An After Thought by an Inside Outsider
Repost This ArticleAfter a war is won, there is always the after thought. Leaders from conflict parties, either dead or living, will be portrayed either as martyrs, heroes, traitors, terrorists….the list is endless. Which ever side one takes on the debate of romanticising the vanquished or demonising him, it is always interesting to see what the other party has to say.
Have been observing the way in which people reacted in the post-war (can we say that yet?) context. Nationalistic spirit knew no bounds. Even the ardent opponents of the government praised its military campaign and the subsequent victory of annihilating the LTTE. The President would have been in a mental state, where ANY world leader would aspire to be in. Enviable position. It would have been the proudest moment for the Commanders of the forces. The least that the soldiers who fought and found the dead body of VP could do was to fire in the air. The mirth; The victory of three decades. The majority of people would have had a sigh of relief. The Colombo metropolis, where the heavy weight of elites – the intellectual and all the other varieties – of Sri Lanka reside, would have had more than a sigh of relief. Every one had a reason to rejoice for theirown reasons.
I had my position on this conflict – lived in the country for nearly 13 years; have seen many heightened forms of terrorism; lived through the insecurity and unpredictability of each moment; days where bombing takes place 200 meters away from you and you wonder, that you could have been 10 meters away and got caught; days where you decide to take a route and then for some strange reason take another one and be in awe to hear that there had been a blast down the road, which you have just decided to avoid. Unpredictablity of life; and the morbidity of death. But still my views would have just been that of an outsider. My anguish too must have been that of an outsider; who had a choice, if I wanted to make one. But there was a country at large, which had no choice, caught up in a protracted armed conflict of the deadliest kind. Many children were panic stricken in the nights when LTTE carried aerial attacks in Colombo; they hated and dreaded an army check point after that. A child of 6 years of age stops talking because of terror; what chance was left for him to grow up as a normal adult?
I have friends who were born at the time of the beginning of the conflict; their reactions are notable. They are adults, intelligent enough to understand and rationalise the belligerence of armed fighters. Their entire childhood, adolesence and youth had been caught up in the conflict. Their minds hardly knew a chance to know what it meant to be secular (well, Sri Lanka is not a secular state). They had less chances of making good tamil friends – quite contrary to John’s generation where he says he had close Tamils friends (still continue to be so) in the University and work places, who shared a drum stick curry and cracked a joke on each ethnicity’s idiosyncrasies and eccentricities. Friends of my generation lack that – probably, if they did crack a joke of the kind, it would have been termed as ‘ethnic polarisation’ or ‘marginalisation’ or something to that effect. These are times I am glad that I was born and bred in India, where we can have Mallu, Sardar, Tamil jokes, enjoy the spirit of it in perfect abandon, laugh at ourselves and yet not be bitter. What a lot they lose, who have never known how elating that feeling is!!!
My thoughts and experiences are all about Colombo and it suburbs. My sentiments are built on my own experience of agonizing moments of waiting for a husband (or another extended family member) who had gone down town where there had been a blast. The moment a connection is made which assures his safety, my problem was over. Life got back to normal when he reached home. Meaning, I am a Colombist (if I can coin a term). A Colombist’s view can be very distorted and far removed from the reality out there. It could be narrow; nevertheless, it is a view, it is an experience lived through my own reality. Each one has his or her own reality and that is their truth.
All what one could do is to imagine the untold misery and hardships of the innocent people who get caught between the firing lines. The feeling of discrimination and having to feel a second citizen in one’s country of birth. The feeling of disowning. The feeling of fundamental rights being violated. The lack of opportunity to make a police complaint in one’ own language! Serious matters. Will these be addressed?
I wonder what a genuine Tamil sentiment is, at this time of Sri Lankan history. I do have friends – but somehow I always feel, they do not speak the way they truly feel; probably due to their own reasons of ‘having to exist’ as some one once said.
Just an after thought. I know I have more to write on this.
