The senior US journalist Robert Kaplan is well-connected and famous, a master of prose. He is versed in wrapping his international forays with word-pictures of place, person and context. His texts may ramble in places, but they are rarely ornate. The 'word foliage' displays that do appear are designed to be pleasing, and are sometimes capped with striking titles – what could be more catchy, for instance, than the title of his Sri Lanka-focused piece in the September 2009 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, "Buddha's Savage Peace"? But these invitations to buy into his investigations of the political terrain are mixed with dubious contentions. Notably, his recent interpretations of the Sri Lankan political scene are as simplistic as they are misleading.
Although a longtime reporter, Kaplan was first widely recognised for his striking essay from February 1994, "A Coming Anarchy", also published in the Atlantic. This article was prefaced by the line, "How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet." Kaplan is currently a national correspondent for The Atlantic, and his essays regularly feature in leading US newspapers. He has revealed remarkable versatility, and ventured into many battle terrains – authoring several books, including Warrior Politics: Why leadership demands a pagan ethos (2001), Imperial Grunts: The American military on the ground (2005) and even a travel book entitled Mediterranean Winter.
Now, 15 years after "A Coming Anarchy", Kaplan continues to depict images of anarchy by stirring up American fears of the Oriental 'other'. When Sri Lanka, normally an obscure place in most American eyes, re-entered the world stage with a showdown war in spring 2009, Kaplan seems to have jumped on board to continue this agenda of fear-mongering. Southasian tales of brutal wars and killings without ethical restraint have now been added to his offerings of looming anarchy. Here, the "morality of the result" (namely, suppression of the 'terrorist' LTTE in American eyes) has been conveniently discarded in favour of his dichotomy of the moment.
Kaplan's analysis of the Sri Lankan dispensation is not all dross. During his recent travels through the island, he talked at length with Bradman Weerakoon, the widely respected former senior administrator, and mingled with several noted politicians and NGO representatives, such as Kumar Rupesinghe, the academic and activist. Kaplan also absorbed riveting arguments (also attended by this writer) between Sinhalese and Tamils in the lounge room of the Indian diplomat who oversees the work of RAW in Sri Lanka. He even dipped into the odd book, for instance one by K M de Silva and another by Channa Wickremesekera.