by Sebastian Rasalingam, Toronto, Canada
(August 05, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Three cheers for Mr. Sooriyasegaram on the very balanced and sensible opinions expressed by Mr. M. Sooriyasegaram on the Nallur Hotel controversy, in the artcile published in the Island, 1st August, and in Transcurrents (). What he has said about the proposed hotel project is so eminently reasonable that one would wonder why such common sense is so rare in the Tamil community.
However. my point is to draw every one's attention to several other very important themes that surface within his article. I list them as follows. (a) The misguiding of the Tamil-speaking Sri Lankans by the "wise old men". (b) Unity in diversity. (c) Need to welcome the Sinhalese and the Muslims back into the Tamil community.
The folly and hubris of our wise old men.
Mr. Sooriyasegrama writes: "Those with education, land, wealth and foreign connections, who can survive under any circumstances, must not be allowed to make decisions at the expense of the have-nots and the disadvantaged and marginalized communities, who will suffer as a result of such decisions. Therefore active participation in such decision making by all, especially the downtrodden and marginalized communities, cannot be overemphasized."
The Nallur hotel issue potrays the age-old problems of Tamil politics.
The elitist upper-caste men of the Tamil community, (usually Christian lawyers) who licked the boots of the British, and applied the boot to the fellow Tamils (and the Sinhalese), made the decisions for the Tamils. First it was the attempt to incorporate the caste system into the constitution, led by Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan. Then it was the effort by G. G. Ponnambalam to replace caste divisions by race divisions, partly as a ploy for him to pick up the leadership of the Tamil community. The ordinary rural Tamils did not really matter except as their political power base for the upper-class Tamils. To preserve this power base they were prepared to oppose universal franchise, divide the country and create "exclusive Tamil homelands (Tamil "apartheid"), oppose the building of causeways, roads etc., to connect many of the villages in the Jaffna peninsula because they would "make lower-caste villages more uppity". The land-owning Colombo Tamils - the old wise men of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), and the Tamil congress (TC) were the ones who prevented, in the 1950s, the upgrading of the Jaffna urban council to a municipality because these absentee landlords did not want to pay higher taxes!
Instead of fighting for the up-liftment of the Tamil people's economic and social development, the Colombo elite turned the political battle towards an attempt to grab a separate kingdom from themselves. No wonder their remnants today want to glorify the image of Sankilian. King Sankilian was surely in no sense a civilized man, but a brutal tyrant.
Mr. Sooryasegram is completely correct. The voice of a representative sample of the people, and not the self-appointed old elites, should be consulted, not only in the matter of the Nallur Hotel, but in general, for all political action.
Unity in diversity
Mr. Sooriyasegram writes:
"A sculptured work of art must be incorporated with a chosen theme, such as "unity in diversity", recognizing the rich multi-ethnic nature of Sri Lanka. This could be an integral part of the building’s front elevation or an independent sculpture. It is essential to be creative in all aspects of our work to reach the hearts and minds of people if we want to achieve the aim of a genuinely united Sri Lanka."
How refreshing at last to ready this kind of sensible statements - statements that we heard in the D.S. Senanayake era. Then there was less and less of it. Instead, it was the false rhetoric of the ITAK. The ITAK talked of federalism in its English writings, and even forged a hollow "Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam" pact, while in Tamil it talked of eventual separation and the setting up of Eelam, as early as 1949, and also in the 1952 elections. The so called "sathyagrahas", using the "sinhala-only" legislation as the bone of contention, was used by the ITAK to polarize the amicable Ceylonese society into two warring factions. The nationalist Sinhalese were deliberately provoked by the ITAK, with its Tar-brush campaigns against the Sanskrit letter "Sri" introduced onto car registration plates, and by issuing "Eelam stamps" and civil disobedience. The forming of clandestine militant armed youth groups began already in the 1960s.
Old men like myself, who grew up in the pre-second world war era, watched this turn of events in horror and disbelief. Events that were fuelled by the hubris, pride and greed for power shown by the Colombo-Christian Vellala Tamils. The Gajan Ponnambalams and Sampanthans of today, and the RudraKumarans of the Global Tamil diaspora are the remnants of that noxious breed of Tamils.
So it is so refreshing to see some common sense coming from the pen of Mr. Sooriyasegaram.
Welcoming the Sinhalese and the Muslims.
Mr. Sooriyasegaram writes: "I therefore like to respond to these racist utterances by warmly welcoming all Sinhalese and Muslim visitors to Jaffna and at the same time demanding that the Jaffna Municipal Council and the Government provide decent hotels, accommodation and improved infrastructure facilities in Jaffna".
I grew up in Jaffna, moved to Mannar and then to Hatton. Finally, after marrying an "Indian estate Tamil women", I moved to Colombo. I have seen, in my young days at school, the utter impossibility of being a "low-caste" person and have a modicum of dignity. A christian baptism provided some softening of the harshness of the discrimination that many of the "lower castes" had to face. However, it was only when I moved to the Sinhalese areas in the central hills and in Colombo that I learnt that there was a much more just and equitable society in Ceylon.
The alleged "discrimination of Tamils by the Sinhalese" was nothing compared to the
discrimination of the Tamils by the upper castes of the Tamils themselves. It was even after Vaddukkodaai (1976) that Mr. Shanmugathasan of the Communist Party challenged Chelvanyagam to clarify his caste policy in Mavattipuram.
The best way to soften the caste-ridden, superstition-deriven insular society of the North and the East is to infuse other groups of people closest to us by encouraging multi- culturalism and multi-ethnicity in our so-called "exclusive" Tamil homelands. We need to encourage and invite the Sinhalese and the Muslims to the North and the East. So I am very happy that Mr. Sooriyasegaram has also urged the development of inter-ethnic communication. This is in strong contrast to the writing of "educated" Colombo Tamils like Rajan Phillips whose bigoted writings suggested that the Sinhalese pilgrims are an unwelcome nuisance in Jaffna!
The Marxist fellow travelers of the LTTE, e.g., the Kumar Davids and Wikramabahus, they too have not welcomed the government's attempts at integration, siding with the TNA and even with Sarath Fonseka, the jingoist right-wing ex-general who commanded the Sri Lankan army. These pseudo- Marxists also support separatist Eelamist doctrines!. It is in the interest of the down-trodden Tamils to guard against these misguided "wise men" of the "left".
Once again, I salute Mr. Sooriyasegaram for giving voice to common sense. What Tamils need is common sense, a most uncommon commodity!
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The Nallur Hotel controversy - the same old story !
The Presidential election and the Tamils of Sri Lanka
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(January 18, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) A number of writers who identify themselves as ``Tamils", as well as demented fellow travelers of the LTTE, like Kumar David have come up with arcane arguments telling Tamils how to vote in the coming presidential election in Sri Lanka. Here in Toronto, I hear interminable discussions of the topic, and cannot escape from the advise of the wise . What is most painful to an old man like me is the feeling of "deja vu" and "deja entendu’’, in all this chatter. The old specters of G G Ponnambalam and S J V Chelvanayagam are still here, one calling the other a traitor, demanding and debating how to achieve the exclusive Tamil Homelands, or how to fan and pin the Sinhala polity. The answers seem to be strangly cloned from the old mould that failed.
The difference today seems to me that, instead of men wearing coats, neckties and trousers, today we have men wearing white verti and even pottu on their foreheads. The position of Hindu orthodoxy is stronger than in 1949 when the Christian Tamils led the show. But their turn of mind is equally right-wing and reactionary. The individuals, with a few exceptions are as far away from the common village Tamils as was during the days of GGP and SJV, allowing for the changed norms of social discourse. The Vellalar elites of yore who lived in Colombo and owned property in Jaffna are now replaced by others whose wealth may be in Toronto, Boston or London, live in Colombo, Chennai or Singapore.
So, what have these ultra-reactionary "Tamil leaders" decided? Did they plan to support some socialist candidate who had all along backed the "rights of the Tamils"? No. Just as SJV, GGP and their Karuvakaadu clan gravitated away from Colvin, NM and other socialist leaders who talked of "parity of status’’ for Tamil, today also we see the racist cabal of the TNA aligning with Ranil Wickremasinghe and Mangled Munasinghe. These individuals no longer represent their parties. There are merely a right-wing reactionary cabal, reflecting the narrow segmented interests of a small elite mercantile group. The TNA is a congenital component of this group. So it is not surprising that the TNA wants us to vote for the UNP-TNA common candidate - the very Sarath Fonseka whoallegedly led a genocidal campaign against the Tamils!
The TNA, and their handlers in Scarborough think that they can eventually revive the "exclusive Tamil homeland" demands of the 1949 Arasu Kadchi resolution, or the more well known Vaddukkdodei resolution of 1975. It accuses the government of "Sinhala colonization in the Tamil areas". This was already one of GGP’s accusations against the British Raj in front of Soullbury, and rejected by him. The political program is "deja vu", but the problem has changed enormously. Have the Tamils NOT learnt anything? How is Sarath Fonseka to deal with the Diaspora - a dimension that did NOT exist in 1949 at Maradana or in 1975 at Vaddukkodai?
The Tamils of Sri Lanka that I know of are the poor Tamils. They would not have been admitted anywhere near some of our leaders. The Tamils have a hierarchical society, even today. The LTTE war, the refugee camps of terror and counter-terror did a lot to equalize our society temporarily. But the canker is still there. We see it even in Toronto, where we have a surfeit of Kovils, re-creating some very unpleasant aspects of Hindu orthodox society.
The old political programs of the ILankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK), based on the Tamil-homelands concept did not help the Tamils. It decimated Tamil society by thrusting on it a war against the majority which is five times its size. The Tamils had a major stake in the free-market welfare state created during the Senanayake -Oliver Goonatillke era. The elite Tamils of the ITAK thought more about becoming kings in their piece of Eelam (Arasu) than about the welfare of the Tamils.
