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The Frontline interview
By Nalin de SilvaThe interview given by the President Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga to the "Frontline" published in India raises a number of questions. It reveals not only the thinking of Ms. Kumaratunga but also that of Mr. N. Ram, one of the leading journalists in India. These journalists and intellectuals who come from abroad not only have preconceived ideas but also help to form opinion in Sri Lanka itself. As many people have observed it is always a case of A quoting B and C, B quoting C and A, and C quoting A and B. After few quotations certain expressions and opinions become the standard. Also these worthies who visit this country very often meet with only members of a certain lobby in Colombo, whose views are in general in agreement with theirs. Occasionally, they interview the others whom they have already categorised as extremists, Sinhala Chauvinists, Sinhala hard-liners etc. only in order to pretend that they have given the other side of the story as well.
It is true that Sri Lanka is a small country and that Sinhala people are a tiny minority in the world population. However that is not the reason why the Sinhala people are being pushed around by the big countries. Even a small nation can produce giant leaders and the Sinhala culture in the past has produced such giants. Today due to the political party system the Sinhala people have been forced to select their leaders from a certain elite group which has produced the worst imitators in the former British empire. No wonder that the British considered Sri Lanka as their model colony and they even gave franchise to us before giving it to any other country in the empire, as they had faith in this elite group. This group of imitators cannot produce giant leaders and Sinhala people for the moment are saddled with pygmy men and women who act as their leaders.
Let us take a few examples from Mr. Ram’s interview with Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga. When the President was asked what she thought to be the most significant achievements of her government, she said that one of the "great achievements is that, for the first time, the Sri Lankan Government has consciously and honestly accepted that Sri Lanka does not need to be a unitary state...........we have had consciously to do a lot of political work, canvassing and campaigning. Convince the Sinhala majority, especially about the political solution offered as a solution to the minority problem. And we have been able to do even that successfully in Sri Lanka. We were sincere enough ............. to go to the people constantly- village to village, area by area - convincing them. We had a huge programme, the Sudu Nelum movement, the White Lotus movement."
How does Ms. Kumaratunga know that the Sinhala majority is convinced that Sri Lanka does not need to be a unitary state, as envisaged in the G. L. - Neelan political package. The Sudu Nelum, Thavalam, NIPU headed by Dr. Keerawella and other such projects of the NGOs have been failures. The UNP, for whatever reason, is against a federal state and according to them Sri Lanka needs to be a unitary state. Ms. Kumaratunga probably does not know that there are many people in her own party who are against a federal state. A vote for the SLFP or the PA does not necessarily mean a vote for a federal state.
Having talked about the success of the Sudu Nelum, Ms. Kumaratunga goes on to say how convinced she was about the opinion of the Sinhala people on the so-called Sinhala only trap. This is what Ms. Kumaratunga, the student of politics had to say on this matter. " Being a student of politics ........ I was convinced beyond any doubt that we had to get out of both these traps (Sinhala only trap and the Eelam trap). I was convinced but my party wasn’t convinced at all...They thought as all the Sinhala-based parties thought, including the Marxist parties. But I was so convinced of what the people thought because I had gone to the villages for twenty years before I became Prime Minister or President ....... I had talked about this ethnic issue especially during my (Sri Lanka ) Mahajana Party days and I was convinced that the people would respond."
What this student of politics tells us is that she was convinced that the people would respond to her policies on the so-called ethnic problem even during her Mahajana Party days. She could have tested this hypothesis by contesting the parliamentary elections as well as the presidential elections as a Mahajana Party candidate or as a candidate of the Bahujana Nidahas Party she formed with Dr. Rajitha Senaratne. When she returned from London, she was a member of the Bahujana Nidahas Party and if she had contested any of the elections as a member of that party with her policies on the so-called ethnic problem she could have easily gone back to London after the elections. What she did was to desert Dr. Senaratne and the others and join the SLFP whose policies were different to those of hers. This means that Ms. Kumaratunga joined the SLFP without agreeing with its policies. I thought only the political opportunists joined political parties without any consideration for their policies.
