Your views are welcome regardless of where you come from, yet we (or I at the least) appreciate your sensitivities regarding Sri Lankan history.

UK is one successful example of devolution within a unitary state; I’m glad that somebody here finally pointed one out. In this sense it has more lessons for Sri Lanka than countries which have always been federations, like India, Canada, or Australia. Yet there are some issues which make the British case difficult to apply to Sri Lanka.

First is that there has never been any dispute regarding the unit of devolution in UK, whereas it is a very controversial issue in Sri Lanka. Your English countrymen might disagree with devolution for Scotland, but none of them would dispute the very borders and territory of Scotland or Wales for that matter. In Sri Lanka the constitutional reform process has bogged down over the unit of devolution; some say it should be the larger Province, others say it should be the smaller District. Yet some who call for the Province also demand that two provinces, the North and East be merged to acknowledge a Tamil homeland. The Northern Province has a clear Tamil majority, but the Eastern Province is nearly equally divided between Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims, and the non-Tamil communities might not agree with this solution.

Second major difference is that there isn’t a powerful insurgent force in Scotland or Wales which has a hobby of murdering dissidents or anyone who advocates compromise. Some British feel that given their experience with the IRA and N. Ireland, they have some special insights into how to solve the Sri Lankan conflict. The problem is that the LTTE is not the IRA.

I am not trying to imply that your opinion is less valid simply because you’re a foreigner. Actually there are a lot of Sri Lankans who are quite clueless yet pass themselves as experts, using weird fuzzy language like “conflict transformation” and “plural nationalism” to show off. As long as you keep the conversation real and do not slip into NGO Conference lingo, you’ll be welcome in my book.

Publius said: “Short of successful secession, the challenge before liberals then is about how to conceptualise Statehood that guarantees liberal values yet addresses the ground reality of plural nationalisms. It is essentially a challenge of transformation of hard and intolerant ethno-nationalisms into nationalisms that are collective identities which can coexist within a multinational State.”

10 years ago the peoples of Scotland and Wales voted in separate referenda for some political devolution of power from London. Scotland won wider powers such as the potential power to raise taxes through its own parliament, whilst Wales is beginning to gain new powers of control over major areas of policy through its national Assembly. People in Scotland and Wales report that they feel their politicians to be more accessible and a majority seem happy with this evolving political settlement, which is indeed short of secession and is a nationalism of a collective identity within a multinational State. Far from perfect, and it gives people scope for expression of their national identity in new ways without bloodshed. Maybe Scotland and Wales may opt for complete secession in the future, who knows? The issue is whether the present settlement satisfies a majority of the people to achieve their aspirations.

The only people who have a problem with it are some of my own countrymen – English people – but that’s their problem.

John Rogers

Thank you for the article. However it does not answer my question how to turn a unitary state into federal state. It seems more like a self-congratulatory note about Australia, a rather wealthy federation which was never a unitary state. Actually some of his arguments are quite hollow:

1. “Vote with your feet” – Living conditions in countries, whether federal or unitary are not always a result of mere governance. Some regions have resources and some don’t; some places are more dangerous or more safe. Bihar in India is a very poor state but the people there cannot move en masse to southern India where their language is not spoken. It is a common argument of the Sinhala nationalists that the Tamils have “voted with their feet” by leaving North & East en masse for Colombo, all within a unitary state.

2. “Experimentation” – it would’ve been nice for the author to have given a concrete example of a successful experiment at the Australian state level which changed the federation. His argument seems to be based on speculation.

3. “Yet federalism plainly works best when sociocultural differences are not too great or too territorially delineated. Multi-ethnic federations are among the hardest to sustain. Australia’s relative sociocultural homogeneity is therefore an argument for, not against, a federal structure.”

???????? It seems like the author would argue against federation for Sri Lanka, a diverse country!!!!

4. “The federal division of powers protects liberty” – not true in the US, where the federal government prevented the southern states from discriminating against blacks. When the states misuse powers, only the central government has the capacity to check them.