Today the Tamils have to vehemently reject the Vaddukkoddai resolution, and go back to the "Ceylonese’’ concept of the Senanayake era, or embrace its modern form, the "Sri Lankan Unitary State" that has been announced by Mahinda Rajapaksa. Contrary to the propaganda of our demented intellectuals, it is we Tamils - poor Tamils - who should shout Uchhahams of joy for the demise of the LTTE. We need to understand that there are no exclusive homelands, and we need to let Tamils as well as Sinhalese or Muslims live in every part of the country. We need a period of stability and consolidation rather than turmoil and change. We need integration, fast link ups of our northern cities with Colombo and other engines of economic growth.
As Dr Subramanium Swamy of India has stated, the Tamils must back Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Tamils must reject the TNA who should be tried for complicity in the war crimes of the LTTE. The Tamils of Sri Lanka must think of themselves as Tamils culturally.
As citizens, they can only be Sri Lankans.
The spectres of GGP, and SJV have to be entombed with that of Prabhakaran and the TNA at this election.
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Dealing with Tamil asylum seekers illegally arriving in Canada.
“The majority of Tamils live in the Sinhalese areas and the hill country without any problem. I grew up in Jaffna, in the North, under the oppressive discrimination of the Tamil caste system, and them moved from Mannar to Hatton (in the hill country), and finally to Colombo.”
_________________
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(October 23, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Canadian Tamil organizations have moved into a level of high ``uchchaham" (excitement) with the arrival of a clandestine boat of illegal immigrants to Victoria, BC. The highly organized and well funded Tamil-Tiger terrorist organizations still have many front organizations. Many front organizations have moved into high gear giving press releases and media conferences. They have suddenly found an opportunity to go back to the 1980s and pretend to be the underdog that got bashed by the Sri Lankan authorities.
Roy Ranavale, a businessman who has attempted to follow the footsteps of the New York based Raj Rajaratnam and become rich has claimed that "his memories as a Sri Lankan teenager tossed into a violent jail made him understand why 76 of his countrymen have risked their lives to reach Canada aboard a rusty freighter." He is the vice president of a Tamil front organization.
He claims that the conditions that prevailed in the 1980 or even 1990s, when the Tigers eliminated individuals like Dr. Neelan Thriuchelvan in broad daylight, still exists today. Does he not realize that four or five changes of government have occurred?
Does he not know that democratic elections have been held in the country?
He knows all that. But he is a master of the art of spinning tales. Ratnavale has the audacity and the mendacity to say: "travel, from north to south (in Sri Lanka), is probably more dangerous than getting on a boat and coming to Canada."
Ratnavale knows very well that the A9 main road is fully open. Buses and trains connect the north and the south. Mail bags as well as vegetables, men and women go back and forth. I myself and two other Tamils traveled to the IDP camps as well as to other parts of Sri Lanka during the summer when we were there. Indian members of Parliament have been there. Then UN undersecretary as well as ordinary people, Tamils as well as non-Tamils, have been there.
Bob Rae, and another Canadian member of parliament wanted to pay a "private visit" to Sri Lanka, armed with a set of contacts and guidelines formulated by types like Ratnavale and other separatists living in the Toronto electorates. It was this ill association with the Tamil extremist lobby groups that was the Achilles heel of Bob Rae and others. The Sri Lankan government probably reacted too nervously and prevented those Members of the Canadian Parliament from visiting Sri Lanka. Instead, I urge the Sri Lankan government to invite these same Canadian MPs on a State Visit and show them the facts, just as the Tamil Nadu MPs were invited to do.
What will happen to these illegal immigrants if they are admitted to Canada? They will be immediately ``swallowed" by the well funded, well heeled pro-Tiger diaspora organizations. The anti-Tiger diaspora will not be allowed to even communicate with them. These 76 new arrivals would also find it extremely convenient to claim that they were harassed or battered by the Sri Lankan authorities. That is exactly what is needed to claim refugee status. They can feign ignorance of English, and request a Tamil translator. A Tamil translator psychologically beholden to the LTTE will appear, even if he is an ``official translator" of the government. Then the outcome is obvious.
I know of an immigrant, Bala, who paid a police office to arrest him several times, repeatedly. That enabled him to create a set of files showing that he was being harassed by the Sri Lankan Police . Bala was able to successfully use those files to support his
refugee claim. But that level of easy manipulation cannot fool the Canadians any more.
Now they have moved into the big criminal league.
These illegal immigrants are victims of crooks who are in the business of human trafficking. They tell them that they can ferry these people to Australia, Canada or Europe. Although they do not qualify as immigrants, they can thus sneak in.
These are not "boat people" of the sort who came from Vietnam. If the problem is just running away from the claimed "oppression" in Sri Lanka, then why not just go to India, where there are other Tamils? Individuals who can pay "Captain Bram" a sum of $45 000 for arranging a clandestine passage can hardly be like ordinary Sri Lankans. If they
could save so much money in Sri Lanka, things could not have been too bad there, at least for them. An ordinary Sri Lankan, Sinhalese or Tamil, earns just a few dollars a day.
The majority of Tamils live in the Sinhalese areas and the hill country without any problem. I grew up in Jaffna, in the North, under the oppressive discrimination of the Tamil caste system, and them moved from Mannar to Hatton (in the hill country), and finally to Colombo. At least in Colombo I found a more equitable, multicultural society where I could lift my head in dignity. Western journalists do not know that many ordinary Tamils cannot even draw some water from a well to quench their thirst as all that is controlled by the hight caste Tamils. They now man the front organizations of the Disapora. It is these Tamils who discriminated against the ordinary Tamils. They want us to be cannon fodder to achieve their separatist aims.
The claims of Ratnavale, or the various Tamil political organizations sympathetic to Separatism in Sri Lanka are false and purely self serving. While there indeed were vicious race riots in Sri Lanka in 1983, triggered by the killing of Sinhala policemen by the Tigers, there has been no retaliatory riots since then. That is, for at least 25 years.
But Ratnavale and his clan of hate mongers would like to continue to flourish their old beggar's wound.
The Tamils now living in Sri Lanka are trying to forge a multi-ethnic, multi cultural society instead of the society based on Tamil Apartheid (i.e., exclusive pure Tamil homelands). This was a doctrine followed by the Tigers and their predecessors who promulgated the so called Vaddukkoddai doctrine of 1976, and the Maradana declaration of 1949. These men were more extreme than the FLQ of Quebec which assassinated just one minster. The Tigers killed dozens of minsters, a president, several prime minsters, and hundreds of eminent Tamils. The oppression and terror came from the Tigers. The retaliation by the Sri Lankan state, accompanied by attacks from the air, certainly led to a horrific dimension trivialized by Americans as ``collateral damage''.
But now the war is over, and Canada should help Sri Lanka to build a multi-ethnic, multicultural nations instead of the separate Sinhala and Tamil racist states that the Tiger Diaspora has been asking for. The Tamils who have settled down in Canada have to leave off continuing to fight the wars of the lands that they left when they immigrated here. Bob Rae and others should stop giving solace to these extremist groups.
Canada should deal gently and fairly with these illegal immigrants who are certainly not poor. They are sneaky individuals who have become victims of international cooks. Canada should ensure that these people do not become victims of the pro-LTTE Diaspora who have converged around them with false friendships based on race hate and ant-Sri Lankan rhetoric. -Sri Lanka Guardian
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Manik Farm, the "Mahathalithagama" of the Mahavamsa.
Most people have only a vague idea of the location and where abouts of these IDP camps with names like "Manik Farm, Kadirgaamar Village etc. How many such camps are there ? How many people are there in these camps?
_________
By "Gam Vaesiya", Ontario Canada
(September 21, Ontario, Sri Lanka Guardian) Now that the military effort against the LTTE is over, most of the concern is directed to the IDP camps. Many dignitaries and concerned people have visited the IDP camps, sometimes with axes to grind, and sometimes with a genuine mission of humanitarian aid. The most recent visitors have been the English Catholic Bishops, and then we have had the United Nations Under Secretary General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe. The latter was also interviewed on the usually somewhat anti-Sri Lankan "As it happens" program of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Mr. Pacoe did not come out in support of the dire, inflammatory claims of the Tamil Diaspora which is still beholden to the fallen LTTE. The Bishops echoed the position of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka which has been calling for sending the IDPs home, and claiming that these are "prison camps".
Well informed Tamil Christians like Sebastian Rasalingam have discussed
(Read)
the dilemma faced by the church which has to echo the views of the
upper class Tamils.
The UN under secretary did not make the kind of knee-jerk remarks made by
the Bishops. His reports fitted in with two earlier reports
by individuals who are not VIPs. Here I like to select two
interesting reports which appeared recently in the Island newspaper.
First is that of Lilini Jayatilake (Island Feature on August 02) which gives a detailed
report of their visit to the IDP camps known by the names Manik Farm,
Chettikulam, and other camps like Sumathipuram, Dharmapuram and
Veerapuram and Komarasankulam camps. She presents a relatively positive
picture, especially of the children who "tore around the back garden in
bursts of high spirits", and also records that the people were clean and
well fed, although many yearned for the freedom of going out of the
camps. An earlier report was that of Sebastian Rasalingam (Island
Feature, 13th July 2009) who also came out with a positive report which
went onto assert that many of the dire claims of the Diaspora are
misplaced.
Most people have only a vague idea of the location and where abouts of
these IDP camps with names like "Manik Farm, Kadirgaamar Village etc. How
many such camps are there ? How many people are there in these camps?
What is the historical background of the places where the camps are
located? How were the camps named?
