The burden of history: Obstacles to power sharing in Sri Lanka

For around seventeen centuries the Sinhalese have sustained a historical co nsciousness through oral and written modes of transmission. These vamsa tra ditions emphasise the moment of civilisational state formation through the founding father Vijaya, a tale that enters modern history texts and thus re ceives the status of 'fact'. This tale enters contemporary verbal battles o f legitimation between Sinhalese and Tamil protagonists. A recent article b y Wickramasinghe indicates how the Vijaya story can be a central pillar in the refusal to countenance devolution of power to the Tamils in the north-e ast. His unelaborated reference to Vijaya indicates how the belief in the S inhalese claims to original possession operates in semi-subterranean ways a mong those extremists who deny the need for autonomy on various constitutio nal grounds in the vocabulary of democracy. One such is the Sinhala Urumaya (Heritage) Party that emerged in mid-2000 and around which many lines of o pposition to the government's 'Devolution Package' coalesced. Despite its p oor electoral performance in October 2000, the SU represents a powerful str and of thinking that bears the values associated with the 'revolution of 19 56', values which are now ingrained in all tire Sinhala-dominated parties.