Returning to Sri Lanka
Culture > Personal Essay
Returning to Sri Lanka
After a long time away, a writer revisits the humanity and tumult of her home country.
By Annietha Raj・November 12, 2019・12 minutes
Unlike most, I’ve always carried an aversion to the traditions of my parents’ land; my hostility towards the Sri Lankan government has always been at the forefront of my relationship with Sri Lanka. As a child of Tamils, I never had any desire to visit a country that was accountable for the deaths of over 100,000 civilians and soldiers from both sides of the Tamil-Singhalese conflict. But after the end of the 25-year civil war, my parents asked my sister and me to visit the country; they wanted the opportunity to show us where they had lived and gone to school. Both practical and adventurous reasons had piqued my interest as well. On some occasions my father had travelled back to Jaffna, in the Northern Province, to visit his old school and neighborhood, spending time with the few remaining family and friends he and my mother had left behind. Yet I refused to go back. I often explained this decision as willpower, as resisting a source of evil in the world. But silently, I knew the real reason for my refusal was my fear of confronting my heritage.
This past autumn, my father asked my sister and me where we would like to go for a family holiday. I found myself ready to go to Sri Lanka. I had deprived myself of the amazing things Sri Lanka had to offer because of politics and insurgency. Sri Lanka’s politics were no different than those of any other country: plutocratic and egotistical. So this past December, my family travelled up and down the west coast of Sri Lanka. I initially thought that my dominant western demeanor would put off my chances of having honest conversations with locals. But over the course of the trip we happened across many people willing to share their stories. The driver that took us to Jaffna, the bartenders that encouraged my gin habit, and the Muslim entrepreneur from Galle all shared their experiences of moving on and rebuilding, but they also all reflected on the present-day strife. Most likely, their openness was attributed to my mother, ever the inquisitive woman, and her striking ability to convince others to share their most personal memories. She was also still well-versed in Singhalese and Tamil (the official languages of Sri Lanka), and therefore was able communicate throughout Sri Lanka with ease. Through her I was able understand what they had gone through and what current Sri Lanka looked like. I had read academic articles and watched numerous documentaries, but the impact of listening to someone first-hand was what really changed my view of the country. I was affected by the honest stories from Anna, who was open about the family he lost. I felt uncomfortably naïve when a Muslim entrepreneur taught me about the 2018 riots. After hearing their grieving process, my hostility from an ocean away seemed stubborn. I got off my high horse, ready to experience Sri Lanka without expectations.
We saw Negombo’s carpets of drying fish, Colombo’s cultural melting pot, Jaffna’s polka-dot floating islands, Hikkaduwa’s surfers with sun-kissed hair, and Galle’s postcard-like colonial houses, all cities seeped rich with diverse cultural identities, and always with faces that smiled back at you. Opening myself up to the people became easy. Our first morning, experiencing Sri Lanka meant waking up at the end of sunrise and welcoming the fishing boats pulling in their early-morning catch. Despite our familiar complexion the fishermen marked us as tourists immediately. Listening to our accents from far away, one man was so excited that we were from the UK: “My daughter studies in Liverpool! Do you know Liverpool?” Lobster in hand, another man boasted his luck to be the only boat to pull in shellfish that day. Their friendly demeanor was a quick draw, and I learned about the geography of the country. Negombo, a dominant Christian community, was incredibly hospitable to the tourists that had just arrived from the country’s only international airport. It was always bustling due to its proximity to Colombo and is a hotspot for tourists wanting a taste of Sri Lanka’s fishing industry.
While diversity exists in these cities, it has not always been welcomed. In Hikkaduwa, we met a Muslim entrepreneur willing to drive us to Galle for a day. The brow-furrowed man explained that he had started working as taxi driver, eventually building up his own touring and jewellery business. He offered to walk us around Galle Fort (a historic Fort the Dutch captured from the Portuguese). With her superpower, my inquisitive mother jumped on the occasion to question his experience during the civil war. To my surprise, the civil war had not considerably affected him. My view from the outside perceived that the civil war was widespread across the country, and left no lives untouched. But instead he spoke on the 2018 riots between Buddhists and Muslims in Galle. He courageously showed us his scar, running from his chest and down his mid-back. One year ago, desperate Buddhists armed with fire and machetes had confronted him at his home, fired up with jealousy, and with violent goals. He said that the ongoing turmoil between the Buddhists and Muslims in his region was overshadowed by other stories, such as the civil war. I had to admit in my filtered international newsfeed this conflict was one I had never come across before.
I realized that my focus has been too singular, my scope of research and writing limited to the conflict between Tamils and Singhalese. Prior to my visit, my only concerns were for the current political climate. Before we left, President Sirisena had appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister (Mahinda Rajapaksa was the president during the final years of the civil war). After the Sri Lankan Parliament passed two no-confidence motions, President Sirisena declared the no-confidence vote unconstitutional. Finally, on December 3rd, the court restricted Rajapaksa’s powers. The political fallout resulted in a large loss in tourism. On the 15th of December, Rajapaksa quit his newly appointed role. On the 17th of December, after a day of tuktuking around the outskirts of the Colombo, my mother, sister and I returned to the center at dusk only to be swarmed by thousands of villagers cheering the reinstatement of Ranil Wickremesinghe. I was contemplating the happy and expulsive crowd, thinking it was great that these people were able to celebrate a small victory. But when I turned to look at my mother she was frozen in place. She was having a panic attack. A relatively drunken and rowdy crowd near us had brought my mother to a place she had never shared with her children. To make matters worse, the skirt I was wearing caught the attention of some drunks who looked at me from the crowd. They shouted, questioning the decency of my pinafore. I didn’t have to ask my mother to know that the space in the tuk tuk shrunk. I still have not asked her what she felt and thought of in that moment, because I fear that I will be reminding her of moments she may not want to relive, and guilt for making the moment worse. The day after the demonstration there was no trace of the night’s turbulence. Similarly, my family never spoke about it again.
