War & Domination By Other Means: Postwar Tourism In The East Coast

By Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham –June 28, 2015 

Dr. Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham

In one of the images that showcase the luxury and splendor that Anilana Hotel in Passikuda has to offer, we see a woman in a bikini. She could be a light skinned Sri Lankan or South Asian, or a well-tanned foreigner. Her cosmopolitan globalness makes her a universal sexual figure. She is lying back on a lounge chair, sun-glasses on, sex appeal on full blast, soaking it all in and looking in the direction of the camera. What caught my attention about this image is that her chair is not just by the beach, but actually in the water, so it looks like she is floating. Secondly, there is a Sri Lankan in the image (his identity seems another version of the global “local server”), in sarong and shirt, walking away after having served her. While many of the other images advertising the splendor of Passikuda show you only empty, pristine beaches, where all local populations have been cleansed from the landscape, in this image, he is allowed in as a visual fantasy of all that is on offer. We only see his back and a tray on his shoulder. He is diminished in size compared to the focus of the image on her. The message conveyed by these two bodies is telling of post-war development and tourism inPassikuda. Besides the simple fact that walking in the water with a sarong all the way down, having to hold on to a tray may be an arduous task, his retreating body suggests many other things. Perhaps he has offered her sex as one of the services he provides along with the drink? Perhaps this is the fantasy of the tourist industry there, to make all working class and poor Sri Lankans serve the local and global wealthy? Either way, his complete “upright” (pun intended) servicing of her and her post-serviced, on her back, ecstasy tells us a lot about neoliberal development in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.

Post-war Sri Lanka advertised “development” as a means to a lasting peace for minorities of the North and East. Such promises of peace and rights through development began as the GoSL allied with the break awayLTTE group, the Karuna faction, to regain control of the East from the LTTE. The push to consolidate the East for development, called “Eastern Re-Awakening” can only be a euphemism that hides the extra-ordinary violence that was necessary to consolidate the East under state control. Literally hundreds of Tamils died as the LTTE and the State fought to control the East. Peace in the East then has been delivered through violence and oppression, and is synonymous with violence rather than its opposite.

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