The importance of not forgetting
Repost This ArticleOne year ago, the war that had defined our lives for the last 30 years ended. Brutally, callously and mercilessly fought like most wars are, it ended amidst allegations of immense suffering wrought on the people caught in the middle of the final desperate onslaughts. Since then according to the official version, Sri Lankans have nothing but happiness and prosperity to look forward to because the one thing that has hindered our progress as a nation has been finally eliminated. That, as I said, is the official version.
Since May of last year, however, reports that contradict the official version of the story that ended happily ever after have been circulating. It started with the horror of the internment of the thousands of people who fled the fighting, the arbitrary arrests and disappearances of those associated with the LTTE, of the suffering of those injured in the fighting, families separated from each other with no means of obtaining any information about what may have happened to their loved ones and the multiple displacements and losses experienced by people living in the North and East. A few months later followed the stories of the influx of tourists from the South to the North and East, mainly from the Sinhala community; of Sinhalese Buddhists arriving in their droves to visit ancient Buddhist sites in the North and East. There were many stories of new highways cutting through communities and familiar landscapes torn apart for hotels and guest houses to cater for tourists with total disregard for the feelings and desires of local communities. More disturbing stories were to follow: of the lack of sensitivity of the tourists to local communities, and the rude disruptions to the everyday lives of local people by visitors from the South buoyed by the triumphalism and arrogance with which the Rajapakse regime portrayed the end of the war as a victory for a narrow and racist Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. Recent media reports have described the demolition of Prabhakaran’s family home, the destruction of LTTE political wing leader Thileepan’s memorial and the LTTE martyrs’ graves in Jaffna. A statue of a Sri Lankan soldier has been erected in place of Thileepan’s memorial reportedly. Many other statues of Sri Lankan forces have also appeared elsewhere. New billboards proclaiming that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist nation and that this land has been blessed by the Buddha have also been spotted in the North and East.   When the President proclaimed last May that there were no more ethnic minorities in the country, whoever thought that he meant is so literally?
I am not surprised by the callous disregard of the Rajapakse regime for people living in the North and East despite all its pious claims to the contrary. It has never demonstrated even a modicum of sensitivity to the minorities and has proved to be rabidly racist. What is frightening is the way in which the regime has galvanised and justified racism among the Sinhala community. If the regime after its demolition of the LTTE has showed even a small measure of humility and attempted to ensure that the victory was not going to be used to impose a Sinhala Buddhist ideology within the country, it might have gone some way in silencing its critics. Unfortunately, instead it has lived up to its worst expectations. Given that this is the tragic reality with which we will have to live for the next several years, where does this leave us?
Post colonial Sri Lanka has witnessed several moments of  state brutality against its own citizens in the name of stability, peace and unity. Apart from the long fight against the LTTE, various regimes have also been responsible for putting down two insurrections in the South. Thousands of mainly young women and men and even children have been killed, maimed and disappeared in this process. What is remarkable about this bloody history is the ease with which these tragedies have been erased from our minds and the way in which an official version of the causes and consequences of such brutalities have been accepted by the public. Thus, the JVP insurrections have been portrayed as those of ‘misled’ and ‘frustrated’ youth, examples of what happens when the impetuosity of youth is misdirected by manipulative political forces. The young men and women who joined the LTTE have been portrayed as brainwashed and fanatical, manipulated by a psychotic leader. At no point has there been any effort to question why thousands of young men and women in this country have been willing to die for these causes. In fact, in celebrating the successful campaigns to eliminate these young people, the fact that they are citizens of this country, that their families are citizens of this country and that the state that is technically responsible for their protection and wellbeing have instead been responsible for their deaths have been forgotten. When we danced on the streets in joy last May at the end of the war the fact that we were celebrating the deaths of thousands of our own citizens never seemed to have entered our consciousness. The regime had done such a successful job of portraying the LTTE as less than human.
At this moment when we are inundated with visions of becoming the next Singapore, Malaysia or South Korea, maybe it is also time for a counter politics that argues for a future for this country which doesn’t forget the past so easily.  Not because of some ghoulish fascination with death and destruction, but in order to ensure that those who lost their loved ones are allowed to remember and to mourn and also so that we can begin to understand the desperation that drove people to their deaths. The official response to these ‘misguided’ and ‘brainwashed’ youth has been offers of rehabilitation and training. Apparently English and IT training will miraculously solve their problems. And obviously the international community agrees if the recent proliferation of vocational training institutes in the North and East are anything to go by. This was after all the same solution that the ‘misguided’ youth in the South were offered.
The counter politics that I am suggesting here is that when this regime presumes to act on ‘our’ behalf or speaks for us, or attempts to define this nation in a particular way that we find means to raise a different voice. Thileepan may have fought against the state (in fact, he died protesting the presence of the IPKF just as many others in the South did), but is he not also a symbol of our failures to acknowledge and respond to very real problems in our society? Who is to say whether or not the Thileepans of the North and the Heraths of the South were actually fighting the same battles against the same forces that have kept Sri Lanka progressing as a nation that respects freedom and non discrimination?   Pretending that they were misguided, politically manipulated or psychologically impaired is merely a refusal to acknowledge our responsibility for the atrocities that we have experienced and witnessed over the past many decades and a social and political system that spawns such desperation.
The need for a counter politics to this regime is essential and urgent. Determining and identifying the shape of the counter politics we need to engage in will be a challenge, but this is probably where we will need all our ingenuity and creativity. It may be in the form of everyday resistance to being represented in ways that we do not agree; in our efforts to remember when we are being forced to forget; in acknowledging the spaces to mourn our losses instead of merely celebrating our victories; in claiming spaces for local communities rather than for big development, that we can take some steps in making our resistance felt to this regime’s totalitarian and racist project.
