Threat-hardened nationalist forces punished accommodation of the out-group.
Evidence
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike thought he could accommodate the Tamil language after becoming prime minister, but he underestimated the forces with which he had colluded to attain the premiership. Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists thus forced him to abrogate agreements reached with moderate Tamils. Buddhist monks played a major role in exerting such pressure, with monks leading protest rallies and hunger strikes against the Tamil language and the Tamil population’s legitimate grievances. In September 1959 a Buddhist monk, Talduwe Somarama, shot Bandaranaike at his official residence, and the prime minister died soon thereafter. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 128
Categorization
- QUESTION: Centrally relevant to the reader’s inquiry: when a leader attempts rational/moral correction against mobilized nationalist sentiment, the correction backfires catastrophically (assassination). Does this indicate that threat-hardened belief cannot be rationally revised without first dismantling the manufactured threat?
- XREF: Echoes the reader’s other material on backfire effects of correction against entrenched conviction and on how mobilization outlives its nominal purpose (‘forces with which he had colluded’). — connects to: Removing a named external threat intensifies rather than softens dominant-group nationalism. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1391; Nationalists weaponize LTTE atrocities to frame accommodation as treason. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 235; Intense intergroup conflict makes defection to the outgroup unthinkable and sanctioned (+9 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 128
Broader Connections
- Threat-hardened nationalists treat peace advocates as traitors rather than as correcting voices.
#corroborates(0.95) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 207 - Nationalists weaponize LTTE atrocities to frame accommodation as treason.
#exemplifies(0.92) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 235 - Intense intergroup conflict makes defection to the outgroup unthinkable and sanctioned
#corroborates(0.90) - Nationalist ideology turns dissent into treason and undermines civil society
#corroborates(0.88) — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 56 - External threat makes groups punish their own deviants harder
#corroborates(0.85) — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 21 - Groups invoke external enemies to justify the suppression of internal disunity
#corroborates(0.85) — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 649 - Siege regimes criminalize opposition and cross-societal solidarity as treason
#corroborates(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 677