5. “Federations are exceptionally stable” – not the ones you mentioned above: USSR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia etc. Federations comprise the vast majority of state breakup.

The rest of the article appears to show how federalism has worked for Australia. However, it does not demonstrate at all how it is suited for other countries, particularly unitary states which are considering devolution.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1265

wijayapala check this site out when your free.

“So why is that, some us of are so paranoiac about a new state.”

Perhaps when we consider that the creation of the US and Canada also involved the destruction of the people who were living there previously, the paranoia would be somewhat easier to understand. But I’m game for separating the issue. (sorry, you just gave some bad examples…)

“If so, there will be an ironic reminder to every narrow nationalist in SL, when they gladly welcome the cricket teams of Pakistan or Bangladesh, these are the neo-national representative of the bloodiest separations that occurred in the land with 5000 years of history and gave the greatest gift to the SL nationalist: the Sinhala language and Buddhist (Non-violent?) religious philosophy.”

I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What do Pakistan & Bangladesh have to do with Sinhala language & Buddhism??

“True, there are instances where federalism has led to separation. (That is I am afraid not due to any weakness in federalism itself). But fortunately, federal application has brought more ethnic conflicts to an end and kept separatist and opposes together.”

What the example shows is that federalism is no sure solution, and more importantly that virtually all successful cases of separation happened in federations. Now you are correct that federalism itself cannot be entirely blamed for this outcome- there are issues such as greed, grievance, and probably some other things involved that I missed. But it seems that federalism or at least a kind of federalism does give the institutional facility for separation. Secession has probably failed in unitary states because the separatists would have to create their institutions from scratch.

Speaking of the unitary state, perhaps you can tell us how many unitary states have converted to federations? India sure isn’t one of them. Is there a website for us to cut-and-paste?

ps. Gauthama Buddha also said “Anichaa watha sankara” (Nothing is permanent)
Hey Suren…haven’t seen you since you left Grant’s…what are you upto now?

In the political history of human civilization state formation is not static or dogmatic. Last 500 years more states have evolved (and devolved) as we see today. There was no USA or Canada mere 200 years ago. There was no Pakistan 60 years ago and there was no Bangladesh 40 years ago. (Similarly, there were east and west Germany mere 15 years ago and 26 different currencies and markets but have more/less become one in the EU)
So why is that, some us of are so paranoiac about a new state. I am sure you will say no one in proper mind will desire a state created and led by a megalomaniac who believe in terrorism as a way of salvation. Then the issues should be separated:

1. One opposes because it is a state of terror or
2. One opposes because it is a state of the Tamils (, Muslims and Singhalese) or
3. One opposes because he/she believes that the NE (where no meaningful development has taken place for the last 60 years neither 50 percent of the Sinhalese have stepped on, and is the destination to which Colombo often packs away the Tamils) like the rest of that land is owned and therefore should be ruled only by Sinhalese.

An examination of the responses to these questions will reveal our inner rationales however eloquent liberal one may appear to be.

If so, there will be an ironic reminder to every narrow nationalist in SL, when they gladly welcome the cricket teams of Pakistan or Bangladesh, these are the neo-national representative of the bloodiest separations that occurred in the land with 5000 years of history and gave the greatest gift to the SL nationalist: the Sinhala language and Buddhist (Non-violent?) religious philosophy.

True, there are instances where federalism has led to separation. (That is I am afraid not due to any weakness in federalism itself). But fortunately, federal application has brought more ethnic conflicts to an end and kept separatist and opposes together. (1) India is such a living example. Whether it is a coming together federalism, holding together federalisms or going away federalism:(2) the outcome is in the hands of the protagonists not in the theory.

Finally, in politics, like in many parts of life, don’t we create philosophies out of what we desire and cherish. ‘What we desire to own will make our sorrow or happiness’: Gauthama Buddha [Samaññaphala Sutta]

(1) Nancy Bermeo “The Import of Institutions” in Journal of Democracy Vol. 13, Number 2, pp 96-100
(2 )Stepan, Alfred C. Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model Journal of Democracy – Volume 10, Number 4, October 1999, pp. 19-34