I’ll admit to not following the recently concluded Sri Lankan civil war very closely but other SM bloggers have been. Still, I found this interview with noted Atlantic Monthly correspondent Robert Kaplan quite enlightening about many aspects of the conflict. Kaplan is noted for his relatively unorthodox approach to understanding conflict and in discussing Sri Lanka, he comes out swinging –
MJT: So you just got back from Sri Lanka. What did you see there? What did you learn?
Kaplan: The biggest takeaway fact about the Sri Lankan war that’s over now is that the Chinese won. And the Chinese won because over the last few years, because of the human rights violations by the Sri Lankan government, the U.S. and other Western countries have cut all military aid. We cut them off just as they were starting to win. The Chinese filled the gaps and kept them flush with weapons and, more importantly, with ammunition, with fire-fighting radar, all kinds of equipment. The assault rifles that Sri Lankan soldiers carry at road blocks throughout Colombo are T-56 Chinese knockoffs of AK-47s. They look like AK-47s, but they’re not.
What are the Chinese getting out of this?
They’re building a deep water port and bunkering facility for their warships and merchant fleet in Hambantota, in southern Sri Lanka. And they’re doing all sorts of other building on the island.
Now, why did the Chinese want Sri Lanka? Because Sri Lanka is strategically located. The main sea lines of communication between the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, and between the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. It’s part of China’s plan to construct a string of pearls – ports that they don’t own, but which they can use for their warships all across the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka defeated, more or less completely, a 26 year-long insurgency. They killed the leader and the leader’s son. But there are no takeaway lessons for the West here. The Sri Lankan government did it by silencing the media, which meant capturing the most prominent media critic of the government and killing him painfully. And they made sure all the other journalists knew about it.
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p>Kaplan has travelled far and wide and drops some interesting comparisons / contrasts between the Tamil Tigers and other international groups and how this shaped the conflict –
..The Tamil Tigers had human shields by the tens of thousands, not just by the dozens and hundreds like Al Qaeda. They put people between themselves and the government and say “you have to kill all the people to get to us.” So the government obliged them. The government killed thousands of civilians…The U.N. is investigating whether as many as 20,000 civilians have been killed during the last few months.
..It was the only insurgent terrorist outfit that had a navy and air force…They had a few planes that they used for bombing missions over Colombo… Not even Hezbollah has either of those, and Hezbollah is the most sophisticated Islamist terrorist group in the world.
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p>I’ve read a few of Kaplan’s past works and many of his pieces line up with thinkers like Samuel Huntington, Thomas Barnett & others who were quick to criticize Francis Fukuyama’s almost idyllic “End of History” view of international relations. Rather than a peaceful “new world order” as the end of the cold war ushers in a new, UN-brokered, social democratic paradise, Kaplan instead sees a “back to the 18th century” map.
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p>In many parts of this world – particularly its most violent corners – he & others argue that old skool considerations like ethnic identity trump nationality, economics, and ideology in creating conflict fault lines down to even the smallest tribal/neighborhood scale. The “End of History” may be true for the first world, but elsewhere it’s still being written based on a very old, and unfortunately deeply human calculus. And thus, far from being a modern invention, “total war” often becomes the default M.O. when your opponent’s bloodline matters more than his ideology.
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p>Update: VV points out an excellent, full length article by Kaplan on this topic – here. Asked what lessons Sri Lanka could hold for the US’s counterinsurgency efforts, Kaplan notes (tongue in cheek) –
Bad media coverage is hurting morale and giving succor to the enemy? Just kill the journalists. That’s what the Sri Lankan authorities did. Precisely because insurgencies are unconventional, there are no easy-to-follow infantry advances and retreats, so the media holds the power to shape a narrative for the public. Aware of the need for a compliant media to aid the war effort, the Sri Lankan government struck fear into the ranks of journalists. There were hundreds of disappearances of top opinion leaders.
“Murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty,” wrote journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga in a self-penned obituary that anticipated his own assassination in early 2009. Sources told me that he was killed by having iron rods with sharp points driven through his skull.
