Moving Forward? How Traumatic Experiences, Conciliatory Inter-Ethnic Attitudes, and the Permission of Civil Liberties Pave the Way toward Reconciliation in Post-War Sri Lanka

Examining the hitherto largely neglected micro-level processes of reconciliation, this paper addresses the complex relationship between war experience, conciliatory inter-ethnic attitudes, and the willingness to permit basic civil liberties to former enemies in the context of post-war Sri Lanka. Despite the end of the 26 year long civil war in 2009, social and political tensions between the two largest ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Tamils, prevail, making the question of the legacy of traumatic experiences, such as displacement during war, and the pathways toward political tolerance particularly important in this context. Using new and unique all-island representative survey data (N=1800), we examine the mutual permission of civil liberties of these two continuously opposing groups to the other group. The results of our regression analyses and structural equation modeling reveal that individual levels of political tolerance are highly dependent on the degree of war experience and how individuals cope with those experiences. Surprisingly, Sri Lankan Tamils are more likely to forgive as well as grant their counterparts civil liberties, even though they were more exposed to traumatic events.