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rfmcdonaldJeremy Page's article in the Times, "Archaeology sparks new conflict between Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese", provides a sterling example of how ancient history helps inspire modern-day ethnic conflict. First, the set-up.
In any number of ethnic conflicts, one ethnicity's nationalists has tried to undermine the rights of another ethnicity to independence, or even to exist, by claiming that history vindicates their right to dominate a disputed territory. Jewish nationalists claim that the documented history of Jews in Palestine nullifies the rights of Palestinian Arabs to a homeland; Serb nationalists claim that the existence of a medieval Serbian empire in Kosovo means that Kosovar Albanians don't have a right to autonomy; some post-war German nationalists claimed that, despite the mass population displacements following the Second World War and the Cold War, Germany had a right to Silesia and Poland. So it is in Sri Lankan circa 2010.
Sinhala nationalism, as the International Crisis Group noted in 2007, has grown, arguably to dominate Sri Lankan public life. This might be the culmination of what Michael Roberts wrote about in his essay, the appropriation of the language of Sri Lanka's past by Sinhalese nationalists. If, as Page suggests, the Sri Lankan state is defining the island's past as Sinhala and the Tamils as--let's hope something like this world will be used--latecomers, it'll be easy enough to define Sri Lanka as basically as a Sinhalese nation-state as opposed to a bicommunal one, with Sri Lankan Tamils treated no as partners but rather as an aggregate of individuals, people who might share a culture somewhat different from the Sri Lankan norm but basically dependent on the good will of the neutrally Sinhalese Sri Lankan state. Why, history proves that this should be the case!
Recent visitors to Kilinochchi, the former capital of the Tamil Tigers, had noticed something unusual — there was a single, new building standing among the bombed-out ruins of the abandoned city in northern Sri Lanka.
It was a whitewashed Buddhist shrine, strewn with flowers. “We thought it strange because there was no one there except soldiers — the civilians had all fled,” one of the visitors said.
Officers told them that the shrine had been damaged by the Tigers and renovated by the army — recruited largely from the Sinhalese Buddhist majority — after the rebels’ defeat a year ago next month. “It’s an ancient site,” Major-General Prasad Samarasinghe, the chief military spokesman, told The Times.
Many Tamil archaeologists, historians and politicians disagree. They say that the area had been populated for centuries by the ethnic Tamil minority, which is mostly Hindu. “There was nothing there at all,” Karthigesu Sivathamby, a retired professor of Tamil history and literature at the University of Jaffna, said.
In any number of ethnic conflicts, one ethnicity's nationalists has tried to undermine the rights of another ethnicity to independence, or even to exist, by claiming that history vindicates their right to dominate a disputed territory. Jewish nationalists claim that the documented history of Jews in Palestine nullifies the rights of Palestinian Arabs to a homeland; Serb nationalists claim that the existence of a medieval Serbian empire in Kosovo means that Kosovar Albanians don't have a right to autonomy; some post-war German nationalists claimed that, despite the mass population displacements following the Second World War and the Cold War, Germany had a right to Silesia and Poland. So it is in Sri Lankan circa 2010.
The true origins of the site may never be known without independent analysis — which is impossible while the army restricts access to the area. Many Tamil community leaders fear that the shrine is part of a plan to “rediscover” Buddhist sites and settle thousands of Sinhalese across the north to undermine the Tamils’ claim to an ethnic homeland.
When the British took control of the country in 1815, they were unsure of its ancient history but soon embraced the legend of the Mahavamsa — a text written by Buddhist monks in about AD500.
It suggests that the Sinhalese are descended from Prince Vijaya, an Aryan prince exiled from northern India in about 500BC, and that Tamils did not migrate from southern India until 200 years later.
That theory — still taught in schools — underpins the Sinhalese chauvinism that ultimately drove the Tigers to launch their armed struggle for an independent homeland in 1983.
In fact, archaeologists had discredited that after independence by excavating settlements in the north that dated from long before 500BC and showed similarities to sites in southern India — suggesting a much earlier migration.
When the conflict began, they were forced to suspend excavations and many Tamil archaeologists fled into exile overseas.
Sinhala nationalism, as the International Crisis Group noted in 2007, has grown, arguably to dominate Sri Lankan public life. This might be the culmination of what Michael Roberts wrote about in his essay, the appropriation of the language of Sri Lanka's past by Sinhalese nationalists. If, as Page suggests, the Sri Lankan state is defining the island's past as Sinhala and the Tamils as--let's hope something like this world will be used--latecomers, it'll be easy enough to define Sri Lanka as basically as a Sinhalese nation-state as opposed to a bicommunal one, with Sri Lankan Tamils treated no as partners but rather as an aggregate of individuals, people who might share a culture somewhat different from the Sri Lankan norm but basically dependent on the good will of the neutrally Sinhalese Sri Lankan state. Why, history proves that this should be the case!