The location of the so called Manik Farm, or Maenik Farm, is particularly intriguing
from a historical perspective. This is an area already noted by the
Archaeological Department for the existence of ancient ruins (1983 report
by the Asst. commissioner Mr. Somasiri) as this has been a theater of war
since the earliest days of Sri Lanka's recorded history. The
Mahathalithagama of the Mahavamsa is very likely to be in this area. In
fact, it is most likely that this IS Mahathalithagama. The Chulavamsa
records that the Pandyan king Sri Mara Sri Vallabha, when he invaded Sri
Lanka (9th century CE), first captured the Uttaradesa (i.e, effectively,
north of the southern limit of the Vanni, i.e., Vannimava which is
today's Vavuniya). Sri Vallabha is supposed to have destroyed the
Uttaradesa and its people, and encamped at Mahathalithagama. He then
defeated the army send by king Sena I. The Sinhala king, hearing of the
route of the Uttaradesa and the defeat of his army, retreated to the
hills. Meanwhile, Sri Vallabha is said to have collected his troops and
some of the dispersed indigenous Tamils at Mahathalithagama - an IDP camp
of the 9th century! Some of the other towns of the region, e.g.,
Pampaimadhu, Thanndykulam, Poonthddam etc., have been discussed by
toponymists and some attempts to surmise their ancient names have been
made (see http://dh-web.org/place.names/index.html).
In the attached map we have indicated the Manik Farm which today has four
major zones. The largest of these Manik farm zone-2 is home to some 69k (i.e,
69 thousand) people according to the 26-June-2009 data released by the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Colombo. The Zones
1,3 and 4 have some 47k, 44k, and 43k individuals who are mainly from
people displace from the Vanni region (Mannar to Mulllativu). We have
also shown the other camps in the attached map, together with their
probabale ancient names, as far as we can ascertain them.
Manik Farm Aruviaru Sivanantha school 1k
Manik Farm Zone 1 47k
Manik Farm Zone 2 67k
Manik Farm Zone 3 44k
Manik Farm Zone 4 43k
Menik Farm Zone 5 5k
Menik Farm camp (Kathirkamarnagar village) 19k
Nelukkulam transit center 3k
Cheddikulam school 2k
College of education, Poonthoddam 6k
Vavuniya Sivapirakasa Ladies College 3k
Thandikkulam School 1k
Adiyapuliyankulam School 1k
Vavuniya Puthukkulam 2k
Va/Komarasankulam School 2k
Va/Sooduventhapualvu Muslim School 2k
Veerapuram Transit Site 5k
Sumathipuram Transit Site 5k
Thus these camps held some 260k persons, according to the figures
released at the end of June 2009. This number has now shrunk by
about 20,000. Hence the continuing claim of 300,000 detainees is
not based on available figures.
In naming the IDP villages, the government has simply resorted to the
names of old Tamil leaders like Arunachalam, Ramanathan etc., as well as
the welcome addition of the name of Kadirgamar. It should be noted that a
Tamil dissident writer (Sebastian Rasalingam, Island Feature
30-January-2009; http://www.island.lk/2009/01/30/opinion1.html ) had in
fact objected to the use of names of old Feudal Tamil leaders like
Ramanathan who had led several delegations to the Colonial Secretariat in
London to demand that the caste system be enshrined in the constitution
of Ceylon. Indeed, most of the Vanni IDPs of today who are lodged in the
Ramanathan Village would be regarded as low-caste individuals of "no
importance" by Ponnambalam Ramanathan who always chose to emphasize his
Brahmin status.
The attitude that one takes towards the existence of these camps (still
only a few months after a 30 year long war) seems to be based very much
on one's political prejudices than facts. Thus some writers have ignored
the fact that these camps are in reality a resounding success, and a
cause for national pride. when total chaos of the sort What happened in
New Orleans (after Katrina) in the USA could have easily occurred here
since the numbers and circumstances are more horrific. Instead, judging
by all reliable reports, the IDPs have been safely stationed and three
wholesome meals are provided to them. There has been an amazing
outpouring of help and concern from the people of the south as well as
from some sections of Sri Lankans who form the so-called Diaspora. Over
200 doctors and some 1000 nurses are attending to the IDPs. Indian and
French medical teams are also working in these camps.
We need to also enlist the good will of school children of the south who
could go to these camps and organize sports and musical activities,
language exchange etc., as means of establishing a better mutual
understanding of the problems of the country.
Unfortunately, the positive aspects of how the IDPs have been helped have
been ignored by many outside observers. The faces of children peering
thorough the barbed-wire fences have been shown all over the world. The
government claims that these are simply children who crowded along the
fence to watch the helicopters which brought the newsmen and television
crews to the IDP camps. However, the picture shows that we need to move
beyond "holding and shielding" to "renovation and resettlement".
Undoubtedly, it is not in the interests of Sri Lanka to hold these people
in camps. They should be used for the reconstruction of the North. Once
the basic infrastructure of the villages is in place, with de-mining
completed, the people would need houses as well as sustainable economic
activity to exist in their villages. If the people are provided with
basic building materials, they can supply their labour and their
ingenuity to build their own houses and establish their own agricultural
activities. That is, these IDPs become creators of economic wealth and
join in the process of rebuilding the North, instead of being individuals
dependent on State aid or charity. -Sri Lanka Guardian
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The IDPs, the Church and Social reconstruction
“Jesus was a man of the people who had to go into the Temple and throw out the established church fathers, the money bags, the Pharisees and Sadducees. The overthrow of the LTTE is also the opportunity to clean up the Tamil society, over-burdened by its colonial and Shavite elites, untouched by 20th century egalitarianism.”
__________________
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(September 03. Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mr. Lanka Nesiah, writing in the opinion column of the Island (28-august-2009) has attempted to explain some of the politically easily misunderstood remarks of Bishop Duleep de Chickera. I thank him for bringing out the background details. However, the issue is not in the details but in the political fallout ignored by Mr. Nesiah and the Pious Bishop, within the big picture of the so called "national problem". It is this big picture, and the place of the church that I wish to discuss in this reply to Mr. Nesiah.
The big picture, i.e., the long term problems of our country and our communities has got crystallized into the short term problem of the IDPs stranded in the Menik Farm. This is particularly evident from the Island editorial of the 29th of August. It seems that one reason for the consternation of some Tamil politicians like Mr. Ganeshan is that the ruling party is winning favors with the IDPs via the government's approach to the IDP problem! That is, the opposition is worried that a substantial number of IDPs approve the present approach!
There are several classes of IDPS. There are the well to do who have got caught in the tidal wave of the war. They have the means to go to courts and get themselves extricated. Indeed, if people have a place to go, and if they are not suspected of subversive activities, then they should be free to go. Bishop Ranjit Malcolm, the newly crowned Prince of the Church, has called for the immediate release of the IDPs. If each IDP family had on the average five members, then 300,000 people imply 60,000 families. Families having children who may have been LTTE cadre are most suspect. However, if we have 100 senior detectives and their staff reviewing and following up the antecedents of each family, and if each family takes three working days of review, the whole process would take 200 working days. In some cases the three-day review would indicate the need for further review. However, the 180 days that the government has asked for review and re-settlement of the IDPs is, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable.
The possibility that the IDPs could be released in 180 days arose because the Armed Forces freed them from the clutches of the LTTE. If not, they would remain under the LTTE jackboot for many years to come, just as they have been since their ejection from Jaffna in the mid 1990s.So, the church fathers and the Tamils in particular must be thankful to the Armed Forces. They have, be it due to Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism or what ever, demolished the biggest tragedy that befell the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran was a criminal who hijacked the legitimate nationalism of the Tamils and used it to create a fascist organization based on terror for the Tamils and Sinhalese. This is a great moment which should have been celebrated by the Tamils even more than by the Sinhalese.
And yet, such celebration was denounced as "triumphalism". Bishop Ranjith Malcolm uttered no words of praise for the liberation of the Vanni by the Armed forces. Bishop Malcolm used the hallowed celebration of the Madhu effectively to send the political clarion call that the pro-LTTE diaspora has been sending. This is why I was so disappointed and sensed an effective "catu-varkkam" by the political incomprehension of the church. Understandably, the church, just like civil society, will have its pro-LTTE as well as anti-LTTE individuals. However, the church fathers are supposed to be more politically aware and sensitive.
When Bishop Chickera called for the use of Killinochchi wine in church rites, he may have been innocently and simply thinking of using the wine fermented by the girls of Karuna Nilayam. But then, the Bishop has to be utterly insensitive to the political realities of the country, and such prelates should stick to the cassock and not get involved in politics. In effect, when Mr Nesiah asserts that the Bishop "never met Prabhaharan and has therefore never had occasion to refer to the personal qualities or characteristics of that gentleman", he is making a politically very incorrect statement about the "gentleman" who has been found guilty of murder and much more by the Indian High court as well as the Supreme court of Sri Lanka. It is this political blindness which is the tragedy of the contemporary Christian and Catholic churches of Ilankai.
The church came to this country with western colonization, both as a liberator and as an invader. Today, it can continue to play the role of the liberator to the full, if it can align its moral and political sensitivities with the majority of the people, who are the down-trodden and oppressed. The early Christian missions in Jaffna did a singular service in fighting against the hierarchical caste system based on the Hindu Manu Dharma that ensured that a powerful minority maintained the rest of the North and East as serfs. However, when the westerners left the church in the hands of the "-pillai class" of Church fathers, old hierarchical ideas came back to our society even within the Christian church. As a child attending a Christian school, I had to carry around my low-cut stool from class to class as low-caste children could not sit like other children. While Chelvanayagam's Maradana resolution of 1949 and the TULF resolution of 1976 in Vaddukkoddei insisted on the rights of Tamils against the Sinhalese, they ignored the abject discrimination that existed in Tamil society itself where many Tamils could not work in dignity, send children to suitable schools, worship where they liked, bury the dead like everyone else, buy land locked in by Tesavalam, or even draw water from a well.
Those are the true aspirations of ordinary Tamils. This situation existed even in 1980, and the only good thing that came via the destruction brought in by the LTTE was the dismantling of this traditional hierarchic system.
