Sri Lanka: Change We Must

by Dr.Rajasingham Narendran

(December 13. London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Change, is the slogan of the early 21st century. Adverse climate changes, the failure of poorly regulated free market economies, ill effects of unbridled consumerism, the scourge of poverty and genocide, rampant abuse of human rights, wide disparities in standards of governance and the pressures on ever shrinking natural resources, are forcing the world to seek changes to the way we live and conduct our affairs. We are however yet to fathom the scope and depth of what is rapidly unfolding.

The need for change in values, attitudes and approach, the world over, has assumed an urgency that would have been unimaginable a few years back. Humankind is about to take another giant stride in its evolutionary progress.

On the other hand, in countries such as Sri Lanka, we are yet groping to find a firm footing in the modern world. We have one foot yet in a largely agrarian economy and the values that went along with it, while trying to place our other foot simultaneously in both the industrial economy and what Alvin Toffler calls the post-industrial economy of the future.

This post-industrial economy and civilization is expected to be more humane, more nature-friendly and more democratic. While the west and the more developed nations in the east are in the initial stages of this transformation, we in Sri Lanka are fortunate to be yet living in a largely nature- friendly environment, though unfortunate to be not living in a more humane environment.

If we can direct our national energies towards establishing a more human friendly system of national governance- by accepting the principles that all humans are equal within the state and in the eyes of the law; every human has a right to be what he/she wants within boundaries set by law; bribery, corruption and nepotism are social evils; the popular will should be expressed freely; and diversity, the right to differ and to be different are basic human rights- we would be able to make the transit into the post- industrial civilization that is beginning to unfold, with ease.

Change is evolution. Change is extinction. Change is the essence of life. Change is natural. Change is also inevitable. If we are unable to change, we will not survive in an evolutionary sense.

Nature also ensures that changes are forced upon life. Evolution and extinction are two complementary sides of life. While we are in a position to intelligently participate in the evolutionary process, we have no influence over extinction in a cataclysmic sense. Cataclysmic events at periodic intervals have forced the face of the earth and its life forms to dramatically change. Old has disappeared and the new has appeared several times over.

Dinosaurs that dominated and roamed the earth are long gone and the very geography of the earth has changed at intervals. Ice ages have come and gone. Continents have drifted, disappeared and appeared, during the four billon odd years the earth has been estimated to have existed. The seas have evaporated and then re-appeared in new locations. The earth, its environment and its life forms are also changing continuously, right in front of our eyes, although we fail to discern it.

Change is the norm on this earth and in the galactic system. Unfortunately, most humans find it difficult to change. To change is to adapt to changing circumstances. We are mostly forced to change by circumstances beyond our control. When we fail to recognize this reality in time, we are doomed. This may be our biological imperative.

Hindus recognize the creative and destructive cycles ordained by nature, in the garland of skulls worn by Lord Siva- each skull representing a cycle of creation and destruction. Hindus also recognize the evolutionary forces at work through their belief in the karmic cycle. However, when these concepts are not understood from religious and/or scientific angles, and related to our lives, we are bound to suffer the consequences. Refusal to change will consign us to the dust bin of nature.

The on-going military contest between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE is in its final overt phase. It is likely the LTTE will be the loser in this overt contest and will revert to a covert action plan to achieve its objectives.

The support of the Tamil population will be crucial to both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE in this covert phase. The LTTE will need the whole hearted ideological, moral and financial support of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, and in the Diaspora, to survive and fight as a guerilla force. On the other hand, the Sinhalese and the government have to win over the Tamils to the cause of a united Sri Lanka, by making them wanted and respected citizens within the island, if the residual Tamil support for the LTTE is to be undermined.

The LTTE will try everything in its power and bag of tricks to prove the Tamils have no future within a united Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government and the extremists within the Sinhala polity inebriated by the success of their military campaign, may also help drive the Tamils once again into the hands of the LTTE (or its successor), by sounding and acting triumphalistic while attempting to impose their solutions on the Tamils. Such an eventuality will prove foolhardy and counter productive for the Sri Lankan government and the Sinhala polity, from a moral perspective and in a global context.