…So is there any lesson here? Only a chilling one. The ruthlessness and brutality to which the Sri Lankan government was reduced in order to defeat the Tigers points up just how nasty and intractable the problem of insurgency is. The Sri Lankan government made no progress against the insurgents for nearly a quarter century, until they turned to extreme and unsavory methods. Could they have won without terrorizing the media and killing large numbers of civilians? Perhaps, but probably not without help from the Chinese, who, in addition to their military aid, gave the Sri Lankan government diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council.
People might want to check this out too—Kaplan’s article on the Atlantic website:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907u/tamil-tigers-counterinsurgency
i enjoy kaplan’s writing, but people need to be cautious about the empirical sloppiness.* he has a very dark and pessimistic view of the arc of human history (see the coming anarchy), and this i think is a necessary antidote to excessive whiggishness, but i suspect reality is in the middle (geographically bracketing the developed vs. developing is a bit too coarse, but gets to some real issues).
Obama will not let this hegemony of China continue. Because, as I learnt from that other deep thinker Thomas Sowell in that magazine of deep thought, the National Review, he will make sure that our grandchildren will live under Sharia law.
I wouldn’t call that “coming out swinging.” It’s a pretty bare and unadorned expression of the power plays.
Razib (re: empiricism), It’s certainly not true that there isn’t any journalism that’s not unreflexively pro-gov’t–but Rupavahini and the rags over there aren’t exactly bursting with exposes of corruption in gov’t or the military. It is true that if you complain about any act of intimidation/violence to the authorities, they will likely take you in as well The fact does remain that there are no Tigers anymore and it seems to trump anything else at the moment.
The 20K civilian death number comes from the Daily Mail, so take that as you will (given the lack of any independently verified body counts)
The IPKF was not ejected because the Tigers were superhuman but because the Indians honestly believed that Premadasa wanted them to be there and were strategically and tactically strangled by the absence of concrete goals and SOPs.
The rest seems broad but accurate.
I think all of the regions countries worked with the Sri Lankan govt to eliminate the tigers: the chinese, the indians, the pakistanis and so on. It was an extremely brutal war – both the tigers and the response from the govt.
I think Sri Lanka does have a choice – it can become very militarized and backward looking or it can follow a path closer to Indonesia or Malaysia. Both are states that had major ethnic and other insurgencies – dealt with them brutally – but are today somewhat democratic in their functioning today.
Sri Lanka has a fantastic economic oppty as it is situated next to south india. This region is poised for major economic growth and development over the next few years.
Why were they fighting?
China has been involved in a global power play for decades now. I guess we should’nt take the take over of Tibet in isolation in along with China’s role now in Sri Lanka, and elsewhere in Asia http://www.freeman.org/m_online/bodansky/beijing.htm
That’s politics
An even better exploration: see the interview in Left Turn magazine……http://www.leftturn.org/ Warring Nationalisms and the Future of Sri Lankan Politics by Ahilan Kadirgamar in conversation with Prachi Patankar
India’s foreign policy bungling truly knows no limits–China is building ports in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma, and India is–doing nothing. Not to mention the outlandish Chinese military violations of India’s land borders. India is pathetic; it’s sad but true.
In the long run, I find it difficult to believe that China could maintain a dominant strategic position in SL simply because of economics and trade. Geography still matters, and the economic behemoth next door for sri lanka will remain india (as the us is to canada), specifically southern india. India is, in the long run, much better positioned to pressure the sl govt to not offer a port to the Chinese than China is to do the converse.
Let’s not forget that the recent actions against the tigers did have the tacit acquiescence of the indian govt (though not overt for obvious reasons); sonia gandhi is no fan of the tigers after all…
Ok, I haven’t read Kaplan much and don’t know about his grand theories (so on razib’s advice will take his words with caution). But the fact that China was so involved in SL was news to me, so i found his interview interesting. Thanks Vinod. I was aware of China’s involvement in East Africa, though. It’s like they’re reviving old Zheng He (a.k.a SM’s favorite Ming sailor).
Also I have a problem with something in the second paragraph of Kaplan’s Atlantic article that VV linked to :”The Tamil Tigers, moreover, had a brilliant, charismatic leader by the name of Vellupilai Prabakharan, who was venerated by many ethnic Hindu Tamils to the same extent that radical Muslims have venerated Osama bin Laden.” That makes the LTTE sound religious, which it certainly wasn’t.
