Revolutionizing Sovereignty To Secure Permanent Peace In Sri Lanka
By Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon -March 16, 2015
Athulasiri Kumara Samarakoon
“The state thought we were terrorists, the LTTE thought we were traitors.”- A middle-aged single mother near Batticaloa (Eastern Sri Lanka)[i]
By militarily defeating the LTTE, Sri Lanka eliminated a violent advocate for separate Tamil state in the North. Yet, that elimination of the most violent element expression of Tamils’ struggle for autonomy and self-determinationhas not in any way led to a permanent solution for the issue. Today, with the emerging space of democracy created through a hard fought change of an ultra-nationalist regime, we need to give serious thoughts to this pressing issue for if we fail, another generation of people will be forced to fight in vain again, defending an abstract sovereignty. In our understanding, the continuing issue of Tamils’ quest for autonomy in the North is closely linked to ‘state sovereignty’ and ‘integrity of the territory’. This is defined so by the elitist nationalist leadership in the Southern region. However, unless a revolution occurs in the way Sri Lanka perceives sovereignty, the process of nation building will never be complete and an inclusive nation, with all ethnicities will integrated, would remain a pipe dream.
We need to perhaps rethink the meaning of ‘sovereignty’ for small states like Sri Lanka in the context of increasing deterioration of the effectiveness of territorial state globally. In Sri Lanka, the existing borders have not been invincible to international interventions (think IPKF) in the face of the issue of Tamils’ struggle for autonomy. Therefore die-hard elitist Sinhalese perceptions towards Tamils’ way of perceiving state sovereignty has amply demonstrated the hollowness of ‘Sri Lankan’s idea of sovereignty’ without material power to guard it from external interventions. Today, the future of the survival of Sri Lankan state needs to be re-strategized with a mechanism for peaceful co-existence with Tamils and that kind of thinking requires a revolution in the way historically Sri Lanka has perceived sovereignty by excluding Tamils’ ideas on sovereignty. The supposedly contradictory Sri Lankan and Tamil ideas on sovereignty need to be pooled together and a prerequisite for this would be a fundamental change in the idea of sovereignty and the openness to accept the historical reality that Tamils had a sovereignty of their own in this country.