En route to Jaffna, my parents’ friend drove us. He was their Thambi (little brother), someone that they could speak to openly and informally. Anna (older brother, pronounced an-nah) was born and raised in Jaffna; he often drove foreigners between Colombo and Jaffna. He appreciated my mother’s business especially, because she was the only one who didn’t mind speaking for the 8-hour drive to help him stay awake. We stopped three times on the journey, the first to enjoy some delicious and fluffy ulunthu vadai. The other two stops were far more fascinating than satiating our hunger. At the start and end of the Kandy Road stretch (a route commonly taken to reach Jaffna), drivers of all religions stop at their respective temples to pray for a safe journey. Then they stopped again to thank the gods for their protection. Over Sri Lanka’s history the drivers have prayed for safety from weather, fatal accidents, and fighting. What did Anna pray for now? Once we got closer to Jaffna, Anna took off on smaller roads; he told us that some cities still had strong supporters of Tamil Tigers, and that the smaller roads were safer options (although nothing had happened in years). At this point my mother was deep in the interrogation process. In a manner I interpreted as apathetic, he accounted his own experience of the war. He has lost both his brother and father; his brother shot in the back while running away, and his father from an untreated sickness while in jail after refusing to give the government his tractor. I have not known loss like his so I can’t even imagine what his process had been. At first his demeanor made me question his grief. But I don’t think he had a disconnection to the deaths. Rather, it was an acceptance of their fates.
After 8 hours of staring at fields and luxurious mountains of the backcountry, and a lot of sleep, we finally put feet in Jaffna where I was able to see the physical remnants of the war. I was told that after the civil war, closer to the city, the buildings were new and remodeled. But in the fishing district the walls were stained black and full of bullet holes, slowly eroding. The most haunting aspects were the empty lots—overgrown grassy spaces where houses once stood. Their owners were either dead, displaced, or had immigrated. New ownership of the land was difficult with the additional loss of paperwork as aftermath from the fighting and the 2004 tsunami. It was here that my research and understanding were similar to what I had expected from the aftermath of a war.
However, this is only a small part of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government has made the investment to rebuild communities. Hospitals and local businesses were rebuilt, and the local economy was stimulated. They had plugged the holes in the walls like putting a Band-Aid on a scar. Anna explained that it was Mahinda Rajapaksa (the ex-president) who was supporting these projects. He believed that it was Rajapaksa’s hope that more Singhalese would move north. Historically Tamils have amassed in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. If Rajapaksa had succeeded in increasing the presence of Singhalese this would take control from the Tamil government in the area.
My mother, the man in Galle, Anna, and I all held different weights of importance regarding the impact on the civil war. I cannot speak to the internal dialogue between any one person and their relationship to Sri Lanka’s atrocities. Yet the people I met showed an outward absence of anger or historical oppression and instead one of honesty and kindness. I left the island thinking that my disengagement with Sri Lanka was unfounded, since I had not experienced the physical and mental toll the civil war had caused to those who lived it. I now understood that my own conversation on the civil war had lacked intersectionality. I had enjoyed my trip and the people I met, but the lifestyles, traditions, and habits still seemed foreign to me. The experience had not been long enough to be fully immersed in the community. I need to go back, alone, when I don’t have the support of my family to be fully dunked in Sri Lanka.
“in the fishing district of Jaffa the walls were stained black and full of bullet holes, slowly eroding.”
On April 21st 2019, Sri Lanka was rattled with bombings across the country. Three churches and three hotels were targeted in a series of coordinated attacks in Negombo and Colombo, and additional bombs were set off in Dematogoda and Dehiwala as police raided housing complexes in search of suspects. The attacks killed 253 Sri Lankans and foreigners, and injured a further 500. It was a violent act of jihadist terrorism that brought tragedy, sadness, and fear to the country once again. Whilst I have seen communities coming together in support of each other, I also see how the fear generated by the perpetrators may affect the future of Sri Lanka. In the towns where the terrorists came from, innocent Muslims are hiding in mosques in fear of retaliation and the government has twice blocked social media platforms in attempt to stop anti-Muslim riots. Signs have been adorned the cities, asking them to vacate. I only hope that the media and government will help the country rehabilitate as a whole unit.
After the bombings, I was overwhelmed with the actions and reactions from the day, from people both near and far. I saw great sadness from my family and even a lingering curiosity from my friends. I was asked whether I was safe or whether I knew anyone injured in the attacks. I did not. Why should I? My interaction with Sri Lanka and the community has been brief; my visualizations of the country are from a holiday I took five months ago. However, with our holiday still fresh in my mind, I realized I was familiar with the bombsites, especially St. Sebastian’s in Negombo. In my head, I have a clear picture of a Christmas tree adorned with baubles ou tside the church. We had visited the Church on our last day in Negombo, a few days before Christmas.
In some ways I hope that a country experienced in war is somewhat prepared to help their people now. But I fear that amidst all the international terrorist attacks, civilians will revert to fear, like many other communities around the world have. Now more than ever, I feel a vast detachment to my ethnicity, as I in no way can understand what these people have gone through, perhaps nor will I ever. My only hope in connecting to this community is listening, understanding, and learning from the multitude of experiences throughout the country. ❖
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