And though I’m a little wary of future Chinese imperialism (it’s making me think very fondly of our present day american empire already), I am so glad that India is not trying to out-empire china. Yeah, call us pathetic. Whatever. We’ve got other things to worry about.
Kaplan is one of the worst hacks out there; his work has been trashed by specialists on a number of regions he has written on. Cannot beleive people still take him seriously. Bill Clinton, said he learned most of what he knew about the Balkans from Kaplan’s book and it influenced his thinking (and thereby policy) towards the region.
Nuff said.
That’s not true. He sets an agenda for the West; even if “we” (i.e., desis) have a more “nuanced” view, you can’t deny his influence. He is not a hack, but rather a major mover of world geo-politics. He’s wrong sometimes, as razib nicely notes, but he also is willing to spit in the face of pieties–see his book “The Arabists: the Romance of an American Elite,” for example. Kaplan matters.
This is a blog that proclaimed to be a South Asian blog but somehow the only voice I have been reading was the voice of the “poor” Tamil terrorists and those who support them.Where are the voice of Sri Lankan Singhalese? Sri Lanka has done the same thing India has done to Khalistanis,Kashmir,Bodoland and what India is doing in West Bengal today.
The only country that fears China in South Asia is India. Nepal,Pakistan,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ( and even Myanmar) favor China and detest or don’t trust India. India is seen as the China/America of the South Asia – case in point :Hyderabad,Goa and Sikkim have been annexed by India.
If we strip away the Indo-centric view of the author, Sri Lanka’s victory over Tamil LTTE terrorists was as profound as India’s victory over Khalistanis.And for most Sri Lankans, China and Pakistan are much better friends than India.
Finally someone who speaks the truth! India needs to wake up and realize this reality!! Please get imperialistic tomorrow, India!! Take over your stubborn, ridiculously poor, neighbors!
The most critical element in victory is the will to win. The Sri Lankan government had finally had enough and come to the conclusion that defeating the Tamil Tigers was worth more than Western recriminations and a festering attrition ridden ceasefire that peace with the Tigers would inevitably lead to. Most people are probably attributing too much to Chinese machinations and not enough credit is given to Sri Lanka for having discovered a spine. China may have ran interference via the U.N., supplied much of the weapons and the ammunition, and provided financial aid, but ultimately it was Sri Lankan soldiers that bled for each inch of ground taken from the Tigers and the Sri Lankan people that decided victory was worth the cost.
Another trend I’ve picked up from Indian editorials has been a none too subtle bada bhai attitude from Indians vis-a-vis Sri Lanka. A lecturing, even sometimes condescending, attitude that invariably sets the Sinhalese’ teeth grinding. The ironic part, is none of the writers themselves even seem to be aware of the fact!
True. India is not even the major power in South Asia. China and America are, and China will still be there long after America withdraws back across the Atlantic.
Instead of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, India speaks loudly and boastfully while carrying a pencil. What a pathetic joke.
Most Indians are not sympathetic to Tamil tigers and nor does India provide them arms.
Are you wishing that Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka meet Myanmar’s fate ? Good Luck to them. And are you forgetting the fate of annexed Tibet fighting for Independence and religious freedom (unlike Hyd, Goa and Sikkim), fate of Uighur Muslims in their own country…again good luck with your new best friend. While India is no way a perfect place (very far from it), but boy, I can’t fathom how one can trust China’s communist rule.
In all this the Tamils are truly screwed… their numbers within SL is dwindling quickly.
Sinhalese colonization of the non-Jaffna parts of the Northern province will soon commence. It’ll start by the building of ‘temporary’ villages near military bases. Also I think the SL army is increasing its size from 200K to 300K to potentially ward off any future Indian intervention rather than to clean up any remaining LTTE units. On the long run India is surrounded by neighbours that despise beyond all else. The Chinese have so far been successful with their ‘String of Pearls’ strategy. India will be in a really tight bind on the long run.
Re: Al Beruni(5): I don’t think SL will go the way of Malaysia or Indonesia until the current regime is somehow replaced with a more human and less militant regime.
ps Give kaplan a break. I think he brings some interesting insights to the table. Of course he isn’t THE expert in all the regions in which he dabbles in… but he is a journalist and not an academic.
