The big Sri Lanka story

By Dayan Jayatilleka

“The mark of a great leader is to take his society from where it is to where it has never been. ...Lee inspired his polyglot population to become the intellectual and technical center of the region...There is no better strategic leader in the world today. Two generations of American leaders have benefitted from his counsel”- Dr. Henry Kissinger on ‘Lee Kwan Yew, Singapore’s Master Strategist’ in ‘TIME: the 100 Most Influential People in the World’ (May 10, 2010)

(May 16, Singapore City, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Sri Lankan intelligentsia, ‘patriotic’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ seems to have overlooked one of the most important studies to have entered the public domain in recent times. The study I refer to has been conducted by the University of Liverpool under the direction of Dr Colin Irwin, entitled ‘War and Peace’ and the APRC Proposals1 - May 2010 (www.peacepolls.org). It tracks Sinhala, Tamil, Up-country Tamil and Muslim responses to the various key ideas of the All Parties’ Representatives Committee (APRC) package of proposals. The results are tracked in two waves, 2009 and March 2010. While I received the full study from a friend, the public must thank the Daily Mirror for serialising its most important findings. Public opinion is tested on the key proposition as summarised by the APRC and the study: power sharing between centre and provincial periphery, under a unitary system and based on the 13th amendment. Opinion is also tested on each of the proposed reforms on a diversity of matters ranging from language issues to the powers of parliament, as well as on the reforms taken as a bundle.

The poll isolates the main planks of the APRC platform and places them before the various communities. The results are truly historic. Though there are not insignificant variations between 2009 and 2010, and between the various communities on the various planks of the reform package, there is a remarkable convergence and consensus between all communities, in accepting the proposals as a whole as well as in its component parts. As Colin Irwin’s summary registers, probably for the first time there are almost equal levels of acceptance among Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, of reform proposals. What I consider most dramatic though, is the above 80% agreement between Sinhalese and Tamils on enhanced and streamlined power sharing with the provinces within a unitary framework. Folks, we have a saddle-point, a point of intersection between Sinhala and Tamil opinion – and more, a large area of intersection and commonality between the three sets of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim opinion on sensitive, emotive, controversial subjects.

This signifies nothing less than a historic breakthrough and opportunity, which is not vitiated by the variations in the responses. The variations are that the Sinhalese feel more confident in embracing reform now that the war is won, and trust President Rajapakse more than ever. They also cherish the privileged position of Buddhism more than ever and are least flexible on reforms on this score. The lack of trust in the President among the Upcountry Tamils is notable. However, none of the communities base their opinion on whether or not the President holds the same view i.e. do not accord the President a veto over their views. A minority of the Tamil minority – 15% in the Northern Province – constitute the hardcore disaffected, who wish to retain ‘the right to secession’.

These discrepancies notwithstanding, the high degree of agreement between the Sinhalese and Tamils have several implications which are quite decisive:

1. It gives the lie to the thesis of an intractable ethnic conflict; an ethnic zero-sum game.
2. It proves the existence of a moderate majority in each ethnic community.
3. It demonstrates the presence of an overwhelming majority, cross cutting ethnic lines, for moderate reforms based on devolution and power sharing, within a unitary state.
4. If the APRC proposals are accepted as the final settlement, President Rajapakse gives the lead, and the move is made without delay, the vast majority of the country will readily agree, and a decades-long problem can be resolved, enabling sustainable economic takeoff, the shift of world opinion in our favour and the defeat of externally based plots against us.



So, we have the evidence. If anyone thinks that a single survey does not make a stable national consensus, my reply is that this data should be matched with all available professional opinion surveys going back to 1997 (the first I can recall, conducted by Research International Pvt. Ltd). A computerised collation and tabulation would easily confirm that which I have said repeatedly: Sri Lankan paradox is that public opinion is moderate; there is a moderate centre space but no politicians or political parties to occupy it! What has changed today is that there is, thanks to Mahinda Rajapakse’s crushing military victory over the Tigers and Prof Tissa Vitharana’s untiring efforts at negotiation, a set of proposals which can garner, (and with this survey, has garnered in miniature prototype) a far broader consensus than ever before. This consensus can be the programme of ‘nation building’; the basis of a post-war cross ethnic ‘social contract’ and of a single overarching Sri Lankan identity, consciousness and nation.

Why then, the deafening silence of the lambs and the lions, the liberals and the ‘patriots’? It is because the data contradicts the assumptions of these antipodes. The cosmopolitan liberals hold that (a) ‘unitarist- centralist’ majoritarianism is structurally ingrained in the mass consciousness and (b) a solution is neither desirable nor possible within the unitary framework. How on earth they reconcile the first and second propositions is beyond my poor understanding of politics and political science. Perhaps their point is that it will take lots more donor dollars, foreign pressure, foreign travel and the indefinite retention of the First Couple –in-waiting at the helm of the UNP, to resolve this contradiction. Given the silliness of their prognoses -- a matter of published record -- of the last war, and earlier the CFA (and earlier still, CBK’s peace talks), I’m amazed anyone takes them seriously.

The Sinhala fundamentalist ideologues are of the firm convictions that (b) the overwhelming majority of Sinhala Buddhist are opposed to any form of devolution/power sharing and that (b) no devolution is possible within a unitary framework; any devolution would make the state a federal one.

The Sinhala ultranationalists reject the 13th amendment as a start-line, because it gives away too much. The Tamil ultranationalists and even the Tamil nationalists (see Mr Sambandan’s interview given to The Nation last Sunday) reject the 13th amendment as start-line because it gives too little.

The University of Liverpool data (coming atop and confirming also survey data of over a decade) gives the lie to all these near-identical assumptions or mutually reinforcing myths. It is possible to carve a space between hyper-centralist unitary and fully ethno-federal; the unitary need not be hyper centralist; a strong unitary state is perfectly compatible with significant devolution. This is surely the example of Indonesia, to mention an Asian example: a strong unitary state with a settlement based on autonomy at the periphery. The vast majority of Sinhalese and Tamils are willing to settle for precisely such an arrangement, and no other arrangement which either goes beyond or below, can secure such support. On this issue of political reform based on power sharing, the people of Sri Lanka are ready to tread a true Middle Path. As Colin Irwin notes, this is nothing like the degree of polarisation and intractability between communities one finds in the Middle East.

Instead of arbitrary and unilateral moves, all Constitutional amendments should be based on the APRC proposals reflecting as they do the broadest national consensus on comprehensive reform.

Neither the Rajapakse administration nor the ITAK/TNA has any more excuses. The solution is known and available. The time is now. The people are ready. But are the politicians?