Confronting the Complexity of Loss

called for an independent investigation into violations of international law; 137 and the
party received nearly 80 percent of the votes in the Northern Province. 138 These results
alone suffice to cast serious doubts over the narrative on the ‘Sri Lankan approach’.
The present study demonstrates the wider empirical uncertainty of the narrative. Each
account presented by each participant was unique. The responses varied significantly on
questions of truth telling, memorialising and the dispensation of justice. The participants
differed on whether they preferred to tell others about their loss, whether memorialising
their lost family members was desirable, whether justice was important to their recovery
process, whether the identity of perpetrators was important, and finally whether
perpetrators ought to be prosecuted and punished. In each case, participants presented
views that reflected their personal experiences and value preferences. The most
significant finding of this study is perhaps that the enormity of human loss is simply not
reducible to a singular approach. The narrative on the so-called ‘Sri Lankan approach’ is
hence best described as ‘reductive’.
The heterogeneity of participant views may be deconstructed to some extent. In the case
of telling others, participants were generally divided on several questions, including
whether telling others was important and personally beneficial. Participants were also
divided on whether memorialising a traumatic event and lost family members was
important to them. Many preferred not to revisit their trauma, while others felt
memorialising was an important part of their coping process.
Participants differed on how they defined the concept of justice and applied it to their
experiences. Many presented views that were somewhat cynical, while others aspired to
receive justice in the future. The participants also differed on the importance of
identifying and prosecuting perpetrators. A number of participants did not specifically
wish for perpetrators to be held accountable; some in fact saw no real purpose in
conducting investigations or prosecutions. Yet many of these participants held such views
not on the basis of ‘tolerance’ or ‘forgiveness’, as suggested by the reductive narrative,
but on the basis of their ‘acceptance’ of the fact that their lost family members would not
return in any event. Moreover, the lapse of time played a greater part in denting their
demand for justice than any particular approach to justice. This is not to say, however,
that no participant subscribed to a lenient approach towards perpetrators. There were
some participants who did hold such views, and suggested that the most appropriate
approach to dealing with perpetrators was rehabilitation. Yet, as discussed in the next
section, these participants had a distinct view on the legitimacy of the context in which
they had encountered loss. This distinct view fundamentally shaped their demand for
accountability, and perhaps explains why they preferred ‘leniency’ towards perpetrators.
It is nonetheless clear that this preference ought not to be mistaken for a homogeneous
narrative on restorative justice.
137
See Tamil National Alliance, Northern Provincial Council Election Statement (2013), at
http://tnapolitics.org/?page_id=1845&lang=en.
138 See Department of Elections, Provincial Council Elections 2013: Northern Province (2013) – votes for
the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, at http://www.slelections.gov.lk/2013PPC/Northern%20Province.html.
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