Realism and Politics Among States in the 21st Century

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There is no specific roadmap and short cut or simple prescription of reconciliation in a post-war society. Since the aftermath of sustained violence wounds people and create divisions of the society as well as people who have been benefited from it, this is a space of highly intensified antagonisms. It seems to be a supremely difficult challenge creating reciprocal trust and understanding between former enemies. The aim of this article is to examine post-war Sri Lankan society by using significant ideas, including the construction of “us” and “others” depicted in popular Hollywood movies as a non-violent approach to cure the hatred among Sri Lankan people. The movie that I have selected represents the relationship between humans and animalistic version of humans. The main reason for this way of depiction illustrates the clear-cut difference between “us” and “them”, or in other words, humans and non-humans. In this regard, the non-violent approach on non-humans can be seen as a way of understanding the post-war societies. However as demonstrated in the Rwandan experience on reconciliation, some mechanism should be introduced to serve the justice against crimes against humanity parallel to the reconciliation process (Brounéus 2003:41).

ANALYSIS

On May 18, 2015, Sri Lanka were celebrating the sixth year of the ‘end’ of war between the Sri Lankan government and L.T.T.E (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). In the first five occasions, the Sri Lankan government of former president, Mahinda Rajapaksha, which was the main instrument in ending the war, celebrated the May 18 as the day of ‘Victory’. Even though the war was fought in the territory where the two communities lived with harmony for centuries, in these victory celebrations, the demarcation of “us” and “others” were visible and these celebrations were a mechanism of strengthening this demarcation between the societies. It is quite evident that the regime constituency of the former President Rajapaksha’s government was among the Sinhala Buddhist ethnic group which covers generally 70% of the total population. In this regard, defeating L.T.T.E which was mainly representing Tamils in the North and East provinces has been appreciated by the “Sinhala Buddhist South”, the term coined by Nirmal Dewasiri (2013).

On the other hand, L.T.T.E too lost their Sinhala Buddhist sympathizers as a result of excessive violence on civilians in the South. They killed innocent civilians in public places by claymore bombs and suicide bombers. They also killed civilians including infants of boarder villages by decapitating, shooting etc. By using excessive violence, L.T.T.E hoped that the government would be criticized by the people and by using that pressure from the people, they will achieve their political goals. However using violence back fired because former president Rajapaksha was able to unite the South against L.T.T.E by labeling L.T.T.E as an inhuman, barbaric organization. He used the term “humanitarian war” to describe the war. This discourse on war was also used to conceal the war crimes done by the Sri Lankan army as well.

Unlike in a foreign invasion, Sri Lankan society has to deal with the post-conflict moment as a whole because it was an internal crisis. In other words, all the affected parties of the civil war were a part of the Sri Lankan society. However as in the popular statement, “history is written by the victors”, the Sri Lankan government became the ultimate mechanism in the decision making in the post war context. As stated above, their approach on the postwar context was highly influenced in their political claim. In this context, as a mechanism, the dichotomy of “us” vs “them” was strengthened.

This has been a serious issue because it does not allow the affected parties to reconcile because on the one hand, “us” (or the victorious party) are not allowed to forget what has happened and move on and on the other hand, “they” (or the defeated) have been humiliated for what they did 1 . As a result, the reconciliation process is in a dead lock and any attempt for a progression has been considered as a traitorous action. As in most post-war contexts–South Africa is an exception there was no armed war– the ‘victorious party' or the most dominant party has the freedom to degrade or humiliate their enemy other. Dehumanization, in this context, is the most effective method. Analyzing the North American discourse on 9/11, Erin Steuter and Deborah Wills give a lucid account on how North American media portrayed the East as less than human (2009). In the Sri Lankan context, the same approach is visible. The brutality of L.T.T.E was understood as actions of less than human or, more specifically, animals. Though the war has been ended six years ago, the dichotomy of “us” and “them”, as well as the characterization of these categories are still visible and this has become one of the main obstacles to the process of reconciliation2 .

