Thirty Years Of War And Still On
Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon
Wars occur first in the realm of ideas. Therefore, the elimination of physical elements of wars alone can neither bring peace nor permanent credible solutions to conflicts. When a war is fought particularly on identity issues of people, peace and reconciliation becomes even more difficult. Sri Lanka’s ethnic war led to the physical elimination of a major party to the war, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. However, even the Government concedes that the end of the war with the removal of the LTTE has not yet brought reconciliation and argues that reconciliation will take time. In the absence of well directed conscious efforts and political will to achieve reconciliation, no matter how long a country waits for time to heal the wounds of a war, especially ethnic wars, true peace will still prove elusive. For peace should be created in the realm of ideas first, and then those ideas of peace should be made part of public’s consciousness and popular imagination. More the parties to a conflict breathe life to violent memories and ethnic hatred, the longer it takes to achieve peace. If the mainstream political practice of a Government is to perpetuate its power with a strategy of using hatred and violent memories, then the very unity of that nation becomes a far cry.
The failure of Sri Lanka’s reconciliatory attempts after 2009 maybe attributed chiefly to its lack of strategic vision to foster ideas of peace and reconciliation. Government of Sri Lanka has continued to believe in the power of material forces rather than the power of ideational forces. It is true that not only ideas, but material power as well matter a lot in attempts at state-building. However, whereas the primary focus should be given to the ideational realm, the Government has paid it very little attention. Therefore, reconciliation and positive peace have become a more distant possibility and this is costing the nation hugely in many ways. Government has failed to lead the nation(s) to think in terms of one nation because in its ‘imagined nation’ there is no scope for the imaginations of the minorities of the nation. Read More