The left movement of the south had a very strong egalitarian influence in Sinhalese society where the churches were less powerful. The trade union movement and the agrarian reforms like the paddy-lands act, estate nationalization etc., changed Sinhala society immensely. The socialists were in the fore-front in proposing Sinhala and Tamil as equal national languages. And yet, Tamil society rejected the socialists. The church, strongly present among the English educated Tamils throttled the left movement and embraced the racism of Samuel J. V. Chelvanaygam, E. M. V. Naganathan (claimed to be "Royal family of Jaffna") and other Christians. Exactly as in South Vietnam and Latin America, our church fathers buttressed the rich, powerful western oriented elite class and forgot about the poor Tamils. Even today, Bishops Malcolm Ranjit and Dulip de Chickera have failed to shake off their shackles and listen to the voice of the poor people.
Jesus was a man of the people who had to go into the Temple and throw out the established church fathers, the money bags, the Pharisees and Sadducees. The overthrow of the LTTE is also the opportunity to clean up the Tamil society, over-burdened by its colonial and Shavite elites, untouched by 20th century egalitarianism. The way forward is via the formation of a multi-ethnic society, by a Tamilazation of the South and a Sinhalization of the North. Here the church can help rather than hinder. But before the church can help, younger grass-roots prelates have to spring up and take control. Commercial development, rapid transport and communication between the North and the South, and land reform where Tesavalam and other caste-discriminatory legislation are removed are a must. The church can be a motive force in social reconstruction and liberation if it goes back to the Christian principles of Jesus himself. Instead of ex cathedra statements about "releasing the IDPs immediately", the church can cooperate with the authorities, celebrate the defeat of the LTTE, and help our people as well as Christianity by developing some basic political acumen, preferably without Killinochchi wine, to avoid fermenting misunderstandings.
-Sri Lanka Guardian
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Impending Disaster for the IDPs if they are released
"If Menik Farm is going to be flooded, the villages and roads of the Vanni will also go under floods when the monsoons come. I have appended a photo of a typical Vanni flood from some years ago when the roads, sewers, and villages were intact. Today, what we have are ravaged villages, broken culverts, bombed out sewers, and roads decorated with land mines."
_________________
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(August 24, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian)On the fifteenth of August, at the the hallowed feast of Madhu, the Right Reverend Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith called for the "the immediate release of the IDPs". Top officials of the US government, probably still following the briefings of Robert Blake, have stated that "Release from confinement is an issue that friends of Sri Lanka continue to raise." The Island Editorial on the 21st of August has reviewed some of these calls to release the IDPs, and stated some of the ground realities in very clear terms.
The ostensible reason for the new call for the immediate release of the IDPs is that the Menik Farm area is flooded. Additionally, we are told that there is no reason to keep the young and the old in the camps. So, are they suggesting forcible separation of the young and the old from their families? If the Vanni villages are to be reconstructed, surely it is the able bodied who should be released, while the young and the old are retained and cared for in the camps!
If Menik Farm is going to be flooded, the villages and roads of the Vanni will also go under floods when the monsoons come. I have appended a photo of a typical Vanni flood from some years ago when the roads, sewers, and villages were intact. Today, what we have are ravaged villages, broken culverts, bombed out sewers, and roads decorated with land mines. Cover all that with some rain, and surely the situation would be much much worse than in Menik Farm. I think the mal effects of flooding in Menik farm can be averted by cutting drains between the encampment. The earth dug out can be used to raise the floors of the camp sites.
On the other hand, if the people were released to these villages, they have to be once again rescued, and brought back to refugee camps. The young and the infirm who it is alleged should have been sent to these villages would be the very individuals who would perish.
So how does one make any sense of the demand of the Right Reverend Bishop to release the IDPs immediately? The princely life of the Aristocrats of the church can some times affect the judgment of the Bishops of the church. Or is it that they simply parrot what the Americans and other powerful people say? Not long ago Father Dulip Chikera stated that Prabhakaran was a most human man, and followed it up with a call to use Killinochchi wine in church rites. So we need to understand that the Church Fathers make these statements to be in resonance with the strong men of the International Community and follow the opinions of the well-healed Tamil diaspora; it is NOT because they are thinking of the well being of the IDPs.
The demented client intellectuals and LTTE fellow-travelers
who write to the "Groundviews", Eelam in Exile, TamilNet etc, have also called for the "immediate release" of the IDPs. They seem to take particular delight in there being barbed wire around the camps. Clearly, they consider that these are prison camps. I visited Menik Farm in July, and talked as a Tamil with Tamil inmates, and I completely disagree with the claim that these are "prison camps".
In fact, the camps are a wonderful melting pot. I have been told of individual water faucets in Indian IDP camps designated for specific castes. That is thankfully absent, even though in the Vanni, of the Chelvanayagams and Ponnambalams, certain castes could not even draw water from a well.
I live in Toronto, where we have the largest concentration of expatriate Tamils in the world. The level of misinformation and the wish to be misinformed that I see here are mind-boggling. It is the standard cry of these expatiate Tamils that the IDPs must be immediately released. They don’t seem to consider that such hasty release is totally disastrous to the IDPs. These IDPs are men and women who have been pushed around for years. Some are people who were evicted from Jaffna by the LTTE in the mid 1990s, and made to follow the meanderings of the disastrous LTTE military program.
Is the government going to send the IDPs into devastated flood-prone Vanni just before the monsoon, simply because the Government made a rash and ill-considered promise to release every one in six months? Such promises may have been made to please the Blakes and the Menons who have been interfering in Sri Lankan affairs. Or it may be the pressure from the Malcolm Ranjiths and Dulip Chikeras?
I say, to hell with them. I say, it is the interests of the IDPs that are paramount, and NOT pleasing the Americans or the misguided Tamil expatriates and fellow travelers who have still failed to take out their pro-LTTE-blinkers. -Sri Lanka Guardian
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IDP camps and False Propaganda of the Tamil Diaspora
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(July 13, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) The historic subjugation of the poor Tamils by Prabhakaran and the Rich Diaspora Tamils has been brought to an end. Some 300,000 hostages have been freed and are now living in camps for "internally displace persons"(IDPs). I have just recently visited some of these IDP camps, and I wish to categorically state that the Tamils all over the world must celebrate this moment when we have, with the help of the Rajapaksa government, triumphed over the greatest misfortune that befell the Ilankai Thamils since Independence.
The Ilankai Tamils were on the verge of extinction under the toll taken by Prabakaran for three decades, massacring or banishing the cream of Tamil society, recruiting the younger generation for cannonfodder , and instilling a culture of violence, extortion and criminality for Tamils globally. The upper-class expatriate Tamils, driven by their hate and racism supported this exercise of self-annihilation and sadism. It is this cancer which has been surgically removed, at least in Sri Lanka. This kind of racism still exists amond members of the Disapora. They demonstrated in front of Western Parliaments hoping to save Prabhakaran the Vanni-Yakkhavar.
This is the greatest atonement of the Ilankai Tamils. It is the moment for a new "Uchhaaham" (enthusiasm). And yet, that this is a cause for celebration is being denied. It is being condemned as "Triumphalism".
The Tamil propagandists and their client intellectuals have returned to their "Pirasittamana Poi" (public lies) activity of spinning falsehoods based on self-interest and racism. In some cases, it is the ill-informed
"self- righteous" individuals who agitate without information or judgment. The Tamils, and even some Sinhalese, think that there is no cause for celebration but only somber religious observations of mourning or praying "for the IDPS". The London Times is very busy falsely claiming that some 1,400 Tamils are massacred every week at the Manik Farm, a place I visited thanks to the influence of an official who works there. Leaders of the Diaspora are demanding that the IDPs "be allowed to return to their villages" immediately.
The Mohan Sekarams and their likes are e-mailing the whole globe asking for "PUBLIC ACTION" for the release of "the elderly, children, nursing and pregnant mothers as the initial step. ... towards reconciliation, unity and equality ... to secure the release and see the well being of the IDP's". If only the old, sick and pregnant, or children are released, who are there to look after them? Can such release be done into villages where the infrastructure is destroyed, water towers and wells blown up, bridges and culverts filled with dengue mosquitoes? In any case, it is the hosting community itself, and NOT the Diaspora living in Scarborough or Melbourne who should decide about accepting such people.
These individuals do not understand that in the west, even a minor sex offender is not released to civil society without a long period of re-education as well as consultation with the public. Many western communities refuse to accept the "healed" offender for fear of re-offending. In Sri Lanka, all the able bodied civilians under the LTTE were conscripted (by force or willingly) for terrorism. The young were snatched from school and trained as fighters and cannon fodder. How long would it take to rehabilitate an illiterate teenage fighter and train him for a job? Would you give a job to a "rehabilitated" ex-LTTE fighter in your business? Will they re-offend? That is the stark reality.
The Moan Sekarams and others who wax eloquent among the chattering classes are clueless individuals who have not assessed the problem.
I believe that the government is unrealistic in attempting to release the IDPs "in 180 days". IT should go more slowly and recognize that it is doing an excellent job. The criticisms of the western press and the ever-blind Tamil Diaspora should be duly countered.
The IDP camps are much better than I expected them to be. A community sense and a new social consciousness superseding the old order of caste and class prevail in the camps. The logistics of feeding 300,000 people, ensuring their health, education and security are enormous. They would be even more enormous if they were released into derelict, dysfunctional villages full of mines and mosquitoes, as demanded by misguided Diaspora Tamils and their client intellectuals. Given the circumstances, the government is doing a far better job of handling the IDPs than India in its camps. The effort is far better than for the Muslims evicted in the 1990s.
I also visited the Eastern Province liberated in August 2007. It was indeed a pleasure to see the new network of roads in the East. There are several IDP rehabilitation schools in the Akkaripattu-Oluvil area and I learnt how the ex-fighters are being re-trained and released back to their villages. In my view, such a process needs at least five years.
The government should NOT listen to ill-informed political meddlers and do-gooders. It should follow the advice of professional educationists, psychiatrists and probation officers in dealing with the IDPs. Finally, before individuals are released to civil society, the community (i.e., the local citizens) should be consulted to ensure that the returned ex-fighters are accepted into that society with their full knowledge, and NOT in some clandestine manner.
