Laughing at Heshan is pointless. Whenever you do that he gets an adrenalin rush. I used to engage with Heshan in good faith and all I got in return was his endless desire to score points. He is outside the frame of any kind of rational discourse.

I think it’s better to stick with the discussion initiated by Suren in good faith. Heshan is not interested in buidling a better Sri Lanka, a better South Asia or a better world for that matter. He sits in the crumbling empire of USA and thinks that it has got everything from politics to culture right.

Indeed. Which is why I prefer to laugh at Heshan.

Humanist,

I completely agree with you! The discussion was going fine until Heshan suddenly went off-tangent by bringing in his utterly irrelevant point of guerilla movements in South India and their ineffective/inefficient usage of women in combats. It doesn’t help anyone if someone hijacks discussions like this. But who am I to complain. 🙂

As I said, no female Tiger commanded anything larger than a reinforced company or small battalion. No woman rose above the rank of colonel.

Using women doesn’t require any special organisational skills as far as I know 😀

Prof Heshan

So you are saying that out of over 45 commanders listed on your website, Prabakaran felt that only THREE of them deserved to be female?

You make it sound more like Prabakaran was far more skilled at using Tamil women (and children) as cannon fodder.

What has this worthy effort by Suren deteriorated to?

The problem precisely is that men who advocate and use violence manage to successfully use and abuse women. That is part of the problem – not the solution. And certainly nothing to be admired.

I thought we were discussing how to build a just and equitable Sri Lanka for all in this thread…

Colonel Thurka † 5 April 2009(2009-04-05) Sothiya Regiment commander A female commander of the LTTE, she is the leader of the all female Sothiya Regiment.[17] Reported to have been killed during Sri Lanka Army attacks on 5 April 2009.

Colonel Vithusha † 5 April 2009(2009-04-05) Maalathi Regiment commander A female commander of the LTTE, and the leader of the all female Maalathi Regiment.[17] Reported to have been killed during Sri Lanka Army attacks on 5 April 2009.

Sothiya
(Sothia) † Maria Vasanthi Michael 20 September 1963(1963-09-20) 11 January 1990(1990-01-11) (aged 26) She died of illness in 1990 and had one of the female fighting formations of the LTTE, the Sothiya Regiment, named after her.[42]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commanders_of_the_LTTE

What about the Malathy Brigade?

“One of the elite battalions of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 2nd Lt.Malathy Brigade, completed 12th Anniversary of its inauguration Tuesday. Constituted as a fully fledged military battalian within the overall organization of the LTTE,”

http://videos.desishock.net/253065/Dedication-to-2nd-Lt.Malathy-Brigade–12th-Anniversary

There were also women in the Sea Tigers and of course, women who functioned as intelligence operatives, and important women suicide bombers. To my knowledge, women played a combat role in every major LTTE operation – e.g. Elephant Pass I, Elephant Pass II, Mullaitivu, etc.

The successful use of women is a testament to the superior organizational skills of Prabhakaran.

Dear Wijayapala,

Wonderful points and thanks for your good words. Here are my observations quoting your points in bold.

Although I applaud your intent and open mind, I’m afraid it won’t work. There are simply too few Sinhalese to make an impact. Even if all Sinhalese were to migrate to India, they would just be a drop in the bucket.
I agree that the Sinhalese are few in number (by population let alone density in SL) as to make an impact. But that alone is a great positve for it doesn’t alter demographies in India either linguistically or religiously very much, even if every single Sinhala person migrated to India (hypothetically). Besides, the presence of Sinhalese folks could help Indians in particular to discover and research a whole bunch of Buddhist history that has been lost/destroyed over the years. Imagine how Buddhism was dominating the whole cultural, political, educational landscape of India 2000 years ago! And Siddhartha Gautama was himself from India (almost…if you keep Lumbini off for a second).

And that reminds me of Nepal as well. Nepal folks are allowed to go to most states in India as they like. Live as long as they want but cannot vote in elections or apply for certain types of Government jobs. And like SL folks, theirs is a less dense and numerically small country as well.

And even some of my Pakistani friends keep visiting their ancestral lands in India from time to time, despite the continueed hostility between the two nations. That has helped things move forward with initiatives like “Aman ki asha” etc with folks from both sides coming together.

With LTTE gone, even if Tamil folks wanted to move around freely in India, that is ok too. That is better than getting stuck in refugee camps in TN as many have done in the past.

The Tamils cannot do very much in the condition they are currently in, other than rebuild. Therefore my answer will focus on Sinhalese. Probably the most immediate thing we can do is to move out the thousands of soldiers in Jaffna peninsula and dismantle the High Security Zones. The police should take over security, with the Navy covering the coastal waters.
Good points! With tigers out of picture, it makes sense to reduce military expenditure given that Tamils are tired of war and also because India would not arm anyone in SL anymore.

The next step is to implement Tamil as an official language and make Sri Lanka a true trilingual state. This is much easier said than done. Perhaps India can provide some assistance here, as there are states that have English, Hindi, and the state’s majority language like Marathi, Kannada etc.
If I may ask,
a. How do you go about it? Aren’t we just out of a war after a period of polarization? Should we rush to it or should it be gradual? I am interested in your perspectives on this issue.
b. If I may ask, are you a good speaker of Tamil as well? I read somewhere in GV that you wanted to read some Tamil author’s book in Tamil itself. That’s why!
c. Finally, what percentage of Tamils read/write Sinhala at the moment? Fewer than what it was 50 years ago (percentage wise)?

So really, our (Sinhalese) task is to overcome our ignorance. It is our burden.
You are very broad-minded and kind. Talking about ignorance, I am a Tamilian myself and the lack of any knowledge about SL frankly worries me. While most Tamilians in TN know Amitabh Bachchan or Shah rukh Khan, they don’t know who a Lester James Peiris or Gamini Fonseka is/was. So, in a way, this is a problem for both sides. I would say that Indians, particularly TN folks need to understand SL history more than what they currently know.

Long post already! I will respond to your other points in a separate post. 🙂

I totally agree with you on your misgivings about INGOs and Solheim. By civil society I did not mean them, but a more locally-grounded movement for change. I was impressed by the moment created by Sri Lanka First, which was an initiative that came from the business community (and I don’t belong to that group) when they managed to make a human chain for peace in the streets of Colombo some years ago – ordinary people from all ethnic groups and walks of life joined. Unfortunately, they could not sustain that moment. Within the current political context, getting people together physically would be difficult but at least if we can people to agree on a set of basic points, such as yours that would be a start.

I cannot claim to speak for the Muslims, Malays and Veddahs but from my understanding, I would say that the Muslims would want an assurance that they would never be “ethnically cleansed” from any Tamil or Sinhalese majority region, and I would assume that Malays and Veddahs would want to retain their languages and some of their other cultural traditions and be respected for these.

Krish, thank you for appreciating my comments and for affirming that at the end of the day we are all human beings who want respect, dignity and belonging. And let’s do our part for a strong, democratic and humane South Asian region.