Yeah, Chandrika, Premadasa and Jayewardene before Rajapakse were just too soft. They were too concerned with the indiscriminate loss of life among Tamil civilians that they were unable to effectively prosecute the war. Their concern for the welfare of Tamil civilians was so great that it almost made Tamils reconsider their bid for a separate homeland.
SM is a veritable hotbed of pro-LTTE activity. Anyone who expresses concern over the plight of SL Tamil civilians is practically a terrorist.
“SM is a veritable hotbed of pro-LTTE activity. Anyone who expresses concern over the plight of SL Tamil civilians is practically a terrorist.”
Ironically,there’s little sympathy or empathy to Muslims of Sri Lanka who were massacred,expelled and brutalized out of their villages by the Tamils.These Muslims are used as a mere number by the Tamils to create a Tamil majority state of Tamil Eelam.
I’m not at all in favor of mistreatment of anyone, including Ceylonese Muslims, but—you have to view the horrible mistreatment of Hindus over centuries at the hands of Muslims, before you get so sanctimonious.
I doubt the indian army has the balls to invade tiny Sri Lanka after the humiliating thrashing it received the last time it intervened not so long ago. India suffered thousands of casualties and even had its Prime Minister assassinated as a result.
The Ascendant Superpower to all wannabes – “All Your Base Are Belong to Us.”
“The Chinese have so far been successful with their ‘String of Pearls’ strategy. India will be in a really tight bind on the long run.”
Not if we stop acting like an American stooge and not take conflicting positions vis-a-vis China. Its not cowardice to admit your deficiencies, its prudence.
“Sources told me that he was killed by having iron rods with sharp points driven through his skull. “
Yeah ok, Kaplan needs to check his “sources” because Lasantha was shot dead in broad daylight in downtown colombo.
My view of a ‘hack’ is someone who is basically a dilletante with little training or background in the subject they write about and who reach decisive conclusions without much critical thought or reflection. Kaplan fits this bill; it has nothing to do with ‘influence’ or who ‘matters’. One of the most alarming thing about US public discourse, is the enormous influence preponderance and influence of such hacks; the fact that they are so ‘influential’ is a major problem in how FP issues are understood in American by the public and by policymakers. It isn’t as though there aren’t knowlegdeable thinkers or writers in the US, America probably has the best tertiary sector in the world in most subjects and enormous resources in terms of the experts in most regional studies and social science fields; the problem is that most of them either aren’t in the public discourse or are ignored.
Also, I didn’t say Kaplan doesn’t matter, the fact that he is read and influences US Presidents, as I said, sort of argues the reverse. My point was rather that I don’t think his analysis is worth much in terms of understanding what is really happening on the ground.
Kaplan is an idiot. Is there a way to start a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to providing Vinod with books-not-written-by-idiots. I fear he has the entire Tom Freidman opus on his bookshelf (“Help, my Brain is Flat”).
Kaplan’s on a desparate quest to make himself a South Asia expert, or as he calls it — the “greater middle east”. Since Kaplan is already a self-proclaimed middle east expert, he’s becomes a South Asia expert without even trying. So far, he’s written stupidly about Gujarat, Gwader, and now a stupid article on Sri Lanka. At this rate, he will be lowering Vinod’s IQ regularly for the next few years.
Here are the 2 problems with Kaplan.
1) Kaplan doesn’t pay any attention to details. Lasantha was shot. The Taj Mahal is not “Indo-Saracenic” architecture. The Sri Lankan government was brutal and illiberal for the entire 27 year civil war, not just the victorious final year. Baluchis do not wear “arab-style” headscarfs. The Indian subcontinent does not begin at the Hub river.
2) Kaplan doesn’t pay attention to the big picture. The LTTE was first discredited internationally by its half-assed foray into peacemaking — even Bob Rae and the Norwegians were sick of them. Second, the Tamil diaspora was defanged after 9/11, when terrorism support by dispora communities became difficult to overlook.
Why would you read a guy clueless on details and clueless on the big picture?
Some Kaplan quotes:
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The China-Sri Lanka relationship is new. Wait a few more years. Sri Lanka will start complaining that China is a bigger brother than India.
