Language and National Identity: The Sinhalese and Others over the Centuries

Michael Roberts, reprinting an article published in 2003 in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Summer 2003, 9: 75-102.**

 ABSTRACT: The collective identity of Sinhala-speakers over four centuries dating from the 1590s is analyzed with due attention to the structural form of (a) the Kingdom of Kandy and (b) the British colonial regime that took control of the whole island by 1815/18. The analysis dwells on the modes of oral, visual-iconic and written forms of cultural transmission that pre-dated print technology, while drawing attention to the relative uniformity of the Sinhala language in both geographical and temporal scale. A semantic pattern of political alliances based on the opposition of inside to outside which works contextually like a nestling Chinese-box is one dimension of this linguistic order. This supported the tendency of Sinhalese representations to adopt an associational logic which merged past enemies (the wicked Tamils) with contemporary enemies (the Portuguese, the English) during the liberation struggles of the Kandyan state and its militia in the pre-1818 period. Such tendencies and the continuation of disparaging epithets coined during the period of Portuguese imperial intrusion into the vocabulary of the twentieth century must inform any theoretical efforts to distinguish the collective consciousness of the Sinhalese after the substantial transformations initiated under the British from that which is expressed so powerfully in the war poems of the pre-British period.

Migrant Remittances drive “Asylum-Seeker” Out-Migration from Sri Lanka

Dinoo Kelleghan in The Weekend-Australian, 13 April 2013 where the title is Tamils flee for cash, not from harm … Dinoo Kelleghan is a former foreign editor of The Australian and was a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal from 1997-2004.

IN contrast to the weary boatloads of Sri Lankans making the dangerous asylum-shopping trip to Australia, millions of different shoppers are out in force here as the island prepares for Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations this weekend. This year, economists noted a change in the spending patterns – lower-income people are spending more freely than the better-paid shoppers in the capital, Colombo. The reason? The gushing torrents of remittances home from Sri Lankans who have gone abroad for employment, often making empty claims of persecution to leapfrog others who stand patiently in long queues outside Western embassies in Colombo to get a work visa.

Sahni slams Indian foreign policy at UNHCR sessions in Geneva

Ajai Sahni in article entitled “Ambivalence, Opportunism, Deceit”

 On March 21, 2013, at the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) a United States-sponsored resolution on Human Rights (HR) violation in Sri Lanka was adopted with 25 countries, including India, voting in favour of the resolution in the 47-nation body. While 13 countries voted against, eight member-states abstained from voting on the resolution. The resolution urged the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the Government’s National Action Plan (NAP), including the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) addressing outstanding issues related to reconciliation, and to meet its obligations for accountability. Earlier, on March 22, 2012, UNHRC had adopted a resolution urging Sri Lanka to investigate alleged abuses during the final phase of war with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with 24 votes in favour, 15 against and eight abstentions.

Stirring the Pot about Sri Lankan Asylum-Seekers

SEE a range of articles plus Emily Howie’s summary of previous news items

I: Surge Sri Lanka ‘payback’ … by Cameron Stewart & Paul Maley in The Australian, 2 February 2013

THE surge in asylum-seeker boats to Australia may have been quietly sanctioned at senior levels of the Sri Lankan government as a political payback for Australia’s attempts to make Colombo answer for alleged atrocities committed during its civil war. The theory has been discussed by Gillard government officials. It follows a widely asserted belief within the Australian government that a powerful Sri Lankan government official may be “complicit” in the people-smuggling trade and has facilitated the passage of dozens of boats to Australia during the past 10 months. The Australian yesterday revealed that the official is close to President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Gillard government has chosen not to confront the official, fearing that a confrontation could cause the official to step up his alleged people-smuggling activities and further undermine what has otherwise been good co-operation with members of the Sri Lankan government on people-smuggling.