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We need inter-ethnic, inter-religious bridge building, not the political pie-cutting pretext of "devolution"
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(May 11, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) I read with interest, the feature published on Friday, 8 May, in the Daily News and other media, attributed to Bishop Duleep Chikera. The Rev. Father begins by saying "We require a visible shift from sympathy for the IDPs to an affirmation of their rights and dignity". He concludes: "But, if a lasting solution to our larger and more tragic conflict is ever to be reached we need to engage in two more crucial shifts.The first is to overcome the tendency to see ghosts of the LTTE in every Tamil. If not, an entire Community will be held under surveillance for the rest of their lives, some of whom will inevitably be driven into the arms of the next Tamil militant resurgence. The secondly, is the need for a just and speedy political response to the grievances of the Tamil people."
Here Bishop Chikera must also be reminded that the IDPs displaced from Jaffna in 1990 and 1995 by the LTTE are still languishing in camps in Puttalam , Trincomalee and other areas. They have no champions! Their dignity is forgotten!
Prof. Hoole's comments about Christian Restraint
An entirely different aspect of religio-politics is touched in the thoughtful article by Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole, as republished in the Sri Lanka Guardian of May 8th (Link). Here Prof. Hoole recounts how the LTTE has used Hindu militancy to hound those Christians who stood against the Fascism of the LTTE. On the other hand, ironically enough, some Christian priests were leading LTTE activists! Another aspect touched on by Professor Hoole is the existence of anti-Christian groups who are ready to label Christians as pro-LTTE, or anti-national. In effect, in the eyes of a certain group of people, Christianity is even today the religion of the invader.
I believe that the pronouncements of politically naive Pastors and church Fathers do not help in establishing a better understanding among our religiously and ethnically divided society. The same goes for politicized Buddhist monks.
Although I am a Tamil brought up within a Christian background, let me at the outset state that I have always had great difficulty in squaring with Bishop Chikera. The good Bishop is part and parcel of the Colombo social class and reflects the aspirations of the Karuvakkaadu Tamils and many Kurunduvatta Sinhalese. I come from the oppressed classes ("castes") of the Tamils and grew up through the World War II years seeing the worst of the social discrimination that exists INSIDE Tamil society. And yet, much of the "struggle" of the Colombo Tamil leadership has been directed against "Sinhala discrimination",ignoring completely the beam in one's own eye. The Karuvakaadu Tamils were the perpetrators of this discrimination. The Vellalar children may have difficulty in getting to University because of standardization. But some other children could not even get into a good school, or draw water from a well, because they happened to be born to the wrong social stratum of Tamil society. While the chruch had acted against this social iniquity of Hindu orthodoxy, it is also true that being a "-pillai" class person was a near necessary qualification for risng up in the hierarchy of the church.
Moral failure of the Church
It is the Colombo Tamil leaders, mostly Christian and often incompetent in Tamil, who began, in 1949, the claim of exclusively Tamil homelands in the North and East, and launched the civil conflict that has taken the lives of the oppressed of the Vanni - mostly, lower classes too poor to pay the "exist tax " to the LTTE and get out. So they were forced to retreat with the LTTE and become human shields. Rank and file Christian priests aided and abetted the Tigers in this push. No strong moral condemnation of such collaboration came from our pulpits.
The Tamil Nationalist movement gave up the moral path in calling for "driving the invaders from the exclusive Tamil homelands." Why is it that, exactly when we need moral guidance, the church fathers loose thier moral compass? The complicity of the Vatican with Hitler was in some ways similar to the silence of our churches in regard to the immorality of the "exclusive Tamil nation" concept and the militarism of the LTTE.
It is the attitude of the Holy Prelate (and his social class) towards the LTTE that irks me most. Father Chikera stated, not so long ago, that Prabhakaran was "a most humane person". He also proposed that the church should use wine from Killinochchi in the sacred rites of the church. Thus we see the level of political naiveté, fool-hardiness and lack of moral judgment in such pronouncements The LTTE and Prabhakaran have done more harm to the Tamils than the ancient kings and the Portuguese all taken together. He has eliminated the older generation of dissidents and intellectuals by assassinations and forcing exile on them. The middle class has also taken the opportunity to get out of the country as economic refugees, but claiming discrimination or brutalization as there is ground for such claims. But the worst crime of the LTTE is in decimating the next generation of Tamils by converting kids into soldiers, and feeding them to the guns of the army.
Today the Tamil population is perhaps no more than the Muslim population, although two decades ago we were twice the Muslim population. If that is not genocide, then what is it? Rev. Chikera knows that Prabhakaran was guilty of many crimes starting from the murder of Duraiappah, Amirthalingam, and scores of others. And yet, many (fortunately not all) members of the Christian establishment have been consistent fellow travelers of the LTTE.
The English educated upper classes of Colombo, irrespective of whether they are consumers of Killinochchi wine or finer Burgundy, possess one characteristic. Their apparant espousal of Tamil rights is not genuine. It is merely a reaction based on their visceral anger towards the "Sinhala Buddhists". This is the reason why such diverse individuals as Kumar David, Tisaranee Gunasekera, Wikramabahu Karunaratna, "Shanie" and some Bishops could write in appeasement or even support of the LTTE. They fail to see that the LTTE, and not the Sinhala majority, is the biggest enemey of minority. Now, I bear no candle for the Sinhala Buddhist fringe who matched the excesses of Tamil racism with their own brand of racism. However, they too have been an oppressed people, just like the not-so-upper class Tamils, be they Malabars, Mukkuvas, or the hill-country Tamils not considered fit enough to be in the same club as those who live in the "exclusive Homeland" Arasu of the North and the East. What has been missing is that the Tamils have done nothing to bridge the ethnic divide that they began to deliberately create, in the hope of polarizing society to justify the demand for a "separate homeland". Similarly, the higher aristocracy of the Christian Chruches have done very little in terms of inter-group bridge building. They are still burning with vengence against the Sinhala Buddhists who spearheaded the nationalization of church schools.
Bishop Chikera's press release says "secondly, is the need for a just and speedy political response to the grievances of the Tamil people". The Bishop has not proceeded to spell out his vision regarding the "speedy political response". Right now, a Tamil can do, at least in principle, what a Sinhalese or a Muslim can do, in terms of contesting elections, joining political parties etc. What is possible in principle is often incomplete administratively, and this must be corrected administratively. When Tamil politicians of the TNA say this, they usually mean handing over political power of the North and East to some local Tamil Vellalar lord. This further means that the old hierarchy of traditional Tamil society, with its system of dominations, will arise just as it is the case in Tamil Nadu. Even in Scarborough, Canada, it is an open secret that the many Hindu Kovils follow the cast affiliations of the devotees. Prabhakaran was able to control a society which was used to being controlled due to years of "Manu Dharma:.
But we DON'T want any more of these local lords. Let there be NO units of government based on linguistic, religious,racial or caste concepts.
The solution - a multi ethnic society without linguistic subdivisions
The best guarantee and affirmation of the rights and dignity of all people can be achieved when equal opportunities become available to every one in the country. Let me quote Johnpulle, a fellow Tamil from London who writes in the Sri Lanka Guardian of 9-May:Tamils and others were subjected to various forms of injustices over the years. However, today most of those injustices have been corrected. Democratic rights are enforceable and equal. Political groups of unequal numbers made up of individuals with equal rights have unequal power. This is democracy where there is a winner and a loser when two competing concepts clash head-on. If it was not so, no decisions would be made in a democracy. Appreciating this fact is essential for peaceful coexistence.. ". That is the way to "overcome the tendency to see ghosts of the LTTE in every Tamil".
In my view, the main thing that a Tamil (or perhaps even a Sinhalese) feels is the lack of due attention to law and order. Every thing is subject to having political friends. If the possibility of police or army harassment, short comings in our sense of security etc., can be corrected, people have no problem in living in dignity. This involves the proper working of the forces of law and order, as well as transparency in government. The government would actually gain much mor if it would allow more access to independent scholars and UN agencies in its conduct of the war. If people are killed in an offensive it is best to be open about it. This need for transparency is nothing piculiar to the Tamil problem or the IDP problem.
Federalism, Indian models, power devolution etc., are schemes where some local politicians are trying to grab power for themselves. These efforts must be resisted at all costs. A multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society as we already have in Colombo now must be encouraged all over the Country. This would encourage the migration of people to the East and the North from the more popullous south, just as there has been constant migration from the North ever since the Jaffna-Colombo railway was opened in 1905. Strangly enough, when we tamils come to Colombo, it is not "colonization", but when Muslims and Sinhalese go to the North, various "intellectuals" claim that it is colonization designed to "upset" the "ethnic ownership" of the Traditional Homelands. This Eelamist thinking has to stop. We need inter-ethnic bridge building and NOT political pie-cutting under the pretext of "devolution".
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The deluded Diaspora and the "Eelam Virus"
By Sebastian Rasalingam
(May 04, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have cringed with pain and clutched my head in anguish, watching my grand children’s friends in Scarborough, Ontario, going out, with their friends, to join protest marches in the streets of Toronto. These young people are given the Tiger flag which is an insult to the best traditions of Hindu society or the Christian values taught by the prince of peace. These young people shout slogans and talk of the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Most of them actually believe that they are doing the "right thing". They think they are demonstrating for a "just cause". They think "Our people are being shelled, bombed. Those who escape are locked away in concentration camps and probably gassed like in Auschwitz. We have to pressure the Canadian government to demand an immediate ceasefire". They have seen movies and videos showing exactly that, and they need no other proof. After all, "there are young Tamils immolating themselves in London and Geneva. So all this must be true. Every Tamil grocery has these newspapers telling what is going on". Oh, what a delusion!
