Grad - Jayawickreme

Abstract

While there are good reasons to celebrate the Sri Lankan government’s recent victory over the brutal and repressive Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), many Sinhalese exhibit the false polarization bias by seeing the war as simply a terrorist problem that threatened their homeland, a view possibly accentuated by collective narcissism. However, Tamils have been victims of systematic discrimination by successive post-independence Sinhalese-dominated governments. Tamil nationalism began as a peaceful movement for minority rights. A failure to achieve a political settlement led to armed militant movements fighting for a separate Tamil state. Finding common ground that unites these Sinhalese and Tamil narratives is vital for a sustainable peace, but significant psychological hurdles must first be overcome.