South Asia Hand

An article by Elizabeth Laferriere and Teresita C. Schaffer on the political climate in Sri Lanka following the death of Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The decision of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to lay down their arms and the May 19 death of their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran at the hands of the Sri Lankan army marked the end of 25 years of intermittent bloody conflict that had convulsed the island. President Mahinda Rajapaksa started his victory speech in Tamil promising the countryís beleaguered minorities peace and assuring them that only the LTTE were considered enemies. The deep suspicions resulting from decades of conflict and the triumphalist atmosphere in Colombo, however, raise doubts about the prospects for conciliation. The government is not talking about constitutional change, much less about the federalism desired by the Tamil community. Rajapaksa is likely to use this moment of triumph to institutionalize his heroic status through new elections. The window of opportunity for creating a new political consensus extending to the country’s non-Sinhalese communities could be fleeting.

Originally published in the Center for Strategic & International Studies‘ South Asia Monitor on July 1, 2009. Read the entire article.

A review essay by Teresita C. Schaffer of five books about South Asia: Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West, by Benazir Bhutto; Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, by Ahmed Rashid; Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within, by Shuja Nawaz; The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan, by C. Christine Fair; and Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Complex Web, by Ali Riaz.

Reconciliation lays out, with almost desperate passion, Bhutto’s vision of Islam, marked by judicious reason, compassion, gentleness, and above all toleration for the world’s diversity. In what she terms ‘the battle within Islam’, she comes down resolutely on the side that favours democracy, moderation and finding common cause with the West. She bolsters this argument with a lengthy discussion of the historical and religious meanings of ‘jihad’, which she believes should properly be defined as ‘struggling in the path of God’. Tracing the history of Islamic thought, she stresses that Islamic thinkers and rulers were ahead of their times in their early sensitivity to women’s rights and potential. One chapter is devoted to Islam and democracy, with a series of brief descriptions of how different Islamic countries have dealt with their peoples’ democratic strivings.

Originally published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the October-November 2008 issue of Survival. Read the entire article.