These slogan shouting people take me back to another era. In the 1950s, when we were relatively young, the political demonstrations launched by the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi were an attractive line of political action. I certainly felt that "Sinhala ONLY" was utterly unfair by us Tamils. But then, I somehow felt that the cry for "driving out the invaders from the Tamil homelands" was a dangerously racist, extremist cry. I went to live in Hatton and then Colombo. The society that I found in the Sinhalese areas was much more just and equitable than the social ethos of Jaffna and Mannar that I had already seen. The Tamils in Colombo had a dominant position in commerce, banking, professions and every walk of life. I felt that we, too, could easily prosper in Sri Lanka, even with Sinhala only or virtually no Tamil, just as the Jews have done in New York, with no Yiddish recognized as a national language. I began to understand the evilness of individuals like S. J. V. Chelvanayagam and E. M. V. Naganathan. The latter’s pride in announcing that he was a descendant of the Chola aristocracy was particularly repugnant to me as I had seen the hard side of the Manu Dharma. Why didn’t the Tamil leaders support the socialists who supported "Parity of Status" for the two languages? Why are the Tamil leaders living in Colombo instead of relocating to the "Traditional homelands"? Would the Tamils in the North and the East be able to settle down in the south if the "Tamil homelands" policy were achieved? Would the Tamils living in the south be deported to the North if Arasu were achieved? Surely, Sinhalese discrimination against Tamils is nothing compared to what I and my wife, an estate Tamil, had to face within the Tamil society.
I could doubt the political programme that was gaining ground among the Tamils because I happened to be an educated low-caste Tamil with Estate-Tamil connections. The Tamil politicians worked very hard to polarize the people and drive a wedge between the two ethnic groups. The Arasu Kadchi people were actually happy that the Banda-Chelva accord was torn asunder. Ethnic division was necessary for creating the exclusive "Tamil homelands" Given such an inflammatory extra-parliamentary objective, the final struggle had to be war.
Looking at the young men going out to demonstrate in the streets of Toronto, I see them as just a continuation of the delusion initiated by the Chelvanayagams and Naganathans, already in 1949. Communist intellectuals and their young student activists blindly supported Stalin even when overwhelming evidence was presented to show that Stalin was a mass murderer. Today, the Tamil Diaspora is similarly blinded by its own beliefs and fails to accept the truth.
Instead of joining with the Sri Lankan government to defeat and decapitate Prabhakaran, instead of coming forward to help the displaced Tamils, the LTTE-conscripted children, and hostages who have managed to flee, the Diaspora is waving the Tiger flag. If 10,000 Tamils all over the world demonstrated for a week, even at the minimum wage of $8 per hour, this is a capital investment of over $6 million dollars totally wasted. According to Jane’s Intelligence, if we aggregate the collection made from the Diaspora over two decades, there is enough money to pension all the Sri Lankan Tamils, 3 million or more, at a standard of living never dreamed of. Instead, we used that money to supply the Tigers with claymore bombs, RPGs, AK-47s and the likes. Even the Tsunami aid was diverted for war. Meanwhile we created a Mafia to plague us.
Is there NO LIMIT to hate based on this "Eelam Virus"?
The IDP camps in Vavniya are far better than the IDP camps in India. The Diaspora has not risen to help our Tamils in the IDP camps in Sri Lanka or India. Instead, it chooses to wave Tiger flags in western capitals and use political blackmail by "fasting unto death", immolation and such undemocratic methods.
The Tamil Diaspora has to cure itself of the Eelam Virus. Then and then only can it help the Tamils.-Sri Lanka Guardian
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David Cameron asks "Will Colombo make Peace" ?
By Gam Vaesiya, Ottawa, Vanada
Prof. Cameron, writing in the Globe and Mail of April 3rd 2009, Toronto asks
"Will Colombo make Peace"?
But it takes at least two to make peace.
(April 12, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Tamil National alliance (TNA) in Sri Lanka has rejected invitations (10 April) for talks with the Indian Foreign Minister Shivashankar Menon. The TNA rejected a similar invitation from the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa.
David Cameron teaches "political science" at the University of Toronto and took part in Sri Lanka's peace talks from 2002 to 2004 as a member of the Forum of Federations. So he his far more informed about the Sri Lankan situation than the typical "citizen of the street". However, political science is only a science by appellation, and hence his discussion needs re-examination, particularly because his analysis ignores a number of very important parameters which are missing in most discussions of the conflict in Sri Lanka. The zeitgeist of the discussions of the 2002 era was molded by two groups. One group consisted of the upper-caste Colombo Tamils who were the empowered group during the British era. They had become the mouth piece of the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (LLTE), and have been named "Thimpu Tamils" by Sebastian Rasalingam, a dissident Tamil writer ( see ). The other group was the representatives of the Sri Lankan government, largely drawn from the Christian-educated Colombo upper classes. It is this zeitgeist that David Cameron and the "international community" (IC) is most familiar with.
Karuna's secession
The international community as well as the Government and LTTE peace negotiators were all surprised by what David Cameron records in the following manner: "A devastating blow was delivered to the LTTE in 2004, when the Tigers' eastern military commander, known as "Colonel Karuna," broke with Mr. Prabhakaran and set up a competing movement in the northeastern part of the country. This destroyed the Tigers' claim to represent all of the north and northeast of Sri Lanka, and radically undermined its military strength. The Karuna faction began to work covertly against the LTTE with elements in the Sri Lankan army."
Why did no "political scientist" predict this? After all, the strength of any science is that it studies a system, and builds up enough knowledge to make useful predictions. Societies are so complex that political scientists rarely use quantitative simulations to test their beliefs - they just hold forth. They usually miss the underlying structural features, and by force of events seize upon the most talked of features. Karuna's rift was not fore-seen as the structural nature of Tamil society was ignored in most deliberations of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
Contrary to the stance taken by the elitist Colombo leadership, Tamil society is neither monolithic nor homogeneous. It is a strongly stratified system where each stratum rules the lower stratum. The upper-crust Vellalar caste has its own fine distinctions, with the "first-class Tamils" being the ruling class that had dominated Tamil politics since the 19th century. Even in the decade prior to independence from the British, the leading Tamil politician, Ponnambalam Ramanathan, led delegations to London, with the hope of getting the Colonial office to include the caste system as the legislated law of the land. The opposition of the elitist Colombo Tamils to the "low-caste" Tamils who worked in the tea plantations was such that their citizenship, proposed by the Donoughmore commission, was sabotaged not by just the Kandyan Sinhalese, but most forcefully by the Tamil leaders themselves. Some high-caste Tamil leaders like Peri Sundar considered it an utter indignity to run for office in competition with low-caste Tamils. The Tamil-casteism of the pre- independence era was replaced by Tamil-nationalism and Tamil racism when dealing with the Sinhalese, but the underlying casteism did not go away.
Just as the hill-country Tamils were "low-caste", so were the Eastern Tamils of "Mukkuva" extraction. The Upper-caste Jaffna Tamils demanded suzerainty over all Tamils with the proviso that the hierarchy be respected. The Eastern Tamils and the Hill-country Tamils were regarded as "subject castes" by the Thimpu Tamils. However, the leaders of the Eastern Tamils, or the hill-country Tamils, living within the multi-ethnic societies that prevailed in the Eastern and Central provinces, rejected the hegemony of the Jaffna-Colombo elitist axis. Thus the political proposals of G. G. Ponnambalam to the Soulbury commission (equal division of the legislature between the Sinhalese and the Tamils), or the "traditional Tamil homelands" concept of S. J. V. Chelvanayagam, annunciated at the Maradana meeting of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) in 1949, were rejected by Thambimuttu and other leaders of the Eastern Tamils, as well as by Thondaman, the leader of the Hill-country Tamils.
Most Muslims in Sri Lanka are also Tamil speakers. T. B. Jayah, the Muslim leader had also rejected the political stance of Ponnnambalam, as well as Chelvanayagam, although Ponnambalam arrogantly assumed the mantel of "spokesman for all Tamils" when appearing in front of Soulbury.
Thus Karuna's rift is a historical continuation of an old rift that discerning political scientists and historians could well have expected. Karuna found that Prabhakaran, having assassinated the Colombo leadership and hijacked its nationalist movement, also assumed the hegemonic mindset of that elitist class. This was the case even though Prabhakaran came from a Karaiar smuggler's village, viz., Vellvettithurai (Vaeli-vaeti-thara). The LTTE treated the Eastern province as its "colony", to draw resources, recruit child soldiers, and tax the people for its war effort. Karuna simply emulated his leader Prabharkaran who rejected the Elitist Colombo Tamils. He in turn rejected the LTTE hegemony over the Eastern Tamils.
The claim of "Traditional Tamil homelands".
The historian Michael Roberts has presented a detailed discussion of how the claims to "exclusively Tamil homelands" (ETH) in the North and the East came to dominate the dynamics of the Sri Lankan conflict (J. South Asian Studies, vol xxvii, p87-108, 2004; ). Historically, these claims are highly overblown and the Sinhalese as well as the Tamils can claim occupation of these lands from time time, especially after the 8th century CE, with the Jaffna kingdom limited to the Jaffna peninsula, then known as "Vaeligama" (in Sigiri Griffiti, and Valikamam in some old maps). A. J. Wilson, a political scientist who was Chelvanayagam's son in law, also stated that ETH became the dominant doctrine of the Tamil nationalist movement. ETH gradually hardened to claim that the North and the East were exclusive Tamil Homelands and that the Sinhalese and Muslims were invaders who have to be driven away. Of course, most Tamils of the early 1950s did not accept this extremely racist position. The Ilankai Thamil Arasu kadchi (IAK) took care to talk of federalism in its English language presentations and its more moderate leaders were probably federalists. The ITAK may have remained an ultra-racist fringe party but for the death of D. S. Senanayake and the rise of the Sinhala only movement. Also, although there was much moderate thinking among the Sinhalese polity, they did not trust the "federal party" with its "Arasu" (Sovereignty) cry uttered in Tamil. The Bandaranaike-Chelvanayagam (BC) pact, the first attempt at devolution of power, was doomed to failure . Even after the pact was signed, instead of attempting to build bridges between the two communities, the ITAK engaged in tar-brushing Sinhala street names, car registration plates, and launching acts of civil disobedience. The Sinhalese groups countered with nationalist marches and a demand for the abrogation of the BC pact. The abrogation of the BC pact was actually celebrated even by the ITAK in Jaffna!