Radhika and Nihal launch CPA’s THE REPUBLIC AT 40

The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice

SEE http://www.cpalanka.org/the-sri-lankan-republic-at-40-reflections-on-constitutional-history-theory-and-practice/

The Sri Lankan Republic at 40: Reflections on Constitutional History, Theory and Practice, a collection of scholarly essays edited by Asanga Welikala, Senior Researcher, Legal & Constitution Unit was launched at the 80 Club, 25, Independence Avenue, Colombo 07, on 21st December 2012.

CPA’s latest publication, in association with the F riedrich Naumann Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF), marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Sri Lankan Republic.

Speaking at the launch were its Editor as well as Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama and Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy.

The SDF for Jaffna: Female Empowerment and Bolstering Smallholders via Micro-Finance

Michael Roberts
The SDF should not be confused with the STF (Special Task Force). However, the Social Development Foundation does serve as an innovative pathfinder and remover of obstacles in the manner of special combat forces. They have been empowering smallholders and poor rural folk in the District of Jaffna through enterprising savings and microfinance activities for over a decade now. They have sponsored fifty savings clubs in recent times and have 4634 members, with an overwhelming majority (4103) being women.

Galle serves as hub in fight against Somali pirates

Sri Lanka’s southern port of Galle has become a hub in the fight against Somali pirates who threaten international merchant shipping, a report in a new magazine said. An increasing number of vessels are embarking and disembarking armed guards used for on board protection as they sail past Galle, located close to the main East-West shipping route across the Indian Ocean, Samuditha, a new magazine for entrepreneurs, reported. This opened up opportunities for companies providing supplies and services to shipping as well as ex-servicemen who make use of their combat experience to work as private security guards on merchant ships, it said.

A “Fun Game.” Illuminating Tales of Tamil Asylum-Seekers from Sri Lanka, Today… late 2012

Michael Roberts

 Pic from Christian Science Monitor

TALE ONE: A Sinhala friend working among fishing and farming families on the eastern coast had an assistant and got to know the latter’s sister’s history. The sister, PDA, had a degree and had worked for an NGO at one time. But her husband was an asylum-seeker in Australia, having left by boat in 2008. Since then, he has been in limbo, still awaiting permanent status. The circumstances under which he left four years ago remain unclear. PDA had tried to get to Australia by boat and failed because the boat was apprehended. Notwithstanding this failure, she had left her NGO job and tried once again, this time from Puttalam. She also refrained from making her plans known to family and friends, particularly those she most confided in.  Eventually, her second attempt too had come a cropper. At present, she holds a government job but is still focused on getting to Australia.

Jaffna and the North today: Jehan Perera’s visit

Jehan Perera, in the Island, 27 November 2012

The landscape in the more densely populated parts of the once war ravaged North is a rapidly changing one. The government’s focus on investing in physical infrastructure such as public buildings and roads is showing visible results. Suddenly the skeletal structures of buildings get filled out and transform the appearance of an entire area. When we passed the town of Kilinochchi, the onetime administrative capital of the LTTE, it was lighted up even though the hour was late in the night. It looked like a model town. The challenge for the government will be to make this external change an internal one as well, in which the people who meant to be the beneficiaries also rejoice in the transformation and feel that justice is being done to them.

Rajapaksa Dynasty’s Concentrated Power: Question Marks

CHINA POST where the title reads “Power concentration in Sri Lanka threatens economic possibilities”

From foreign hotel towers sprouting on Colombo’s seafront to the new motorcycles and mobile phones buzzing in war-ravaged Jaffna, at first glance, Sri Lanka seems to be living up to its claim as Asia’s latest frontier market. But private businesses are not investing enough, threatening the boom that has swept the island since the end of a long ethnic conflict, while President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family are tightening their grip on the economy and institutions with what critics see as an unusually personalized system of government. The global economy may be in poor shape, but with 17 percent growth since the war ended in 2009 and an eye-popping 200-percent rise in the stock market, investors should be flocking to Sri Lanka’s palm-fringed shores. Instead, even home-grown businesses are shy.