My interest is in what people need and want and most Sinhalese people seem very scared that taking Buddhism out of the constitution will hurt Buddhism. So unless their fears are addressed, the suggestion will be a non starter.

Says who, you? Islam is protected in many West, South and South-East Asian countries. Church of England is the official religious institution in England and the Monarch is the “defender of the faith” who must be “saved” by the “God”. The Norwegian constitution legally compells Lutheran Christian parents to raise their children in that religion. There are countless examples from all corners of the world.

Why, may I ask, do you think that Buddhism needs to be protected by a man-made Constitution? I am sure it can and will survive on the merits of its teachings and the greatness of its teacher.

No religion needs protection from mortals. They must survive on their own merits.

Read your discussion here with “La Dolce Vita” (honestly, this site attracts the most interesting monickers!) with great interest.

I’m concerned however about the coercive bent you attribute to the ultimate success of federalism in Sri Lanka – “It will be coercively imposed, there will be no initial legitimacy, but it will come about one day, and there will be nothing anyone can do about. This is the way constitutional change has happened in this country before, and this is the way it will happen in the future.”

Not going to argue with you about the past – consider us in agreement here – but surely the process for constitutional reform as process should be something different especially if we are looking at it as a central mechanism of conflict transformation?

While your point is taken – the confederacy of Sri Lanka seems to be underway, I don’t think that the solution your espouse here – coercive federalism – is the answer. In fact, to espouse such a process would be the very anti-thesis of federalism, understood here as a new and evolving social compact to address systemic failures of governance in Sri Lanka. And here, I am partial to the reading of Leftist reading of Federalism by Vasuki Nesiah, which at the end he states:

“In sum, I am arguing that a left approach to constitutionalism needs to simultaneously walk two paths – one inside the terrain of liberal legalism, using the space of liberal constitutionalism to advance struggles for deepening democracy and social justice, and another path whose terms are not limited by how the written constitution defines the field of the political – a path that fundamentally challenges the constraints of merely legal terrains.”

and goes on to say:

“A left approach to federalism in Sri Lanka is not merely a project of constitutional tinkering regarding division of powers between center and state, clarifying the number of administrative units, or even establishing directive principles regarding state responsibilities. We on the left need to press for self-determination in the deepest sense of the term – an ever vigilant engagement with constitutions and constitutionalism not for a once off constitutional settlement but for an ongoing political engagement radical redirecting, institutional experimentation and imaginative exploration to advance distributive justice, ‘alternative pluralisms’ and democratic participation. ”

Warm regards,

Sanjana

P.S. If oil and gas are discovered to MR’s glee in the South, wouldn’t that make him more Chavez than Milosevic?

For presecisely the analytical and (to a lesser extent) empirical reasons that you adduce, I think that “Federalism…as a rationally defensible lowest common denominator amongst all communities as a mechanism through which we can address multiple grievances and aspirations” can in fact come about, and if at the end of this conflict cycle there is some form settlement, it (or something approximating a federal-type arrangement) will come about. It will be coercively imposed, there will be no initial legitimacy, but it will come about one day, and there will be nothing anyone can do about. This is the way constitutional change has happened in this country before, and this is the way it will happen in the future.

“Rationally defensible” has nothing to do with social transformation or public legitimacy. Thus, the irony is that the confederating exercise in Sri Lanka is already underway, and depends very much for its fruition, the existence of a “Chavez” (I prefer Milosevic) on either side of the ethnic divide.

Parekh would have answered you in the affirmative, that the practical resolution, through praxis, of theoretical imperfections, was far more desirable and indeed proof of the strengthen of his theories, than the academic rodomontade around that which could not be created in the real world.

I think constitutional theory is a tad removed from the process of making, enacting and necessarily revising a new framework – such as Sri Lanka’s enduring tango with federalism. Therefore, I must take a position that pits me against the assumption of linear progression implied, to the best of my understanding, in your submission here:

“Therefore, basic reducible (morally monist) rules represented by a constitututional and citizenship compact on the basic socio-political cosmopolitanism of a post conflict polity, allows the space for cultural diversity to operate within a kind of ‘private’ (in the sense of non-coercively regulated) space.”