David Cameron writes: "if it had been possible, in short, for members of the Tamil community, as Tamils, to participate in the life of their country, the history of Sri Lanka over the last 60 years would have been very different." However, with the concept of "the need to drive the invaders from the Traditional Homelands" fully entrenched, the Tamil leaders chose a path of separatism rather than "participation in the life of the country".
All this was cheered on with glee by westernized Colombo society which had began to hate the "Sinhala Buddhists" who had dis-empowered them in 1956. The attempt at a coup d'etat, led by right-wing Christian groups was the climax of this movement. They, and their journalists finally sided with the Tamil nationalist movement due to their antipathy towards the Sinhala-Buddhist groups.
The ITAK worked hard, aided and abetted by their Sinhalese counterparts who held diametrically opposing points of view, to polarize the thinking of the people. The Tamil parties were far more successful in this, and the ultra-nationalist doctrines of the ITAK became mainstream thinking among the Tamils., with the Vaddukkoddei (Batakotte) resolution (1976) spelling out the need for the creation of a separate Tamil states, Eelam, if necessary by an armed struggle. The Hill country Tamils, and the Tamil speaking Muslims refused to approve the Vadukkoddei (Batakotte) resolution or join the Tamil United Liberation front (TULF).
This resolution officially accepted that Tamil political action would deviate from the moral, democratic path and let the end justify the means.
Meanwhile, Chelvanaygam himself, and Amirthalingam, the leader of the TULF, had been busy building up militant groups who were ready to take up arms. The Pulip Padai (Army of Tigers) had in fact been launched in Trincomalee on the 12th August 1961, with the full knowledge of Chelvanayagam. In a later phase, Sivakumaran, a militant who introduced the use of cyanide to evade capture by suicide, had several meetings with Chelvanaygam. Thus the "Gandhian" image cultivated by some some members of the ITAK was possibly sincere or just another tactic in the struggle to "free the homelands" from the invaders.
Given such a powerful clarion call, and given the bulging demographics of the Tamil youth population of Sri Lanka, it was inevitable that anyone who attempted to compromise on the ETH doctrine by federalism or devolution of power would be eliminated as traitors. This was the fate of many Tamil intellectuals and politicians, ranging from Amirthalingam, Neelan Thriruchelvam and Kadirgamar. Even Rajeev Gandhi was eliminated because he would have established power devolution instead of separation.
The democratic mandate won by the TULF in 1977 was nullified by the LTTE which eliminated the TULF leaders. The LTTE began a full scale war, partly funded by India. The upper-caste leaders of the Tamils, the progeny of the Ponnambalms, Sampanthans and others have today become lackeys of the LTTE, meekly following its orders, collecting funds and organizing demonstrations, refusing invitations to any discussions etc., instead of playing a constructive role.
To heal the wounds of war
The Tigers had grown into a vast immoral mafia organization which extorts funds from the diaspora and has become a liability to every one including the Indians, the Canadians and other countries hosting sizable Tamil populations. Thus, in effect, the military successes of the Rajapaksa government in eliminating the Tigers has been welcomed in many quarters.
David Cameron, in asking if Colombo will make Peace, says "If the nation is composed of all these communities, why is there so little concrete expression of that fact in the affairs of state? For a great many of the President's supporters, Sri Lanka is not a multicultural society, but a single Sinhalese nation with several small minority groups. Government documents are typically issued only in Sinhalese; there are few Tamil-speaking officials; there are repeated reports of racial profiling by the predominantly Sinhalese police force". Contrary to what is stated here, all government documents are issued in three languages. Government functions are also, painfully, three times long as i found when I attended an Independence day celebration. By contrast, all events of the Tamil diaspora are exclusively Tamil events.
David Cameron, a political scientist, knows very well how Japanese and German Canadians were all uprooted overnight and confined to camps rimmed with razor wire during the time Canada was at war. Leave aside allowing individuals of German descent into the civil or armed forces, Canada did not even allow their young sons and daughters to the University of Toronto Chemical laboratories as they were regarded as "security risks". After 9/11 USA introduced the Home security act with draconian powers of detaining people. In Canada too, even in the absence of a war situation, the CISIS holds people as "security risks", send them to countries like Syria, and lead people into Kafkaesque situations even today, where a Canadian is held in the Canadian Embassy in Sudan without trial.
The Sri Lankan government is treating the Tamil population in a far more considerate manner than was the case of Canada in its handling of the Japanese and German Canadians during its war. There are indeed only a small number of police or army officers who are Tamils. Any Tamil in such a position was assassinated or forced out of office by the LTTE. Redressing this situation will now be possible with the elimination of the LTTE. If Quebec and the "rest of Canada" had been at war, it is very unlikely that the "rest of Canada" would be offering extensive services in French even before the war comes to an end. In fact, without there having been such a war for at least a century, and after four decades of ethnic bridge building and Traudeauism, Francophones are still complaining that French is not much used in the civil administrations west of Federal Ottawa. David Cameron, a political "scientist", would well know that it takes a generation or more to change these types of situations. Hence the accusations he has hurled at the Rajapaksa government which has been in power for a just a few years, and still at war, are simply unexpected when coming from a professional.
Sri Lanka will most likely find its own solution
Professional military observers and "international think tanks" had claimed, for decades, that the Tigers can never be militarily defeat. This has now been proven dead wrong. Western analysts have also argued that "power devolution", or a mini "Indian model" based on racial or linguistic identities, is the solution to the problem in Sri Lanka. This, as well as the belief that the Tigers cannot be militarily defeated are both parts of the 2002 Zeitgeist that David Cameron and many other observers are familiar with. A perusal of the writings of Tamil dissidents like Sebastian Rasalingam, Thomas Johnpulle, Lenine Benadict, Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Noel Nadesan and others shows that a completely different approach is sought by these more recent writers. They have rejected federalism, Indian models, devolution etc, for a multi-ethnic pluralist society that already exists in Colombo, Kandy, Galle and other southern cities. In fact, today Colombo has a Tamil speaking population exceeding Sinhala speakers. Thus, even under conditions of war, a multi-ethnic peaceful society has begun to flourish in many parts of the country. The LTTE has tried to provoke this society by attacking icons sacred to the Sinhalese as well as the Muslims, but there has been a firm, healthy refusal to retaliate.
David Cameron should think what would happen if most of the population of Canada were shrunk into the space between Ottawa, Kingston and the US border. Sri Lanka is not much bigger, and its population is about 21 million. The integrity of the polity between Kingston and Ottawa is established by the availability of fast roads and rail connections. The first acts of the LTTE separatists were to destroy the railroads and dismantle the highways. The new government should seek unity and stability in Sri Lanka by developing its roads, railways etc., instead of constitutionally curving out the pie. Constitutions are no guarantee of human rights - even Josef Stalin had a very democratic sounding constitution. The only guarantee of human rights is the development of good understanding, good communications, the establishment of trade and other inter-dependencies. That is the very opposite of divisive politics enshrined in the call for devolution, based on linguistic lines. Given the modern high-technology revolution where translation from one language to another is available via a mere click on your browser, the problem of the existence of divers languages would dissolve into oblivion with the next generation of computers. Once fast rail links are established, Jaffna and Trincomallee would be quasi-suburbs of Colombo, or as close as Boston is to New York or Washington.
I have no doubt that given peace, and given a few more years, the Tamils living in Sri Lanka and the Sinhalese would forge a successful multi-cultural, harmonious society if only the Diaspora Tamils, locked in their Vadukkoddei mindset, would keep off funding militants to engage in the politics of the Island that they are no longer a part of. A large amount of money collected in Canada was used to blow up human beings in Sri Lanka. The Tamils have suffered the most in this regard. The RCMP-the Royal Candian Mounted Police, was fully aware of it and had repeatably warned the Canadian government that Canada has become a staging post for Tiger Terror operations. Indeed people like David Cameron can help by educating the diaspora Tamils as well as many short-sighted Canadian politicians in this regard.
-Sri Lanka Guardian
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"A Tamil Standpoint in Sri Lanka"
By Sebastian Rasalingam, Toronto
(March 09, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Rajan Philip's feature article appearing in the First March issue of the Island newspaper is a thoughtful clearly written article, with needs to be addressed and evaluated. He begins by saying that the "problem of finding Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka has become more than a matter of textual teasing as old divisions are hardened by the current war". I pick up a few of his dominant themes to remind the reader and to provide a basis for my comments:
1. Rajan P points out that the "Sri Lanka is for Sinhalese" concept has become dominant even though this is anathematic to all others including large numbers of Sinhalese who positively support a plural Sri Lanka."
2. Rajan Philip consider the specter of the North and East becoming "Garrison Provinces", and also bemoans that "Tamil politics has never been as rudderless as it currently is. Nor has it been as existential - their land has been scorched, tens of thousands of civilians are caught in the crossfire,..."
3.RP also seems to think that constitutional changes are imperative and that something MORE than the 13th amendment is necessary. This discussion of constitutional needs ends with a lot of hubris about Tirunavukarasar's "kudiyallom" about self-respect" and JR Jayawardena's defiant reply to the Indians.
Rajan Philips, in spite of his Leftist up-bringing, forgets about Tirunavukarasar's acceptance of Manu Dharma where this self-respect is destroyed and ossified into various caste strata. Jayawadena's notorious attitude to human rights is surely not a part of the "Philip's amnesia"?. Both Tirunavukarasar and Jayawardena demanded democracy and respect from those above their stratum, and abject obedience from those below them! Much of Rajan Philips's essay is built upon convenient partial truths which ignore the political realities and buttress a partisan view which arises from the hidden racist pathology behind the so-called National question.