During this time the non-national lobby within the SLFP was looking for a leader and they were able to manoeuvre and make Ms. Kumaratunga the leader of the newly formed PA, with the intention of implementing the package through the PA. Ms. Kumaratunga hijacked the SLFP and even without holding a party conference changed its policies. Even a Montessori student of politics knows that in Sri Lanka people do not vote at elections after studying the manifestos of each of the political parties. At the 1994 elections people wanted to get rid of the UNP and they thought that the SLFP would solve their pressing economic problems. The SLFP (PA) in 1994, could have won the elections even without Ms. Kumaratunga. However Ms. Kumaratunga without the SLFP, would not have become the Prime Minister and then the President.
If the people voted for the PA, having being convinced of Ms. Kumaratunga’s policies on a federal state, then there was no need for Sudu Nelum and Thavalam. The very fact that the government had to start a massive campaign to convince the people that Sri Lanka needs a federal constitution implies that the people were for a unitary state even after they had voted Ms. Kumaratunga into power. I can tell Ms. Kumaratunga that even after Sudu Nelum, Thavalam and NIPU people are for a unitary state. She can find this out for herself by holding constitutionally a referendum on this matter.
Ms. Kumaratunga, the student of politics, has failed on her assignment on Prabhakaran. She has not assessed him correctly. However the failure has been more due to the outdated theories of guerrilla leaders that she had learnt from Marxist gurus. She has told Mr. Ram that she had thought that a guerrilla leader had especially to depend on his people. Prabhakaran is not a fish in a sea of people but one who uses the people as a human shield. He does not depend on the people. He depends only on the arms supplied by the foreign countries. As such he is relatively independent of the masses. As Ms. Kumaratunga herself admits now, Prabhakaran has only a few supporters, which means that the question of weaning away the Tamils from Prabhakaran, with or without a package does not arise.
Now let us consider some of the statements made by the interviewer himself. The interviewers very often not only ask questions but also make statements, giving the impression that the interviewer is unbiased and objective. There are no unbiased and objective people in this world and the interviewers being humans are biased Mr. Ram talks of a Sinhala only trap. Now what is wrong in making Sinhala the only official language in Sri Lanka after English has been so for about 150 years. Historically, culturally and population wise it should be so, but that should not prevent the Tamils from making their transactions with the government in Tamil. Mr. Ram who comes from India does not talk of a Hindi trap though the official language of India is Hindi. For the information of Mr. Ram and the others, it should be stated that the Sri Lankan born Tamil athlete Velu Pandeeshvari from Tamil Nadu, who participated in the recent South Asian Athletic meet held in Colombo has said that the Tamil language has a better status in Sri Lanka than in India. She prefers to come back to Sri Lanka and compete for the country in which she was born!
The Tamil problem in Sri Lanka is not due to a so-called Sinhala only trap but due to Tamil racism, which was baptised and nurtured by the British. I have outlined the evolution of Tamil racism in "Prabhakaran, Ohuge Seeyala, Baappala ha Massinala", which has been translated into English as "An Introduction to Tamil Racism in Sri Lanka". Mr. Ram can find out that the problem did not start with the Sinhala Only bill in 1956, but originated more than a century ago. The "Sinhala only trap", like the other expressions coined by the Tamil racist lobby, will gain currency among them and very soon they will get willingly trapped in that term.
Mr. Ram says: " I have this assessment from people who are objective, Tamil moderates in particular. There was the high point of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact of July 1957; I think the political package that came with the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of July 1987 was substantially a step forward." Now who are these objective people? Mr. Ram thinks that the Tamil Moderates are objective. But then what does one mean by a moderate? Can Mr. Ram or anybody else formulate criteria objectively in order to identify an objective person? How does one define objectivity in an objective way without appealing to any concepts created by the mind?
According to these "unbiased" journalists, the Tamil moderates are objective whereas the Sinhala hard-liners are not. These are only the subjective expressions of the Tamil racists. It is the propaganda machinery of Tamil racism which give these terms and expressions an "objectivity". The so-called moderates are not different from the LTTE with regard to the Thimpu conditions. Ms. Kumaratunga who hijacked the SLFP after coming back from London may not know, but the vast majority of the Sinhala people do not approve of the Thimpu conditions. If she is interested, she can find out this by holding a national referendum without resorting dubious opinion polls.
I do not want to comment at length on the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam pact or the Indo-Sri Lankan agreement at this stage. However I must remind Mr. Ram that the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of July 1987 was forced on the Sinhala people and the government of Sri Lanka by the Indian government. Mr. Ram may think of that as a step forward but the Sinhala people do not think so and it was a blunder of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi to force that agreement on the Sri Lankan government.
