ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the small team that began to set up inter-religious groups to engage in peacebuilding in Sri Lanka. The overall objective of the National Peace Council is to create peaceful relations between all communities in Sri Lanka's diverse population, contributing to a healing society in a post-war context. The mobilization of religious identities, on the one hand, plays a key role in the war's social and political history. On the other hand, the politicization of religion has also become a major impediment to peace-building in Sri Lanka. In light of the failure of successive governments to find a political solution to the Sri Lankan conflict, many civic and religious organizations have attempted to mobilize religious leaders in support of a sustainable social and political change. With the moral authority to decry conflict, and the social networks to mobilize support and public action, religious groups could spread the message of peace in effective and sustainable ways.
