I would like to repeat my questions in point form as they have not been addressed.

1. What are the grievances in the present day which remain unaddressed in the context of a plural society? (Please do not list any which were directly or indirectly caused by the LTTE)

2. Can you explain how cementing racial divisions and constitutionalizing racism fits in with your long-term plan of pluralism? Why is it the better transitional solution over campaigns for better education and the correction of state structures?

3. What good do these racist divisions do when most of the Tamil population are living in the south in Sinhala dominated areas? Are you proposing that they uproot themselves wholesale and move to Tamil dominated areas in order to enjoy freedom?

Barbarism can be avoided if you yourself do not sink to barbarism and impinge on others’ right to live while seeking to address your own non life-threatening
grievances. Others will join you readily, myself included, to address any grievances which prevent you from having equal rights and which prevents Sri Lanka from moving towards a plural society, as long as the afore-mentioned condition is upheld.

Vasantha

Given below an Extract from one of your article.

“Paradoxically, the Rajapaksa brothers’ ruthless war has forced the Tigers to see the truth, and I think, before long the SL government will realise that it has committed a big blunder by ‘educating’ the Tigers and pitching its “entire” army in the midst of a massive jungle, a refined guerrilla force and a hostile population.”

1.I wonder what kind of education Tigers would have had after the death of their leader.

2. Do you think SL army now has anything to do in jungles after the death of all the leaders operating in Sri Lanka including the Son of the Leader.

3. Your prediction of a hostile poulation also might become wrong because IDP are not scared now to tell the truth about the Tigers to the whole world.

Vsantha, please let us know your comment after what happened today. (Death of LTTE Leader)

Thus, Sri Lanka’s existing state-structure is the real culprit that is responsible for the Sinhala/Tamil conflict that led to the present catastrophe. It was the Sinhala-state’s effort to crush the Tamils’ non-violent campaigns through violent means that eventually produced the Tamils’ armed struggle. Rajapaksa Brothers’ bloody war is just the logical conclusion of the successive governments’ militarist approach to the problem.

The tragedy now is: the sheer barbarities of the war have pushed the conflict over the edge to the point of no return. The Tamil struggle for a separate state is bound to rise to new heights in the near future. And, the government is also bound to sink to new depths of barbarity to defend the existing structures. [I don’t think the government’s present mindset is conducive at all to a dramatic transformation of the state to creatively harmonize self-rule and central-rule along the lines I’ve indicated.] This is why I clearly see economic collapse and social upheavals of revolutionary proportions on the horizon.

It is in the context of this almost inevitable objective scenario that I see the potential for a revolutionary alliance of Tamil and Sinhala forces in a common struggle to put an end to the continuing bloodbath and save the country from barbarism.

Your “mood” swings are costing the lives of innocent people. The sooner you think of how to solve this problem logically and amicably, the sooner you’ll find solutions forthcoming.

And you’ve pretty much evaded answering any of my questions because you are searching for ways and means to justify your own racism, and thereby avoid facing the cognitive dissonance in the realization that those are despicable ideals.

The reality is: the military occupation of the north and east will continue for years. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils will rot in “concentration camps” for years. Security nightmare in the south will get worse. Sri Lanka’s economy will invariably collapse. Sinhala state’s dictatorial oppression of all opposition and the media will grow. And, social revolution will be on the cards. The potential for a revolutionary unity between oppressed social forces on both Tamil and Sinhala sides may at last become a reality.