One last comment on the so-called war. Mr. Ram says that there have been "ups and downs". But Mr. Ram should know that there would not have been any "downs" from the point of view of the Sri Lankan army if not for the Indian intervention over Vadamaarachchi. The peace lobby financed by the NGOs also could have started another project to earn their living and/or to satisfy their egos if the Vadamaarachchi operation was allowed to accomplish its objective.
Teaching of Buddhism in schools
By Dr. P. H. D. H. de Silva
(Retired Director of National Museums)As a practising Buddhist I congratulate Mr. L. Jayasuriya for his factual and forthright article, "Master Plan to liquidate Buddhism or Monumental Stupidity?" and Mr. Devendra for his article on the same subject which appeared in ‘The Island’ of 16th November and 4th of December. These timely articles are a grim reminder to all Buddhists and to the government of this country that unlike meaningful steps are immediately taken the Buddhist population in this country by the turn of the next century, be reduced to a mere minority, worse than in South Korea and Buddhists will be adherents only by name.
As far as I recall it was Sir Thomas Maitland (1805-1811) who pressure from the Leaders of the Evangelical Movement in England to revive Christian schools in this country said that "if we cannot make them", (referring to the lists), "Christians we will make them bad Buddhists". Both Dutch (through the Dutch Reformed Church) and British (through the Baptist Mission, the Church Missionaryty, the American Mission etc.) established Christian schools and by 1832 had an as 235 such schools teaching nearly 10,000 local students. These studnets were taught reading, writing and Christianity. They firmly believed that those locals whom the Church converted were loyal to the rulers.
The revival of Buddhist education in this country was trigger Colonel H. S. Olcott who arrived in 1880 and the establishment of the Buddhist Theosophical Society (the B.T.S.) in 1876. This Society established several Buddha schools for boys and it was only after the arrival of Musaeus Higgins the fifth Buddhist school for girls was started. Two leading centres of Buddhist learning had been established by that time namely, the Vidyodaya Pirivena at Maligakanda in 1873 with scholar monk, Ven’ble Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Nayaka Thero as Principal and Vidyalankara Piriven at Peliyagoda, Kelaniya in 1876 with Ven’ble Ratmalane Sri Dharmaloka as Principal.
What Maitland and his successors could not fully achieve (though they did to some extent) one hundred and eighty eight yers later and fifty years after obtaining Swaraj in this country is now being made a reality. Mr. L. Jayasuriya explains clearly and comprehensively the various assaults that are being made today on Buddhism, some of which, are from within ie. by the Buddhists themselves and others are from outside. Some are visible while others are secretive and surreptitious.
The most serious and damaging, as pointed out by both Jayasuriya and Devendra, stems from the use of the present tex books on Buddhism published by government and prescribed for use from Year One to G.C.E. (O) Level. I have persued carefully two such text books, one for Year 5 i.e. closer to the termination of Primary Education and the text book for Year 9 i.e. closer to the termination of Secondary Education. I greatly regret to say that the greater part of Year 5 book is devoted to the narration of stories and incidents in the life of Lord Buddha, about his disciples and lay supporters and attitudes toward parents and teachers of a general nature. The Year 9 book repeats some of topics dealt with in Year book 5, describes life histories of some Buddhists personages deals with several general topics and only five Chapters out of 42 are devoted to the Dharmma. Even here, two Chapters discuss the second and the third of the Trisarana (at this stage?)
The most fundamental statement — Dukkha, Anicca and Anatta has no place in either book. This is only one example out of numerous other shortcoming. At the same time the first discourse of the Buddha ennunciating the four Noble Truths is discussed only here, in the Book for Year 9.
One of the question in 1997 G.C.E. (O) Level Examination, part II was
(a) Write in order the five precepts.
(b) Write the meaning of the fifth precept.
(c) Describe the benefits that accrue to you and the Society by observing the five precepts.
Learning the five precepts and their meaning is made by a Buddhist student even before he enters should and are repeated very frequently throughout his school education. But the examiner seems satisfied that by this type of questions he could properly evaluate the knowledge of Buddha Dhamma a G.C.E. (O) Level student should possess. I cannot for a moment believe that the level of Buddhism taught and evaluated in school education has deteriorated to this low level.
