UNESCO must revise school textbooks in Sri Lanka to transform them from hate-

mongering into peace-building

1.''In Sri Lanka, textbooks have long promulgated ethnic enmity. Sinhalese textbooks
portrayed Sinhala kings as heroes defeating the Tamils, who were depicted as invaders.
Sinhalese Buddhists were presented as the only true Sri Lankans (Cardozo, 2008). Six history
textbooks spanning grades 7 to 11 published in 2007/8 no longer included overt Tamil
stereotypes but largely brushed over Tamil history, culture and religion and presented
almost exclusively Sinhalese role models. The absence of Tamil or Muslim role models
offered minority students few figures with whom to identify. Textbooks also failed to
recognize alternative interpretations of historical events or encourage students to engage
critically with the past (Gaul, 2014).- Accountability in Education: meeting our
commitments, UNESCO, 24 October 2017,
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002593/259338e.pdf

2..''Sri Lanka’s history curriculum needs serious revisiting, as it perpetuates the ‘othering’ of
minority communities. .....''According to Sasanka Perera, the legend of battles between
ancient kingdoms documented in the Mahāvamsa promotes Sinhalese-Tamil antagonism,
and suggests ‘a long and bloody tradition’ between the two races. Thus the reproduction of
this version of the past in the Sinhala Grade 6 history syllabus is highly problematic. It claims
that the Sinhalese King Dutugemunu defeated the Tamil, ‘foreign’ ruler Elara in a war to
protect Buddhism, to ‘reunite the country’ and ‘liberate the country from foreign rule’ By
contrast, the Tamil Grade 6 history syllabus cites Elara as a leader that ruled ‘with justice.’
How do the Sinhala and Tamil, Ministry of Education- sanctioned, textbooks carry such
opposing interpretations of history? '' - The Danger in Distorted Education: Sri Lanka’s
History Curriculum, Shamara Wettimuny, 29 October 2016,
http://groundviews.org/2016/10/29/the-danger-in-distorted-education-sri-lankas-history-
curriculum/

3. According to UNESCO and UNICEF post-conflict peacebuilding engages with controversial

material on conflict, promotes discussion and gives students the skills to interpret the
violent past. But Sri Lank has been avoiding it: therefore it can be said to be Passive War
Education according to Education experts:

i.''In a review of 90 Grade 1-11 textbooks related to language, history, citizenship and and
life competencies, Perera(2009) found that 48 contained no references to history, ethnicity
and conflict. Conflict is addressed in textbooks but with reference to other contexts such as
East Timor, Ireland, Rwanda and Kashmir(ibid). The omission of the historical roots of its
own war is described by Davies(2006) and Cardozo(2008) as passive war education.'' -
Learning peace (and conflict): the role of primary learning materials in peacebuilding in
post-war Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka, Catherine Vanner, Spogmai Akseer and
Thursica Kovinthan, August 2016,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17400201.2016.1213710?
scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=cjpe20

ii.Four causes of national conflicts are discussed and examples(Rwanda, South Africa,
Israel/Palestine, Russia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Middle East) are given. Sri Lanka is not
considered at all in Chapter 5, Conflict Resolution in a Democratic Society, in 2016 syllabus
textbook for Civic Education,
http://www.edupub.gov.lk/Administrator/English/10/Civic%20Education-G10-E/PDF
%205.pdf

4.On 9 November 2016 during the Festival of Arts on Reconciliation at Bandaranaike

Memorial International Conference Hall, Colombo, Sri Lanka, one teacher showed the
audience hate- mongering History in a secondary school textbook in Sinhala medium during
a panel discussion.

5.‘’This article analyses how a recent series of Sri Lankan history textbooks construct and
disseminate a particular form of nationalism that is both exclusively Sinhalese and
authoritarian. It argues that their use of language and storylines perpetuates a Sinhalese-
centric historical narrative that presents disputed myths, symbols and heroes as official
history. This narrative legitimises the Sinhalese claim for sovereignty and the protection of
the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka as a major goal of Sinhalese nationalism. This article also
highlights how the textbooks further encourage authoritarian patriotism, potentially
mobilising future citizens into participation in the reproduction of an exclusive and
ethnocentric version of Sinhalese nationalism.’’ - Security, Sovereignty, Patriotism—
Sinhalese Nationalism and the State in Sri Lankan History Textbooks, Anne Gaul, May 2015,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17449057.2015.1041834

