ABSTRACT
When transitional justice mechanisms lead to remedies for misdeeds and injustices that occurred decades ago, a critical complication is created by the ensuing de-synchronization between losses and compensation. The transmission from one generation to the next, of both rights to compensation and, in some symbolic form, of the collective trauma entitling one to such compensation, can become a double-edged sword for successive generations. It is likely that a coupling takes place in the transmission of rights (sometimes effective, sometimes symbolic or projected onto a desired future where they are expected to become effective) with a duty to remember. At times there is resistance to such a coupling. This chapter considers the case of Muslims living in the Northern Province in Sri Lanka who were expelled from their homes in 1990 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and it draws on fieldwork in Puttalam where a number of them settled. It highlights Northern Muslims’ experiences of displacement and potentially, return, and presents their complex subject positions – sometimes articulated and oftentimes projected onto successive generations – as a need to rethink the coupling of memory to justice in transitional justice measures.
