The Securitization of Fear in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka

Abstract

Fear is a potent political resource that is at once an expression of vulnerability to geopolitical threats and a rationale for security measures against them. It is produced through tropes of nationalism rooted in economic marginalization, loss of territory, and anxieties about invasions of home. Such anxieties give rise to the securitization of fear used to underwrite the allocation of resources to fortify borders and manage risk. The securitization of fear and its geopolitical uses and abuses in the context of disaster, conflict, and human displacement demand further attention. This article examines two expressions of fear that have significant implications for broader research agendas in political geography. First, in post-tsunami Sri Lanka, the implementation of “buffer zones,” or no-build setback areas along the affected coastlines after the tsunami vividly illustrates how efforts to enhance public safety can stir feelings of discrimination, tension, and fear. Humanitarian remedies that are not cautiously conflict-sensitive can unwittingly generate fear and mistrust. Second, the politics of fear intersect with the provision of international aid, which is increasingly premised on vulnerability “at home” in donor countries to make it politically relevant. Once created, such crises are offset by aid to locations that represent geopolitical threats. Unraveling the ways in which fear is produced and framed to justify violence, exclusion, and hatred is a pressing political and intellectual task within geography.

Key Words:

• aid
• fear
• nationalism
• Sri Lanka
• tsunami

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Vicky Lawson for her fearless engagement with this manuscript. Matt Sparke, Philippe Le Billon, Mala de Alwis, and Alison Mountz all provided insightful comments, as did Annals editors and referees. Research on which this article is based was generously supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes

1. In the Sri Lanka context, another $2.2 billion was pledged for tsunami reconstruction at the Kandy Donor Conference in June 2005 (Institute for Policy Studies 2005). Agreement between the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on how to spend aid allocated for tsunami reconstruction is one of the most pressing issues in the post-tsunami period.

2. The Plan was implemented in 1981 with a mandate for renewal every four years. The most recent plan in place at the time of the tsunami was the 1997 version (Centre for Policy Alternatives 2005).

3. Much of the research for this article and the 2006 study cited took place during two visits of approximately one month each in February 2005 and 2006. In 2005, I worked with UNICEF post-tsunami to assess sexual and gender-based violence. In February 2006, forty interviews with widows and widowers in Batticaloa and Akkaraipattu were conducted to ascertain changes in security, the gender division of labor, and marriage practices in the wake of the tsunami.

4. Slater and Bell's (2002) postcolonial approach to analyzing development asks, “who are the agents of knowledge, where are they located, for whom do they speak, how do they conceptualize, where are the analytical silences, who is being empowered, and who is being marginalized?” (339).

5. Interview information is provided in Primary Sources, following the References.

6. Canadian bilateral aid will continue to be disbursed in the unusual manner that has characterized the past fifteen years, whereby no Canadian aid is provided directly to the Sri Lankan Government (nor to the LTTE) for their use. Rather, all bilateral funds are distributed through nongovernmental organizations and civil society networks with proven track records.

7. One should not be too optimistic about the coherence and unity of the Sri Lankan diaspora. In Toronto after the tsunami, a Tamil language radio station raised funds on the air to be given to the Canadian Red Cross. LTTE representatives in Toronto let the fundraisers know that their efforts to split donations between the Red Cross and their own fundraising efforts were not welcome. Given the political split within the LTTE in April 2004 between cadres loyal to LTTE leader Prabhakaran based in the North and those aligned with the breakaway faction of General Karuna in the East, as well as criticism of LTTE tactics (see note 8), such fragmentation in the diaspora is not unexpected.

8. The distinction between anti-chauvinist politics and anti-nationalist politics is an important one. Historical grievances held by Tamils who have experienced systemic discrimination by the Sinhala-dominated state since independence in 1948 constitute grounds for Tamil nationalism. How to achieve social justice for Tamils in Sri Lanka remains an open and deadly question. In August 2006, Kethesh Loganathan, a Tamil nationalist who opposed the Tigers’ violent methods, was murdered in his yard. Exactly a year before Loganathan's death, foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, who was the highest ranking Tamil in government at the time, was also killed for being a “Tamil betrayer” (Sengupta 2006). Likewise, Neelan Thiruchelvam, a constitutional lawyer and human rights advocate for Tamils in Sri Lanka, was killed by an LTTE suicide bomber in his car on his commute to work in 1999. The point here is not to normatively dismiss nationalism and the struggles to which it refers, but to consider the terms on which injustice, hate, and change are waged. As Kumari Jayawardena (1986) has argued, nationalism was an important political moment for Sri Lanka in its anti-colonial struggle against the British for independence, even if politicians used nationalism and state-building as a reason to subordinate gender equality at the time.