Navigating Sri Lankan Identity in a State of Crisis: The Role of the Creative Imaginary

Jeslyn Sharnita Amarasekera, Shanthini Pillai

Abstract


Sri Lanka is often thought of as a nation that has been in a constant state of crisis since the start of its civil war in 1983. However, with the passing of time and various government efforts, there have been attempts to heal the tears in the social fabric. Some of these attempts can be seen in the creation of the National Policy on Reconciliation and Co-Existence, of 2017 as well as the establishment of the Office of National Unity and Reconciliation. While these have clear missions towards an inclusive Sri Lankan society, the reality of the state of affairs in Sri Lanka has revealed that there is an ongoing racial and cultural divide that continues to prevail within the nation. This paper intends to delve into how Sri Lankan transnational authors offer an alternative narrative towards achieving national reconciliation as their works of fiction navigate the various trajectories of Sri Lankan identity in an age of crisis. The discussion will focus specifically on Nayomi Munaweera’s Island of a Thousand Mirrors and Ameena Hussein’s The Moon in the Water to uncover how their creative imaginary reveals the unraveling of the threads of cultural and religious interactions between various Sri Lankan characters of different ethnic backgrounds. The paper reveals that even though these two works of fiction address past violence and conflict, they ultimately show the strong possibilities of attaining the envisioned shared future as promised in the various government designed narratives.

 

Keywords: Sri Lanka, identity; national narrative; interethnic engagement; reconciliation


Full Text:

PDF

References


Anderson, Benedict. (2006). Imagined Communities. London, Verso.

Amarasekera, Jeslyn. and Pillai, Shanthini. (2016). Bound by the Sea: Transnational Sri Lankan Writings and Reconciliation with the Homeland. 3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature®, 22(1).

Amarasekera, Jeslyn and Pillai, Shanthini. Sinhalese Perspectives in Transnational Sri Lankan Literature. Bangi, UKM Press. 2018.

Anandakugan, Nithyani, (2020). “The Sri Lankan Civil War and Its History, Revisited in 2020.” The Harvard International Review. https://hir.harvard.edu/sri-lankan-civil-war/. Accessed 1 March 2021.

“Bachelet urges restraint, and pathway to dialogue as violence escalates in Sri Lanka” (10 May 2022). OHCHR, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/05/bachelet-urges-restraint-and-pathway-dialogue-violence-escalates-sri-lanka. Accessed 19 August 2022

Bhabha, Homi. (1990). Nation and Narration. New York, Routledge.

Carey, Sabine C., Gonzalez, B. & Glaßel, C. “Divergent Perceptions of Peace in Post-Conflict Societies: Insights from Sri Lanka”. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1-30. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00220027221104719.

Chotiner, Isaac. (2022). “The Hope and Fear of the Sri Lankan Protest Movement” The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-hope-and-fear-of-the-sri-lankan-protest-movement. Accessed 24 August 2022

De Silva, K.M. (2005). A History of Sri Lanka. New Delhi, Penguin Books.

Eaglestone, Robert. (2020). “Trauma and fiction”. In Colin Davis and Hanna Meretoja (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma (pp. 287-295). Routledge.

Feith, David. (2010). “Tamil and Sinhala Relations in Sri Lanka: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective.” Global Change, Peace & Security, 22(3), pp. 345–353, 10.1080/14781158.2010.510270.

“Full Text of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Speech to Parliament.” EconomyNext, 20 Aug. 2020, https://economynext.com/full-text-of-president-gotabaya-rajapaksas-speech-to-parliament-73220/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2020.

Frost, Mark R. (2004). “Cosmopolitan Fragments from a Splintered Isle: Colombo and Ceylonese Nationalism.” Academia.Edu, www.academia.edu/19523836/Cosmopolitan_fragments_from_a_splintered_isle_Colombo_and_Ceylonese_nationalism.

Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.

