scholarly journals Reorienting the Study of Citizenship in Sri Lanka

PCD Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 151
Author(s):  
Nira Wickramasinghe
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Good Citizenship ◽  
Majority Rules ◽  
Multicultural Citizenship ◽  
Analytical Frameworks

In Sri Lankan scholarship the second component, namely 'citizenship' is virtually absent from the public discourse. The obvious reason for the elusive presence of citizenship is, as previously mentioned, the inevitable invasion in every sphere of peoples lives of issues of nationalism, subnationalism and conflict in the past thirty years owing to the Tamil insurrection in the North and East of the island. In the 1980s and 1990s while the world was embroiled in debates over cosmopolitan and multicultural citizenship Sri Lankan studies were concerned with issues of power and democracy and remained locked in outdated analytical frameworks of nation, ethnicity, and community. For historical reasons citizenship has not had in the Sri Lankan scholarly field the seminal and near obsessive presence that nation and state have occupied. Another reason may be that liberal and radical scholars - defenders of minority rights - have been suspicious of majoritarian appeals to some ideal of 'good citizenship' where minorities will eventually be expected to play by majority rules. Although by the 1990s the terms had become a buzzword amongst thinkers in the North, citizenship remained in fact one of the least theorized notions in Sri Lankan studies where a generally instrumental understanding of the term that includes common defense of personal freedom, establishment of basic conditions of social justice and maintenance of civil peace prevails. In Sri Lanka, the tie between citizenship and nationhood, however, can never be wholly deconstructed or ignored. In this light, this paper will proposes future possible areas of study.

It is Young People that Give Me Hope

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Feyen
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Young People ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Peace Process ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
The Past ◽  
Made In

AbstractSeventy-seven years after gaining independence and 11 years after the end of a long civil war, Sri Lankan public discourse is still searching for a broadly accepted concept of national identity and struggling to find constructive ways of dealing with the past. In this interview the former president of Sri Lanka (1994–2005) Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga reflects on deeply rooted conflicts in society, the various outbreaks of violence, political mistakes made in the past, and her own role in the peace process and in reconciliation.

scholarly journals UNDERSTANDING LAW AND RELIGION AS CULTURE: MAKING ROOM FOR MEANING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2006
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Berger
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between law and religion in contemporary civil society has been a topic of increasing social interest and importance in Canada in the past many years. We have seen the practices and commitments of religious groups and individuals become highly salient on many issues of public policy, including the nature of the institution of marriage, the content of public education, and the uses of public space, to name just a few. As the vehicle for this discussion, I want to ask a straightforward question: When we listen to our public discourse, what is the story that we hear about the relationship between law and religion? How does this topic tend to be spoken about in law and politics – what is our idiom around this issue – and does this story serve us well? Though straightforward, this question has gone all but unanswered in our political and academic discussions. We take for granted our approach to speaking about – and, therefore, our way of thinking about – the relationship between law and religion. In my view, this is most unfortunate because this taken-for-grantedness is the source of our failure to properly understand the critically important relationship between law and religion.

scholarly journals The Right to Survival in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyoung Song
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Confucian Tradition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

AbstractFor the past decade, the author has examined North Korean primary public documents and concludes that there have been changes of identities and ideas in the public discourse of human rights in the DPRK: from strong post-colonialism to Marxism-Leninism, from there to the creation of Juche as the state ideology and finally 'our style' socialism. This paper explains the background to Kim Jong Il's 'our style' human rights in North Korea: his broader framework, 'our style' socialism, with its two supporting ideational mechanisms, named 'virtuous politics' and 'military-first politics'. It analyses how some of these characteristics have disappeared while others have been reinforced over time. Marxism has significantly withered away since the end of the Cold War, and communism was finally deleted from the latest 2009 amended Socialist Constitution, whereas the concept of sovereignty has been strengthened and the language of duties has been actively employed by the authority almost as a relapse to the feudal Confucian tradition. The paper also includes some first-hand accounts from North Korean defectors interviewed in South Korea in October–December 2008. They show the perception of ordinary North Koreans on the ideas of human rights.

