When speaking of reconciliation in practice, we must recognise that since marginalisation induces conflict, we must engage with marginalised communities in order to foster reconciliation. In the context of Sri Lanka however, the question seems like the wrong one.
Our country is ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, and our survival depends on equal treatment. Discrimination and violence against Tamils led to the civil war and displacement. After the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, the Government detained hundreds of Muslims without charge and turned a blind eye when mobs attacked Muslim homes and businesses. Today, media outlets spread rumours blaming Muslims for Covid-19, while the Government mandates a forced cremation policy that strips Muslims of their dignity in death. History repeats itself because we refuse to learn. Reconciliation is about learning from the past.
Over the years, numerous commissions of inquiry have been launched in the name of reconciliation. All the while, very few perpetrators of atrocities are held to account, and the ground realities do not change. As a result, reconciliation is a term that has made many of us in civil society very uneasy, even if it is the only politically viable way to currently brand our work.
Given our context of impunity and systemic inequality, the term “reconciliation” seems to tell affected people to forgive, reconcile, and move on without knowing the truth or receiving justice. As a victim of the Northern eviction who still cannot return home, I can forgive but not forget. Many others are the same – thousands of women who lost loved ones in the war, are struggling to find their disappeared, are trying to free those languishing in prison under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act (PTA) without charge, or are fighting for the return of their lands. Muslims today are being forced to cremate their loved ones against deeply held customs and religious beliefs. It is not only impossible, but deeply unjust to ask these women to forget and move on.
Sri Lanka’s policymakers often try to connect reconciliation to compensation and forgiveness. Here in Sri Lanka, they tie reconciliation to development dollars, promising new buildings and roads with little community input. Affected women reject these offers, arguing time and again that reconciliation is a long-term mission and needs political will. They want the State to acknowledge their plight and guarantee changes so that they can heal, gain confidence, and move forward. Only if there is truth, justice, reparation, and non-recurrence is reconciliation ever possible.
We had a front-row seat to demands made for reconciliation before the transitional justice Consultation Task Force (CTF). The previous United National Front-led Government set up a Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms to capture how people wanted to reconcile and move forward. I wonder how many have even seen the final report. The Task Force had over 60% female representation top to bottom and was headed by a veteran human rights activist and a senior lawyer Manouri Muttetuwegama. Women from all communities came forward to tell their stories of conflict, and the final report captures their deep, unhealed, and multiple wounds.
Here are four examples of their testimonies:
A Sinhala woman from Puttalam: “My brother disappeared in 1989 during the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna problem. My mother was distraught and died sick from worrying. He was the only breadwinner who was feeding the family. They abducted one but destroyed our whole family. My father died of grief and poverty too, and now I am going to die without knowing what happened to him. They killed all of us.”
A Tamil wife of a PTA detainee from Mullaitivu: “When you see us, you see people who are going about life, but we live with extreme pain in our hearts, unable to cry even in front of our children. We cry when we walk on the street and only when we are alone. We have to even hide our grief.”
A mother who lost her family members in the Vavunathivu murder: “Those people who looked for bodies also became bodies.”
A mother talking about the end of the war: “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam took two sons away from me. My only remaining daughter got injured in the war. I handed her over for treatment, but I do not know where she is. I have searched for her everywhere. I will die without knowing what happened to all my three children.”
Women appeared before the CTF to both share stories and offer recommendations. As we now know, women from all walks of life in Sri Lanka want the truth to be established, even if there may be multiple truths. They want the State to admit the root causes of conflict, hold perpetrators of atrocities to account, achieve equal rights, reframe narratives of conflict, guarantee non-recurrence, and enable victims to seek redress for violations while memorialising their losses. It is worth remembering today that the demands for truth, justice, memory, and nonrecurrence come from our people, not from the international community. Without these components, reconciliation is impossible.
Where the State is the one dividing communities and perpetuating injustices, it must address the traumas head-on to bring minorities back into the fold. Reconciliation requires a structural transformation of the relationship between the citizens and the State – we require a new system in which discrimination and violence no longer occur. In keeping with this spirit, we recently made a submission to the Constitutional Experts Committee describing how women visualise the nature of the State. To ensure a united and indivisible country, Sri Lanka must protect fundamental rights, uphold the rule of law, and ensure equal justice and peace. Keeping with its pluralist and inclusive nature, women must have over 50% representation in each post-war rebuilding structure, including electoral bodies.