The Tamils are proud of their heritage and lineage as much as the Sinhalese are. Tamils believe Sri Lanka is their own as much as the Sinhalese do. The civil war of the past thirty years has proven that the Tamils are capable of resistance and are not the cowards they were assumed to be.

The rationale for Tamil resistance was unquestionable, while the bull-headed and immoral manner it was led by the LTTE was very unfortunate. It will be largely up to the government and the Sinhala people to make the Tamils victors in the struggle to preserve their identity, culture and rights, ordained by history and as citizens, within Sri Lanka. A serious change of heart and modus operandi is required from the Sinhala polity and the Sri Lankan government as a matter of urgency. There should be no pussyfooting about this. It should be made clear Tamils need not become Sinhalized to be Sri Lankans. Tamils should be given the space to be Tamils and yet be Sri Lankans to the fullest extent possible.

A ‘Marshall plan’ on the lines of what was done after the Nazi’s were defeated in Germany, should be put in place for the north and east with international help. The Tamil Diaspora should be called upon to lend a helping hand.

The Tamil paramilitary forces that have assisted the government and the armed forces should not be imposed on the Tamils as an alternate leadership, even as an interim measure. They should be absorbed into the armed forces and the police or disarmed. Any paramilitary leader who aspires to a political role should do so independently of the government and the armed forces and win the trust of the Tamils. The history of these paramilitary forces nurtured by the government, their motives and their ethos are suspect in the eyes of most Tamils and their imposition will prove counter-productive.

Play acting in the name of democracy will not be acceptable to the Tamils any more. This is the trap the LTTE would very much expect the government to fall into and which should be avoided at any cost. The Sri Lankan government has to change its strategies with regard to these paramilitary forces, if it is genuine in winning back the trust of the Tamils.

Interim Administrative Councils for the north and east should be established for at least five years, with non-elected Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese, of proven ability and bonafides, acceptable to the populations in these provinces. These interim councils should be bestowed with considerable powers to rebuild the social, economic and security structures in these provinces, untrammeled by hidden objectives such as creating divisions within and between the Tamil and Muslims, engineering demographic changes and Sinhalizing the Tamils.

While any citizen of Sri Lanka should have a choice to live and own property where he/she wants in the country, government sponsored attempts at colonization and changing demographics will not be accepted, under whatever guise. Well known ‘Old tricks’ should not be played any more, by the Sinhala polity and the Sri Lankan government. Intensions should be impeccable and above board. The Tamils (and the Muslims) should be won over to trust the Sri Lankan government and Sinhala people, if the scourge of militancy and terrorism among the Tamils is to be uprooted lock, stock and barrel. The onus will be definitely on the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan government to make the required attitudinal and policy changes an immediate reality.

The peace dividend following the defeat of armed militancy and terrorism should be felt by every Tamil as soon as possible. The Sinhala polity should embrace the Tamils whole heartedly and without any reservations. Even the ex-Tigers should fall within this embrace. We are estranged relatives, who have to forgive each other, to rebuild badly damaged relationships. The Sinhalese have to be magnanimous in the eventual triumph of the armed forces over the LTTE and its mission to establish a separate state in the north and east, and welcome the Tamils into the national main stream as trusted and respected fellow citizens. Nothing less will do.

Tamils have to clearly decide what they want. Any ambiguity as to the merits of a separate state should be overcome. Tamil Eelam, as an independent state, was neither a realistic possibility nor a visionary bargaining tool. It was only a vote winning tool for a bunch of ageing and failing politicians caught up in a time warp, and the dream of aggrieved adolescents with a surge in testosterone, who lacked foresight and wisdom. There was neither a popular demand nor a need for this extreme position.

The whole concept was doomed to failure from its inception, because most Tamils were passive participants and were carried by the initial current of emotionalism and thereafter the flood of a militancy over which they had no control. The concept of Eelam did not fire the imagination of most Tamils to a degree it had to- the critical mass-, to make it a reality.