Simply put, the conditions of the first submission (cosmopolitanism of a post conflict polity) don’t (necessarily or by default) lead to the second (the space for cultural diversity to operate within a kind of ‘private’ (in the sense of non-coercively regulated) space.). I suspect you will agree, and argue that this is very much part and parcel of the makings of a constitutional, a process that really is a social contract with no finite resolution. Constitutional law, however, is a poor medicine when the supporting infrastructure of enlightened self-interest is woefully lacking. Sri Lanka’s constitutional evolution, and more often, regression, is marked by an enfilade of well intentioned yet ultimately miserable failures are imagining ways through which the core tenets of Parekh, written into a constitutional framework, can be communicated to the people sans the argot of lawyers and the frankly, precisely the kind of complex language that we are employing in this dialogue.

Federalism then, as a rationally defensible lowest common denominator amongst all communities as a mechanism through which we can address multiple grievances and aspirations, simply hasn’t come about. Clearly, important work has been done, but it is dwarfed by the enterprise ahead of us, and calls to question our commitment when many don’t even understand why we are saying, what we are.

Clearly, Parekh visioned his theories not with post-conflict or violent ridden societies in mind. Located in the West, Parekh’s social transformation is sans any anchor to real world conflict zones. For instance, although not against the positive aspects of a homogenous society, Parekh contends that “a culturally diverse society can reproduce most of the desirable qualities of the homogenous society, but the reverse is not the case”. To recognise, manage, build upon and celebrate the potential of its fabric, Parekh contends that society today needs to promote the good life by “accommodating the demands of its inescapable internal diversity and reconstituting the traditional culture on a new basis”.

In Sri Lanka, that would mean looking at our flag, Article 2 of the constitution, language and a raft of other structural impediments to conflict transformation that simply are no go areas for the foreseeable future. We don’t have a Parekh, we don’t have a Tutu, we don’t even have a Gusmao. All we have is a fast blossoming Chavez – and to hell with your constitutional law, your non-coercively regulated space and while we are at it, your constitututional and citizenship compact on the basic socio-political cosmopolitanism of a post conflict polity.

This after all, is Sri Lanka.

Excellent intervention. I wonder whether the contradiction in Parekh’s reasoning you highlighted cannot be resolved through the notion of ‘minimum universalism’ he advances, as middle path between extreme moral relativism and an essential human nature (what he calls ‘moral monism’).

His theory of non-ethnocentric universal values, which can be characterised as a form of ‘cosmopolitan pragmatism’ is constructed, as you point out, by means of cross-cultural dialogue between equals. The objective of “…a cross-cultural dialogue is to arrive at a body of values to which the all the participants can be expected to agree…Values are a matter of collective decision [based on reason]. Since moral values cannot be rationally demonstrated, our concern should be to build a consensus around those that can be shown to be rationally most defensible.”

Therefore, basic reducible (morally monist) rules represented by a constitututional and citizenship compact on the basic socio-political cosmopolitanism of a post conflict polity, allows the space for cultural diversity to operate within a kind of ‘private’ (in the sense of non-coercively regulated) space.

Admittedly, this problem is more easily resolvable at the practical (i.e. through instruments such a constitutional law) level than at theory – but if it is in fact resolvable, then should we worry about its theoretical imperfection too much?

Quite apart from the confounded conceptual confusion that bundles together “masochism” (whatever that means in this context) with “escapism”, you have, of course, entirely missed the metaphorical allegory denoted by the phrase “arrack, cricket and baila”.

If on the other hand what you are trying to say is “machoism” – that “arrack, cricket and baila” is essentially a male-centric worldview – then it is you, and not I, who is in a pseudo-feminist dreamland with regard contemporary Sri Lanka.

Building viable citizenship is as much a question of social attraction, fun, lifestyle and sense of humour as it is of sound concept. A universal problem with the approach of earnest “responsible citizenship” builders is that they are fundamentally lacking in these respects.

Two much seminar circuit argot about engineered “reconciliation”, and not enough fun, will never build a common Sri Lankan identity that lives in the hearts of ordinary people. For example, the total disappearance of the wonderful tri-lingual humour of Tarzie Vittachi and EMW Joseph, was at once a representaion of literary sophistication as well as a social confidence in diversity of a happier Ceylon. This has been replaced with a bizarre combination of rabid intolerance and jargon-spewing politcial correctness at either end of the spectrum of social commentary in present day Sri Lanka, which tells volumes about how much we have deteriorated.

I am no “romantic” (again, whatever that means). But I know something about social interaction among ordinary people in the taverns of Sri Lanka whether in the North, South or East, and I can tell you that “arrack, cricket and baila” have much more currency and meaning than any nonsensical talk of abstract reconciliation, responsible citizenship etc.

The (essential) value of conceptualising citizenship and identity at the academic and policy levels have absolutely no import if they cannot be translated into living meaning – which is precisely what “arrack, cricket and baila” does.