Article 2: Don’t Discriminate

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Watch Video Don’t Discriminate: Article 2. Don’t Discriminate

Under the rule of the Sri-Lankan State Government, the Tamil people, have been discriminated and deprived basic citizenship rights, language rights, and economic rights, and have suffered decades of national, militarily, political oppression based on ethnicity (Ponambalam, 1983). This discrimination based on ethnicity has been rooted in invalid ideologies of racial supremacy.

 When Sri-Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948, the majority of political power was left in the hands of the Sinhalese elite. With power concentrated in their hands, they began to discriminate against the Tamils not only through ideology, but through public policy, the Sinhalese state legalized and legitimized their discriminatory behaviour against the Tamils. This political power has made it easier for the Sri-Lankan state to discriminate against the Tamils.

Invalidation ideology is a way in which superior groups justify their ill-treatment of minority groups using pseudo-scientific evidence (Kallen, 2003). Although there is little or no validity to these claims, by using pseudo-science to validate their claims, majority groups are able discriminate against minority groups without the fear of punishment.  This ‘fake’ science is passed around in order to legitimize the discrimination of groups, and the Sinhalese scholars passed around theories of racial superiority in order to justify their discrimination of the Tamils.

Theories of racial superiority became widespread in the early twentieth century. It was believed that race (linked to language), was the primary determinant of social identity, and that certain races were superior to other races (Bose, 2006). The British colonizers used this ideology to spread their beliefs and legitimize their presence in other countries. They believed the ‘Aryan’ race (European ‘Aryan’) was inherently superior to non-Aryan races; as a result Europeans should control the global domain. Sinhalese scholars quickly used this ideology to produce literature stating that: the people of Sri-Lanka, the Tamils and Sinhalese were divided among racial-linguistic lines; Sinhalese were the first inhabitants of the island; and that Sinhalese people originated from the ‘Aryan’ race. Because the first Sinhalese king, Prince Vijaya, hailed from North India, and was part of the Aryan Kingdom, these Sinhalese scholars believed they were of ‘Aryan’ descent, and should be the rulers of the island. They suggested that North Indians and Europeans shared similar language affinities, and argued that Sinhala (language spoken by Sinhalese people) is actually an Indo-European language (Little, 1994). This literature stated that Sinhalese were most-related to their colonial masters, and should thus be granted the right to rule the nation.

When Sri-Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948, the majority of political power was left in the hands of the elite Sinhalese group who believed they were entitled to rule the island, and justified discrimination against the Tamils through ideologies that suggested Tamils were inferior. This is the same ideology that was passed in Rwanda against the Hutus and Tutsis, the Holocaust, and Bosnia-Screnbecia. In all cases, race was used as a marker to discriminate and violate rights. Once you label a group as being inferior, if you rape their women, kill their men, hold them in detention centers, you are able to justify it to the rest of the world, because you have constructed them in a way where they are seen as second class citizens, and inferiors. (When in reality these claims have no basis). Tamils have been discriminated and targeted through a program of genocide because of their ethnicity and language. The Tamils that were housed in detention centers, killed and raped, were done so because they are Tamil.

References:

Bose, Sumatra (2006). Contested Lands. United States: Harvard University Press.

Little, David. (1994). Sri-Lanka: The Invention of Enmity. Washington: United States of PeacePress.

Ponnambalam, Satchi. (1983) Sri-Lanka: National Conflict and the Tamil Liberation Struggle. New Jersey: Zed Books

Tags: , , ,

Leave a Reply

*