I also agree with both Jayasuriya and Devendra that this operation is certainly not one of stupidity but one of design where a Buddhist child is made to leave school without any Saddha towards the Trisarana and without an adequate knowledge of the Buddha Dhamma, Buddhist practices, Buddhist life style and above all without any comprehension of the uniqeness of the Dhamma. Such a student, later on in life when beset with financial problems will become an easy victim to the "Proselytizing Vultures" who could provide money and other benefits.
There is another current practice among Buddhist adults i.e. the parents of these children who in the belief of receiving material benefits and other help actively participate in various pujas and devotional prayer to the Bodhi tree, the Hindu goes Vishnu and Kataragama (Subramanium) and recently Sai Baba. These practices wean these adults away from the true Dhamma of Sakyamuni. In this was their Saddha to the Buddha Dhamma gets duluted and such parents cannot by example inspire their children.
We learn now that there exits a competition between the Ministry of Hindu Affairs, the Tourist Board and the Army Commander to build temples for Rama, Sita and the monkey god Hanuman at Sita Eliya, Nuwara Eliya. The press report further states that the Army Commander has taken a vow to build this temple for Hanuman on fulfilment. I personally would have preferred that The Army Commander puts up a monument for Ravana, the powerful King of Lanka of the Ramayana instead.
To all these Buddhist adults who are deviating from the Path I say, please read the Dhajagga Sutta and heed this admonition of Lord Buddha.
"Therefore Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves seeking no external refuge; with the Dhamma as your island, the Dhamma as your refuge, seeking no other refuge".
The chief and the most destructive among the assaults from outside is unethical conversions carried on relentlessly by both Catholic and Islamic institutions and Agencies. They seem to have access to unlimited funds which Buddhists do not possess and take the advantage of the poverty of the majority of Buddhists for such unethical conversions. They are very anxious to increase their numbers and at the same time cause a substantial decrease in the present Buddhist majority.
At the recently concluded Buddhist International Conference held in Colombo two significant resolutions or Recommendations were unanimously adopted. One was on Poverty Alleviation and the other on Unethical Conversions. This Conference was sponsored by the Foreign Ministry and the Buddha Sasana Ministry. These two factors are interlinked and so the Conference strongly requests "Buddhist governments" to take meaningful steps at governmental level to raise the income levels of these potential victims so that they will no longer be lured by money or other material benefits. Will our government be bold enough to stem this tide of unethical conversions?
Mr. Jayasuriya and Mr. Devendra have explained this aspect clearly and in detailand. Therefore it is unnecessary to repeat again except to state that this is not more imagination but is real happening here and now, with great vigour.
Recently I heard in some local TV programmes a senior member of the Muslim Congress, a Hindu politician and a verbose left politician questioning the right for Buddhism being given state recognition and the provision of this status in the COnstitutions of 1972 and 1977. This is very sad indeed and it is a bad omen for the future of Buddhism and the Buddhists in this country. Both Catholics and the Muslims seem to have forgotten their history in this country. I quote from Prom Professor K. M. de Silva (1998, pp. 69, 70).
"The Muslims, fleeing the Portuguese, found refuge in the interior where the Sinhalese kings permitted them to settle, and the large Muslim settlement on the east coast of Sri Lanka was, in part at least, the result of emigration to those parts — then under the control of the Sinhalese Kingdoms".
"....it was the turn of the Roman Catholics to feel the sting of religious intolerance from the Dutch Protestants. Once more it was to the Sinhalese kings that the harried Portuguese clergy turned for refuge. A settlement of Roman Catholics at Wahakotte in the hills of central Sri Lanka (close to matale) going back to the 17th century, survives, as a monument to the traditional religious tolerance of the Buddhists".
In conclusion I thank mr. jayasuriya and Mr. Devendra for focussing the attention of all Buddhists to these perils facing the Sasna today and call upon the Nayaka Theros, all Buddhist organisations and all Buddhists in general to treat this matter as one of utmost urgency and take prompt, meaningful steps to meet the challenge, in the same way we successfully overcame similar threats in the past. I sincerely hope that Buddhists in this country will unite and act before the situation turns into a catastrophe.