Therefore I would like to analyze the popular Hollywood movie, I am Legend, as a solution or rather a medicine to the postwar hatred. I am Legend belongs to the genres of post-apocalyptic, science fiction and horror. It is a story about a person named Robert Neville who is the last man to survive the outbreak of a man-made virus. When the virus hits the surface, it transformed humans into predatory, nocturnal "Darkseekers" who are extremely vulnerable to sunlight and other sources of UV. In this context, he can enjoy the day time but he goes to a shelter when it becomes night because these ‘human creatures’ are active after the sunset. Robert lost his family as a result of this epidemic and later lost his dog, the only companion he had since the apocalypse. So he has all the right to hate these less than humans. He is also capable of killing all these less than humans in the day time by using explosions or exposing them to the sun light. But this is the important section. Though he is full of revenge and somehow capable of fulfilling his revenge, he chooses a completely contrasting burden.

That is to find a cure for this virus, so he can transform these less than humans into humans. Because he knows that earlier  these creatures functioned as humans just like him and if he can find a cure, then these creatures again can be turned into humans. This stops him from massacring these less than humans because if he does that, there will be no one to transform, and he will be ‘alone’ for the rest of his life. Therefore he never uses violence against these creatures other than when he has no choice of doing so for self-defense.

Another interesting point about these less than humans is that they can recruit humans to less than human with a simple injection of virus into the human body. But the vice versa is impossible unless humans find a cure, which is in a normal circumstance impossible or extremely difficult. If we relate this to the recent explosion of ISIS activities, as points out in Nasser’s lucid account, ISIS has used number of tools such as social media, to increase their militant capacity (2014). However, rehabilitating these militants is a long term process.

As far as the post-war context of Sri Lanka is concerned, the ‘victorious’ party has two options. Either they can destroy or suppress the ‘losing’ party or they must find a cure, as in the example shown by Robert Neville, who attempts to transform these so-called less than humans into humans. It is also clear that this cure has to be non-violent because all the other possible violent approaches again destroy these less than humans. But finding a cure in a post war context is not a simple task. Clearly it has to be a process that addresses both parties. As Desmond Tutu, one of the greatest preachers and activists on human rights, states, “[t]here is no handy roadmap for reconciliation. There is no short cut or simple prescription for healing the wounds and divisions of a society in the aftermath of sustained violence. Creating trust and understanding between former enemies is a supremely difficult challenge. It is, however, an essential one to address in the process of building a lasting peace. Examining the painful past, acknowledging it and understanding it, and above all transcending it together, is the best way to guarantee that it does not – and cannot – happen again” (2003). As indicated, this cannot be achieved instantly; rather it has to be in a long term process.

This process too can be seen in another post-apocalyptic Hollywood movie, Warm Bodies. This movie revolves around a relationship between a zombie and a teen girl. Interestingly the story has been told from the perspective of a zombie. In the ending, zombies start to transform back into humans. The movie illustrates the difficulty of creating the trust between the human and the zombie and finally the humans allow and help zombies to transform themselves to humans. This is, from a practical point of view, a very difficult action since humans cannot guarantee their safety unless they expose themselves to the process of building trust and there is a clear danger of zombies attacking humans. Therefore building the trust among each other is inevitably a long term process.

It is also better to state that there cannot be a universal cure for each and every postwar context. Rather, the cure can be altered from a European context to a South Asian context. However as a precondition, the process should attribute to non-violence as their main principal because it is so far the best approach that combines two hostile communities. This is where the movie, I am Legend, brings out hope for a non-violent approach to a highly violent context.

Conclusion

This article is an attempt to understand the difficulty of the reconciliation process in a post war context. As a case study, I used the Sri Lankan context and points out how it has been difficult task to bridge the gap between us and them. To start the reconciliation process, I suggested an approach which has been depicted in a popular, post-apocalyptic Hollywood movie, called I am Legend. There I argue that this movie gives a non violent approach towards the enemy other in an extremely violent context. By using this idea, my point is the reconciliation process has to be a non-violent, long term process. Since the terrorism has become a global phenomenon, the post war societies should find a cure to heal the hatred among their people.