Further to my 'Thamil...Genocide' remarks made earlier:-
What happened in the Vanni in 2008-9 was not 'genocide'!
The Vanni rhetoric
I am concerned about the way the term 'genocide' is being bandied about in Sri Lankan political discourses. The popular and political use of this term in Sri Lanka (or, by Sri Lankans) originated in public discourses largely during the military defeat stage of the Thamil Eelam secessionist war - i.e. 2008-9.
'Genocide' has been prominently used in popular discourse to describe large scale casualties of Thamil civilians that occurred in relation to state military offensives in the Vanni region in the final year of the Thamil Eelam War. This usage has resulted in the abuse of an already technically defined term for short term political purposes, namely its use (a) in public propaganda to curtail or halt the sustained state military offensives and, (b) subsequently, to further weaken Sri Lankan governmental credibility in the face of UN human rights scrutiny.
I am not, for a moment, questioning the validity of both 'a' and 'b' endeavours. They are perfectly reasonable, and desirable. It is the misuse of the technical term 'genocide' that concerns me. The use of 'genocide' for the above-mentioned purposes is, actually, a disservice to the cause of Sri Lankan Thamil rights/justice. The usage has been primarily and solely in relation to civilian war casualties occurring en mass, that is, in large groups in a single given episode of military action. The use of 'genocide' solely to describe mass killing in the Vanni war theatre in a single period - i.e. the military defeat stage - certainly helped sensationalise the tragic situation at the time. At the same time, such limited usage then limits the understanding of the nature of the continuous attempts to eradicate the collective identity that comprises the social-political-demographic phenomenon that is the Sri Lankan Thamil community.
'Genocide' practised down the ages
It is quite likely that the earliest Hominin (not just Homo Sapiens) tribal and clan formations carried out 'genocidal' action against neighbouring communities perceived as threatening their own ecological support area. These 'genocidal' actions would have been the destruction of hunting-gathering environments, physical elimination and expulsion of the targetted community from that region, Subsequent proto-polities and proto-states continued with that practice and many states have done so ever since. Some recent examples are the colonial enterprise of imperial states of Europe (including Russia in Asia). Modern nation-states have been prone to this genocidal behavior as well. The root seems to be a basic self-preservation instinct taken to an extreme logical action. In the context of an over-populated, geo-politically riven, planet and, military capacities for collective extinction, however, this logic is no longer tenable. Rather, negotiation AND ADAPTATION is the pragmatic way forward. And globalised structures are the means.
Despite these larger global-societal imperatives, the Sinhala-controlled Sri Lankan State has served as vehicle for the attempts of the Sinhala political elite to socio-culturally homogenize the Sri Lankan population as an ethnically exclusive 'Sinhala' population. As iconic Sinhala writer and ethno-centric culture ideologue Gunadasa Amarasekara (among many others) argues, the country's demographic evolution should follow a path of 'Sinhalisation' by the natural-organic ethnic absorption of other ethnic groups into the larger Sinhala population, thereby purifying the ethnic identity of the Sri Lankan nation as one that is holistically 'Sinhala'. This path of State-guided demographic engineering is a crucial element of the dominant ideology of what is explicitly defined as (a legitimate) 'Sinhala nationalism'. Amarasekara has long argued that, other than the Sinhala ethnic community, no other ethnic community has the legitimacy to assert any specific ethnic identity. He argues that only the Sinhala ethnic community has all the attributes that enables it to rightfully claim to be an actual ethnic group - a 'fully fledged ethnicity' (as he puts it). He argues that no other ethnic group in the country has all the necessary attributes to be able to call themselves as fully fledged ethnies. It is this ultra-nationalist discourse that I describe as 'Sinhala ethno-supremacism'.
'Genocide' in Sri Lanka
It is this ethno-centric demographic thesis that is the bedrock of Sinhala ethno-supremacism and its State-deployed genocidal tendency. According to this logic, the State (republic) of Sri Lanka, as the instrument of the political association of the island's (Sinhala) human community, has an underlying mission and goal of achieving ethno-cultural wholeness by absorbing (eradication) of all population groups into an ethnic singularity. A 'truly Sinhala Sri Lanka' is the fantasy. As a narrative that continues to enact a historical narrative (idealised in the Mahavansha) of asserting the dominance of Sinhala kingship over the whole island, modern Sinhala ethno-supremacism is a (mediocre) Sinhala fantasy of empire.
Inevitably, the genocide of other, non-Sinhala, Sri Lankan identities/communities is one aspect of the Sri Lankan State's (un-mentioned) mission. It is a goal constantly touted in political arguments, rhetoric, in modern, popular Sinhala historiography, in fiction (print, cinema, radio, poetry, lyrics).
This holistic understanding of genocide then enable the detailed identification of genocidal action in state policy and politics, in addition to the episodes of social and military violence. The early legislated designation of Hillcountry Thamils as 'stateless' non-citizens (demographically classified as 'Thamils of Indian Descent' as opposed to 'Sri Lankan Thamils'), must be seen as an early act of genocide.