Today, Muslims are the target of state-sponsored injustice. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, any rational government would want people to seek prompt medical care to control the virus. Our Government turned a blind eye to the rumours, blaming Muslims for the virus and to date implements a forced cremation policy against World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and the practice of 190 states. For Muslims, cremation is the desecration of the dead, and a tenth of our citizens are now terrified to seek medical care. Letters from WHO and United Nations officials have made no impact. The country’s eminent virologists and microbiologists have spoken loud and clear in support of safe burial.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court despite hearing submissions for two days, refused to grant leave to proceed and hear more fully the challenge to the cremation-only policy, leaving religious minorities with no remedy. Irrational policies that marginalise one ethnic group will create lasting divisions that cannot be easily forgotten.
For all who want to seriously think about reconciliation in this country, it is apt to conclude with a quote from Shafiya who is just 12 years old, to whom I spoke on 18 December 2020.
“We were told that my mum had Covid-19 and was cremated on 5 May 2020. That day, we were taken to the Kandakadu Quarantine Centre without a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) result. They gave a pot of my mum’s ash to my brother who lived away from our family. The next day, the doctor said that my mother’s PCR was negative and ours too, and they brought us back to our home. We were under lockdown for two-and-a-half months when the second wave of Covid-19 struck. My father somehow brought something to eat everyday but now he and my elder brother are taken for quarantine. I am looking after my two brothers while in house quarantine. Will they cremate my father and brother too? What will I do with the ashes?”
(The author is a Co-Founder of the Women’s Action Network)Reconciliation is learning from the past
01 Feb 2021
Reconciliation is learning from the past
01 Feb 2021
When speaking of reconciliation in practice, we must recognise that since marginalisation induces conflict, we must engage with marginalised communities in order to foster reconciliation. In the context of Sri Lanka however, the question seems like the wrong one.
Our country is ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, and our survival depends on equal treatment. Discrimination and violence against Tamils led to the civil war and displacement. After the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, the Government detained hundreds of Muslims without charge and turned a blind eye when mobs attacked Muslim homes and businesses. Today, media outlets spread rumours blaming Muslims for Covid-19, while the Government mandates a forced cremation policy that strips Muslims of their dignity in death. History repeats itself because we refuse to learn. Reconciliation is about learning from the past.
Over the years, numerous commissions of inquiry have been launched in the name of reconciliation. All the while, very few perpetrators of atrocities are held to account, and the ground realities do not change. As a result, reconciliation is a term that has made many of us in civil society very uneasy, even if it is the only politically viable way to currently brand our work.
Given our context of impunity and systemic inequality, the term “reconciliation” seems to tell affected people to forgive, reconcile, and move on without knowing the truth or receiving justice. As a victim of the Northern eviction who still cannot return home, I can forgive but not forget. Many others are the same – thousands of women who lost loved ones in the war, are struggling to find their disappeared, are trying to free those languishing in prison under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act (PTA) without charge, or are fighting for the return of their lands. Muslims today are being forced to cremate their loved ones against deeply held customs and religious beliefs. It is not only impossible, but deeply unjust to ask these women to forget and move on.
Sri Lanka’s policymakers often try to connect reconciliation to compensation and forgiveness. Here in Sri Lanka, they tie reconciliation to development dollars, promising new buildings and roads with little community input. Affected women reject these offers, arguing time and again that reconciliation is a long-term mission and needs political will. They want the State to acknowledge their plight and guarantee changes so that they can heal, gain confidence, and move forward. Only if there is truth, justice, reparation, and non-recurrence is reconciliation ever possible.
We had a front-row seat to demands made for reconciliation before the transitional justice Consultation Task Force (CTF). The previous United National Front-led Government set up a Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms to capture how people wanted to reconcile and move forward. I wonder how many have even seen the final report. The Task Force had over 60% female representation top to bottom and was headed by a veteran human rights activist and a senior lawyer Manouri Muttetuwegama. Women from all communities came forward to tell their stories of conflict, and the final report captures their deep, unhealed, and multiple wounds.