Let’s face it, we don’t have an Abraham Lincoln or a General Jacob Gowon (Nigeria) here in Sri Lanka so while we may expect some sense of decency, it’s not going to happen.
Soon many Sinhala-Budhists will be disillusioned and will even turn away from their religion.
Others will migrate or send their children if they can’t go themselves.
And it is quite unlikely that we will ever become like Singapore… look at their policy on race, it’s totally different. Lee Kwam Yew said, “It is the responsibility of the majority Chinese to look after the interests of the minorities and make sure they have more than equal opportunities to develop. We must do everything possible to make sure they don’t feel discriminated against and feel they have any grievances whatsoever” (I am quoting from memory so I may be wrong LKY at 25th Anniversary Celebrations in 1984)
You mention Lincoln and quoted Lee Kwan Yew.
Lincoln said: ‘The dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As is our case anew so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves. And then we shall save our country.’
Disenthrall. Sri Lanka has been enthralled with violence, blood, ethnicity and the superficial divisions that separated us for decades. We might not have leaders that venture beyond simplistic notions of us and them and we might never have a Lincoln or a Lee Kwan Yew. But we have their words so lets heed them.
Vishnu
do you think the nation that didn’t loose its religion even after 500 years of foreign occupation and aggression against that religion and threats from Hindu invasion for over 2000 years even with all the persecution Buddhism in Sri Lanka received from Tamil, Portuguese,Dutch and British invaders still nearly 95% of Sinhalese are Buddhists and even most Sinhalese Catholics are influenced by Buddhism and respect Buddhism except for an ugly minority of fundamentalists.. Portuguese Dutch French, British and Arabs were successful in converting the entire South America,Africa Philippines, Central Asia,Indonesia but No one succeeded in Sri Lanka and they will not until the world exists even the Westminster Parliament accepted the supremacy of Buddhism in sri Lanka .
Since you refer to Sri Lankans abroad please remember that they are the ones who fight Tamil terror abroad especially students some failed even exams while spending time to inform people in those countries about the injustice done to he sinhala nation
1.Samanmalee, thanks.
2.”Soon many Sinhala-Budhists will be disillusioned and will even turn away from their religion.”
I think Vishnu meant the sort of ‘moving away’ of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, … from the label of religions when some followers of those religions misinterpret their religions and behave inhumanely.
3.Some Hindus regard Buddhism as a section of Hinduism and some centuries ago some South Indian Hindus (some of whom migrated to Sri Lanka) outwardly showed it intensely. Many Hindus(as Christians or Muslims) have immense reverence for Buddha.
4.With evolution of human thinking we arrived at UN Charter 60 yrs ago. As our thinking is still evolving many feel that there must be UN Reform. One step in the direction is R2P. Dynamism between this evolution, effect of advances in science and technology and inevitable changes in the physical planet lends itself to the evolution of humanism which is, in effect, the fusion of the spirit of all religions.
Guy, thanks for: ”But we have their words so lets heed them.”
Yes Guy, we do have their words and many wonderful writers like Samanmalee, the author of this article, who stand up for what they believe in.
And Susantha, you are right Buddhism did stand against the external threat but the issue is can it stand against an internal one? Look at what is happening to Catholicism in Ireland. Many are leaving the church because of internal problems.
So, my fear is that when people see the dichotomy in what the leaders say and do vis a vis their religious dogmas (since the war was also fought to protect and establish Sinhala-Buddhism). The Buddha taught non-violence, pacifism, love for one’s enemies (after all can a Sinhalese be reincarnated as a Tamil and vice versa?) etc…but when they see the very self-proclaimed protectors doing something quite the opposite, it could very well implode.
Of course I do admit that this is uncharted waters and so I may be wrong too.
Let’s wait and see!
Susantha,
You should read Amartya Sen “The argumentative Indian”. The book is on Indian culture, history and identity.
In page 83 of the book Sen says ” one of the sad features of a narrowly Hinduized view of India’s past is that the justifiable pride Indians can take in the achiements of non-Hindu as well as Hindu accomplishments in India is drowned in the sectarianism of seeing India as mainly a vehicle for Hindu thought and practise. That, combined with an astonishingly narrow and intolerant view of the Hindu tradition itself, amounts to denying a good deal of Indian history that Indians have reason to remember and to celebrate.”
Do you see a similarity in what Sen has written in his book on India and what is happening in the island across the Palk Strait called Sri Lanka?
Sen has also argued that India belongs to all its people which includes Hindus, Muslims, and others including athiests and agnostics.
In a similar manner Sri Lanka also belongs to all its people and not just the Sinhalese. No religion is “supreme” in Sri Lanka. The Constitution says that Buddhism should be given the “foremost” place.
It does not say “supreme.”
The Sinhala people are a majority in Sri Lanka. That does not mean that they alone own the country. The minorities own it as well.
You do not talk of Buddhist fundametalism?
Susantha:
It does not really matter to what religion you belong to. Whether you can live up to what the “Enlightened One” or “The Light of Asia” taught us to believe and do in our lives is what matters. With so much of violence and blood (by all parties) calling Sri Lanka a Buddhist nation or even talking about the supremacy of Buddhism is just a farce.
Bravo Samanmalee. Sri Lanka is only going to escape once and for all its cycle of violence and counter-violence when enough people look into the past and understand the injustice – of class, of ethnicity, of unaccountable and power-hungry politicians – behind the deaths of 200,000 Sri Lankans killed by the state or militants since 1971. Self-imposed amnesia is tempting, but won’t work. Good luck to your efforts not to forget and to get others to join you.