TY - JOUR

T1 - Victor's memory

T2 - Sri Lanka's post-war memoryscape in comparative perspective

AU - McCargo, Duncan

AU - Senaratne, Dishani

PY - 2020/1/2

Y1 - 2020/1/2

N2 - How are victims of civil wars and conflicts remembered in the context of an illiberal peace? When a violent conflict is ended by the use of overwhelming state force, without benefit of a political process, the victors may seek to control the ways in which the violence is memorialised; while in a war where the insurgents remain in the shadows, public recognition of their losses may be impossible. Using Thailand as a comparison, this study compares the configuration of conflict memorialisation in Sri Lanka, focusing on two Tamil communities where Catholic priests played important roles: Vankalei and Mullivaikkal. In both cases, the Sri Lankan military saw memorialisation as a threat to national narratives about the rights and wrongs of the conflict. Yet in neither case have local people addressed the human rights abuses committed by the LTTE: their narratives emphasise victimhood and evade discussion of agency. Memorials dedicated to those who perished during civil conflicts are likely to be one-sided. Accordingly, the paper argues that an illiberal peace poses particular challenges for historical memory and memorialisation

AB - How are victims of civil wars and conflicts remembered in the context of an illiberal peace? When a violent conflict is ended by the use of overwhelming state force, without benefit of a political process, the victors may seek to control the ways in which the violence is memorialised; while in a war where the insurgents remain in the shadows, public recognition of their losses may be impossible. Using Thailand as a comparison, this study compares the configuration of conflict memorialisation in Sri Lanka, focusing on two Tamil communities where Catholic priests played important roles: Vankalei and Mullivaikkal. In both cases, the Sri Lankan military saw memorialisation as a threat to national narratives about the rights and wrongs of the conflict. Yet in neither case have local people addressed the human rights abuses committed by the LTTE: their narratives emphasise victimhood and evade discussion of agency. Memorials dedicated to those who perished during civil conflicts are likely to be one-sided. Accordingly, the paper argues that an illiberal peace poses particular challenges for historical memory and memorialisation

KW - Sri Lanka

KW - Thailand

KW - memorialisation

KW - conflict

KW - memory

KW - illiberal peace

U2 - 10.1080/14678802.2019.1705070

DO - 10.1080/14678802.2019.1705070

M3 - Journal article

VL - 20

SP - 97

EP - 113

JO - Conflict, Security & Development

JF - Conflict, Security & Development

SN - 1467-8802

IS - 1

ER -