scholarly journals Reception of Natalie's Ramonda, Armistice Day Symbol in Serbia

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Senka Kovač
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
First Year ◽  
World War ◽  
World War One ◽  
First Year Students ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
The Past

Nataliе’s Ramonda, a symbol of Armistice Day – November 11 in Serbia, is a new memorial symbol constructed and promoted by politicians in 2012. The Armistice Day was celebrated then as a national holiday in Serbia. The reception of this symbol has been explored over a five-year period, both in a public discourse and on a representative sample of first year students at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. In public discourse, as well as among students of the Faculty of Philosophy, Natalie’s Ramonda is perceived as an emblem, a badge, and most often as a symbol. It was seen as an emblem on the lapel of public and media figures, inaccessible to broad commercial promotion and sales. In public discourse and among students at the Faculty of Philosophy, Natalie’s Ramonda was perceived in several answers as a medal, and is also recognized as a flower that symbolizes the suffering of the Serbian people in World War One; symbol of the nation’s rebirth – the flower phoenix, as a mark of peace and freedom. As a newly constructed symbol of the Armistice Day in Serbia, for the past seven years, Natalie’s Ramonda has been a mediator in the public culture of remembrance and in the ongoing process, by becoming a part of cultural memory.

Passports for Sale: How (Un)Meritocratic Are Citizenship by Investment Programmes?

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-337
Author(s):  
Odile Ammann
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World

Abstract In recent years, citizenship by investment (CBI) and residency by investment (RBI) programmes have been burgeoning throughout the world, including in a range of European States. At first sight, such programmes are blatantly anti-meritocratic: they hinge on a person’s wealth, and not on her skills, potential, and intrinsic qualities. Yet upon a closer look, the public discourse that surrounds CBI and RBI is influenced by the same meritocratic conceptions as those that have been driving domestic citizenship and immigration law in the past decades. In this article, I take a step back from existing debates about CBI to argue that the concept of meritocracy is key to understanding, supporting, but also challenging contemporary immigration and citizenship law, including CBI. First, I analyse the merits—if I may say so—of the concept of meritocracy. I then show the limitations of using meritocratic arguments to justify the existence of CBI schemes.

“Tanked up Yobs” and “Self-Pity City”. Deconstructing the Myths of the Hillsborough Disaster

STADION ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Alan McDougall
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
British History ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Grassroots Activism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
Government Legislation

On 15 April 1989, Liverpool FC played Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield in northern England. Catastrophic errors by the police and other organisations led to the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters, crushed against the perimeter fences on the Leppings Lane terrace. Though the horrific facts of the disaster were quickly and widely known, they were lost beneath another narrative, promoted by the police, numerous politicians, and large sections of the media. This narrative blamed the disaster on “tanked up yobs”: drunk and aggressive Liverpool supporters, who turned up late and forced their way into the ground. Over the subsequent years and decades, as Hillsborough campaigners vainly sought justice for the disaster’s victims in a series of trials and inquests, the destructive allegation remained in the public realm. It was reinforced by establishment dismissal of Liverpool as a “self-pity city”, home to a community incapable of accepting official verdicts or of leaving the past in the past. This essay uncovers the history of the myths of the Hillsborough disaster. It first shows how these myths were established - how false narratives, with powerful backers, shifted responsibility for the disaster from the police to supporters, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It then examines how these myths were embedded in public discourse - how Liverpool was demonised as an aggressively sentimental city where people refused to admit to “killing their own”. It finally analyses how these myths were overturned through research, media mobilisation, and grassroots activism, a process that culminated in the 2016 inquest verdict, which ruled that the 96 Hillsborough victims were unlawfully killed. In doing so, the essay shows how Hillsborough became a key event in modern British history, influencing everything from stadium design to government legislation.

