I went to Sri Lanka in the summer of 2005 to do an internship at a small local NGO for 2 months. After the trip, I wrote a really long essay on my trip. I have always wanted to edit it and share with friends but never had time to. I figured that if I were to share it with you guys, it would be now or never.
So here it is, enjoy!
Note: there are about 9 parts in total. Some are more interesting than others. You don't need to read every parts to understand. The first part is just an introduction of the conflict in Sri Lanka in case you don't know. The information is from 2005 so it might be out of date.
“Sri Lanka: manmade and natural disaster on a beautiful island”
The very first day I arrived in Sri Lanka for my internship, Kassapa, who would be my site supervisor for the summer warned me “The experience you have might be completely different to that of Lisa’s” when he picked me up from the airport in Colombo. Well, I chose Sri Lanka as the destination for my Ethics and Coexistence Fellowship purely from hearing Lisa described what a “wonderful” time she had there, assuming I would have the same wonderful experience. I was bewildered why Kassapa had to give me such early warnings and didn’t really understand what he meant until I started to experience my own version of Sri Lanka. My experience of Sri Lanka was indeed very different from that of Lisa’s. But it was still “wonderful”.
Welcome to Paradise
Welcome to Sri Lanka, the “resplendent island” in the Indian Ocean famous its beautiful beaches and six world heritage sites. Sri Lanka is such a small island that when describing it, people often have to mention “the tiny island next to India”. Little is known to the world that Sri Lanka is also home to a decades-long bloody civil war since 1983. Some consider the civil war as the Tamil’s struggle for equal rights, power and self-government but others think this is just a war against terrorism. The conflict has not ended, yet 65, 000 of people have died as a result and another 1, 116, 000 were displaced. To understand this war, let’s take a look at the history of Sri Lanka. The story started with the two main ethnic groups called Sinhalese and Tamils who have been living in Sri Lanka since the 6th century BC.
The Sinhalese from Northern India arrived in Sri Lanka in the 6th century BC and adopted Buddhism as their main religion. The Tamils originated from a South Indian dynasty that occupied the North of Sri Lanka and created a separate Tamil Kingdom. Their main religion was Hinduism. As is often the case for conflicts, the civil war in Sri Lanka has its root in the colonial times. The colonials introduced Christianity to Sri Lanka, giving birth to a group of Tamil Christians and Sinhalese Christians. Arab merchants who settled on the island formed a minority Muslim group. The island became colony of the Portuguese in the 16th century and the Dutch in the 17th century. It then became a British colony in the 18th century and was named Ceylon. The British united the 74% mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority with the 18% mostly Hindu Tamil minority. However, to prevent Tamils and Sinhalese from coming together to overthrow the colonial regime, the British rulers had a smart strategy. They favored the Tamil minority, gave them better education opportunities and higher positions in the government. This created great anger among the majority Sinhalese people who felt that they were being treated unfairly.
Soon after independence in 1948, the majority Sinhalese saw their opportunity to claim the power and rights that had been taken away from them under British rule, so they imposed many laws against Tamils. One such law, known as “Sinhala only”, passed in 1956, made Sinhala the official language of Sri Lanka. Many nationalist movements also organized riots against Tamils at the same time. Following passage of this law, the Tamils felt oppressed by the Sinhalese community. In reaction to the unpleasant experience of being treated as second-class citizens all of a sudden, the Tamils fought back. Fighting broke out between the two groups frequently but officially broke out into a civil war in 1983 when the biggest anti-Tamil riots took place. Political unrest led to the formation of numerous political parties from both ethnic groups, many of which became militarized. Nowadays, Parties led by Sinhalese elites, such as the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United Nation Party have often been in control of the Sri Lankan government. The extreme nationalist People’s Liberation Front (JVP) and other Buddhist priesthood parties also play an important role in Sri Lankan politics. The Tamil nationalists formed their own parties one of which is the Liberation Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). This political and a military organization now unofficially controls part of the Northeast area. The LTTE has been listed as a terrorist group by the US and many countries due to its history of terrorism and violence.
Many peace talks and treaties have been signed between the government and the LTTE leading to some ceasefire agreements but the peace process still seems fragile with unexpected bombings and attacks from each group. The Northeast area of Sri Lanka is currently under a ceasefire contract negotiated by the Norwegian government. However, formal peace talks between the government and the LTTE were broken off in April 2003 and are yet to be resumed.The economy of Sri Lanka has suffered greatly from this bloody war. Sri Lanka saw a decrease of 40-50% in its GDP. Riots, demonstrations and assassinations are so common that after living here for a while, one becomes immune to those incidents and sadly, sometimes turns indifferent. On November 18th, 2005, Mahinda Rajapakse, former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was elected the new President to replace President Kumaratunga after she ended her two terms in office. It is said that during the election, Mr Rajapakse has gained support from the JVP and the JHU (a right wing Buddhist monk party) by agreeing that he will abandon peace talks and the Joint Mechanism agreement to share aid with the LTTE. However, after taking office, the new President has expressed that it is his top priority to resolve the bloody civil war and review peace talks with the LTTE. If so, awaits him is the huge task of resolving the bloody civil war. The future of Sri Lanka is still to be determined.
Despite the prolonged war, many foreigners have been to Sri Lanka and fallen in love with the magnificent island. One of them was acclaimed photographer Paula Harris who described Sri Lanka as “fractured paradise.” I was about to be another innocent person to fall for its charm.