In fact, if you look at the very title of his article, you see that he refuses to think like a Sri Lankan, but insists on thinking like a Tamil, and yet rebukes the Sinhalese of thinking like "Sinhalese". During the time when I grew up, the concept of being "Ceylonese" was dominant even within the church-influenced, English educated Northern society of the day. The Senanayake - Mahadeva - Oliver Goonatilleke pro-west leadership, as well as
the left-wing leadership accepted the concept of being "Ceylonese". The racist position had also been increasingly articulated by Ponnambalam, opposing the Donoughmore commission which proposed universal franchise, irrespective of race. Samuel J. V. Chelvanayagam in 1949, in founding the "Tamil Ilankai Arasu Kadchi" (ITAK), explicitly articulated the view that the "Sinhalese are invaders in the Traditional homelands of the Tamils". He worked tirelessly to achieve his version of ""Nam-arkum kudiyallom" from then onwards. In my view, Bandaranaike was not a racist, but a political opportunist who under-estimated the power of racism, and unleashed forces that played exactly into the hands of the ITAK.
If the ITAK were actually interested in "Federalism", as it claimed in its sanitized hand-outs to the Anglophone Ceylonese, it should have gone around the country explaining to the Kandyans, the Indian Tamils, The Sabaragamuva and Ruhuna people, the advantages that they too could obtain if regional government and some form of federalism were possible. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike too had in several of his writings considered the advantages of Federalism for Sri Lanka.
Given that the Kandyans and several other groups had also been favourable to Federalism at the dawn of the Soulbury hearings, and it is my view that there would have been a favourable reception to federalism if the ITAK had honestly worked for federalism. Such federalism involves the building of trust and confidence among the groups hoping to confederate. In reality, the ITAK followed a program totally opposed to federalism. I have, in the 1950s, listened to fiery rhetoric and eloquent political speeches in Tamil, where we were told of the old "Kingdom of Jaffna", and to drive the Sinhalese and the Muslims out of the "Traditional lands" of the Tamils. The Tamils who faced the 1952 elections rejected that rhetoric, and regarded the ITAK as an extremist fringe party. Meanwhile G. G. Ponambalam had unleashed his nationalist rhetoric in the 1930s, but moderated himself and he had accepted the Ceylonese concept under the banner of Senanayake, and it was his party which was successful in the 1952 elections.
Of course, as every one knows, once the adroit touch of D. S. Senanayake disappeared, and given S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike's eagerly clumsy hands, the forces that had been kept at bay were ushered in. The ITAK also came to the front stage on the back-lash. SJV was a budding Eelamist in 1949, and all he could see was the vindication of his vision. He was not large enough to see that, instead of Satyagrahs and civil disobedience, his approach SHOULD have been to JOIN WITH BANDA, in the same spirit as Marikkar and other Muslims who supported the SLFP. The Tamil leadership could have cooperated with Banda, build up good relations and ethnic amity, while espousing the need for Tamil, as this is exactly the same sentiments that drove the Sinhalese of the day to dethrone English. Instead, SJV chose extra-parliamentary confrontation - an approach which is utterly idiotic for a minority community as the repercussions are always disadvantageous. The ITAK found it necessary to tarnish the image of the Senanayakes, claiming that they encouraged "colonization of the Traditional Homelands", while totally ignoring the influx of Tamils to the south which became a torrent after 1948. The activities of the ITAK even further destroyed the the amity that existed between the two ethnicities, and polarized the
influential Anglophone "Ceylonese" community into "Tamils" and "Sinhalese". By 1972 even the hard-core "internationalist" left-leaders also succumbed to this polarization. Was it at all surprising that the Banda-Chelva fact, or the Dudly-Chelva pact failed to materialize? In reality it was not the "Buddhist Monks" who foiled these pacts - it was the ITAK itself, because it failed to build bridges and instead openly advocated the ultimate liberation of the "Traditional Homelands", a fact well -known to many Sinhalese and the
Tamil-speaking Tamils.
In effect, there was a very large window of opportunity for nurturing federalism in Sri Lanka, from 1948 to perhaps 1972. As I already remarked, many groups had been favourable to federalism in 1948, and this included the left parties which also firmly supported "parity of status" to Tamil. Philip Goonawardena physically attacked Ponnambalam in the corridor of the State council after a strongly racist speech by Ponnambalam. It was Tamil nationalism, seeped in caste-based land-owner conservatism which rejected any links with the left. The racism and personal hubris of the elitist lawyers of Colombo, mostly Christian by faith but Vellalar in social-practice, became the driving force of Tamil politics. "Tamil" was emphasized by the ITAK as that was the only way to justify the "traditional homelands (TH)" concept. A. J. Wilson writing in the late 1960s asserted that this TH had become the essential basis of Tamil politics. This concept has seeped into Tamil ethos and its unconscious mindset, just as much as the sinhalese have their "sinhala mindset". Today, even Rajan Philips, with a conscious "internationalist" leftist background cap, unconsciously subscribes to this TH concept, and "la rasion cachee" which motivates his essay is also this TH. That is precisely why he is not happy with the 13th amendment, or anything else other than some super federalism? Just recently, a Tamil expatriate writing from Australia argued for Federalism, and in his mind he was thinking of the Tamil Homelands federating with India!
Thus, unlike in the 1950s, the word "Federalism" is a dirty, treacherous word in Sri Lankan constitutional discussions. In my view, it cannot be resurrected for at least another two decades, when a new generation of young voters would be the king makers.
But why do we need federalism? If I follow Rajan Philp's dialectic, it is perhaps to avoid "Garrison Provinces", and give room for the flowering of the "Nam-arkum kudiyallom" of Tirunavukarasar. But I remind him that Jaffna and the Tamil parts of the East have always been garrison provinces from time immemorial. The lower-caste people of these regions could not even draw water from a well, bury their dead where they wish, buy land even when they had the money, or worship in a Kovil at will. There was a ruling class that ran the Garrison, and those others, the poor Tamils, who were the inmates of the
garrison. The LTTE physically eliminated the Colombo managers of the garrison,
and they became the overloads of the new garrison. One of the good outcomes of the LTTE-Colombo conflict has been that some of the kith and kin of the earlier governors of the garrison, the Gajan Kumars, Sampanthans and such others, have had to take orders from the likes of Thamilchelvan. It is the subconscious racism that has penetrated into the mind of even a man like Rajan Philips that drives him to naively disregard the enduring character of the age-old social garrison-nature of Tamil society.
The ordinary Tamil living in the Valagnchiyan Veli of the Vanni, or around
Addalaichenai in Ampare, has very different concerns to a Tamil living in
Scarborough, Ontario. The latter, together with Roi Ratnavel of Vancouver, may dream of an existentialist Eelam, where the "Nam-arkum kudiyallom" is the major concern. Velu from Valagnchiyan Veli of the Vanni has to worry about his basic animal needs, a roof for his head, and collecting enough money to pay a dowry for his daughter, educate his son, and live the traditional life. He does not even mind bowing his head to the upper-caste politician Pillai-type who drives around in Jeeps and NGO vehicles, as long as he does not get assaulted for not getting out of the way fast enough. What if this politician were given some more "Arasu" powers delegated to him? Does he really need more?
Doesn't he already have virtual life and death powers over the poor Velu living in Valaippadu? He gets treated better only when the diplomats and politicians from Colombo descend into the village. May be, what is needed is NOT devolution of power into the hands of the local thugs (even though they are Tamils), but more central control and exposure of these depressed areas to the external world! Then, the Rajan Philips and Tisaranne Gunasekera types might even visit these people and see that the so-called "sinhala-buddhist" mindset of the Colombo rulers, or the "Tamil-nation mindset" of the expatriate Tamils, are less important than the harassment from local Tamil chieftains with no mindset what so ever.
The Garrison provinces had been garrison provinces from time immemorial. The Tamil leaders of yore tried very hard, in the 1940s, to prevent the building of causeways which connected isolated villages because they felt that if these people were given roads and development, then they would "get uppity". Rajan Philips does not understand that the "kudiyallom" was not proposed for every body! Today, the talk of regional devolution is once again the old causeways debate where the Tamil leaders wanted to isolate their areas of influence from the center. Instead of devolution of power and divisive constitutional haggling, I propose the building of fast rail links to every part of the Vanni and the East, to get full integration of the country. A fast rail connecting Mullaitivu to Colombo in two hours would make Mullaitivu no different to Negambo or Chilaw in accessibility. That will literally pave the way for leveling social and economic differences between the North, East and the Western-Southern regions. The devolution debate would become totally irrelevant. The battles about "discrimination at university admissions", which mattered to vellalar children but ignored that poor or low caste children could not often even get to a school, would also gradually disappear.
Rajan Philips moans that there is no Tamil leadership to speak of. Indeed, we DO NOT NEED leaders who think of themselves as "Tamils" or "Sinhalese". Just as 1956 presented a unique opportunity for a great Tamil-speaking leader to collaborate and cooperate with Bandaranaike, today a unique opportunity has arisen for Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan leaders to cooperate with the Rajapaksa government and build ethnic bridges of goodwill and friendship. One does not attempt to go against history as attempted by SJV, but one must go with History.
The TMVP has publicly handed over its weapons. Although the East is still a bit of a ackwater as far as democracy is concerned, it is far freer than when it was under the LTTE. Once the mines are cleared in the Vanni, the IDPs can be resettled, the Yali Devi train can be set up and democracy should also come to the Vanni, and this may take even ten years.
I believe that the Hon. Anandasangaree, Devananda, and Karuna, in spite of their historical antecedents and several short-comings, have the potential to rise to the occasion. The greatness of Thondaman Sr. was that he understood how to cooperate with successive Colombo governments, avoid the traps of suicidal separatism or Marxist mayhem, and guide his people to a state of dignity and increasing integration with the host population.
So I do not share the pessimism of Philips and reject the existentialist imagery where individual dignity is warped into ethnic nationalism foaming into racism. -Sri Lanka Guardian
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