Abstract
This paper reflects on arguments and positions put forth by Tamils in Sri Lanka, those in the diaspora and commentators in the ‘international community’ regarding the 2015 presidential elections in Sri Lanka. In particular it concerns the prospect of justice for those that suffered in the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war which concluded in May 2009. It is a self-reflexive account of my activities as a writer in residence at the University of Peradeniya in the lead-up to the election and the implications of those events upon my return to Sydney.
Highlights
Despite the decision of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to support the common opposition, Sri Ranjan urged Tamils not to be used as a ‘bargaining chip’ in majority politics and to instead boycott the vote
These acts to delimit knowledge and evidence are familiar to Aboriginal activists who accuse the Australian state of ongoing colonial violence and genocide and whose struggles for self-determination are of little interest to majority politics (Howell 2013: 79)
Such methods of selective ignorance that underpin the close cooperation of the Australian and Sri Lankan governments can be read as a means of co-legitimisation, in which both states accused of oppression and neocolonialism are able to construct themselves, from nationalist perspectives, as ‘homelands under siege’ (Perera 2009: 656) by Tamils, indigenous people or other non-nationals
Summary
PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 13:2, 1-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/ portal.v13i2.4477
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