Strategic troping in Sri Lanka: September eleventh and the consolidation of political position

This essay investigates the deployment of the trope of September eleventh in Sri Lanka from 11 September 2001 until Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections and change of government on 5 December 2001. The essay argues that September eleventh in the tropic form of synecdoche performed political work for both parties to Sri Lanka's long-running conflict – the People's Alliance Government and the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and demonstrates how each belligerent used September eleventh and the lexicon associated with the US attacks and early global response to brand their adversary as terrorist, to recode political and conflict narratives in September eleventh terms, and to indicate the appropriate scale and scope of the war. The article raises important questions about the translation of geopolitical events from one domestic context to another, the representation of political violence as global terror, and the strategic power of narrative.