Jealousy,hatred,greed,disrespect and selfishness of individuals who make up societies and nations comprised of more than one ethinic group have become a good breeding ground for opportunist politics which has no borders no cultures no religion and when there are lots of “nos” ,humanity has to run for cover.This is one angle, many miss to break their heads about, in the case of a
situation like ours in Srilanka.The bitter truth is, as it is always,all three major communities are at each other’s throat in their private life and coming out in public with a false humility most of the time and in most cases.Only if people can stop this,being dishonest to themslves, they will be able to look at each other with love ,respect and compassion.This is not an easy task in a developing country but has to be achieved and if not,developments will only be dreams.In very simple term, this can be translated as “equals”.
Your MONSTERs, are our defenders.
Your defenders are our MONSTERS.
You have killed your Monster.
Who will destroy our monsters?
This is your time. You won our piece of land that doesn’t belong to you.
Our time will come. We will win our land of peace.
Till our MONSTERS our brought to justice,
There will be no peace.
How can we trust our MONSTERS to treat us with fairness.
//Your MONSTERs, are our defenders.
Your defenders are our MONSTERS.
You have killed your Monster.
Who will destroy our monsters?
This is your time. You won our piece of land that doesn’t belong to you.
Our time will come. We will win our land of peace.
Till our MONSTERS our brought to justice,
There will be no peace.
How can we trust our MONSTERS to treat us with fairness.
Luckily people with this line of thinking are on a cause of fast extinction, and Most Tamils don’t think on these lines. Poor effort.
”.. people with this line of thinking are on a cause of fast extinction, and Most Tamils don’t think on these lines… ”
Because there is a monstrous Prevention of Terrorism Act, Impunity for armed forces, unjust Justice System, Press censure, racism brewed by textbooks, billions of dollars’ worth of products of science and technology, UN gang of human rights violators, …..
The Srilankan Govt. not only won the civil war but had won in battle with the countries that preffered UN taking it to war crime theatre. The very fact that there was outcry of genocide of civilians by Army indicate that wrong was done and only the magnitude of devastation did not invite UN intervention. Srilanka is a small nation, under developed that ccan change its style of functioning. For the present there is much to be done by the Govrnment to bring rule of law in devastated areas and bring about civilisation
Till our MONSTERS are brought to justice,
There will be no peace.
How can we trust our MONSTERS to treat us with fairness.
Migara said,
“Luckily people with this line of thinking are on a cause of fast extinction Most Tamils don’t think on these lines. ”
The events of the last 3 months and the acts of brutality by the GoSL has only created many many more Tamils who were pretty neutral, to this line of thinking. The peace now without accountability crowd is living in a fools world.
The gulf between the two races are wider today than ever before, due to the GOSLs disregard for Tamil civillians. If you think otherwise you haven’t met many Tamils.
To Mitt:
The “gulf between two races” that you refer to will remain wide only in your mind, stuck somewhere in mid 1980′s in a tamil refugee ghetto in Canada or Australia.
You are obviously out of touch with the vast majority of Tamil people who suffered greatly under the Tiger rule. Just read a few stories of Tamil citizens coming out of IDP camps. I suppose they have no say in this proxy war waged with funds from people like you, who blindly sent money to the Tiger killing machine, in the hope of creating an elitist kingdom for high caste hindus.
“Due to the GOSLs disregard for Tamil civillians..” – I suppose this solid opinion of yours is based on western media reports. unless you saw things with your own eyes and are reporting from Sri Lanka. Western nations and media have lost all credibility on this subject as cearly shown by the UN action last week. If that is your source of info then you must also not believe that more than 600,000 Iraqis were killed during the “Shock and Awe” US invasion.
To Pragmatist:
You base your conclusion from the highly reliable SL govt. spin reports? LOL
you said: “unless you saw things with your own eyes and are reporting from Sri Lanka” … Nobody was allowed to do that as the GOSL didn’t want anyone to see their dirty laundry. You must be such a gullible fool to repeat the GOSL propaganda as facts.
The UN event was such a farce only the dumb lankans will think it’s a serious act. Like in Ruwanda, there are many parties who don’t want to investigate, including the UN, so that their incompetence, and complacency doesn’t come to light. And some others, like India, Pakistan & China blocked it as they too have blood on their hands for the massacre of 20,000 Tamils.
who is this John that you refer to? is he Long John from Kotahena,who had many Tamil friends ,who went to St.Benedict Collage and later got married to a Burger lady…?