Ruhuna University conducts Agriculture classes in Sinhala and the final year students write their senior thesis in Sinhala. The medium of instruction in agriculture is supposed to be in English. This approach shuts out the Sinhala students from the agriculture literature that appears in Journals and books in English. The University of Jaffna approach is more practical. They teach the first year students in Tamil while the students try to learn English. The second year students are taught in Tamil interspersed with English. The third and fourth year students are taught in English and their thesis are written in English. The suggestion to Romanize the alphabets of Tamil or Sinhalese are I hope is not a serious one. The scripts of the two languages are a unique invention of our two cultures. They are also an art form.

“Parity of Languages” will not solve the ethnic problem but it would help communication between the two nations and allow them to understand one another better. Hashan Thilakaratne, a cricketer who I admire, came to Kilinochchi soon after the tsunami with cricket administrators and players to present scholarships of Rs.1000 per month until the age of 18 to children who had lost both parents or lost the family’s main breadwinner. These children were from the Vadamarachchi East and Mullaitivu coastal areas. He magnanimously spoke in Tamil even though he read his speech scripted in Sinhala. It created a lump in my throat. More than 4000 people who attended the ceremony, including senior members of the LTTE, most of whom have appreciated his cricketing and captaincy skills, thought Hashan’s gesture expressed his concept of equality, his compassion for the children who were deprived of their parents and for a community that the war and tsunami have put in distress. He wanted to touch the traumatic children and adults to express in their language his anguish and desire to help. He and his team of players and coaches later coached the children for two hours, communicating through the game of cricket and using it as a therapy for the children to cope with the trauma of war and the tsunami.

Language is like a spoon. It brings out only what is in the pot. After the pot is emptied, it brings out only the clay, lead, aluminium, cast iron, pewter or teflon scraps from which it is made. If we are to go with what Dayan Jeyatilleka and Rajiva Wijesinghe have been saying recently in various local and international forums, their English spoons are bringing out the scrapings of lead in their Sinhala pots. “Sophist” is in excellent company as a ‘drop out’ – Microsoft and Apple inventors and entrepreneurs, not to mention Sivaram were “dropouts”. Below is a piece of ‘lead’ that Rajiva Wijesinha spewed out in criticizing Senator Leahy, the author of the amendment to restrict US military aid to Sri Lanka,

“Sadly, Senator Leahy, like most foreign observers of the Sri Lankan scene, has no sense of time. This is accompanied by an imprecise use of English, doubtless promoted by those who have said loud and often that the Sri Lankan government is responsible for the breakdown of peace talks. Senator Leahy is more circumspect than most, in qualifying with the words ‘at times’, his perception of the past willingness of the LTTE, regarding which the use of the perfect tense seems inappropriate. But then he moves to a present tense modal verb, which makes no sense given factual realities.” (www.defense.lk).

Language is not the main issue in our ethnic conflict. It is the balanced rights of the two communities that is the bone of contention. The rights of a community are not based on the number of people in a community. This is the core of our problem since 1917. Not just the language. The language issue is subsumed in the rights of a people. Language was the tool that the Sinhala majority tried to use to gradually deny the rights of the Tamil community and to assimilate them into the Sinhala culture. Giving parity of status to Tamil language and denying the rights of the Tamil community will not bring peace to Sri Lanka. SWRD and his majority tried to snatch their ‘Spoon’ from the Tamil people and give them a Sinhala Spoon. Their expectation was that the docile Tamil population would replace the Tamil rice in the Tamil pot with the Sinhala rice. The thinking was that, in time, through revisions and manipulations of the constitution, the Tamil rice and later the Tamil pot could be replaced. Tamil reactions were docile at first. Then protests took the form of peaceful demonstrations. When the reactions to non-violent demonstrations were meted out with violence, Tamils resorted to armed resistance.

Sam Wijesinha’s book, All Experience, gives a sketch of the leaders of Ceylon in the style of Plutarch’s Lives. A quote from his reflections on SWRD gives a glimpse of history worth reflecting by all, including Sam’s son Rajiva.