The Tamils also knew instinctively that an independent Tamil Eelam totally divorced from the rest of Sri Lanka was not a viable possibility. The multi-dimensional destruction unfolding around them, the need to be dependent on the government for their very survival and the cavalier manner in which the militants behaved confirmed their instincts.

An unrealistic dream seeded by failing politicians and spearheaded by brave, but unwise militants, had inevitably become a nightmare for the Tamils! Nationalism, a natural sentiment provoked in a besieged community, was subverted and turned cannibalistic by a vain glorious militant movement! Tamil grievances though genuine and quite grievous, demanded a different civilized approach towards resolution, especially after the open economy instituted by the Jayawardene government.

What the Tamils principally needed were solutions to their economic problems, which arose as result of severe restrictions on government employment and higher educational opportunities that were available to the Tamils previously. Unfortunate circumstances have fortunately conspired to kill the Tamil desire for secure government employment and a few favoured professions. These same circumstances have made the Tamils an adventurous people, who have sought their fortunes in the wider world and succeeded.

The Tamil Diaspora has become a major resource, financially, exposure-wise and skills-wise, for the Tamils and other peoples in Sri Lanka. The Tamils have to exploit their present strengths to re-build their lives within a united Sri Lanka. The whole concept of an independent Tamil Eelam should be cremated and the ashes scattered.

Whether, acceptable political accommodations are forthcoming from the Sinhala polity and the Sri Lankan government or not, Tamils have to mobilize their resources to rebuild their lives and their economic and social structures once the current overt conflict ends. This is possible even under the existing political dispensation. The resources available to the Tamils should not be dissipated on a futile struggle for a nebulous concept, any longer.

Resources should be harnessed and directed to resurrect the Tamil community that is on its knees at present. The Muslims who were run out of Jaffna have to be welcomed back and re-integrated. The Sinhalese who want to make their living in the north and east should be welcomed to do so. Tamils have to work towards re-integrating their lives with the rest of Sri Lanka and avoid re-igniting antagonisms of old. The fact that the short sightedness of the Sinhala leadership was matched by the imbecility of the Tamil leadership should be accepted from a historical perspective.

The opportunity to step back and re-evaluate the stances of the Sinhalese and Tamils has arisen now. The Sinhalese as the national majority aspired to assert their identity in the newly emergent nation, but unfortunately did not have the leadership to avoid the path that led to minority alienation. The Tamils –particularly from the north, were intent on holding on to the status quo of the colonial past as long as possible and did not have the leadership to guide them on a new path mandated by the times.

These are the fault lines of our unfortunate past. The Tamil demand for justice, security, respect, equal opportunities, equal citizenship and the right to be Tamils are just and should be accommodated by the Sinhala polity and the government.

The Sinhalese as the national majority will always dominate national affairs and this should be accepted by the Tamils. However, the Sinhalese and their political leadership should evolve political mechanisms to accommodate the desire of the Tamils and Muslims, to participate meaningfully in national affairs and influence decisions that matter to them as peoples particularly in areas where they predominate.

Unlike in the first four or five decades of independence, the Sinhala majority is comfortable with itself, having found their place under the sun. Although much was gained by the Sinhalese in their blinkered mission to assert their identity in the newly emergent nation, they have in the process not only estranged the minorities but also lost in terms democratic values, rule of law, human rights, good governance and social values.

The Tamils have not only been the victims of an assertive Sinhala nationalism, but also the victims of their own misguided, reactive and self-destructive nationalism spear headed by the LTTE.

Neither the Sinhalese nor the Tamils have been absolute winners or losers in this struggle. Both have lost, though the Tamils much more. Both have also gained, though differently. Both should have by now learnt their lessons. Except for the extreme fringe, accommodation of the minorities within a united Sri Lanka has become an acceptable proposition for the majority of the Sinhalese. This window of opportunity should be used by the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims to re-evaluate national priorities and set in motion the systems for peaceful and fruitful co-existence. - Sri Lanka Guardian