Urban Heritage in Troubled Times

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 20-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gadsby
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Historical Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
Incomplete Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
Urban Heritage ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Public Sphere

The terrain of heritage—where the past and present intersect—is one of a few places where anthropological archaeology can become an applied, even activist practice. This is because heritage has a kind of "slippery temporality" about it. On its surface, heritage is about history, or at least the information that we possess about the past. However, heritage happens in the present; it is really the continually evolving result of a set of contemporary ideological practices that help us to order the often confusing and incomplete knowledge we have about the past. Heritage is a story, written or spoken in the present. That story transforms the raw material of historical information into a valueladen narrative about the present. Those narratives make their way into the public consciousness, where they are operationalized in the realm of public discourse. There, in the public sphere, heritage discourses have material consequences for all parties involved.

scholarly journals THE TORTUOUS PATH OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO ENSURE POST-WAR RECONCILIATION—THE CASE OF SRI LANKA

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Jehan Perera
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Counter Measures ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Main Engine ◽  
Horizontal Inequalities

For the past three decades Sri Lanka was stalemated between governments that were not prepared to devolve power to the Tamil majority provinces and a Tamil militant movement that wanted a separate country. In February 2002, the Sri Lankan government and LTTE signed a ceasefire agreement under Norwegian government auspices that appeared to offer the real prospect of a final end to violence as a means of conflict resolution. The ceasefire between the government and the LTTE held for nearly four years despite significant problems affecting the peace process, problems that led to the LTTE’s withdrawal from the peace talks. However, the ceasefire collapsed in early 2006 with a series of ambushes of government soldiers by the LTTE, eventually leading to counter measures and counter attacks by the forces of the government, measures in which the government wrested back control of territory placed under the control of the LTTE by the terms agreed upon by the Ceasefire Agreement. Today Sri Lanka is a country that continues to be deeply divided on lines of ethnicity, religion and politics. Horizontal inequalities, defined as severe inequalities in economic and political resources between culturally defined groups, were undoubtedly a contributing factor for the perpetuation of Sri Lanka’s long-running conflict. No sooner it won the war, the government asserted economic development to be the main engine of reconciliation.

scholarly journals Tamil Identity in Sri Lanka: A Secular State of Becoming

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anushka Perinpanayagam
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
Historical Discourse ◽  
Civil Unrest ◽  
The North ◽  
Growth And Change ◽  
Tamil Identity ◽  
Secular State

<p>Since the island nation of Sri Lanka attained independence in 1948, it has experienced periods of civil unrest marked by riots and government implemented curfews. In the mid-1980s this agitation erupted into civil war between two parties: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government. Each is associated with a different ethnic group and a very particular nationalist rhetoric. Kristian Stokke and Anne Kirsti Ryntveit, "The Struggle For Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka,”Growth and Change 31 (2000): 285. The LTTE, a group of militant separatists, claims to represent the Tamil population of the north and east, while the Sri Lankan government is mostly comprised of politicians belonging to the island's ethnic majority - the Sinhalese. Serena Tennekoon, "Newspaper Nationalism: Sinhala Identity as Historical Discourse," in Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict, ed. Jonathon Spencer (London: Routledge, 1990), 205.</p>

Chained corpses: warfare, politics and religion after the Habsburg Empire in the Julian March, 1930s–1970s

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaetano Dato
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The North ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
War Propaganda ◽  
The Great War

The chapter deals with the role of corpses in public memory during the Age of the World Wars in the North Adriatic borderland, where human remains had a momentous role in the clash among the area’s main collective identities: Italian, Slovenian and Croatian nationals, Habsburg authorities, Communists, Nazis, Fascists and new Fascists, and the Jewish community. In particular, corpses were actors in political-religious representations and a driving force in the period’s war propaganda. After 1945, human remains were contentious among conflicting factions and later became involved in trials against Nazi war criminals – regular public opinion has since underlined their fate. The analysis begins by recalling the public display and long spanning funeral of the mummified corpse of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his spouse, on the brink of the Great War in July 1914. The paper then explores other examples in use of corpses in the public discourse and pays careful attention to three case studies: the Redipuglia WW1 shrine, the pictures shot in winter 1943–44 of exhumed partisans’ enemies, and the victims’ ashes of the San Sabba Rice Mill lager.

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