Here are four examples of their testimonies:
A Sinhala woman from Puttalam: “My brother disappeared in 1989 during the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna problem. My mother was distraught and died sick from worrying. He was the only breadwinner who was feeding the family. They abducted one but destroyed our whole family. My father died of grief and poverty too, and now I am going to die without knowing what happened to him. They killed all of us.”
A Tamil wife of a PTA detainee from Mullaitivu: “When you see us, you see people who are going about life, but we live with extreme pain in our hearts, unable to cry even in front of our children. We cry when we walk on the street and only when we are alone. We have to even hide our grief.”
A mother who lost her family members in the Vavunathivu murder: “Those people who looked for bodies also became bodies.”
A mother talking about the end of the war: “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam took two sons away from me. My only remaining daughter got injured in the war. I handed her over for treatment, but I do not know where she is. I have searched for her everywhere. I will die without knowing what happened to all my three children.”
Women appeared before the CTF to both share stories and offer recommendations. As we now know, women from all walks of life in Sri Lanka want the truth to be established, even if there may be multiple truths. They want the State to admit the root causes of conflict, hold perpetrators of atrocities to account, achieve equal rights, reframe narratives of conflict, guarantee non-recurrence, and enable victims to seek redress for violations while memorialising their losses. It is worth remembering today that the demands for truth, justice, memory, and nonrecurrence come from our people, not from the international community. Without these components, reconciliation is impossible.
Where the State is the one dividing communities and perpetuating injustices, it must address the traumas head-on to bring minorities back into the fold. Reconciliation requires a structural transformation of the relationship between the citizens and the State – we require a new system in which discrimination and violence no longer occur. In keeping with this spirit, we recently made a submission to the Constitutional Experts Committee describing how women visualise the nature of the State. To ensure a united and indivisible country, Sri Lanka must protect fundamental rights, uphold the rule of law, and ensure equal justice and peace. Keeping with its pluralist and inclusive nature, women must have over 50% representation in each post-war rebuilding structure, including electoral bodies.
Today, Muslims are the target of state-sponsored injustice. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, any rational government would want people to seek prompt medical care to control the virus. Our Government turned a blind eye to the rumours, blaming Muslims for the virus and to date implements a forced cremation policy against World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and the practice of 190 states. For Muslims, cremation is the desecration of the dead, and a tenth of our citizens are now terrified to seek medical care. Letters from WHO and United Nations officials have made no impact. The country’s eminent virologists and microbiologists have spoken loud and clear in support of safe burial.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court despite hearing submissions for two days, refused to grant leave to proceed and hear more fully the challenge to the cremation-only policy, leaving religious minorities with no remedy. Irrational policies that marginalise one ethnic group will create lasting divisions that cannot be easily forgotten.
For all who want to seriously think about reconciliation in this country, it is apt to conclude with a quote from Shafiya who is just 12 years old, to whom I spoke on 18 December 2020.
“We were told that my mum had Covid-19 and was cremated on 5 May 2020. That day, we were taken to the Kandakadu Quarantine Centre without a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) result. They gave a pot of my mum’s ash to my brother who lived away from our family. The next day, the doctor said that my mother’s PCR was negative and ours too, and they brought us back to our home. We were under lockdown for two-and-a-half months when the second wave of Covid-19 struck. My father somehow brought something to eat everyday but now he and my elder brother are taken for quarantine. I am looking after my two brothers while in house quarantine. Will they cremate my father and brother too? What will I do with the ashes?”
(The author is a Co-Founder of the Women’s Action Network)Kapruka
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Discover Kapruka, the leading online shopping platform in Sri Lanka, where you can conveniently send Gifts and Flowers to your loved ones for any event. Explore a wide range of popular Shopping Categories on Kapruka, including Toys, Groceries, Electronics, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Automobile, Mother and Baby Products, Clothing, and Fashion. Additionally, Kapruka offers unique online services like Money Remittance, Astrology, Medicine Delivery, and access to over 700 Top Brands. Also If you’re interested in selling with Kapruka, Partner Central by Kapruka is the best solution to start with. Moreover, through Kapruka Global Shop, you can also enjoy the convenience of purchasing products from renowned platforms like Amazon and eBay and have them delivered to Sri Lanka.Send love straight to their heart this Valentine's with our thoughtful gifts!