Getting to Grips with Globalization
The following are excerpts of the speech by Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa at the Ministerial Meeting of the Non Aligned Movement, 1998
"Over the last few years, a number of words and phrases have entered into the vocabulary of international discourse. Among these are globalization, liberalization, deregulation and the information society or the information super-highway.
Stripped of the sophistication that attaches to these terms and processes, these represent the international context in which all of us have to work to eliminate poverty in our countries, to improve the quality of life of the millions of our people, to close the gap between the rich and the poor both internally and universally and to attain sustainable rates of economic growth and development.
The fact of the matter, however, is that all these processes originate from the developed countries of the North, reflect the imperatives of the economies and the levels of development of these countries and therefore, naturally, serve the purposes of our rich global neighbours.
At the same time, the very fact of the process of globalization, in all its forms, means that our own success as developing countries in terms of the upliftment of our peoples cannot be achieved in conditions of autarky or self-contained development within our national boundaries or regions.
It cannot be achieved through opting out of the world economy and therefore extricating ourselves from the process of globalization.
Accordingly, the question that arises is what intervention can the developing countries make to ensure that a process which, by its nature, will favour the rich, addresses also what are clearly the more urgent needs of our peoples, millions of whom lack the most basic things that a human being needs.
It is clear that we, as the developing world, cannot make that intervention by autonomously affecting capital or trade flows or unilaterally altering any of the variables which make up the totality of the world economy. The stark reality is that the power to influence the markets lies exclusively in the hands of those who dominate these markets, which we, even collectively, do not."
"The question that arises is what must we do? Others — would ask — in any case, given the power of the powerful, is there anything we can do?
I believe that our answer has to be a resounding — yes!
The first consideration on which we must base that answer must start with the realization of the fact that the process of globalization ineluctably results in the reduction of the sovereignty of states, with the weakest, being ourselves, being the biggest losers — those who, already the worst off, suffer losses of the first order as a result of a marginal adjustment by another, who is already the best placed and which adjustment is intended for his or her own further comfort.
If what we have said is true, it must follow that, for us to be able to influence the process of globalization so that it also favours the interests of the poor, to be able to do something, we must ensure that ours becomes an important voice at the place to which we are losing some of our sovereignty.
The second consideration on which we must base our answer to the question — is there anything we
can do? — is that, for the first time ever, humanity is faced with the extraordinary reality that the world economy has generated and is generating volumes of resources which make it possible to end poverty everywhere.
Again, if what we have just said is true, and we believe it is, were ours to become an important voice at the place to which we are losing some of our sovereignty, then clearly we would say that the world economy should be managed in a way that ensures the transfer of resources from those who have them to those that do not, so that both end poverty among their peoples and achieve or maintain sustainable rates of growth and development.
In this context, we must make the fairly obvious point that the untapped markets in the world economy are those of the developing world, represented by us who are members of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Clearly, therefore, the further, qualitatively new expansion of the world economy must derive from the expansion of these markets or, in other words, the development of our economies such that we outgrow our designations both as developing countries and emerging economies.
There is no logical reason to assume that this would not also benefit the countries of the developed North. Indeed the opposite is true, as is being demonstrated even as we meet here at the XII Summit Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, that the poverty of some may very well become a threat to those who are well off."
"The questions we must all ask and seek to answer is whether a stable world of divided fates is possible, but more important, whether such a world, even if it were possible, is desirable. And, in this instance, my all includes the developed countries of the North.
Is it possible for some to maintain and expand their prosperity while billions of others are victim to dire misfortunes? Our own answer to that question is — no!
Clearly, something must be done. That doing requires that the political leaders of our contemporary world should face up to the question as to whether universal human values have any place at all in the ordering of human affairs.
How can it be permissible that some die of hunger and curable diseases and exposure to the elements because of poverty and perish in civil wars driven by competition for virtually nonexistent resources, when the volumes of wealth concentrated in some parts of our globe are themselves becoming something of a destructive force!"
"Enlightened self-interest should inform those who have that, where the manner of the reproduction of wealth begins to precipitate crisis, our graduation out of the condition described as "developing" is, in reality, in their interest as well and is human as well."
"But to borrow a phrase, we, the poor, must become our own liberators! We have to lead the global offensive according to which all humanity should take advantage of the fact of the emergence of the possibility to end poverty in the world, in fact to devise ways and means by which this can be achieved.
