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| Sunday, 3 November 2002 |
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Neighbourhoods and nationhoods : Riots, social space and social peace Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA Commenting on the attack on a Muslim community function by Sinhala mobs in Maligawatta on Wednesday, a fellow journalist jokingly remarked that, now, the LTTE could ask Rauf Hakeem to explain why Muslims, who were demanding a separate devolved unit in the North-East for reasons of security, are not also demanding a separate unit in Maligawatta and Maradana and.....all those other places, such as Galle, where Muslims have suffered from communal attacks.
Stretching the joke further, we went through the list of places that dot the country where such anti-Muslim attacks have taken place (since 1915) and which would have to be included in the "non-contiguous" administrative unit similar to that which some North-Eastern Muslim leaders are calling for. Of course both of us, being journalists acutely sensitive to the ethnic conflict (there are many journalists who aren't), were well aware that, while our extended 'joke' was all too 'real', that social-political-demographic reality was a complex one and reflected the dilemmas of basing an entity of political community purely on ethnic lines. In short, what could be good for the North-Eastern Muslim community may not be good for Muslims in the rest of the country. Territorial demarcations that may have to be made in the North and East simply because the North-East itself amounts to a larger ethnic demarcation enforced as a result of a Tamil nationalist response to Sinhala State hegemonism would have to be made on the basis of ethnic demography. But the ethnic basis of this demarcation is also because of the recent historical experience of the ethnic war, and not merely to do with sporadic mob violence over the decades as has happened in rest of the country. Unlike their sisters and brothers in rest of the country, the Muslims of the North-East have two specificities: not only are they socio-culturally linked to their Tamil neighbours, but they have ended up politico-military victims as well as politico-military rivals, as a result of the ethnic war between the Sinhala State and the Tamil movement for self-determination. The Eastern Muslims were given arms by a manipulative Sinhala State to fight the Tamil insurgency while the Northern Muslims suffered ethnic cleansing at the hands of the LTTE as part of its insurgent strategy. Just as the United States and its Western allies armed and fed the extremist Islamic guerrillas in Afghanistan, armed and fed Saddam Hussein against Iran, and continue to arm expansionist Israel on one side and repressive West Asian kingdoms (like Saudi Arabia) on the other, so did the Sri Lankan State arm several mushroom so-called 'jehadi' groups in the East against the Tamil insurgency in the 1980s. The Eastern Muslims, of course, suffered the consequences in Tamil militant reprisals. Thus, the fear, enmity and suspicion between Tamils and Muslims in the North-East are as severe as the fear, enmity and suspicion between Sinhalas and Tamils at national level. But the enmity and suspicion between Sinhalas and Muslims has not reached that degree of intensity - yet. That lack of course, can be remedied, if what happened in Maligawatta last week is multiplied and intensified. Only Sinhala extremists and Muslim extremists or, angry Sinhala and Muslim mobs, might do that. It is only then that the issue of community security could become as significant as it is in the North-East and could justify the search for 'secure' administrative units outside the North-East. That, as all Sri Lankans who know our national demography will realise, will be the recipe for complete disintegration of any social, let alone, 'national' integrity on this island. It would be a recipe for disaster (if disaster could be any worse than it is now). In the North-East there are large enough ethnic-territorial areas that could be contiguous administrative units (justified by that community enmity pointed out above) which, in turn, could be brought together with other ethnically similar units to form a 'non-contiguous' Muslim unit - if that is, indeed, really necessary. Hopefully, the Tamil political leadership (not just those 'sole representatives') will have learnt enough from their own experience of struggle against ethnic majority oppression. They face the challenge to frame their emerging regional polity in a manner that will ensure adequate Muslim representation as well as socio-economic security for both Muslim as well Sinhala minority communities that would remain within the Tamil polity. That is the challenge the larger Sri Lankan State must also tackle now, before things worsen to the degree that 'separate units' become a necessity for reasons of social security. This challenge, as even those examining the dynamics in the East have realised, is not merely a question of combating ethnic extremism or ultra-nationalism at a political level and re-fashioning political and administrative structures at national and regional levels. There is the immediate problem of social peace to be tackled, as Maligawatta showed last week, and several incidents in the East earlier this year also showed. The attack on a Muslim community function by Sinhala mobs in Maligawatta is clear enough an action of ethnic hatred, if the actions by Sinhala mobs in 1983 and all previous Sinhala communal rampages has not made it clear already. Will Maligawatta be Sri Lanka's own 'mini-Ayodhya'? If one follows the logic of Sinhala ultra-nationalism, it should. Fortunately, what happened in Maligawatta on Wednesday and, later, in neighbouring precincts like Dematagoda and Maradana, are more the actions of merely the urban poor motivated by problems of living space, rather than the actions of ultra-nationalist groups motivated by jaathiaalaya and aspirations of domination of territory on a 'national' scale. Compelled by social class-based urban zoning to live in horrendously cramped and under-facilitated conditions, people in places like Maligawatta and Dematagoda live in multi-cultural communities just as much as the entire population of Colombo does. But people in the middle and upper class 'residential' areas, such as Wellawatta, Bambalapitiya , Cinnamon Gardens, Havelock Town, or even upwardly mobile, lower middle class Bloemendahl, have far more physical space in which to live and practise their cultural life than people in the slums and shanty towns of Dematagoda, Maligawatta and elsewhere. Thus, for those in such difficult urban living conditions, territory or, living space, is a matter of physical survival in addition to their larger constructions of ethnic identity and 'national' space. Since socio-economic poverty, anyway provides reasons for social rivalry and enmity within these neighbourhoods, the tensions that arise due to the ethnic complexity are only added fuel to an already existing fire. These ethnically compressed neighbourhoods are a veritable hothouse of the struggle for ethnic space that is being articulated in war at national and regional level. No wonder then that a court ruling in favour of the setting up of a Muslim religious school only serves to drive the ethnic group that sees itself as nationally 'dominant' (whether they should perceive themselves in that way is another matter) to more desperate measures to ensure their ethnic social space in an already cramped, ethnically compressed neighbourhood. More dangerous is the nexus between the dynamic of ethnically compressed neighbourhoods and national-level and regional-level ultra-nationalism and ethnic hegemonism. That is the motor that spreads a clash between ethnic groups in a single neighbourhood to the larger area and to similarly ethnically compressed neighbourhoods in other parts of the country. Riots in response to the incident in Maligawatta is far more likely to happen first in slums elsewhere than in 'residential' areas. The irony is that extra-neighbourhood social mobilisation on ethnic grounds is usually led by people who live in the 'residential' areas and who engage in a similar but larger contest for politico-social space and territory at a national level. Thus, while the effort to resolve the larger nationalist contest for territory is on in Thailand and elsewhere, there is an urgent need to engage with the problem at neighbourhood level. Urban planning and economics (especially the link between social class and urban zoning) must also be addressed, but that is the long term solution. More practical right now would be mechanisms and programmes that address problems of social space and social peace on the ground not only in the 'inner cities' of Colombo and other urban centres, but also among small rural communities. While peace committees are an urgent need at neighbourhood level, short term urban development and micro-planning work is equally important. That is how both neighbourliness as well as nationhood may be built in the aftermath of ethnic war. |
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