Long-term Peace and Muslims in the East
--S. Nanthikesan
"Society is a very mysterious animal with many faces
and hidden potentialities, and it is extremely short sighted to believe that the face society
happens to be presenting to you at a given moment is its only
true face. None of us knows all the potentialities that slumber
in the spirit of the population n
-- Vaclav Havel
“… we recognize the Muslims living in the North and the East
as our brothers and also the Tamil homeland is a part of their territory”.
-- Anton Balasingham
The above quote of Balasingham comes as a great relief in the
context of disconcerting anti-Muslim statements coming from the
Tamil leadership in the East. It is even more relieving to note
that finally, Muslims were able to negotiate a place in the talks,
not just as part of the government delegation. After all, until
these peace talks began, it was not unusual for the mainstream
to treat the ethnic conflict as a two-way conflict between Sinhalese
and Tamils. In this context, one is tempted to hope that the
statement by Mr. Balasingham is also a recognition that sustainable
solution should be based on equitable access to resources
and meanings by all communities in the North and East.
However, such optimism may be premature. I used the term “great
relief” in referring to the statement of Mr. Balasingham advisedly.
Once again, given the recent history of Tamil-Muslim hostilities
in the East and the political reality, this may be regarded as
a calibrated, down-to-earth pragmatic choice of words to reassure
his Muslim brethren. And I salute this effort wholeheartedly.
Having said that, I also feel that a close reading of the above
quote reveals that fundamental problems persist. No, I am not
even ambitious enough to scold the LTTE leadership on not including
Muslim sisters in their collective embrace! However, we do note
that the East for the Tamils is a part of their “homeland”, while
for the Muslims it is part of their “ territory”. Now “territory”,
as we all know is not exactly homeland. This asymmetry is one
of the sources of concern of everyone who is committed to sustainable
peace in the East in particular, and Sri Lanka in general. Tamils
themselves have been at the receiving end of asymmetry in the
form of sinhala-buddhist chauvanism.
Eliminating this contradiction among the needs and priorities
of all three ‘social formations’ is the task facing those interested
in sustainable peace in Sri Lanka. It is not an easy task and
there are no cook-book solutions or quick fixes. While peace efforts
are needed all over the country, I wish to focus on a single aspect
of the crisis - namely, the tension between Muslims and Tamils
in the East. It is an underemphasized aspect of our crisis that
has gained more attention recently. This choice should not convey
the message that the problems of the Muslims in other regions
of Sri Lanka are less important. For instance, in this issue
of Lines, Hasbullah points to the gravity of the problems
faced by displaced Muslims of the North; similarly, recent violence
in Maligawatha points to the continued vulnerability of the Muslims
in the South. However, I believe that attention to the complexities
of the problems facing the East will provide valuable lessons
for any and all steps towards sustainable peace in the country.
The objective of this scrutiny of the Tamil-Muslim relations
in the East, is to identify key registers in moving towards a
unifying and sustainable peace.
Before we speak of these registers, a preamble/disclaimer is
necessary. Clearly, all remedial steps will be enhanced by the
positive and successful outcome of the peace processes. The further
peace negotiations move away from being arrangements by and for
the political elites, the more relevant their outcomes will be
for long-term peace. The outcomes of an agreement to share political
power must translate to more meaningful access to political and
economic decision-making for ordinary peoples of all three communities.
In addition, I wish to emphasize that these remedial steps cannot
be reduced to outcomes of the peace talks. Rebuilding community
relationships is not just about decentralizing political and economic
decision-making. After three decades of civil war, we are well
aware that the ethnic struggles are not just over scarce material
resources but also about what it means to be a Tamil, a Muslim
and a Sinhalese – thus grassroots level activities to engage
with the attendant dissonances and resonances is a necessary complement.
With this preamble, we are ready to look at some key registers
that should be recognized in framing long-term peace building
strategies in the East, particularly strategies pertaining to
the Muslims and Tamils. We can identify at least three such
key registers:
i)
The scattered geographic distribution of Eastern Muslim
population.
ii)
Historically, segments of East Muslims and Tamils had
close ties - for example those involved in the agrarian sector.
The specificities of their mode of production created an inter-dependence
that made this relationship resilient. (it should noted that segments
of Muslims and Tamils in urban and suburban areas were also similarly
interdependent through their mode of living).
iii)
The social formation of Muslims is neither based on language,
nor purely on religion. Moreover, their specificity is partly
derived from their interaction with both ultra nationalisms of
the Tamils and Sinhalese. This aspect is not just specific to
the East, but applies to Muslims throughout the country.
I shall address each of these in turn.
