Our Ethnic Imbroglio

“The Sinhalese people certainly have their prejudices like practically all other ethnic groups, but as a whole they were not guilty of that state terrorism. In any case, it can be shown that even in one of the worst ethnic imbroglios of all time the human ability to transcend ethnic divisions has been amply demonstrated.”
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by Izeth Hussain

(February 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) We Sri Lankans have been caught up in an ethnic imbroglio, from which we cannot extricate ourselves unless we recognise and take corrective action over the core problem behind it. In the alternative, the de facto Eelam which the LTTE has been busily establishing will almost certainly lead to the permanent breakup of Sri Lanka.

In arguing the case stated in the preceding paragraph, I will begin by explaining what I mean by "imbroglio" and then situate it in an international perspective. "Imbroglio" is defined in the dictionary as a confused heap, and as applying to complicated situations, particularly political or dramatic situations. In other words, an imbroglio is not just another ordinary problem. A multitude of ethnic problems have been solved, without too much difficulty, right across the globe. But a few have defied solution over many decades and led to costly and protracted civil wars, as in Sri Lanka. It is appropriate to refer to these as ethnic imbroglios rather than ethnic problems.

I will now set our ethnic imbroglio in an international perspective. Two views are possible about the present ethnic revival which became the object of scholarly scrutiny and of widespread international concern, from about 1970. One view, exemplified by Daniel Moynihan, is that it is the wave of the present and of the future, the importance of which we can decry only at our peril. In his book pandemonium, he pours scorn of the British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, who exemplifies the other view that the ethnic revival has its salience in the contemporary world only because it represents the death throes of a passing order, that of the nation state. I myself am a partisan of the Hobsbawm thesis.

You can, on the one hand, tot up all the ethnic problems in the world, ranging from those in which there has been some degree of inter-ethnic dissonance to the ones in which there has been raging conflict, and conjure up the image of a world that is simply boiling over with ethnic problems. On the other hand, in support of Hobsbawm’s view, you can note that so few ethnic problems have become ethnic imbroglios.

We must consider the implications of the striking fact that there is an enormous disparity between number of states in the world and the number of ethnic groups. The number of states are less than two hundred, whereas ethnic groups can be numbered by the hundreds or the thousands depending on the criteria used to define an ethnic group. On a linguistic criterion, there are more than six thousand ethnic groups in the world.

We must note also the fact that there are only a very few mono-ethnic states, meaning states with only one ethnic group or with minority ethnic groups that are so minuscule that they cannot conceivably give rise to serious ethnic problems. According to one count there are only four such states in the world, while according to another there are just twelve.

The fact that the globe pullulates with an immense multitude of ethnic groups with no states of their own should be considered together with one of the cardinal facts about the nation state. It is that it tends to privilege the ethnic majority at the expense of the ethnic minorities, with the majority seen as the bhumiputras who have a primordial relation with the sacred soil of the national territory. It has to be expected consequently, that the globe will pullulate with a vast multitude of serious ethnic problems. It may be that there is some degree of inter-ethnic dissonance on a widespread scale. But serious ethnic problems are, proportionately speaking, certainly few in number. And strikingly fewer still are the ethnic imbroglios which have defied solution for decades and led to protracted conflict.

I cannot in this article go into much detail to illustrate my argument. Instead, I will refer broadly to developments in black Africa in the era of independence after 1960. It has an immense multiplicity of ethnic groups without states even though many of them have all the attributes to claim recognition as nations. Furthermore the lines demarcating the African states are entirely artificial, drawn for the convenience of the European imperial powers in the 1880s. Sometimes they divide huge ethnic groups between two states.

Understandably, it was widely expected that the African states would smash themselves into smithereens sooner rather later. Some states have indeed broken up, and a few ethnic problems became horrendously genocidal. But an examination of the details with certainly show that serious ethnic problems in black Africa have been few, and ethnic imbroglios even fewer, in proportion to the immense multiplicity of ethnic groups without states.

It would be foolish in debunking the excessive claims made for "The ethnic revival" to go to the other extreme and decry its importance altogether. It may not be the most pleasant of fates to be born into an ethnic minority. But the record does suggest that the greater proportion of ethnic minorities do manage to live in peace and dignity with ethnic majorities, evidently because they feel that they are given reasonably equitable treatment.

It is crucial to understand the explanation for that fact if we are to reach a balanced perspective on the ethnic revival. The explanation is that while ethnic divisions are a fact of life, so is the human ability to transcend them. It is mistaken therefore to focus solely or mainly on the point that most ethnic groups have shown propensity to view the other in negative terms. The paradoxical fact is that they have shown at the same time the ability to recognise the common humanity they share with the other.

The most convincing illustration of that argument can be found in Sri Lanka itself. We can read our past in terms of the "Mahavamsa ideology", "the Dutugemunu complex", "Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism" and so on, and project an image of irreconcilable Sinhala-Tamil hostility, anachronistically interpreting past in ethnic terms where as they in fact had dynastic and other motivations behind them. On the other hand, we can note the long periods in which Sinhalese and Tamils have lived in amity and co-operation. We can note the religious syncretism in the Buddhism actually practised in Sri Lanka and the symbiosis that goes to the extent of South Indian immigrants becoming fully accepted as Sinhalese.

