It’s A South Asian Problem

The Lahore attack makes it clear that the Subcontinent must jointly take steps to end terrorism, says Sumathy Sivamohan

(March 12, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) When I switched on the television and heard the Breaking News about the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket players in Lahore, I asked the person next to me, is it the LTTE? Why do I say this? Everything for us, in this small place, is bounded and clarified by acts of the LTTE or the government. As it quickly dawned on me that it was probably not the LTTE, I thought of how acts of terror, horror, murder and mayhem continue to shock, even for us who have lived amidst it for so long.

At the same time, there was newness, a sad novelty about this act. Sri Lankan, and no other than its celebrated, cherished and beloved cricket team, had been the target, which the LTTE had never targeted here on Sri Lankan soil. The LTTE targeted only civilians, children, soldiers, and Tamil dissidents. Rather eager to please international powers, the LTTE targeted and murdered for the most part the most vulnerable sections of Sri Lankan communities.

What is meant by terror for us in Sri Lanka? We have and are still facing the terror of the LTTE, particularly the trapped people in the Vanni area, and the terror of President Rajapakse’s regime, its stranglehold on the media and its autocratic form of governance elsewhere. How do we, as members of civil society, contend with and confront the ugly face of terrorism? There is also the attendant terror of silence besieging us from everywhere else in society. What terrorises me more than anything else today, more than the war and the mayhem, more even than the horrendous human rights violations carried out by government agencies, is the attendant quietism of large sections of the middle class, intellectuals and activists. This is no doubt due to fear. But is there no way out?

For me, the question of struggle had hinged for a long time on the issue of justice. And in Sri Lanka, this idea of justice has to do with sharing power among regions and ethnicities (of course, bracketing out class and gender here among other things). Acting on these substantive issues might mean a way of working through the terror that is choking us out of all initiative and creativity, politically.

In terms of South Asia, if we cannot meet on the cricket grounds, there must be other ways of meeting, one that will be less terrifying and politically more meaningful. How can we work toward openness in speech and action, debate issues of power sharing, of women, of sexuality? There should be a debate on Sri Lanka and other South Asian countries (and, of course, beyond as well), in India and in other South Asian countries, and vice versa. There should be an internationalisation of issues that does not rely on patronage and power. The Internationalisation of the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict has been huge but, sadly, lopsided. It has in some ways done more damage to the Tamils and other minorities. We may all face terror at different times; it is a South Asian problem.

But this internationalisation, or South Asia-nisation of the problem should make us aware of the political situation in each country and its complexities. We should be able to learn from each other’s issues. That would be the most productive thing to do. Otherwise, how do we survive?

(Sivamohan is a Colombo-based political analyst) -Sri Lanka Guardian