“I doubt the indian army has the balls to invade tiny Sri Lanka after the humiliating thrashing it received the last time it intervened not so long ago. India suffered thousands of casualties and even had its Prime Minister assassinated as a result.”
Sorry I digress, but you made a good point there..
The Indian Army is good for deployment against its own people in the NE and JnK so that the State ruled by Hindi extremists can gain control of Uranium/Oil and rivers respectively. A bulk of the Army’s teeth are from mongoloid stock – gorkhas, ladhakhis who are used as cannon fodder. Their representation in the Officer cadre is not commiserate with their contribution – you will find plenty of butmen, guards and drivers from their ranks though. Sappers too. In the future I see the Indian Army being deployed across the major swathe of land fighting Maoists as well with the Gorkhas defecting to the Nepalese Maoist Army which will be used as a proxy for the PLA. So yeah, it will be the force that keeps India together and quite busy at that. Forget about invading a foreign country!
@27 and @29, not everyone is so sure that Lasantha was shot.
http://cpj.org/reports/2009/02/failure-to-investigate-sri-lankan-journalists-unde.php
Read the part that begins:
“The second January attack came at around 10 a.m. on January 8, when the editor-in-chief of The Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickramatunga, was killed in his car on his way to work on a busy street in a mixed suburban and semi-industrial suburb of Colombo.”
Note particularly:
“Wickramatunga’s brother Lal spoke with the doctor who treated him before he died in Colombo’s Kalubowila Hospital. The same doctor also took part in the autopsy, Lal said, though he was not the judicial medical officer (JMO)—the Sri Lankan equivalent of a coroner. That doctor told him there was neither a bullet nor an exit wound in his brother’s skull. There was only an entry wound on his right temple, caused by a weapon that crushed its way through the skull and left two closely spaced punctures. Sonali Samarasinghe-Wickramatunga described a similar wound to the CBC.”
There are links to other stories in there.
23
“Ironically,there’s little sympathy or empathy to Muslims of Sri Lanka who were massacred,expelled and brutalized out of their villages by the Tamils.These Muslims are used as a mere number by the Tamils to create a Tamil majority state of Tamil Eelam.”
No, not “by the Tamils,” in either of your indefensible uses of that phrase. By the Tigers. Not the same thing. Do not conflate Tamils and the Tigers.
I do absolutely agree that the Muslim population should get more attention. To read a recent story, look at the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8113242.stm
Even they use the word “forgotten” in their headline.
“Nepal,Pakistan,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ( and even Myanmar)”
They are free to feel the love of China if they think neo-imperial China is so trustworthy. India under Nehru did not think China was a threat but a Socialist brother – Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai nonsense. Boy was he wrong. China is brother to NO ONE.
Pakistan and Bangladesh were carved out of India by the British Raj to be Islamic states for the purpose of fighting Communist Russia (*). They were created to protect British interests in the region. Pakistan served their British and later American masters well as a pawn in the Western powers global Great Game against Soviet Russia. The tension with India is not about China being a better partner than India. If Pakistan and Bangladesh were carved out of China to be Islamic states, you’d see tension among them too. Nepal is under communist control, and Communists in Asia under the influence of China have their own imperialistic goals, despite the fact that it is a failed totalitarian ideology in the rest of the world. As for Sri Lanka with the Tigers defeated who is to say what the future relationship with India will be, especially if China does a Nepal and Maoists start to grow and take over Sri Lanka. China is not beyond using insurgents to destabilize countries to its advantage (see article in previous post above).
(*) [Turkey] had lost her leadership of Islam and Islam might now look to leadership to the Muslims of Russia. This would be a most dangerous attraction. There was therefore much to be said for the introduction of a new Muslim power supported by the science of Britain … It seemed to some of us very necessary to place Islam between Russian communism and Hindustan. – Sir Francis Tucker, General Officer-Commanding of the British Indian Eastern Command.
