The ABSTRACT of a refereed article in the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 6 December 2020, the authos being Malin Akebo & Sunil Bastian, whose chosen title is “Sri Lanka: Victory, Politics, and State Formation” ….
https://doi.org/10.1177/1542316620976121
In 2009, the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ended through a military victory for the government. Features of the postwar peace-including persistent militarization, strengthened nationalism, and communal violence-have commonly been attributed to a failed attempt at liberal peacebuilding followed by an authoritarian backlash. In contrast, this study shows how the postwar peace has been shaped by historical processes of state formation aimed at consolidating the Sri Lankan state. The article takes a long-term approach to analysing peace in Sri Lanka through the lens of state formation. The analysis centres on four key aspects: (1) postwar security, (2) state-minority relations, (3) socioeconomic aspects, and (4) electoral politics. We conclude that there are currently few signs of any substantial state reform that would accommodate the continuous demand for social justice and minority rights that has spurred violent conflicts in Sri Lanka.
Sowell’s analysis encapsulates the simplistic approach to the Sri Lankan ethnic problem favoured by western analyists, “Human-Rights” writers, and also by some academic writers of Sri Lankan origin. They put the whole blame on SWRD’s “opportunism”, his Sinhala Language policy, and single him out, whereas the seeds of the conflict had been sown much earlier [see Dr. Jane Russell’s book on Communal politics under the Donoughmore Constitution (1982)]. Populism in politics was fashionable in the 1930s in Europe and also in Sri Lanka (both SWRD and GG Ponnambalam had been labeled “pocket Hitlers” by their respective admiring followers, at a time when Hitler was viewed as a model of a politician who stood to support his ethnic group.