Can Warriors Be Peacemakers?   Lessons from Ashoka

The upcoming presidential elections in Sri Lanka pits current President Mahinda Rajapaksa against General Sarath Fonseka:  the two most visible architects of the Sri Lankan government’s military victory over the LTTE last Spring.

With the country’s minority Tamil population deeply scarred by the prosecution of the war, especially in its bloody final months, as well as a decades long history of political marginalization and intimidation, the central question facing these two political lions is whether they can transform themselves from warriors to peacemakers?  

There is no small degree of skepticism on the island nation, let alone in the international community, that such a transformation is possible.  President Rajapaksa and General Fonseka are, after all, the leaders who prosecuted a war that has resulted in calls for independent investigations into charges of war crimes.   During the conduct of the war, the tactics they and their allies employed to intimidate the country’s floundering political opposition and few independent voices in the press were draconian at best, and likely criminal if they could be prosecuted.    

But peacemaking and peacebuilding is often the triumph of hope over experience.   Seeming impossible acts are required by individuals whom many, if not most, have lost faith in.   Sri Lanka’s two largest religions, Buddhism and Hinduism, are fortunate to share one of the great historical examples of the triumph of love and compassion over hatred and violence, in the person of 2nd century BCE king, Ashoka.  

Ashoka was the South Asian monarch who united most of the Indian subcontinent by force.   Following one of his greatest military victories, it is told that the emperor Ashoka  observed the carnage that he had wrought on the battlefield and had a dramatic change of heart.   He became a proponent of nonviolence, love and compassion.  Under his reign, Buddhism began its dramatic expansion across Asia.

While the example of Ashoka was not sufficient to prevent Sri Lanka’s longrunning conflict, at this historic juncture in the country’s modern political history, there is an opportunity for it to serve as a more powerful influence on Sri Lanka’s political leadership, as well as its general populace, a minority of whom have for too long resorted to violence as a means to win political and economic influence.

For Sri Lanka to achieve durable and just peace, far more challenging a goal than winning the war that ended this past Spring, its soon to be elected leader will have to demonstrate a moral and political leadership comparable with Ashoka, and the most admired peacemakers of our time, from Nelson Mandela to Aung San Suu Kyi.  Just as importantly, the people of Sri Lanka will have to embrace and work for a just and lasting peace – seeing and respecting in others, including their former enemies, the humanity and dignity that has been denied to them for too long.

January 12, 2010