My response to comments on my article in Groundviews on Peace and Reconciliation:

@puniselva, @srivanamoth, @K Raj, @vkravindran, and @alex,

I appreciate your comments.

vkravindran’s comment is representative of the emerging voice within the diaspora supportive of moderation and reconciliation.

Alex is correct that I have not adequately dealt with the inbuilt barriers to the politics of reconciliation within our island. I call it the “Politician’s Dilemma” and outline it as follows:
Sri Lanka has significant numbers of four communities, vis Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamil, Muslim (in the Sri Lankan context, Muslims are counted as an ethnic group), and “Indian Tamil” (to use the official classification, though “Indian Tamils” are as Sri Lankan as the other categories). There are parallels to the Prisoner’s Dilemma in that although there are joint gains to be made through cooperation, in the absence of effective coordination, cooperation is frequently unlikely on contentious issues. Since Independence, the bulk of the Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils, and Muslim leaders failed to stand by the upcountry Tamils against state oppression in 1948/1949. In turn, the bulk of the Sinhalese and Muslim leaders failed to stand by the Tamil-speaking people (Sri Lankan Tamils, upcountry Tamils, as well as the bulk of the Muslims) against state oppression in 1956. Again, the bulk of the Sinhalese and Tamil leaders failed to stand up to the LTTE persecution of the Muslims, notably in 1990. In each of these and in many other cases, the political leaders went for short-term benefits for themselves (and ostensibly the communities they represented) at the cost of major long-term setbacks to everyone. In consequence, every community lost.
Perhaps in every society across the globe, politicians tend to go for short-term benefits for themselves and for some of their voters at the cost of lasting benefits to all. In Sri Lanka, Sinhalese racist leaders may prevail over moderate Sinhalese leaders by depicting the latter as treacherous betrayers of the Sinhalese; in turn, Tamil racist leaders may prevail over moderate Tamil leaders in the same way. In the long term, all these racist policies reinforce each other and escalate and prolong conflict as well as hinder reconciliation and progress. The bulk of the population lose out. Racist policies within each community contribute to racist policies within others. We need leadership of the caliber of a Gandhi or a Mandela or a Martin Luther King to even temporarily break out of such a trap.
The entrenched obstacles to such leadership surfacing are formidable. Even if it is achieved, only some of the gains may be permanent (in the above cases, Indian independence, the overthrow of apartheid, and the achievement of Black voting rights in the USA) while other aspects of democracy and good governance may continue to fluctuate over time. Moreover, Gandhi, Mandela, and King are not accidents of history. They emerged from long, hard, and and often painful struggles involving millions of people. It is societies capable of sustaining such struggle that produce such leaders. If we all sit back and wait for a Gandhi or a Mandela or a Martin Luther King to emerge, that will never happen. Thus the struggles are always hard and unending and yet always necessary and worthwhile.

Am afraid it is so. It’s like applying balm for a severe headache due to an internal brain tumour! Look at the politicians growing fat on the miseries of the people and laughing away!!!

Author and readers, can youpost your suggestions here please?

1. All Ministries must implement Official Languages Policy – monitoring by Official Languages Commission or similar. John Goonaratne gave his suggestion to LLRC – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxbk4wYolphwNTM0YjYwMTctMmE1Zi00YjcxLWFjOTUtOTg5MmJiOTY5MjY1/view?authkey=COfA0fkJ&ddrp=1&pli=1&hl=en#

2.

Idea of reconciliation for the sake of reconciliation is like “pouring water over a camel’s back”. Common mindset of both communities need a radical change. It is our fate, even if the common man in Sri Lanka wants to unite, the politicians will not allow it to happen. Divisive politics only had brought parties to power since 1956, except the January Presidential election. I would characterize it is more of rejection of Rajapakses by the minorities and not a win by Srisena in anyway. No one had denied this and it is the very reason he is trying to come back with his “Dutu Gemunu” politics or reminding the Sinhala masses that he saved (Sinhala) Sri Lanka in 2009.
Articles and presentations like Dr. Nesiah’s, as he says about books in Sinhala and Tamil, never reach the common man in Sri Lanka. It is only for elite in Colombo and for expatriates like me.

The chief culprits are the politicians themselves with the sole exception of the late Sir John Kotelawela who openly went to the Sept. 1956 polls after declaring that Sinhala and Tamil will both be official languages. Although he lost the election for the UNP for standing tall on his moral conviction history since his time to the present time will prove that what he stood for was the right solution by ALL the people and country. So many people meed not have been killed in vain and the country redeemed from the clutches of evil had there been foresightedness and far sightedness as the late Sir John.

Yet another politician also comes to mind, namely the late C. Suntheralingam and Minister for Trade and Commerce in the first post independent Cabinet when he resigned his post over the De-citizenising of people of recent Indian origin (after even more than 100 years of local residency when he intoned ” Today the Indian Tamils, tomorrow the Ceylon Tamils”. That too has come about all true.

The country is poised for yet another election and what will happen is yet awaited with much anticipation with no “cure” in sight for the dogged deadly ‘disease’ of race and religion.