You have outlined a nice little scenario where everything works out fine for the child soldiers and the children’s parents are found and they go off to rehabilitation centres and become better and live happily ever after.

Im sorry but this is real life and things dont just magically happen the way they are supposed to.

You seem pretty close to this issue and seem to have a general plan of what should happen but instead of anonymously posting on the internet, why don’t you do something that will actually have some impact on these children’s lives?
Cause thats what the Army and Lalith are doing.

Instead of sitting at home and typing things on a computer they are actually trying to make a difference.

And by the way how do you know about these quote terrible acts of violence against the Tamil children (including gross acts of sexual predation) unquote?
Have you been there when these were committed? Cause if you were why the hell didn’t you do anything to stop them.

If you weren’t please show me proof of these slanderous accusations.

You also seem to have forgotten that it’s war and that both sides will have committed similar crimes so please don’t focus blame on the Sinhalese army alone.

I don’t know how Lalith has ever been involved in the war so you haven’t given any reason as to why he shouldn’t work with them?

I completely agree with you on the fact that issues between the Tamils and Sinhalese should be addressed immediately, because it was the main cause of the conflict . If the Sinhalese keep the same mentality of saying that The country is majorly Sinhalese and Buddhist and thus they should have more power or more rights it will probably end up becoming a problem.

I took the story about the bball match to be an allegory(?) of the ethnic conflict where the

Tamils are the team being cheated

the Singhalese are the other team and are also represented by
– the coach
– the referee
– the parents
– the teachers
– the principal

This isn’t that far from what is happening in SL right now.

M, Y, and MA if properly understood and practiced can help us achieve the presence of mind necessary to end the ongoing ethnic conflict. Alone it is not the answer but should be part of the process to reach a solution.

To answer your second question the former “child soldiers” should be placed (with parental permission) in rehabilitation camps run by UNICEF and Tamil NGOs that have not been co-opted by the GOSL or the LTTE.

The focus of these camps should be on reintegrating the children back into civil society not giving the Singhalese make believe jobs. Programs that can help facilitate this include
– mental health counselling
– late entry accelerated programs
– trade programs
– microcredit financing
– social entrepreneurship

Transportation to and from the rehabilitation camps should be provided free to the parents of these children for visitation.

None of this should involve Lalith or the Singhalese Army whose terrible acts of violence against the Tamil children (including gross acts of sexual predation) should preclude them from participating in this process entirely.

The entire process will fail if the wider issues facing the Tamils are not urgently addressed.

No he is addressing the bigger picture of the state the world is being left in for the next generation. He is not specifically focusing on the conflict in Sri Lanka. If you read the article you might have realized this. Or you did read it and are searching for some kind of relevance to the conflict. Why you would ask this I have no idea.

About the previous article –
What are your reasons for saying that Lalith and the Army should not be going near the kids?
IF you think your reasons are valid – What do you propose we do? Just leave them there where they were found? Or send them back to their parents if we can locate them, acting like they haven’t been mentally and spiritually scarred?

PLease reply, as I would really like to know your views on this.

Sincerely

S

Are you talking about the ongoing ethnic conflict? b/c I read your last piece on the Army working with Tamil children in the internment camps and honestly you shouldn’t be anywhere near kids and neither should the army.

I don’t think this is an issue of enforcing fairplay, but for us all to take a good look at ourselves and our motivations / intentions when we undertake an activity. This article uses sport as one example where when, if we look at the intention behind having sports as part of our educational system, it is to foster the qualities of leadership, values, ethics, fair play cooperation, teamwork, sportsmanship, etc., as mentioned by the author. However, in practice what is being developed is the antithesis of this.

Modern educationalists recognise that personal reflection is an important part of the learning process. However, it seems we are perpetuating a cycle in which all we care about are external outcomes – winning the game, getting the exam result, etc., – and the importance of inward reflection has been lost.

I remember as a school boy, my exercise books having the saying “Ugatha Mana Shiplaya Mai Mathu Rakena” (roughly translated, meaning “It is only the learned skills that will be protected in the future”) printed on the front. At the time I interpreted this an exhortation to value the intellectual / academic knowledge we acquire through our education. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realised that the skills of understanding myself and my impact on others, and ensuring that this impact is as positive as possible, should be valued even more.

Look at every discussion in groundviews now. You Lalith are one of the exceptions but everyone here is dealing with an externalized reality with the self safely out of the way. Side by side with this monumental moral crisis is our crisis in communication where the need to look at your own self is TOTALLY EXCLUDED from the national discourse.

I find such discussions so irrelevant that I have no TV and dont buy any papers at all. I save money and time both.

At this crucial juncture in Sri Lanka, agree that it is important for parents and teachers to guide children in a way that nurtures their compassion and willingness to see things from other points of view. This is something that has to be taken up at an individual level, but it would certainly be worth investigating what types of support could and should be provided to parents and teachers.

Are there any examples of main stream media in Sri Lanka bringing these issues to the fore? I am not based in Sri Lanka, so my view of the media in Sri Lanka is based on what I see on the media company websites – but it seems there is an increasing emphasis on celebrity culture (through talent shows etc.) rather than the important lessons highlighted by the author of this piece.