What we speak of is not the expansion of a system of charity and aid, important though these are, but resource transfers which would ensure that those who are on the margins of the world economy themselves arrive at the point where they can achieve their own sustainable development.
The market, so-called, has no inherent mechanisms intrinsic to itself, as a result of whose functioning this objective will be achieved. The new God of our world, the market, is not informed by a tablet of commandments on which is inscribed "thou shalt banish poverty in the world"!
Mere mortals must address this challenge, consciously and purposefully. And therein lies the challenge to the Non-Aligned Movement! In as much as the slave cannot ask the slave master to provide the strategy and tactics for a successful uprising of the slaves, so must we, who are hungry and treated as minors in a world of adults, also take upon ourselves the task of defining the new world order of prosperity and development for all and equality among the nations of the world.
The institutions of global governance are central to the achievement of this objective. We are therefore correct to be focused on the matter of the restructuring of the United Nations system so that it pursues an agenda truly determined by the united nations of the world. Further it would seem to us that, as a Movement, we must radically review the manner in which we make our interventions into such important organizations as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
I speak here of a review which will influence these organizations to address the issue we have raised of setting a new agenda focused on the sustained and sustainable development of our countries.
We will also have to look at ourselves, to see whether the way we are organised and the way we work as a Movement, the way we co-operate and work with one another as members of this Movement, whether all these are such that we will be able to live up to what to us seem to be obvious challenges and opportunities of our age.
In this context, we must set rational objectives, however challenging they might be to the established order, about such critical matters as the international system of governance affecting politics, the economy and security, global capital markets, world trade, human resource development, the emancipation of women, technology transfers, the information society, intellectual property, the environment, and poverty eradication and seek to speak with one voice on these matters.
I am convinced that on all these matters, and others besides, you will be able to provide the advice to our Heads of State and Government which will enable them to take the important and seminal decisions they have to adopt."
ECONOMIC CHANGE AND POLITICAL CONFLICT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
With special reference to Sri Lanka
Sirimal AbeyratneCivil wars and other forms of intra-state political violence have recently been concentrated generally in ‘developing’ regions of the world. In order to understand these phenomena, an explanatory framework from a development perspective is essential. This book focuses on political conflicts within a conceptual framework of development economics in general and it analyses the experience of one developing country, Sri Lanka, in particular.
In the context of a global economic environment, the strategic problem faced by developing countries has been and still is, the generation of economic resources to meet rising aspirations that were created by the development paradigm itself. The study shows that development accompanied by econmic mismanagement and the lack of political discipline, has provided a fertile ground for the emergence of the twin political conflicts in Southern and Northern Sri Lanka.
Using the Sri Lanka experience, this work presents an insight into the devlopment limits and prospects of developing countries in general.
The author is an economist and senior lecturer attached to the Department of Economics of the University of Colombo.
POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN SRI LANKA, 1977-1990
Riots, Insurrections, Counterinsurgencies, Foreign Intervention
Jagath P. SenaratneSri Lanka experienced unprecedented levels of political violence during 1971-1990, resulting in massive numbers of victims and destruction of property. This violence reached a peak in 1987-1990.
This book describes the overall pattern of the political violence in these years as well as the underlying processes. It addresses the Tamil secessionist insurrection, the intervention by India, the second JVP insurrection in the South and connected processes of ethnic and class competition and conflict. The reader is offered a detailed analysis of the violence and the strategies and tactics of the agencies at work.
RELOCATED LIVES:Displacement and Resettlement within the Mahaweli Project, Sri Lanka.
Birgitte Refslund SorensenIn recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in displacements in Sri Lanka due to the outbreak of civil war and the implementation of large-scale development projects. This study examines the social and cultural impact of development-induced displacement and resettlement related to the Mahaweli project.
It describes how members of a settler community and the neighbouring village experienced the relocation process, but more importantly it analyses the creative strategies that differnt groups and individuals employed in order to create new or restore existing identities and to build a local community.
The work argues that previous approaches to relocation have largely failed to grasp this creative and constructive aspect due to the conceptualisation of relocation as a liminal phase and the predominant use of stress-models. On the basis of empirical data, an alternative approach is developed by the author which views relocation as an ongoing process of social construction that goes beyond recovery and adaptation and touches upon many realms of life.
University Press Amsterdam