''The issues addressed in this article concern a period in which ambitious educational
reforms are being implemented that envision textbook as a tool for the creation of a new
generation of citizens in a post-war society. It reveals that the general lack of recognition of
minority communities and the negative representations of the Tamil community in
particular, that appear in these textbooks are not compatible with the proclaimed vision of
a multicultural yet integrated society. Instead of following social cohesion these textbooks
may deepen ethnic divides and stereotypes and therefore thwart reconciliation and long-
term peace.'' - Where Are the Minorities? The Elusiveness of Multiculturalism and Positive
Recognition in Sri Lankan History Textbooks, Anne Gaul, 2014,
http://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/jemms/6/2/jemms060205.xml

6. ‘’Education must rise on the agenda of peace building. We know the wrong type of
education can fuel conflict. The use of education systems to foster hatred has contributed to
the underlying causes of conflicts, from Rwanda to Sri Lanka, but also in Guatemala and
Sudan’’ - Why education matters for global security, Irina Bokova(Director General,
UNESCO), 1 March 2011, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-
are/director-general/singleview- dg/news/education_and_security_dawn_pakistan/

7. ’’The production of single textbooks for different linguistic communities also can present
difficulties. For example, textbooks produced by Sinhalese authors in Sri Lanka were
translated to produce copies for Tamil pupils. However, the Tamil Teachers’ Union
identified inaccuracies in the translated versions and claimed cultural bias in some of the
illustrations and content matter. This led to demands for greater involvement of Tamil
authors in textbook production.’’ - Alan Smith, The influence of education on conflict and
peace building, 2010, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001913/191341e.pdf
8. '' Peace education is an imperative at this stage of our national history ....'' - Justice C. G.
Weeramantry tells Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission(LLRC), 29 November
2010, http://www.scribd.com/doc/127226195/Sri-Lanka-Justice-Weeramantry-to-Lessons-
Learnt-and- Reconciliation-Commission

‘’After almost 30 years of conflict, it also has to rebuild a Nation, a Sri Lankan Nation united
in its diversity, where communities and individuals feel at ease. For this, there is not much
foreign friends can do. This is the responsibility of Sri Lankan people, their political
leadership, in the government and in the opposition, and also their civil society, and this is
where academics and researchers have an important role to play, particularly those who are
working in the fields of history, law, economy, sociology and political sciences’’ - Address by
Christine Robichon, Ambassador of France, at the Peradeniya University Research Sessions
(PURSE) - 2010, 16th December 2010, http://www.ambafrance-lk.org/spip.php?article839

9. ''Building a consciousness of nationhood is not a responsibility that can be left to

politicians and constitutional lawyers. .... It is pre-eminently an educational task, to be
initiated at the level of our schools. It requires a new way of looking at history, and helping
young minds climb out of the constraints placed on their understanding by the sectarian
myths, legends, and memories that are embedded in their ancient chronicles, whether they
relate to their Aryan origins or to their Dravidian origins. This does not mean that children
should be ignorant of, much less that they should reject, their rich historical inheritance, but
that they should acquire a more global view of history and be equipped with a critical sense
that will enable them to stand back and look at their respective narratives more objectively.
.... Unless and until Sri Lanka can produce leaders who can realize that truth, and are willing
to act on it, it will continue to be dismembered by conflict, long after the LTTE and
Pirabhikaran have passed into history '' - Why Sirimavo refused to visit Jaffna after 1964
cyclone By Neville Jayaweera, 18 January 2009,
http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/01/why_sirimavo_refused_to_visit.html