Coming to our present ethnic imbroglio, we can argue that July 1983 setup a permanent Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic divide. Alternatively, we can note that innumerable Sinhalese saved their Tamil neighbours, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves. We can note further that all the LTTE terrorist provocations in subsequent years never produced a backlash in the south. We can argue on that basis, not altogether facetiously, that the ethnic problem has already been solved in promising embryo in Wellawtte.

My conviction is that July 1983 was the mad genocidal apogee of the state terrorism inaugurated with an anti-Tamil pogrom shortly after the 1977 government came to power. The Sinhalese people certainly have their prejudices like practically all other ethnic groups, but as a whole they were not guilty of that state terrorism. In any case, it can be shown that even in one of the worst ethnic imbroglios of all time the human ability to transcend ethnic divisions has been amply demonstrated.

The argument developed above shows that when an ethnic imbroglio is set in an international perspective, it can be recognized as some thing of an exceptional order. That perspective suggests that an ordinary ethic problem, usually susceptible to solution without too much difficulty, becomes an imbroglio because of a failure on the part of the power elite to build on the human ability to transcend ethnic divisions.

In such cases there has been a failure in nation-building, in building the nation-state. For a nation-state is not part of the natural order of things but something that has to be built, something that has come to prevail only during the last few centuries. The historical record beginning with the first two successful nation-states, England and France, shows that it is the state that builds the nation. In a successful multi-ethnic state, it is the state that builds the sense of a national identity common to all ethnic groups. The point that I want to bring out for the further argument of this article is that behind the state in a multi-ethnic state is a power elite drawn mainly from the political class of the majority ethnic group.

An obvious exception to my generalisation that ethnic imbroglios are caused by the failure of power elites is that sometimes they are certainly caused by an external factor, specifically by support for a separatist movement by a foreign government. It is known that the vicissitudes of the Kurd rebellion in Iraq over the decades have had external factors behind them. India has an imbroglio in Kashmir, which would have been solved long ago as yet another of India’s many ethnic problems, if not for Kashmir’s territorial contiguity with Pakistan.

A popular view in Sri Lanka is that an external factor has likewise been crucial in our own ethnic imbroglio. The government in New Delhi can never be indifferent to the potential fall-out in Tamil Nadu of developments on the ethnic front in Sri Lanka. What that could mean in practise was shown when under the 1977 government the Vadamarachchi operation was halted at the insistence of New Delhi, if not for which our troops would have proceeded to Jaffna and there might conceivably have been a military solution to our ethnic problem. Such a solution was conceivable again in 1987 when it appeared that the LTTE could be forced to submit through starvation, which is regarded as a legitimate tactic in warfare. But there was Indian intervention which began with the air-drop.

However, though the Tamil Nadu factor perhaps precluded a military solution, there was always the option of a peaceful solution. The governments in New Delhi and majority opinion in Tamil Nadu never backed a break-up of Sri Lanka. What they wanted was a peaceful solution through devolution. Why has that not been possible up to now? This question should lead us to an understanding of the core problem behind our ethnic imbroglio.

Two strategies have been recognized as particularly efficacious in dealing with restive ethnic minorities. One is to give them fair and equal treatment within a liberal democratic framework in which they have a direct and unmediated relationship with the state. They have rights as citizens, and are given equal treatment both in theory and in practise.

The other strategy applies to ethnic minorities who claim a homeland, and therefore regard themselves as nations with a right to self-determination inclusive of a right to set up a separate state. In such cases devolution has to be tried out. No one argues that devolution by itself will always be successful. Ethnic problems could have complex processes behind them, and may not be amenable to solution through legal and constitutional changes. Devolution is therefore held to be a necessary though not a sufficient condition for a solution.

For some years after independence most of us had the illusion that Tamil aspirations could be met within a liberal democratic framework, and understandable illusion because it was shared by mainstream Tamil politicians exemplified in the figure of G. G. Ponnambalam. But very quickly the then peripheral figures of Chelvanayagam and Naganathan, inveterate federalists, moved to centre stage. S. W. R. D. acknowledged the need for devolution, which was consistent with the conclusion reached by him long before independence about the need for a federal system. But the resistance to the idea of devolution remained fierce and it took fifty four years for a Sri Lankan government to acknowledge the need for a federal system.

That fierce resistance was striking for its irrationality. The argument was that any devolution, however modest, would only whet the Tamil appetite for more and lend ineluctably to Eelam. But devolution by definition can take place only within a unit and there can be no linear progression from devolution to separation. For that to happen some other process has to come into operation making it impossible for the state to prevent separation, such as military debacle in conjunction with an economic one. That conjunction was precisely what took place in Sri Lanka in the first quarter of 2000.