The very designation of the larger Thamil community as 'Sri Lankan Thamil' is also an exclusionary demographic nomenclature that serves to distance the identity of Thamils from direct ownership of Sri Lankanness. The logic of the designation 'Sri Lankan Thamil' is that there is also a Thamil ethnie in India as well. But why is it necessary to reference an external linkage for the description of an indigenous (internal) demographic phenomenon? After all, the Sinhalas are not identified as 'Sri Lankan Sinhalas' but simply as 'Sinhalas' although, ethnologically, the Sinhalas are also of 'Indian descent'. But for the Sinhalas, that external ethnic linkage is not inserted into the formal demographic naming of the Sinhala community, thereby giving the Sinhalas the exclusive direct ownership of 'Sri Lankanness'.
The logic of such official demographic nomenclature is one that then systematically erases all non-Sinhala identities from the official demography of the Sri Lankan nation-state. Again, the precise 'Sri Lankan Nation' is one that is purely 'Sinhala'. Everything else is a demographic add-on to the 'core' Sinhala identity of nationhood. This erasure of identities is, demographically speaking, the erasure of ethnic genera - hence, genocide.
In formal demographic terms, Sri Lankans of different ethnicities should, ideally, be described as Muslim Sri Lankan, Thamil Sri Lankan, Sinhala Sri Lankan (and so forth), rather than the current nomenclature which is Sri Lankan Thamil, Sri Lankan Muslim and (simply) Sinhala (and, significantly, not Sri Lankan Sinhalas).
Ethnic purity of nationhood
The insistence on 'Sinhala Only' in the politics of official language within a decade of freedom from colonialism is probably the next most significant genocidal action in terms of the established international definition of 'genocide'. 'Sinhala Only' was the explicit Sinhala nationalist political slogan that denied state recognition of the existence of other linguistic communities in the country, specifically, the Thamil. The enormous investment - in state politics, constitutional design and reform, in ethnic mobilisation and, in militarisation and counter-insurgency - to preserve this mono-linguistic State identity are all evidence of the huge importance and priority given to genocidal efforts to preserve the ethnic identity purity of the Sinhala State.
In the several, repeated, anti-Thamil pogroms by Sinhalas in the 1970s-80s period, a significant theme in the style of the pogrom attacks was the avoidance of plunder of the targetted 'enemy', namely, the Thamils, and the emphasis on eradication-destruction of Thamil life and property. Sinhala attackers were seen warning perpetrators not to plunder but to destroy (usually by burning/killing). In In fact, some Sinhalas who resorted to plunder and extortion against Thamils were harshly criticised by fellow Sinhala attackers for 'betraying the purity of the Sinhala cause' which was eradication of the Thamil 'menace' as against plunder.
What happened in the Vanni in 2008-9 was not 'genocide'!
The Vanni rhetoric
I am concerned about the way the term 'genocide' is being bandied about in Sri Lankan political discourses. The popular and political use of this term in Sri Lanka (or, by Sri Lankans) originated in public discourses largely during the military defeat stage of the Thamil Eelam secessionist war - i.e. 2008-9.
'Genocide' has been prominently used in popular discourse to describe large scale casualties of Thamil civilians that occurred in relation to state military offensives in the Vanni region in the final year of the Thamil Eelam War. This usage has resulted in the abuse of an already technically defined term for short term political purposes, namely its use (a) in public propaganda to curtail or halt the sustained state military offensives and, (b) subsequently, to further weaken Sri Lankan governmental credibility in the face of UN human rights scrutiny.
I am not, for a moment, questioning the validity of both 'a' and 'b' endeavours. They are perfectly reasonable, and desirable. It is the misuse of the technical term 'genocide' that concerns me. The use of 'genocide' for the above-mentioned purposes is, actually, a disservice to the cause of Sri Lankan Thamil rights/justice. The usage has been primarily and solely in relation to civilian war casualties occurring en mass, that is, in large groups in a single given episode of military action. The use of 'genocide' solely to describe mass killing in the Vanni war theatre in a single period - i.e. the military defeat stage - certainly helped sensationalise the tragic situation at the time. At the same time, such limited usage then limits the understanding of the nature of the continuous attempts to eradicate the collective identity that comprises the social-political-demographic phenomenon that is the Sri Lankan Thamil community.
'Genocide' practised down the ages
It is quite likely that the earliest Hominin (not just Homo Sapiens) tribal and clan formations carried out 'genocidal' action against neighbouring communities perceived as threatening their own ecological support area. These 'genocidal' actions would have been the destruction of hunting-gathering environments, physical elimination and expulsion of the targetted community from that region, Subsequent proto-polities and proto-states continued with that practice and many states have done so ever since. Some recent examples are the colonial enterprise of imperial states of Europe (including Russia in Asia). Modern nation-states have been prone to this genocidal behavior as well. The root seems to be a basic self-preservation instinct taken to an extreme logical action. In the context of an over-populated, geo-politically riven, planet and, military capacities for collective extinction, however, this logic is no longer tenable. Rather, negotiation AND ADAPTATION is the pragmatic way forward. And globalised structures are the means.