Actually the actions of China in Sri Lanka have just as much to do with the West as any Asian country – maybe even more. India and Japan are the key blocks to China’s hegemony, and China, unlike India, was always aware of it: “In Huntington’s view, East Asian Sinic civilization is culturally asserting itself and its values relative to the West due to its rapid economic growth. Specifically, he believes that China’s goals are to reassert itself as the regional hegemon, and that other countries in the region will ‘bandwagon’ with China due to the history of hierarchical command structures implicit in the Confucian Sinic civilization, as opposed to the individualism and pluralism valued in the West….Huntington therefore believes that the rise of China poses one of the most significant problems and the most powerful long-term threat to the West, as Chinese cultural assertion clashes with the American desire for the lack of a regional hegemony in East Asia.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
“In effect, Ahmad advises the Islamists to reverse the mistake they made during the Cold War, when they sided with the West against godless communism in Afghanistan. The arrogance and triumphalism of the “American imperialists†require a closing of ranks among all those who oppose them. Ironically, Ahmad’s arguments for a proposed alliance between the Islamic world and China parallel Huntington’s prediction in his clash of civilizations thesis of an eventual “Sino-Islamic alliance†against the West.” Haqqani, Pakistan Amb. to the US http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/docLib/20060130_Current_Trends_vol_1.pdf
Kaplan is a decent writer, and he expresses some general knowledge, but as sort of a less polished Stephen Cohen, he draws the wrong conclusions. Yes, Chinese and Pakistani aid to the Sri Lankan army was a major factor in ending the war. But unless the government in Columbo addresses some of the grievances of Tamils, they run the risk of terrorism rearing its head again. And, if the LTTE showed no restraint in attacking the Indian Army during the 1980s, there is no reason to believe some future Tamil terrorist group would restrain themselves against Chinese assets in Sri Lanka. China may soon realize, as some in the U.S. are realizing, that an empire can be a major headache. And while Chinese leadership is not democratically elected, they are still accountable to its population, who may start to wonder why China is building all these assets when there is still plenty of work to be done at home.
2 · razib on July 2, 2009 04:56 PM · Direct link i enjoy kaplan’s writing, but people need to be cautious about the empirical sloppiness.* he has a very dark and pessimistic view of the arc of human history (see the coming anarchy), and this i think is a necessary antidote to excessive whiggishness, but i suspect reality is in the middle (geographically bracketing the developed vs. developing is a bit too coarse, but gets to some real issues). * here’s an example, he’s contended that the armenia-iran axis vs. turkey-azerbaijan alliance has ethnic roots. armenia and iran being indo-european and turkey and azerbaijan being turkish. this is dumb, more azeris live in iran than in azerbaijan (which is actually simply the part of azerbaijan which the russian empire yanked out of qajar persia), the iranian military is disproportionately azeri turk, and many political leaders (e.g., supreme leader khamenei, mousavi, etc.) have turkish ethnic backgrounds. additionally, the distance between armenian and iranian languages is so great that a common ‘indo-european’ heritage is non-existent (armenian is not part of the indo-iranian language family, but split off way earlier). azeri turkish and turkish turkish are intelligible though.
Armenian is very much indeedn an Indo-European language! Azeri and Turkish Turk are very mutually intelligible with one another. Also, regarding Armenian and Iranian: They both are “satem” Indo-European languages, just like Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Greek, and even Balto-Slavic.
29 · Ikram on July 3, 2009 10:31 AM · Direct link
Kaplan is an idiot. Is there a way to start a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to providing Vinod with books-not-written-by-idiots. I fear he has the entire Tom Freidman opus on his bookshelf (“Help, my Brain is Flat”).
Kaplan’s on a desparate quest to make himself a South Asia expert, or as he calls it — the “greater middle east”. Since Kaplan is already a self-proclaimed middle east expert, he’s becomes a South Asia expert without even trying. So far, he’s written stupidly about Gujarat, Gwader, and now a stupid article on Sri Lanka. At this rate, he will be lowering Vinod’s IQ regularly for the next few years.
Here are the 2 problems with Kaplan.
1) Kaplan doesn’t pay any attention to details. Lasantha was shot. The Taj Mahal is not “Indo-Saracenic” architecture. The Sri Lankan government was brutal and illiberal for the entire 27 year civil war, not just the victorious final year. Baluchis do not wear “arab-style” headscarfs. The Indian subcontinent does not begin at the Hub river.