The irrationality of that argument was spectacularly demonstrated by what actually happened. For under the 1977 government Sri Lanka broke up, with the writ of the government in Colombo no longer running in part of the North. Obviously, that was the consequence not of allowing devolution, but of refusing to allow it. Furthermore, by that time, there was plenty of evidence showing the efficacy of devolution in defusing dangerous separatist problems. Most impressively just across the Palk Straits in India. But none of that made the slightest difference to the continuing fierce resistance to devolution on this side of the Palk Straits.

Behind that resistance, which looks totally irrational, there had to be a hidden factor, perhaps some kind of peculiar rationality. What was it? The answer prompts itself when we take count of the distinction between decentralisation and devolution. Under decentralisation the centre delegates some of its powers to regional or other local units, as a way really of efficiently extending the powers of the centre. Under devolution the centre relinquishes some of its powers to local units, which enjoy some degree of autonomy. That implies some degree of sharing of power and equality between the centre and local units.

It does seem that behind the resistance to devolution there was a resistance to treating the Tamils as equals. In the contemporary world a refusal to treat ethnic minorities as equals is taken as amounting to racism. I hold, therefore, that it is racism in the Sinhalese political class which has been preventing the solution of what should have been a straightforward ethnic problem and made it into an ethnic imbroglio, the very terrible consequences of which we now have to face.

A possible counter-argument is that the core problem preventing a solution has really been Sinhalese divisiveness, and not racism. The horrible anti-national record of our two major parties in obstructing solutions is well-known. However, the UNP had virtually absolute power for the greater part of seventeen years from 1977, and could easily have implemented a meaningful system of devolution. Instead, it chose to make the District Development Councils farcical by withholding the funds to make them properly operative. Behind that choice was a racist dread of what devolution could come to spell by way of equality for the Tamils.

I must state parenthetically at this point that I strongly suspect that a peculiar racism in the Sinhalese political class and a peculiar Sinhalese divisiveness both arise from common factors in the past of which the Sinhalese people have been victims. But it is too complex a problem to be addressed in this article.

In drawing to the conclusion of this article I must revert to the point made above that in nation building the state has to play the primary role. What this means in practical terms in a multi-ethnic society is that the state must build on the human ability to transcend ethnic divisions, and also keep in check the racism that arises from ethnic divisions.

In recent years Governments led by both our major parties have taken to celebrating our multi-ethnicity and our multi-culturalism, our ability to transcend ethnic divisions, with much fanfare particularly over the Sinhala-Tamil New Year festivities. In a way they are elaborately missing the point. All ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, just like all ethnic groups all over the world, share the propensity to view the other in negative terms, but at the same time we in Sri Lanka have strikingly demonstrated our ability to transcend ethnic divisions right down the centuries, and even during independent Sri Lanka’s darkest hour, July 1983. The problem lies elsewhere, in the racism that our two major parties cannot even recognise, let alone address.

That inability to address racism is not at all surprising. The ugly truth is that Sri Lanka does not have even a single credible national party, after the manner of the truly trans ethnic and national Indian Congress. Both of our two major parties have come to be increasingly seen by our minorities as basically Sinhalese ethnic parties. In other words, they are powerful expressions of the racism that has been rampant in the Sinhalese political class. Since those two parties have dominated the Sri Lankan state since 1948, it becomes easily understandable that the state has failed disastrously in nation-building.

And, of course, it becomes easily understandable that they have been unable to address the problem of racism. It is now imperative to do so. The government and the LTTE have agreed that a solution has to be on the basis of a federal system. Unfortunately, that is no more than a polite fiction for the LTTE which really wants a confederal system under which it is dominant in the North East, where the writ of the Colombo government will run only to the extent that it gets the concurrence of the LTTE. That will not by itself break up Sri Lanka permanently. But the task of preventing that will become much more problematic.

Our counter-strategy should be to make the Tamils stop wanting Eelam. For that they have to be made to believe that they are given absolutely fair and equal treatment and also they have to be integrated into the central institutions of the state. One of the practical desiderata for that purpose would be an Equal Opportunities Bill which could help correct among other things a grotesque imbalance in the state sector where 92% of the jobs are held by the Sinhalese who are 74% of the population. That was part of the rationale for that Bill set out by G. L. Peiris when it was mooted by the PA government.

But it was withdrawn because of objections from racists. I use that term because it is used by the international community to describe majority ethnic group members who cannot bear the thought of giving equal opportunities to minorities. Should there be a repeat performance under the present government, the international community may draw two conclusions. One is that our two major parties are in the grip of inveterate racists. The other is that the permanent breakup of Sri Lanka, if it cannot be prevented, might after all be richly merited.

Our mistake has been to focus exclusively on the tiger in the North, on the mistaken assumption that it constitutes the entirety of the ethnic problem. We have ignored the other tiger, the tiger of Sinhalese racism in the South, which in the first place spawned the Northern tiger and kept on preventing the solution of what should have been a straightforward ethnic problem.

We now have an imbroglio on our hands and Sri Lanka is threatened with a permanent breakup. That can be prevented only if we get to grips within a horrible reality. The tiger is within the gates.