“ In an election rally in Polannaruwa in 1956 he unleashed a vibrant tirade that dug deep into the issues of race and language. When he was returning to Colombo late that night in MWH de Silva’s car, MWH said to him, ‘ You have sowed the wind, our people have to reap the whirlwind.’ Pat came the reply from the master of the mixed metaphor, ‘We will cross that bridge when we come to it.’ Bandaranaike indeed might have managed to maneuver the country across that bridge. Unfortunately, indeed tragically, he was one of the first victims of the whirlwind and his life was not spared for him to make that crossing.”

SWRD did not create the ethnic problem. He was a willing tool that let the genie out of the bottle in exchange for power. But the wishes he wanted to safe guard the rights of the Tamil people were not granted by the genie. Instead it took his life. It continues to take the lives of the Tamil people, through its anointed leaders, to feed its ego.

Language expresses the culture of an individual and the culture of that linguistic community. It is in a language that the thoughts and creations of an individual, and that of the community, are encoded, preserved and transferred to future generations. Language in turn helps the mind to create new ideas in speech and in print in much the same way that hands paint or sculpture new forms which were conceived in the thoughts of the conscious and the unconscious mind and are expressed on the canvass or in the round.

Depriving the Tamil community of the right to govern all of its affairs, leaving it only the “privilege” to abide by the dictates of of the Sinhala community, in the guise of democracy, will result in the constitutional genocide of the Tamil community; this will be the case even if parity of the two languages is achieved against the odds. Without these rights, but with parity of languages only, Tamils will realize that a Sinhala spoon will be more beneficial than the Tamil spoon to get the Sinhala food out of the Tamil pot. Soon they will realize that the Sinhala pot gets better and more food than the Tamil pot. For the Tamils there will then be no need for either a Tamil ‘Spoon’ or a Tamil pot. Soon the Tamils in Eelam will become assimilated into the Sinhala pot in Sinhala Sri Lanka. Many Tamils have already achieved this dubious distinction and the rewards that go with it.

Can we prevent our armed conflict ending up with both pots being reduced to smithereens? Preventing this outcome is now in the hands of the two protagonists who both seem bent on war. Prevention is also in the hands of the international gods, whom Dayan and Rajiva, or whomever they serve, will be unable to continue to feed the swill from their pot. The longer the Rajapakses’ and their elk fill the Sinhala pot with their swill, the longer Dayan, Rajiva and others will be dishing it out hoping that the international community will swallow it. Such is their understanding of the appetite of the international community.

I wonder why the sinhalese never accepts this. Does it means that Tamils, being a minority has to grin and bear all the atrocities heaped on them!! Has the Government ever apologised for the atrocities committed against the Tamils? Have they ever paid compensation to the victims? Government is responsible for Thousands of civilians deaths by aerial bombardment. The Sinhalese never care or even accept this(except for few enlightened Sinhalese). There are thousands of displaced refugees languishing in refugee camps for years in Tamil areas while their houses are being occupied by the security forces in the guise of HIgh security zones!! School, hospitals in Tamil areas are being bombed. Attitude of the average sinhalese is “we don’t want to see, we don’t want to hear, we don’t want to speak!! But if it affects the sinhalese areas they make a big hue and cry.

Even now there are hundreds of abductions, killings,demanding ransom,”made to dissappear” mainly against the Tamils in the heart of Colombo, Batticaloa, Jaffna, Mannar,Vavuniya and other Tamil areas. What has the Government done about them? Recently there were 16 corpses with signs of torture found burried in Kebitigolawe. They are believed to be Tamils killed by the security forces. The government did not make any effort to identify the victims and the case in now forgotten, just like thousands of forgotten deaths of Tamils!! Are they not humans? They also have a family and loved ones like normal people!

Mahinda took 2 years to present this “old wine in new bottle” just to placard the International Community(money lenders/donors)and to buy time for his genocidal war!! The government has no meney for development, but has money for its killing spree!!