10. ‘’It is necessary to trace briefly the historical links between the development of the
education system and the development of an ethnic -based politics, leading to armed
conflict. .... Divisions were exacerbated by successive government policies discriminating
against the Tamil minorities. .... Divisive ethnic politics and loss of confidence in non-violent
and democratic politics fuelled the desire for autonomous, separatist solutions through the
1970s .... The Government dominates the educational publications sector in Sri Lanka
through its provision of free textbooks to all students from grade 1 to 11 .... Tamils not
involved in writing the textbooks - Textbooks written in Sinhala, and then translated into
Tamil .... full of spelling, grammatical and factual errors .... distortion of history .... the
history of Sri Lanka is confined to a few selected Sinhala kings .... the textbooks do not
educate the child about the various characteristics of a multi-religious and a multi- racial
society; the majority of Sinhala medium textbooks emphasize Sinhalese Buddhist attitudes;
distorted maps under-represent North and Eastern Provinces; "geographical, social,
economical or cultural features" of Tamil communities (including the plantation sector) are
not adequately discussed or presented; in studying art, the Tamil student only studies
Sinhalese Buddhist aspects of art; the textbooks encourage children to develop "apartheid
attitudes" ..... War is shown as patriotic while peace is portrayed as cowardice’’ - Respect for
Diversity in Educational Publication - The Sri Lankan Experience, Ariya Wickrema and Peter
Colenso, 2003, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-
1121703274255/1439264- 1126807073059/Paper_Final.pdf

11.‘’. ......Ethnic intolerance makes it appearance in the classroom in many ways......

Textbooks have often been shown to contain negative ethnic stereotypes..... A review of the
textbooks used in the segregated schools of Sri Lanka in the 1970s and 1980s, for example,
found Sinhalese textbooks scattered with images of Tamils as the historical enemies of the
Sinhalese, while celebrating ethnic heroes who had vanquished Tamils in ethnic wars.
Ignoring historical fact, these textbooks tended to portray Sinhalese Buddhists as the only
true Sri Lankans, with Tamils, Muslims and Christians as non- indigenous and extraneous to
Sri Lankan history. This version of national history according to one commentator, has been
deeply divisive in the context of the wider state’’ - The Two Faces of Education in Ethnic
Conflict: Towards a Peacebuilding Education for Children, Kenneth D. Bush and Diana
Saltarelli(2000), http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/insight4.pdf

12. ‘’The New Series raises the same fundamental problem as that posed by the Old: Why is
there this immense gulf in attitudes, outlook and objectives between the Sinhala and Tamil
readers produced by the same state institution? Why must a sense of common nationhood
be taught only to Tamil children, and why must Sinhala children be infected with a sense of
Sinhala-Buddhist dominance?’’ - NATIONAL IDENTITY, CONTENT OF EDUCATION AND
ETHNIC PERCEPTIONS, Reggie Siriwardene, March 1992,
http://www.sangam.org/ANALYSIS/national_identity.htm (The text of this article is an
amalgam of extracts from two separate papers of Mr. Reggie Siriwardene, which he had
presented on two different occasion at the Marga Institute and also at the International
Centre for Ethnic Studies in May and August 1984 respectively).

13. “Millions of school children are taught, in the name of social studies, through text-books
published by the state, the myths of divergent racial origins which will help to divide the
Sinhalese and Tamils for more generations to come... What this lesson does is to evoke the
child's memories of being frightened by his parents with threats of the mysterious and
fearful `billo' to identify these bogeymen as Tamil agents, and thus to enlist the deep-seated
irrational fears of early childhood for the purpose of creating apprehension and hatred of
Tamils.” - Reggie Siriwardene, a well-respected Sinhalese writer, in a well-documented
analysis of the effects of school textbooks on ethnic relations in Sri Lanka, 1984’’ –Scarred
Communities: Psychosocial Impact of Man-made and Natural Disasters on Sri Lankan Society
by Daya Somasundaram(2014)

14.. ‘’As far as the Sinhala and Tamil readers are concerned, therefore, the three questions
formulated at the beginning of the study have to be answered as follows: the Tamil readers
(with whatever degree of success) do seek to create an understanding of and respect for the
way of life and culture of non–Tamil and non–Hindu linguistic and religious groups, and do
attempt to project the sense of a common national identity, while the Sinhala books not
only fail to do this (except in a solitary lesson in the whole series of ten readers) but contain
an abundance of material which will strengthen communal attitudes and reinforce
communal antagonisms. ‘’ - ‘Teaching pluralism to Tamils, chauvinism to Sinhalese’,
February 1999, http://www.sabrang.com/cc/comold/feb99/cover4.htm (Excerpted from
School Text Books and Communal Relations in Sri Lanka, published by the Council for
Communal Harmony Through the Media; authored by Reggie Siriwardena, K. Indrapala,
Sunil Bastian & Sepali Kottegoda).

15. In the 1950s and 1960s Tamil and Sinhalese scholars vehemently protested the hatred-
mongering in textbooks but the Education Department that produces the textbooks
dismissed their concern.