(i) Geography and demographic distribution: Nearly a
third of the Muslims in Sri Lanka live in the East. They are
concentrated in pockets throughout the East (e.g. Kathankudy,
Eravur and Valaichenai in the Batticloa district; Mutur, Kinniya
and Thoppor in the Trincomalee District, etc), but their concentrations
are not contiguous. This is in contrast to, for instance, Tamils
in Jaffna district who occupy a numerical majority contiguously
through out the district. However for Muslims in the East, the
non-contiguous geographic distribution has made it difficult to
translate the numerical strength into collective political representation
and participation at the local level.
Given this demographic distribution, neat and easy answers in
the form of isolationism and independent administration will be
woefully inadequate for the whole of East (they may have limited
relevance in areas such as Amparai District where Muslims form
a numerical majority). The prospects of the peace process setting
up creative political and administrative experiments to address
this constraint seem remote. From the limited information coming
out, it appears that we are unable to imagine beyond borrowing
directly from the various existing constitutional/devolution models-
all of which are fundamentally predicated on territorial contiguity,
e.g. Canadian or Swiss model of federalism.
(ii) Inter-dependence: Prior to seventies, the Muslim
and Tamil communities in the East prior enjoyed good relations
as their livelihoods necessitated interdependence and did not
have significant overlapping spheres of competition. For instance,
those who were involved in agriculture and raising livestock had
to live far away from work places, and Tamils and Muslims worked
next to each other's lands and traveled together or commuted through
villages populated by the other community. This arrangement created
an interdependence that became the basis for a resilient relationship.
It is equally important to note that the situation was considerably
altered by the emergence of the open economy, and the export of
labor power, particularly, that of Muslim women (as pointed out
by Victor in his book Muslim Thesamum Ethirkalamum
(Muslim Nation and Future)). The repatriation from Muslim women
expatriate workforce coupled with an increased opportunities in
trading consumer goods, provided entrepreneurial opportunities
for a segment of Eastern Muslim men; it also released many men
from the need to work for a living.
This had a two fold impact: First, the increased opportunities
for trade led to sudden and visible affluence of segments of Muslim
population that became a source of resentment for Tamils who did
not, or were not in a position to utilize opportunities in similar
ways. Second, these conditions, while providing social mobility
for some, also produced the ascension of a new group whose mode
of living was not based on codependence with other communities.
Facing the brutal anti-Muslim activities of the Tamil militants
in the late eighties and early 90s, this new group became the
social basis for the militant formations within the Eastern Muslim
communities. At the same time, it is important to recognize,
substantial segments of Tamils and Muslims indigenous to the area
still have cordial relationship based on mutual dependence.
The intent here is not to insist on a romanticized bucolic life
as a way of enabling harmony or to shield this harmony from all
attempts at ‘modernization’. Rather, the need here is to
learn from those histories of mutually beneficial co-dependent
modes of production in order to encourage development alternatives
that strengthen and extend this form of co-dependence wherever
relevant/possible. This lesson should inform our decisions
in carving out administrative units that enhance an equitable
co-dependence versus those that induce separation; choosing economic
activities that enable vibrant partnership between communities
and not promote inequalities versus those that atomize the communities.
Decommunalization: Co-dependence becomes feasible and
desirable only when the basic security of both communities can
be assured. Here the third register of the sustainable peace
initiative becomes pertinent: namely, the need for decommunalization
of politics at the grassroots by addressing issues of perceived
and real inequalities in access to resources and meanings.
Muslim concerns are shaped, partly by the internal tensions and
conflicts, and by their interaction with the ultra nationalisms
of the Tamils (from Sir P. Ramanathan to the Valaichenai attacks
earlier this year) and Sinhalese (Anagarika Dharmapala to the
recent Kalubowila violence). The opportunism of Sinhala-Buddhist
chauvinism marginalized all non-Sinhala-Buddhist identities including
the Muslims; In addition, this chauvinism was also mobilized by
the State to turn Muslims and Tamils against each other- primarily
by according select concessions to segments of Muslim population,
and to form Muslim Home Guard units as a method of protecting
Muslims from Tamil militants. For Tamils, the linguistic basis
of their ethnicity prevented them from fully appreciating the
fact that Muslims are a distinct ‘social formation’ with diverging
interests. What we have learnt from sinhala chauvinism and anti-Muslim
Tamil chauvinism is that perceived inequalities and injustices
could become as much a material force as real injustices. This
then intensifies the political task ahead of us – not only do
we need to create conditions that diminishes existing inequalities,
but we also need to work towards changing the existing perceptions
of inequalities.
The peace efforts should incorporate multiple dimensions to build
back communities based on parity and equity. As such they would
range from rethinking the flags (Sri Lankan and LTTE) to imagining
new ways of decentralized participation in political and economic
participation. Riding on the wave of peace momentum, we should
not only look at the specific needs of communities in crisis,
but also if and how the lessons learnt in these situations could
be put to productive use elsewhere in the country to build a de-communalizing
participatory democratic culture.
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