended. He stated that it didn’t address the “core issue” of the conflict.
Since the failure of achieving “positive peace” with a substantive and holistic approach to the problem, Prof. Uyangoda thinks that the “undercurrents” of the Easter Sunday attacks had always been present within Sri Lankan society.
Although he presented some food for thought, I believe it’s incorrect to connect the Easter Sunday attacks with the LTTE-led terrorist activities or with issues that caused the northern minority issue to erupt.
While it’s true that these attacks were programmed in accordance with global Islamic terrorist networks, it is important to note that these incidents occurred due to major administrative and strategic failures within the so-called Yahapalana Government.
From its point of inception, this Government had been “busy” targeting security forces and focusing on “state intelligence agencies” pertaining to issues related to the previous regime or the war. This “anti-security” mentality of the Government and “pro-intimidated” approach towards the forces, naturally led to the tragic nature of anarchism we are experiencing from Easter Sunday.
Constitution not inclusive
The second remark of the panel was made by TNA Parliamentarian, Sumanthiran. His views on the attacks were completely based on the so-called old-school argument of the “anti-secular state”.
His assumptions were derived from the premise that “the minorities were excluded in the governing process in post-colonial Sri Lanka by the majority Sinhalese-Buddhists, and the minorities’ peaceful responses were not accommodated into the system as well”.
Therefore, Sumanthiran argued, the Muslim community of this country had been at the receiving end of such exclusions, and there always was vulnerability for this kind of extremist elements to rise up.
Sumanthiran holds the view that the special recognition given to Buddhism in the 1972 Constitution was core in regulating the said exclusion of minorities from the mainstream.
He thinks that the main block for making the country a secular state is the special recognition of Buddhism in the Constitution!
He further mentioned that no constitution in Sri Lanka, regardless of the time and the format, whether in 1947, 1972, or 1978, had been agreed on by the Tamil people, and therefore, no “social contract” had been developed among all the communities for the structure of the state in post-colonial Sri Lanka.
I’d like to voice two main reservations with regard to these claims and its relationship with the Easter Sunday attacks.
Firstly, it seems to me that this “old logic” pertaining to the constitutional-making process in Sri Lanka will not result in any positive outcome for future engagements.
Unless the Constitution is compiled solely by Colombo’s so-called civil society or solely by minority groups, it will not be practical or pragmatic to do away with the recognition given to Buddhism. In addition, I believe that this would redirect the constitutional-making process back to point zero, all the while giving rise to the development of some extremist Buddhist groups in the system.
This was exactly what arose as a result of the so-called power devolution process during the 1994-2000 period.
The end results of that varied from the failure of the total project in the end to the emergence of fronts such as Jathika Hela Urumaya as the third major party in districts where the majority of the population was Sinhalese.
Secondly, I think that the argument Sumanthiran brought forward would not help in understanding and settling the current crisis at all.
The Easter Sunday attacks were not aimed at meeting any secular demands, and according to experts’ reports, the attacks were based on Wahhabism, which is aimed at converting human society into hell, depending on religio-barbarism. Neither the need for the resolution of minority issues nor constitutional expectations can be derived from activities such as mass killings by global Islamic terrorist networks.
It seems to me that almost all the observations presented, including by these two learned political thinkers at the event, were focused in the wrong direction in understanding what happened on 21 April and what we are supposed to do in future.
(Dr. Charitha Herath is a senior lecturer at the University of Peradeniya. The writer can be contacted via twitter on @charith9)
No “social contract” had been developed among all the communities - in post-colonial Sri Lanka.
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