March 12, 2004
TOO MANY CHIEFS:
The obstruction to Sri Lanka's evolution (GEORGE SIORIS, 3/13/04, The Japan Times)
The continuous conflict between Sri Lanka's two main leaders has been covered from nearly every angle. What have been largely ignored, though, are the complications and contradictions arising on that beautiful island from a political system of "cohabitation." At present, public opinion is divided between adherents of the president and the prime minister. Arguments and counter-arguments abound on both sides. [...]When I first met the former late President Junius Jayawardene, the architect of the island's Constitution, in Colombo way back in the 1980s, I was struck by his political acumen and the powerful figure he cut as a consummate, clever, able, experienced and shrewd politician. Maybe his reasons for placing immense power in the hands of the nation's president were valid in those years, but they have long exhausted their purpose.
Under Jayawardene's political philosophy, a strong presidential system had to prevail over the previous Westminster style of governance, and he reserved for himself a monopoly of power similar to that enjoyed by an American president. While the opposition party was torn apart by factionalism, he was virtually unopposed as the country's top symbol and the top executive.
Armed with all key powers, Jayawardene managed to score some points on the perennial Tamil problem by offering concessions for the Tamil language, abrogating the "standardization" policy of the previous government -- which largely prevented young Tamils from studying at university -- and opening top positions to Tamil civil servants. But it should not be forgotten that the author of the 1978 constitution greatly benefited from the leadership vacuum around him.
In political terms, cohabitation is rather dangerous, often presenting the image of a "trap" rather than harmony and balance. If the prime minister and president come from the same political party, cohabitation can eventually yield positive results. But if they are from different political groups, cohabitation can be a recipe for imbalance, strife and turmoil. This is, unfortunately, the case today in Sri Lanka, even more exacerbated by the fact that both the president and prime minister are dynamic, stubborn and charismatic.
Who in their right mind would adopt the French model? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 12, 2004 6:44 PM
Sri Lanka is an interesting case: they have a civil war that was triggered by affirmative action.
In short, the ethnic Ceylonese long discriminated against the ethnic Tamils, by preventing them from owning the best farmland, etc. The Tamils responded by becoming more educated, and quality of education became a better ticket to wealth than quality of farmland. The Ceylonese responded by putting restrictive quotas on university admissions, to ensure a "fair" Ceylonese representation, and some Tamils figured an armed response was called for....
Posted by: PapayaSF at March 12, 2004 6:57 PMHere's a French Model I would adopt.
http://www.petanque.org/pictures/288.shtml
PapayaSF, actually the majority Buddhist ethnic group of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) are the Sinhalese, not the "Ceylonese", and comprise roughly 75% of the population.
And actually the problem is far more complicated than that. The Sinhalese have always held a majority-minority complex; they viewed themselves as the direct heirs of Lord Buddha himself, and being the world's sole brown Buddhists, saw "Lanka" (Resplendent Isle) as a flourishing paradisee of Theravada Buddhism. Furthermore, they feared being swamped by their Hindu Tamil-speaking brethren to the North (and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu has a further 50 million Tamil speakers, whereas Sinhala is only spoken in Sri Lanka amongst 15 million people or so.)
The Tamils and Sinhalese got along relatively well. Then Portuguese, Dutch and British missionaries came aboard and began converting low-caste Hindus to Catholicism. (The Buddhist Sinhalese were more averse to conversion.) Playing classic divide-and-rule politics, the British favoured the Tamils and upon independence ethnic antagonisms formed and trouble began to brew. The Sinhalese had always viewed that the Tamils were favoured by the British, in civil service and in developing infrastructure in Jaffna (and rightfully so). Even into the 70s Jaffna Tamils of the North comprised half of Sri Lanka's medical and engineering students.
Then standardization (a form of affirmative action for the majority) was enacted, disenfranchised Tamil youth took up arms and all hell broke loose.
Posted by: Ronnie at March 13, 2004 1:09 PMSorry, I forgot the term "Sinhalese" and came up with "Ceylonese" instead. And I didn't mean to imply that my little summary was complete.
Posted by: PapayaSF at March 13, 2004 1:42 PM