2) Kaplan doesn’t pay attention to the big picture. The LTTE was first discredited internationally by its half-assed foray into peacemaking — even Bob Rae and the Norwegians were sick of them. Second, the Tamil diaspora was defanged after 9/11, when terrorism support by dispora communities became difficult to overlook.
Why would you read a guy clueless on details and clueless on the big picture?
Some Kaplan quotes:
.
Without a doubt, the Taj Mahal is very much Indo-Saracenic. Saracenic only means “Islamic.” The word “Taj” actually means “Persian”, as in Tajikistan. Also, the Taj has Arabic words about the Koran. There is very little in the Taj Mahal to indicate that it is Indian. It was even made for a Persian woman!
Also, the Baluchi’s head dress is very different from that of the Pashtuns. In general, it’s much bigger, and the Baluchis, overall, seem to be quite dark. The Baluchis, even though their language is like Kurdish, DO indeed seem to resemble the Arab Janjaweed with their big head gears rather than the Sindhis.
Sorry but how is this relevant exactly? She was born in India, lived in India for most of her life and died in India in anycase. A much stronger connection than many NRIs who spend the bulk of their lives aborad and only jet in for occasional family holidays!
39 · Conrad Barwa on July 4, 2009 05:47 PM · Direct link
Sorry but how is this relevant exactly? She was born in India, lived in India for most of her life and died in India in anycase. A much stronger connection than many NRIs who spend the bulk of their lives aborad and only jet in for occasional family holidays!
She was as Indian as Freddie Mercury was. Mumtaz referred to “Hindustanis” in the 3rd person, and had very condescending remarks on them. However, the initial conversation was about the Taj Mahal is very much an Indo-Saracenic structure.
boston_mahesh
Indo-Saracenic (from Saracen, an archaic name for Muslims used by Europeans), also known as Indo-Gothic, was a style of architecture used by British architects in the late 19th century in British India. It drew elements from native Indian/Indo-Islamic architecture, and combined it with the Gothic revival style favoured in Victorian Britain
A few hundred thousand people still in internment camps. Rather than scaling down the military, the plan is to expand it and essentially occupy the north to maintain security. Nothing about substantive devolution, just parades and fireworks.
How long until the next uprising? 10 years? 15?
The SL civil war hasn’t been won, the fighting has just stopped again. There’s no indication real peace is anywhere in sight. China has its foothold and Sri Lanka has its temporary ‘peace’, there’s nothing definitive to hold on to here.
Sweet Jesus, Boston Mahesh — you can’t be this stupid.
Boston Mahesh wrote
Without a doubt, the Taj Mahal is very much Indo-Saracenic. Saracenic only means “Islamic.”
Indo-saracenic is a British Gothic revival style of architecture. Examples include Bombay’s Victoria Terminus and Gateway to India, and the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta. The Taj is an example of Indo-Islamic or Mughal Architecture, as is Humayun’s tomb and the Jama Masjid and Delhi.
And if you think that guys like Sardar Akhtar Mengal (leader ofthe Baloch National Party) looks similar to a Sudanese Janjaweed Militiamen, then you are either admirably colourblind, or just plain blind. (Makrani Baloch, like the Siddis of Gujurat, do look more African, a legacy of the slave trade)
I think, B-M, in your case, my general admonishment above (Kaplan will make you stupid) does not apply. Go ahead and read Kaplan. Sometimes middlebrow is a personal accomplishment
@ikram – god bless you for #29 😀
I would be interested to know the effects of the U.S. led effort to shut down hawalas and brand nonstate military actors as ‘terrorist’ groups on this conflict 😉
Dr.,
There was no sri-lankan tamil hawala, only a extortion and coercion-fueled fund appropriation network for terrorists. It was an unmitigated good that it became increasingly difficult to raise funds through this mechanism, whether it was due to unilateral US noise-making or int’l coordination. Although, to your tastes, they were “non-state actors” who assumed the trappings of the state and were infected by imperial ambitions, right?
by all means, go hang out with Jan Jananayagam, Arjunan Ethirveerasingham, Tamils against Genocide and MIA. They’ll be a good sounding board for your oh-so-daring revolutionary rhetoric. In fact, you should spearhead brand revitalization and rejuvenation for the TRO. Perhaps their next iteration can be even more opaque than the previous one.
