Northern Provincial Council: Openings And Democratisation
Ahilan Kadirgamar
The first time I spoke at the Faculty of Arts Seminar Series was in January 2008. It was at a very different moment, at the height of the civil war. My talk was titled “Third World Sovereignty, Conflicts and Democratisation” and was primarily a critique of law, particularly international law. At the time, I highlighted the importance of domestic political processes in seeking a viable political solution. I want to emphasise that four and a half years after the war, little progress has been made towards a political solution. Next, the debates on Sri Lanka, both within Sri Lanka and without, continue to focus on international law, sovereignty and the right to self-determination. I believe it is important to challenge the terms of such discourse, particularly given their currency in international and statist interventions. Furthermore, the limited politics circumscribed by law fall far short of the much need progressive politics of social justice and democratisation.
The Provincial Council elections in the Northern Province took place after twenty five years. The Government took over four years after the war ended to hold the NPC elections, losing valuable time, leading to further ethnic polarisation. The post-war North approaching the elections was characterised by militarisation, a polarising Tamil nationalist discourse on the ascendance, and a development programme that had failed the ordinary people. Indeed, the results of the elections were but an overwhelming protest vote against the Government’s post-war policies in the North. However, it is important to realise that the outcome of the elections and the NPC has created openings. These openings are fragile, but are perhaps the most significant for the North in the post-war years.
Political Economy of Openings
I begin by articulating two aspects of these openings, which are both in and of the North. First, in temporal terms, these openings are historical opportunities. Second, in spatial terms, these openings are about transforming the geography including the borders of the North. Furthermore, any understanding of these historical and geographical openings should contextualise them in relation to barriers that closed the North in the past. Militarisation, the market, financialisation, nationalist ideology and the reduction of politics to law are characteristic of such barriers.
What is then the political economic context of these historical and geographical openings? Opportunities for capital accumulation were limited in the North as production stagnated with production facilities far behind the rest of the country. This is also true of Jaffna despite having remained relatively unscathed by major battles during the last decade of war. The situation in the Vanni was dismal with the region being razed to the ground during the last phase of the war. Read More