Despite these larger global-societal imperatives, the Sinhala-controlled Sri Lankan State has served as vehicle for the attempts of the Sinhala political elite to socio-culturally homogenize the Sri Lankan population as an ethnically exclusive 'Sinhala' population. As iconic Sinhala writer and ethno-centric culture ideologue Gunadasa Amarasekara (among many others) argues, the country's demographic evolution should follow a path of 'Sinhalisation' by the natural-organic ethnic absorption of other ethnic groups into the larger Sinhala population, thereby purifying the ethnic identity of the Sri Lankan nation as one that is holistically 'Sinhala'. This path of State-guided demographic engineering is a crucial element of the dominant ideology of what is explicitly defined as (a legitimate) 'Sinhala nationalism'. Amarasekara has long argued that, other than the Sinhala ethnic community, no other ethnic community has the legitimacy to assert any specific ethnic identity. He argues that only the Sinhala ethnic community has all the attributes that enables it to rightfully claim to be an actual ethnic group - a 'fully fledged ethnicity' (as he puts it). He argues that no other ethnic group in the country has all the necessary attributes to be able to call themselves as fully fledged ethnies. It is this ultra-nationalist discourse that I describe as 'Sinhala ethno-supremacism'.
'Genocide' in Sri Lanka
It is this ethno-centric demographic thesis that is the bedrock of Sinhala ethno-supremacism and its State-deployed genocidal tendency. According to this logic, the State (republic) of Sri Lanka, as the instrument of the political association of the island's (Sinhala) human community, has an underlying mission and goal of achieving ethno-cultural wholeness by absorbing (eradication) of all population groups into an ethnic singularity. A 'truly Sinhala Sri Lanka' is the fantasy. As a narrative that continues to enact a historical narrative (idealised in the Mahavansha) of asserting the dominance of Sinhala kingship over the whole island, modern Sinhala ethno-supremacism is a (mediocre) Sinhala fantasy of empire.
Inevitably, the genocide of other, non-Sinhala, Sri Lankan identities/communities is one aspect of the Sri Lankan State's (un-mentioned) mission. It is a goal constantly touted in political arguments, rhetoric, in modern, popular Sinhala historiography, in fiction (print, cinema, radio, poetry, lyrics).
This holistic understanding of genocide then enable the detailed identification of genocidal action in state policy and politics, in addition to the episodes of social and military violence. The early legislated designation of Hillcountry Thamils as 'stateless' non-citizens (demographically classified as 'Thamils of Indian Descent' as opposed to 'Sri Lankan Thamils'), must be seen as an early act of genocide.
The very designation of the larger Thamil community as 'Sri Lankan Thamil' is also an exclusionary demographic nomenclature that serves to distance the identity of Thamils from direct ownership of Sri Lankanness. The logic of the designation 'Sri Lankan Thamil' is that there is also a Thamil ethnie in India as well. But why is it necessary to reference an external linkage for the description of an indigenous (internal) demographic phenomenon? After all, the Sinhalas are not identified as 'Sri Lankan Sinhalas' but simply as 'Sinhalas' although, ethnologically, the Sinhalas are also of 'Indian descent'. But for the Sinhalas, that external ethnic linkage is not inserted into the formal demographic naming of the Sinhala community, thereby giving the Sinhalas the exclusive direct ownership of 'Sri Lankanness'.
The logic of such official demographic nomenclature is one that then systematically erases all non-Sinhala identities from the official demography of the Sri Lankan nation-state. Again, the precise 'Sri Lankan Nation' is one that is purely 'Sinhala'. Everything else is a demographic add-on to the 'core' Sinhala identity of nationhood. This erasure of identities is, demographically speaking, the erasure of ethnic genera - hence, genocide.
In formal demographic terms, Sri Lankans of different ethnicities should, ideally, be described as Muslim Sri Lankan, Thamil Sri Lankan, Sinhala Sri Lankan (and so forth), rather than the current nomenclature which is Sri Lankan Thamil, Sri Lankan Muslim and (simply) Sinhala (and, significantly, not Sri Lankan Sinhalas).
Ethnic purity of nationhood
The insistence on 'Sinhala Only' in the politics of official language within a decade of freedom from colonialism is probably the next most significant genocidal action in terms of the established international definition of 'genocide'. 'Sinhala Only' was the explicit Sinhala nationalist political slogan that denied state recognition of the existence of other linguistic communities in the country, specifically, the Thamil. The enormous investment - in state politics, constitutional design and reform, in ethnic mobilisation and, in militarisation and counter-insurgency - to preserve this mono-linguistic State identity are all evidence of the huge importance and priority given to genocidal efforts to preserve the ethnic identity purity of the Sinhala State.
In the several, repeated, anti-Thamil pogroms by Sinhalas in the 1970s-80s period, a significant theme in the style of the pogrom attacks was the avoidance of plunder of the targetted 'enemy', namely, the Thamils, and the emphasis on eradication-destruction of Thamil life and property. Sinhala attackers were seen warning perpetrators not to plunder but to destroy (usually by burning/killing). In In fact, some Sinhalas who resorted to plunder and extortion against Thamils were harshly criticised by fellow Sinhala attackers for 'betraying the purity of the Sinhala cause' which was eradication of the Thamil 'menace' as against plunder.
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