Nayagan,
Fair enough to nail me for the faux-revolutionary tone 🙂 – but please acknowledge that a) I am just as willing as you are to call the LTTE a bunch of f”£$kers and b) that my point had more to do with the failure to consider the U.S. role in shifting the balance of power while looking at the Chinese government’s role. It has to do with addressing the same faults that allowed people to misconstrue the Sri lankan conflcit from beginning to end – a failure to look evenhandedly at things, a willingness to play politics with people’s lives and conflicts, and aboveall, a decision to ‘pick a side’ when there are few hands unbloodied.
A) granted
B) this is completely wrong and I don’t have the time to elaborate but it is on a level with the proverbial washington post headline, “Shape of Earth, Republicans and Democrats differ.” The US role in advancing misconceptions of the conflict is negligible. Misconceptions themselves played little part in the events of the past 6 months–lest you forget that Ban Ki Moon and Barack Obama never changed the narrative or even attempted to do so–they simply continued a long-standing policy of allowing some govts to do exactly what they wished.
you ideology, methinks, leads you to fit every single episode of our human soap opera into a coherent narrative where US imperial ambition is the alpha, omega and kitchen sink. As always, I do not feel it applies in this case. Sometimes you have to blame the subalterns for subaltern crimes against themselves (including the cultivation of misleading foreign and domestic reporting) and this is one such occasion.
That’s true, I do focus on the U.S. too much. I’ll only note that I am doing so here in response to an argument that implies blame for China. If the argument hadn’t done so, I wouldn’t have brought up the U.S. government, which in the last few months actually played a more constructive role than it was obligated to, not that it was sufficient or amounted to much in the end. Bt what can you do? If it had done more – it’s a delicate balance and the nature of power and imperialism is that it operates in its own interests and at some point it would have become untenable for someone like me to sit well with it (same applies to what is happening in Iran).
Anyway, getting back to the point, I was solely saying that if we’re going to talk about geopolitics, we should do so fairly and comprehensively. Looking at just the Obama Administration and its useful if belated and minimal intervention to juxtapose it with China’s government doesn’t shed enough light. – even if the conclusion you come to is that governments like China / India / others have more of a role in Sri Lanka and other smaller countries in South Asia than the U.S.
Lastly, I agree that if you do want to understand the role of imperialism (geopolitics) whether American, British, Chinese, Indian or otherwise in the world, it always involves understanding how elites in places that have less autonomy are also complicit – this is inherent in most critiqes of imperialism going back to looking at ‘comprador capitalists.’ If I were to blame anyone for Sri Lanka’s current predicament, I would blame the British colonization and decolonization policies- because i do think the structural causes of this conflict are overdetermined and it would have taken a different kind of world and a completely amazing set of political actors to resolve a conflict that started before independence. basically, i find it unimaginable that, all else equal, something like this woldn’t have happened in Sri Lanka. Maybe I’m not imaginative enough.
but i do agree with you that blame can be spread widely and apportioned at many different levels – definitely including Sri Lankan elites, Buddhist fundamentalists, various Indian government actions, the British colonial and decolonization policies, the LTTE, the narrowmindedness of Tamil elites at various points, etc. etc. These points are well rehearsed, and I wasn’t intending to or attempting to make a thorough accounting of how the conflict developed in Sri Lanka or what might be responisble for it in my original comment – just that the comment about China was tres loaded.
and to clarify a misnderstanding due to poor writing –
“b) that my point had more to do with the failure to consider the U.S. role in shifting the balance of power while looking at the Chinese government’s role. It has to do with addressing the same faults that allowed people to misconstrue the Sri lankan conflcit from beginning to end – a failure to look evenhandedly at things, a willingness to play politics with people’s lives and conflicts, and aboveall, a decision to ‘pick a side’ when there are few hands unbloodied.”
“it” in the second sentence refers to the one-sided point about China which I fond objectionable. It was that which I was saying was akin to the kind of logic that operates in Sri Lanka (in this case, a “China rising, U.S. needs to respond” geopolitical argument). It is all of a piece. I wasn’t saying that the U.S. government was responsible for “a failure to…” in Sri Lanka – at least not nearly as much as many other political actors.