It is unfortunate that the tamil youth of today are facing this situation, which was caused by the actions of their own parents. Those who sow the seeds of chaos, often reap the whirlwind and sometimes it touches their next generation too.

Mal, as you know, your way of fighting the war (as we did back in the ’80 and ’90s) failed. The GoSL learned from those mistakes and is fighting differently now, smarter. That’s why we’re winning. But you’re excused for not knowing your country’s military history. After all, you live in Australia and would have been around 7 years old when ‘Balavegaya I’ was being fought.

Its hard work, but hey, thats why this conflict has been there for a very long time.

Maybe we need to stick to some basic rules such as avoiding blame, attack, judgement and sarcasm, which I don’t think there has been much of, but nevertheless easily creeps in and creates a reactionary cycle of responses. I would suggest that we also give up simple concepts like right and wrong and take a broader view.

Lets also appreciate everyone’s views and make sure that everyone has the opportunity to express fully. I hope there is no censoring of comments by the admin unless there are clear words of abuse. Still, I would be happy if the abuse words are deleted and the rest is posted. I also hope no one is being excluded.

Oh my. The brave diaspora speaketh.

It is a fundamental duty of any government to fight terrorism and seperatism. Tamils only suffer because they did nothing to push the LTTE away from that path. What have the Tamil civil society and media done to tame and civilise the LTTE. While the Sinhala peace activists were at war with the “Sinhala chauvinists”, the Tamil peace lobby sees eye to eye with Tamil seperatists and terrorists on every issue. When the Sinhala peacemakers try to rein in the excesses of the government and military, the Tamil society defends and justifies the same of the LTTE. CPA probably doesn’t have the guts to publish this, but could anyone say it isn’t true? Have there ever been any genuine criticism of the LTTE and other extremists within the Tamil civil society except for “boys will be boys”? Where’s the Northern equivalent of the mass mobilisation for peace and reconcilation initiated by SCOs and other groups in the South? A war against terrorists could only be fought successfully if the government could match their ruthlessness. Of course there will be mass detentions, disappearances, executions, abductions, embargoes, aerial bombings and others. That’s the only way they could fight the LTTE with the limited resources, manpower and technology they’ve got. If in doubt, shoot first.

Many people will suffer and Tamil civilians who may not be directly involved in the war will be subject to most of the difficulties. But they’ve brought it upon themselves for allowing the LTTE to fight on their behalf. They could only change their plight by changing themselves and then changing the LTTE. The government has nothing to gain by putting roadblocks all over the city and arresting thousands of people. They’ll stop all that if the LTTE stops bombings. Only the Tamils could force it to.

By the way Trep, I’m not upset that you left out the Sinhalese. Unlike some, we Sinhalese don’t take pride in being the object of other people’s sympathy.

As for agendas, hidden or otherwise, I have no time for conspriracy theories that attack legitimate expressions of the the culture of fear and impunity that we all experience under the jackboot of the State and the LTTE, without offering an alternative to this depresing situation, or by refusing to accept that things have to change fundamentally in the way we understand and conduct politics in our country. Why has politics in SL have to be such a miserable distopia and life so nasty, brutish and short?

Disingenuous and selective comparisons to constitutional democracies in the West are not only cynical and irrelevant, but also mischievous. To compare constitutionally protected freedom and liberty of citizens in those countries is not only farcical, but also callous in terms of what our people have to endure everyday. Every society has its problems of managing diversity, but to suggest that the West is even remotely a comparison to the environment in which such debates are conducted (or not) in our case, is spurious and profoundly un-funny.

Apart from Kadalay’s laudable common sense (and foobar’s responses in certain respects), this discussion in response to an honest expression of what it is to live under conditions of LTTE terrorism and State repression by t-rep, is a terrible reflection on what our society is today: brutalised, mean, narrow-minded, and totally incapable of salvation.

To clear up any confusion about who is posting, I have no connections with Groundviews or CPA. Just as this site is meant to be for citizen, independent views, I was expressing my personal views.

Justmal, I am reading that you similarly thought I was leaving out the Sinhalese community, and I would like to say that I didn’t mean to. I was trying to say that we need to look at things from the point of view of forces also and that they might not see choice in what they do.

David, sorry I didn’t express clearly in that line. Yes soldiers are definitely trained to handle themselves. What I meant was that sometimes even trained soldiers may not be able to control how they feel when they see a colleague killed.

Kadalay I agree, just take away our names and we are all similar.

Your views please~

No offence, but these are ideas which are often said to hold the key to peace, reconciliation and what not, but no one really has an idea about how to actually go about putting into actions these lofty ideals no?

And frankly, why erase identities? Isn’t it better to celebrate who you are rather than erase what makes you a Sri Lankan, whether you are Sinhala, Burgher, Tamil, Malay, Bora, Muslim etc? Kind of linked to the multicultural debate that Publius and JustMal responded to in Indi’s post a while ago on this blog.

Groundviews was set up by CPA, in case you didn’t notice. As noted in the Site Guidelines (does anyone read this?!), we promote difference and divergence, provided the comments don’t emanate from known trolls or those who don’t have anything to say, and proceed to say it anyway.