Understanding the National Question as a Pre-Democratic Problem: A Skeptical Note on the Southern Reform agenda

Photo by AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena, via FT.com

by Kumaravadivel Guruparan 

- on 05/24/2014

Five years after the end of the war, the Government has now started arguing that the war is not over. The Government doesn’t think the LTTE is finished. Even US and India seem to think that sections of the Tamil Diaspora are raising funds for a possible regroup (or this might be just their inventing of a reason to continue the ban on the LTTE). For the first few years after May 2009, the claim to have won the war was important for the Government to cash in on the political benefits of the victory. Now to make the claim that the war is not entirely over is necessary for the Government to silence and dampen voices and interventions demanding accountability and justice but also more importantly Tamil self-determination. The more immediate purpose is to use the regroup argument to keep the Tamil threat to Sri Lankan state’s territorial integrity alive; through such a discourse to keep the whole country in a ‘national security’ mood and to keep the Government afloat.

Understanding the National Question as a Pre-Democratic Problem a Skeptical Note on the Southern Reform Age... by nelvely