Grever, M., & van der Vlies, Tina. (2017). Why national narratives are perpetuated: A literature review on new insights from history textbook research. London Review of Education. 15(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.18546/LRE.15.2.11

Gunesekera, Romesh. (2014). Noontide Toll. Delhi: Penguin Books.

Kaplan, Ann E. (2005). Trauma Culture. The Politics of Terror and Loss in Media and Literature. New Jersey, Rutgers University Press.

Heidemann, B. (2019). The symbolic survival of the “living dead”: Narrating the LTTE female fighter in post-war Sri Lankan women’s writing. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 54(3). pp.384-398.

Hirsch, M. (2012). The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust.

Hussein, Ameena. (2017). The Moon in the Water. Colombo, Perera Hussein Publishing House.

Jayasuriya, Maryse & Halpé, Aparna. (2012). Contestation, Marginality, and (Trans)nationalism: Sri Lanan Anglophone Literature, South Asian Review. 33(3), 17-28, DOI: 10.1080/02759527.2012.11932893.

National Legislative Bodies / National Authorities. (2017). Sri Lanka: National Policy on Reconciliation and Co-Existence (2017), available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5b44a79b4.html. Accessed 7 March 2022.

Newton, Ken.M. (1997). Victor Shklovsky: ‘Art as Technique’. In: Newton, K.M. (eds) Twentieth-Century Literary Theory. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25934-2_1

Mukherjee, Payel Chattopadhyay. (2020). Unhomely Home, Unhomely Women: The Precariousness of Being, Belonging, and Becoming in the Sri Lankan Diasporic Fiction of Nayomi Munaweera, South Asian Review. DOI: 10.1080/02759527.2020.1827928.

Accessed 1 March 2021.

Munaweera, Nayomi. (2012). Island of a Thousand Mirrors. Colombo: Perera Hussein Publishing House.

“Picturing Sri Lanka’s Undead War.” Crisis Group, (17 May 2019). www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/sri-lanka/picturing-sri-lankas-undead-war. Accessed 5 Apr. 2020.

Posner, Eric A., Spier, Kathryn.E., Vermeule, Adrian. (2010). “Divide and Conquer.” Journal of Legal Analysis, vol. 2(2), pp. 417–471, academic.oup.com/jla/article/2/2/417/910589, 10.1093/jla/2.2.417.

Ranasinha, Ruvani. (2016). Resistance and Religion: Gender, Islam and Agency in Kamila Shamsie, Tahmima Anam, Monica Ali and Ameena Hussein. Contemporary Diasporic South Asian Women’s Fiction. 129–174. doi:10.1057/978-1-137-40305-6_4

Accessed 1 March 2021.

Salgado, Minoli. (2007). Writing Sri Lanka: Literature, Resistance & the Politics of Place. Routledge.

Satkunanathan, Ambika. (2020). “Justice in the Time of a Pandemic.” Groundviews. groundviews.org/2020/03/29/justice-in-the-time-of-a-pandemic/. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.

Satkunananthan, Anita Harris. (2018). Haunts and Specters in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Biafran (Re)visitations, 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 24(4). 185 – 198. http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2018-2404-14

Selvadurai, Shyam. (2007). Swimming in the Monsoon Sea. Toronto: Tundra Books.

“Sri Lanka: Human Rights Gains in Grave Peril.” (14 Jan. 2020). Human Rights Watch. www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/14/sri-lanka-human-rights-gains-grave-peril. Accessed 10 Apr.2020.

“Sri Lanka scraps Tamil national anthem at Independence Day”. (4 February 2020). Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/2/4/sri-lanka-scraps-tamil-national-anthem-at-

independence-day. Accessed 5 February 2020.

Tearne, Roma. (2010). Brixton Beach. London: Harper Press.

Valančiūnas, Deimantas. (2020). “Haunting memories: Sri Lankan civil war, trauma and diaspora in literature and film” South Asian Diaspora. DOI: 10.1080/19438192.2020.1767959.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17576/3L-2022-2803-16

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2247

ISSN : 0128-5157