Judah and Benjamin : Evolving a Theology of Peace in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This article presents a Sri Lankan hermeneutic of the Joseph Story (Genesis 37-50) in relation to grassroots peacemaking in Sri Lanka. On a global scale, peacemaking at the grassroots level is a rare phenomenon outside of the confines of small groups. Conflicts are often aggravated and even reach the point of armed struggles due to conditions of dispossession. These eventually lead to war economies which are ultimately beneficial to the rich. Sri Lanka could achieve sustainable peace if solidarity could be created among the dispossessed of the ethnic divide. Genesis 37-50 reveals four challenges to peacemaking in Sri Lanka, namely, (i) constituting Benjamin or creating solidarity among the dispossessed of the ethnic divide, (ii) highlighting the importance of brotherhood/ sisterhood for the survival of the nation which is jeopardized by the existing economic policies which are beneficial to the national and global elite, (iii) understanding peace as renunciation, and (iv) understanding and interpreting forgiveness.