(to be continued...)
So here it is, enjoy!
Note: there are about 9 parts in total. Some are more interesting than others. You don't need to read every parts to understand. The first part is just an introduction of the conflict in Sri Lanka in case you don't know. The information is from 2005 so it might be out of date.
“Sri Lanka: manmade and natural disaster on a beautiful island”
The very first day I arrived in Sri Lanka for my internship, Kassapa, who would be my site supervisor for the summer warned me “The experience you have might be completely different to that of Lisa’s” when he picked me up from the airport in Colombo. Well, I chose Sri Lanka as the destination for my Ethics and Coexistence Fellowship purely from hearing Lisa described what a “wonderful” time she had there, assuming I would have the same wonderful experience. I was bewildered why Kassapa had to give me such early warnings and didn’t really understand what he meant until I started to experience my own version of Sri Lanka. My experience of Sri Lanka was indeed very different from that of Lisa’s. But it was still “wonderful”.
Welcome to Paradise
Welcome to Sri Lanka, the “resplendent island” in the Indian Ocean famous its beautiful beaches and six world heritage sites. Sri Lanka is such a small island that when describing it, people often have to mention “the tiny island next to India”. Little is known to the world that Sri Lanka is also home to a decades-long bloody civil war since 1983. Some consider the civil war as the Tamil’s struggle for equal rights, power and self-government but others think this is just a war against terrorism. The conflict has not ended, yet 65, 000 of people have died as a result and another 1, 116, 000 were displaced. To understand this war, let’s take a look at the history of Sri Lanka. The story started with the two main ethnic groups called Sinhalese and Tamils who have been living in Sri Lanka since the 6th century BC.
The Sinhalese from Northern India arrived in Sri Lanka in the 6th century BC and adopted Buddhism as their main religion. The Tamils originated from a South Indian dynasty that occupied the North of Sri Lanka and created a separate Tamil Kingdom. Their main religion was Hinduism. As is often the case for conflicts, the civil war in Sri Lanka has its root in the colonial times. The colonials introduced Christianity to Sri Lanka, giving birth to a group of Tamil Christians and Sinhalese Christians. Arab merchants who settled on the island formed a minority Muslim group. The island became colony of the Portuguese in the 16th century and the Dutch in the 17th century. It then became a British colony in the 18th century and was named Ceylon. The British united the 74% mostly Buddhist Sinhalese majority with the 18% mostly Hindu Tamil minority. However, to prevent Tamils and Sinhalese from coming together to overthrow the colonial regime, the British rulers had a smart strategy. They favored the Tamil minority, gave them better education opportunities and higher positions in the government. This created great anger among the majority Sinhalese people who felt that they were being treated unfairly.
Soon after independence in 1948, the majority Sinhalese saw their opportunity to claim the power and rights that had been taken away from them under British rule, so they imposed many laws against Tamils. One such law, known as “Sinhala only”, passed in 1956, made Sinhala the official language of Sri Lanka. Many nationalist movements also organized riots against Tamils at the same time. Following passage of this law, the Tamils felt oppressed by the Sinhalese community. In reaction to the unpleasant experience of being treated as second-class citizens all of a sudden, the Tamils fought back. Fighting broke out between the two groups frequently but officially broke out into a civil war in 1983 when the biggest anti-Tamil riots took place. Political unrest led to the formation of numerous political parties from both ethnic groups, many of which became militarized. Nowadays, Parties led by Sinhalese elites, such as the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United Nation Party have often been in control of the Sri Lankan government. The extreme nationalist People’s Liberation Front (JVP) and other Buddhist priesthood parties also play an important role in Sri Lankan politics. The Tamil nationalists formed their own parties one of which is the Liberation Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). This political and a military organization now unofficially controls part of the Northeast area. The LTTE has been listed as a terrorist group by the US and many countries due to its history of terrorism and violence.
Many peace talks and treaties have been signed between the government and the LTTE leading to some ceasefire agreements but the peace process still seems fragile with unexpected bombings and attacks from each group. The Northeast area of Sri Lanka is currently under a ceasefire contract negotiated by the Norwegian government. However, formal peace talks between the government and the LTTE were broken off in April 2003 and are yet to be resumed.The economy of Sri Lanka has suffered greatly from this bloody war. Sri Lanka saw a decrease of 40-50% in its GDP. Riots, demonstrations and assassinations are so common that after living here for a while, one becomes immune to those incidents and sadly, sometimes turns indifferent. On November 18th, 2005, Mahinda Rajapakse, former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka was elected the new President to replace President Kumaratunga after she ended her two terms in office. It is said that during the election, Mr Rajapakse has gained support from the JVP and the JHU (a right wing Buddhist monk party) by agreeing that he will abandon peace talks and the Joint Mechanism agreement to share aid with the LTTE. However, after taking office, the new President has expressed that it is his top priority to resolve the bloody civil war and review peace talks with the LTTE. If so, awaits him is the huge task of resolving the bloody civil war. The future of Sri Lanka is still to be determined.
Despite the prolonged war, many foreigners have been to Sri Lanka and fallen in love with the magnificent island. One of them was acclaimed photographer Paula Harris who described Sri Lanka as “fractured paradise.” I was about to be another innocent person to fall for its charm.
(to be continued...)
Disclaimer: My blog is for entertainment purposes only, please do not take it seriously or personally. Thank you!
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