In Which I Respond to My Own Sri Lanka Program

 by Daniel Kitts Monday June 11, 2012

As you may have noticed, there's been a fair amount of feedback and commentary on our blog following the May 18 program I produced on how to move Sri Lanka forward after decades of civil war.

May 18, 2012: "Moving Sri Lanka Forward"

I've gotten a lot of comments from viewers close to the issue, ranging in tone from quite positive to quite negative.

In the course of getting feedback, some have asked me: "Well, what did you think of the program?"

So, given how many people have taken the time to share their thoughts both publicly and privately about my work, I figured it was only fair I would share mine.

I think in certain ways the program worked extremely well. For me, the primary goal of the discussion was to explore what I see as a key debate taking place within and between the various communities affected by the Sri Lankan conflict: After 30 years of war, do people on both sides of the divide slowly rebuild trust through a series of small, modest steps and dialogue? Or, before there can be any kind of moving forward, do you need to start big and address head-on the core issues at the heart of the ethnic conflict between the Tamils and Sinhalese? On that point, I thought our guests did an excellent job of speaking to both sides of the debate, and Piya Chattopadhyay, the host that evening, did very well in her exploration of the issue.

May 24, 2011: "Sri Lanka: Finding a Middle Ground"

Some have criticized the program for not presenting enough nuances of the debate within the Tamil and Sinhalese communities here in Canada. In other words, certain voices were left out, leaving an incomplete picture of the actual debate taking place – too black and white, not enough grey. On this point, I completely see where my critics are coming from. When dealing with as complex an issue as the Sri Lanka conflict, it is going to be impossible for a program like ours to include all of the possible voices in one broadcast. And by focusing on certain issues/voices related to the conflict, you're going to inevitably leave others out. I still think the program was valuable in many ways. But was some nuance left out? Absolutely. And I have thought seriously about how I can do a better job of capturing more of the nuance in the Sri Lanka debate in the future.

November 24, 2009: Interview with Bandula Jayasekara (Excerpt)

I don’t ever think any single program I’ll produce will perfectly capture an issue in all its detail. I see the discussions I put together for The Agenda as (I hope) useful snapshots: you won’t get the whole picture, but you will hopefully better understand some of the key details. Since the civil war in Sri Lanka ended, I have produced three programs on the topic, and a colleague of mine produced an interview with the then-Sri Lankan Consul General to Toronto. These programs don’t come close to exploring everything there is to know about the Sri Lanka conflict. But I hope, taken together, these discussions and interviews give viewers a variety of voices and perspectives.  And as I wrote earlier, I hope I’ll find opportunities in the future to present through The Agenda an even deeper understanding of this topic.

May 27, 2009: "Sri Lanka: Peace Possible?" (Excerpt)

One programming note: Our exploration of various voices and perspectives in the Sri Lanka debate continues this Wednesday. My colleague Colin Ellis is producing an interview featuring one person's perspective on Sri Lanka's "Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission" report.