Black July
August 7, 2008 6:28 AM Subscribe
Groundviews has posted a collection of writing about the July 1983 and 1958 riots in Sri Lanka.
Articles written to remember the anti-Tamil riots of July 1983 and 1958. This content was submitted to Groundviews in July 2008, 25 years after the riots of 1983 and 50 years after those in 1958.
Over 9,000 visitors read and engaged with this content from 23rd to 30th July alone. Nearly all submissions were exclusive for Groundviews and came from award winning poets and novelists, senior Government Ministers, Members of Parliament, renown scholars, human rights defenders, civil society activists, artistes, senior civil servants, a former Secretary of Defense and others.
Great post. Ceylon/Sri Lanka is one of the more depressing ethnic stories of modern times. When the island became independent in 1948, it was (by the accounts I've read) a kind of multicultural paradise; I'm sure there were the usual tensions between different groups, but people got along. Then the fucking politicians decided to use ethnic rivalry as a cheap and effective way of getting support, and the majority Sinhalese rammed through a Language Bill in June 1956 making Sinhalese the only official language. Tamils rioted in protest, and the stage was set for decades of escalating violence. I wish the site had some memoirs about the '50s, but the 1983 ones are grimly compelling reading. I recommend starting with this:posted by languagehat at 8:11 AM on August 7, 2008
I don't know if you've read it yet, but Some Reflections arising from Ethnic Riots discusses the 1958 riots.
posted by chunking express at 8:40 AM on August 7, 2008
posted by chunking express at 8:40 AM on August 7, 2008
There should be a greater distinction between "Tamil" and "LTTE". The crux of the conflict is not the Sinhala-Buddhist desire for sovreignty of Sri Lanka. It was a reactionary movement that occurred when the Bloddy Brits were in power. Before independence, they divided the land so that the elitist English speaking/Jaffna Colombo tamils can share power in independent Sri Lanka with elitist English speaking Sinhalese. The problem was, a large majority of the tamil and sinhalese were not English-speaking which was completely rejected by Bloody Brits. They all wanted indpendence from the Brits hoping that there would be an arrangement between Sinhalese leaders and Tamil leaders. Tamils did not call themselves Sri Lankans even at that time. Things have not improved much since 1919, but they have certainly got more complicated. Regardless, when you have ethnic cleansing and class wars, you get this kind of a response.
posted by johannahdeschanel at 10:04 AM on August 7, 2008
posted by johannahdeschanel at 10:04 AM on August 7, 2008
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