POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Frustrated Youth Can Turn Violent, Warn Experts

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Nov 5 2001 (IPS) - The Sri Lankan government has to address the mounting frustrations among the country’s youth if it wants to stave off another uprising against the state, warn researchers.

Fuelling such frustrations are a lack of employment, a stagnant economy and a loss of faith in this South Asian island-nation’s political and judicial systems, they say.

“I was alarmed by the data that came out from the youth survey. They (youth) have no great faith and trust in the state, police or judiciary,” says Dr Laksiri Fernando, a political scientist at the Colombo University, referring to a national youth survey that was discussed over the weekend at a seminar in the central town of Kandy.

Particularly worrying to Fernando was the prospect of the country’s frustrated youth mounting a third insurrection in southern Sri Lanka like previous generations had done in 1971 and 1987 under the leadership of the Marxist People’s Liberation Front or JVP.

“I feel we are moving towards a major political deadlock. The two main parties (the ruling People’s Alliance and the opposition United National Party) are losing support because of the violent political culture that they have created,” adds Siri Hettige, a well-known sociologist and dean of the Arts Faculty at the Colombo University.

But not all agree with this prognosis. “I don’t think violence would be the means by which youth would try to resolve their problems,” argues Karunatissa Atukorala, a sociologist at the Peradeniya University in Kandy.

What would deter the youth is the state’s military might, he told IPS. “The state apparatus is quite tough.”

Equally relevant are the greater freedoms the youth have to express their views today than before, he added.

On the other hand, there is a greater likelihood of frustrated youth turning to drugs, criminal activity and even committing suicide as a reaction to their mounting woes, he observed.

According to official figures, Sri Lanka’s suicide rate which were among the highest in the world in 1995 at 8, 519, has fallen sharply to 5,412 in 2000 due mixture policy interventions by the state and the suicide prevention efforts of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The weeks ahead, in fact, are expected to reveal more about emerging attitudes among Sri Lanka’s youth given the parliamentary elections on Dec. 5.

The JVP is gaining ground based on their arguments about the country’s political culture, says Hettige, the sociologist. “But the powers they gain will be used to block economic reforms and a solution to the ethnic conflict (leading to further youth unrest). This, the voters cannot prevent, at least in the short term.”

The main political parties need to take cognisance of this trend, rather than ignore the views of the country’s youth as happened in the past, say the analysts

In 1984, for instance, a study of the country’s youth revealed a generation frustrated by the economic and political conditions and raised concern about a youth uprising. However, the then government ignored these warnings and shelved the report.

And in 1987, thousands of youth from southern Sri Lanka joined the JVP in its second uprising, which was triggered off following the arrival of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka to enforce a peace agreement.

This peace agreement, brokered by the Indian government, was aimed at resolving the bloody ethnic conflict between the Sri Lankan regime and the Tamil militants fighting for a separate state in the north.

During the JVP uprising, which lasted till 1990, thousands of government officials, including ministers, and young people were killed during the revolt, both by JVP rebels and the military.

The first revolt by the JVP, then a ragtag group of young, unemployed graduates, was in 1971 in which hundreds of youth were killed by security forces.

Since the early 1990s, however, the JVP has given up violence, entered the political mainstream and emerged as the country’s third largest political force.

However, according to Fernando, the political scientist, there are a number of youth who think other wise, as revealed in the youth survey that was discussed. Some of their attitudes, he adds, are similar to those who launched the violent uprising against the state in 1971 and in 1987.

“Perhaps what is new about the present study is the uncovering of many facets of this orientation and most importantly the fact that these tendencies are still prevalent perhaps more acute than before. The later fact is politically alarming and the possibility of a third insurrection cannot be discarded,” he says.

In this 2000 National Youth Survey, one of the questions asked from the 3000-odd respondents was whether violence was a means to achieve political ends. A majority of the youth (63 percent) felt it was not proper to resort to an armed struggle but a substantial minority (31 percent) favoured the idea.

“While there is a gender difference in the responses, i.e. more males than females agree to the armed struggle, the gap is not very wide. It is also interesting that there is no significant difference between the urban and rural respondents,” the survey reported.

The survey also found that support for an armed struggle increased with education, with the highest level of 40.5 percent recorded for university graduates. “As is well known, many youth who joined the armed struggle in the south have been educated youth, many with university education,” it revealed.

The survey revealed that only 26 percent of the respondents had a “great deal” of trust in state institutions like the military, the judiciary, the police and the bureaucracy. The rest — more than 70 percent – had “somewhat” or no trust at all in these institutions.