Cause of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka
In the book titled Sri Lanka: War-Torn Island, published as part of a ‘World in Conflict’ series, the author Lawrence J Swie,r when discussing the root cause of the conflict in Sri Lanka, had this to say about the Mahavamsa:
The greatest importance of the Mahavamsa is not as history but as a symbol.- and as a motivating force behind Sinhala Nationalism. A Sinhalese politician speaking in public is likely to mention incidents from Mahavamsa as evidence of the long and distinguished history the Sinhalese have in Sri Lanka. But Sinhalese political and religious leaders also use Mahavamsa stories as evidence that the whole island should be ruled by Sinhalese Buddhists
Lawrence J Swier, in his book Sri Lanka: War-Torn Island, had this to say about the damage done by him:
'Perhaps more than any other person, Dharmapala was responsible for popularizing the faulty impression that Tamils and Sinhalese had been deadly enemies in Sri Lanka for nearly 2000 years. He often quoted Mahavamsa as if it were a completely factual account, and his favourite passages were those that made the Tamils sound like pagan invaders who were running the island. Much of his preaching and writing was racist. Dharmapala insisted that the Sinhalese were racially pure Aryans – by which he meant that they had racial ties with the North Indians, Iranians and Europeans, He contrasted the Sinhalese racial line with that of the Dravidian Tamils, which he claimed was inferior.'
you have to blame Tamil tigers for that first. Hope you know which incident leads to riots in the island.
!3 soldiers killed by Tamils Militants, and it triggered a state sponsored genocide against minority Tamils ??
Black July is the common name used to refer to the anti-
Tamil pogrom and
riots in
Sri Lanka during July 1983. The riots began as a response to a
deadly ambush on 23 July 1983 by the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a
Tamil militant group, that killed 13 Sri Lankan Army soldiers. Beginning in the capital
Colombo on the night of 24 July 1983, the riots spread to other parts of the country. Over seven days mobs of mainly
Sinhalese attacked Tamil targets, burning, looting and killing. Estimates of the death toll range between 400 and 3,000.
[1][2] 8,000 homes and 5,000 shops were destroyed.
[3] 150,000 people were made homeless.
[4] The economic cost of the riots was $300 million.
[4] A wave of
Sri Lankan Tamils fled to other countries in the ensuing years and many thousands of Tamils youths joined the militant groups.
[1][2]
Black July is generally seen as the start of full-scale
Sri Lankan Civil War between the Tamil militants and the
government of Sri Lanka.
[2][5][6][7] July has become a time of remembrance for the
Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora community around the world.
Black July - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
