The Major Picture In Understanding Our Ethnic Conflict

By Laksiri Fernando -June 8, 2014 

Dr. Laksiri Fernando

One reason for our inability to understand, or understand fully, the ‘ethnic conflict’ in Sri Lanka may be our emotional involvement with the conflict one way or the other. This does not mean that the emotional dis-involvement could necessarily bring a proper understanding of the conflict. The reason is that apart from the emotional dis-involvement, it might require a certain amount of knowledge to understand the intricacies of the ethnic conflict. Ethnic conflicts undoubtedly are one of the most intricate problems in human society.

Emotional involvement is something that we acquire from our childhood or develop during our life experiences. It is circumstantial, nevertheless difficult to disentangle. By emotional involvement I do not however mean one’s appreciation or commitment to one’s own culture, language, religion, history or even the ‘group.’ What I particularly mean is the adversarial attitudes towards others’ culture, language, religion, history or group and condoning of the denial of others’ rights.

It is difficult to delineate what could bring ‘emotional dis-involvement’ in a precise manner. But it can be suggested that if one enlarges his or her knowledge on the subject that might even disentangle the emotional biases. Therefore, the second element is emphasized even to address the first element.

There are various ways of going about it. Dr. Rajasingham Narendran has discussed “Citizens, Nations and State” in a conceptual manner in his recent article. One might agree or not. That is not the point. It enhances our knowledge on the subject. More importantly, he has put forward his views and analyses in a non-polemical manner. That helps people to understand, engage and discuss in a non-emotional manner. That is however not completely the case judging by some of the responses to his article.                                          Read More