reconciliation – Voice With Purpose

Arousing Compassion

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 Natasha (De Silva) Palansuriya3 Comments

The events that took place in Sri Lanka in the past few days truly left me confounded – mostly sad, angry and helpless. Watching from a distance it felt surreal, all I could think of was why this keeps happening to us again and again. There was chaos on the streets of Kandy, a state of emergency, innocent people been attacked because of their race/religion. I was then inclined to write a blog post out of that disappointment, about the reasons we keep going back to communal conflicts, but of course the reasons are many. One explanation that is simple, yet complex at the same time, and which I keep coming back to in my readings again and again is the need for justice for what happened in the past. Conflicts have the potential to play itself out in different ways in the future. The violence and conflict that appear to be new is often historically informed and rooted in ongoing experiences of social marginalisation, political exclusion and economic exploitation.

Whilst this needs to be discussed, today I would like to specifically focus on the unity and solidarity of our people in the aftermath of this violence. Because right now I’m not writing from a place of disappointment, I’m writing from a place of deep appreciation for my country men and women. Continue reading “Arousing Compassion” →

Day of Solemn Remembrance

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 Natasha (De Silva) Palansuriya1 Comment

On a day like today, on the 7th anniversary of the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, I ask you:

“Who counts as human? Whose lives counts as lives? And finally, what makes for a grievable life?”

– Butler, 2004

This should be a day of solemn remembrance, not a day of celebrations. For how do we celebrate the many thousands of lives, all lives, that were lost during the 30 years of the conflict?

Yes we can remember the day we could breathe a sigh of relief that it was all over, but we should remember this day solemnly, not for the messy politics of the war, but for those lives that were lost, and for those families that carry that pain to this day.

I condone the move made by the government of Sri Lanka to call off ‘victory day celebrations’ and instead have a day of remembrance where we will remember this day respectfully. One more step towards reconciliation.

We are all just the same

May 17, 2016January 17, 2021 Natasha (De Silva) Palansuriya1 Comment

S moved to Canada when he was 6 years old. Growing up in Canada, he always imagined the Sinhalese person as ‘the other’, ‘the alien’, who had a different race, a different language, a different religion, and was just different in every way. It was when he started university that he came to the realisation that ‘we are all just the same’, when he met his Sinhalese friend.

They soon grew to be the greatest of friends – and he soon realised that he had more things in common with his Sinhalese friend even more than he had in common with his Tamil friend from India.

Just like most of us realise, when you put aside the race, the religion, the language, the political opinion and ideologies – beneath the surface we’re all the same.

We just need to remember that the conflict was not an ethnic one, it was a political one. Maybe then the tensions we have one a personal level would fade away.

Reconciling From Within

March 4, 2016January 17, 2021 Natasha (De Silva) Palansuriya1 Comment

Today I met a young man who has made a name for himself in Sri Lanka and done a lot to help the post-conflict situation and victims of the war. What inspired me most about his story was the painful and challenging journey he had to take to get to where he is today. In our discussion he reciprocated what many people I have spoken to have been saying: reconciliation should be a personal experience; reconciliation should start from within. So here is his story, and I hope it inspires you too.

R was born in Trincomalee, in the East of Sri Lanka. When he was about 5 years old his father was killed in war. His mother was left to take care of him and his older brother, who witnessed the killing of his father. His mother had no choice but to separate the two brothers, R was brought up in an orphanage in Trincomalee. When he was older, he was reconnected with his family, who moved to Colombo.

Continue reading “Reconciling From Within” →

Starting from the Personal

February 16, 2016January 17, 2021 Natasha (De Silva) Palansuriya2 Comments

Been on my fieldwork in Sri Lanka has inspired me to write a blog post about why I’m so interested in pursuing the topic of transitional justice and reconciliation for my PhD research project. In academia we seldom get to talk about our personal views, so this defining moment for me always gets stored at the back of my mind where the cobwebs live. But, so many people I met on a professional level have asked me, why? why reconciliation?

When I first moved to London, in 2012, and started my new job, a colleague, a young Sri Lankan Tamil gentleman (H) approached me and we started getting to know each other, moving on to the ‘where are you from originally’, we were both stunned to realise that we have something else in common; Sri Lanka. But there was also something else that could have stopped our friendship from growing; our perception of each others identities*.

As much as meeting a Tamil was not a big deal for me, for H it was the first time meeting someone Sinhalese at all; let alone having a proper conversation. However, what struck me was that, he had already created this image of a ‘Sinhala’ person from what he has heard all his life. This is common for most second generation Tamil’s living abroad (or broadly using the term Tamil diaspora). For him the Sinhalese were his enemy, they committed many atrocities to his family that forced them leave their motherland – and go through a dangerous journey to get to where they are now. Everything he learnt about the Sinhalese and Sri Lanka was still censored by LTTE propaganda. And whilst most of what he heard might be true, he had no idea about the horrific stories from the other side. This is also true for most of us who lived safely in the big city; we seldom heard the horrific stories from the conflict zones committed by this side.

H and I are now great friends, our friendship was coloured by the stories we told each other, and the knowledge we shed on each other, and the excitement in discovering the common things our cultures share. This may not be the case for everyone, there have certainly been people I encountered that was not open as H, and those that denied their Sri Lankan identity to me. However, the realisation I got was that, maybe this is where reconciliation starts. And I acknowledge that it might be easy for me to sit here and say let’s start from the personal when I did not have to see my family butchered in front of my eyes, or when I’m not the one still looking for answers. It may not be the same for a victim to personally reconcile with the perpetrator. I am completely aware of this. But this is where reconciliation has different levels – and these different levels need to come together at some point. But for now, shall we start here?

*When I use the term identities here, I mean both cultural and political; because in a context like Sri Lanka the political tends to be embedded in the cultural.

Should We Be Optimistic about Reconciliation in Sri Lanka?

July 1, 2015July 1, 2015 Natasha (De Silva) Palansuriya2 Comments

I was at the Public Dialogue on Peace and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka, today at SOAS University. I was interested in attending not only because it is on the topic I study, but because I was curious to hear what the two different parties expected from reconciliation, and what their vision of reconciliation is. The two parties that were represented was the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), who was represented by Mr. Kandia Sarveswaran and the government who was represented by Mr. Shiral Lakthilaka, who is the coordinating secretary to the President of Sri Lanka, and also a member of the United National Party (UNP).

I was hard hit by the fact that six years after the end of the war we are still at a premature stage of reconciliation. Reconciliation… a beautiful word, but one that hold so much of ambiguity in the context of Sri Lanka. So what does reconciliation mean to the two different parties?

Continue reading “Should We Be Optimistic about Reconciliation in Sri Lanka?” →