Tamils are our brothers and sisters – not enemies

By H. L. D. Mahindapala

(February 09, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) In times of distress the Sinhala people have always rushed to the rescue of the Tamils. In 1983 when the lunatic fringe ran berserk attacking the innocent Tamils many Sinhalese risked their lives to save the Tamils. When the tsunami hit Mullativu and the eastern coast, just at the time that Velupillai Prabhakaran was on the verge of launching his Eelam War IV, it was the Sinhala neighbours in the nearby villages that first rushed to the aid of the stricken Tamil people. The government and INGOs and NGOs came later. The time has come once again for the Sinhala people to rush to their aid and lift the Tamils from the depths into which they have fallen.

At no time in their living memory have they fallen to such depths of despair. Their plight is encapsulated in the pithy Sinhala saying that confirm they neither have the branch they held nor the branch on which put their feet. In short, they are in limbo. After the disastrous military adventure of their false prophet, Velupillai Prabhakaran, with “Eelam-or-nothing” policy they find themselves without a single ally left in the world. The deepest cut came from Tamil Nadu – their only historically valid homeland – when M. Karunanidhi, the president of DMK and Chief Minister, dropped the Tamil Tigers like a hot potato after he realized that there is no way that anyone could save Prabhakaran. Karunanidhi told the executive committee of DMK that “the Tigers lost the sympathy of DMK in 1987 itself as its chief Velupillai Prabhakaran was planning to adopt a dictatorial form of government in Tamil Eelam for which they were fighting.” (Express News - February 4, 2009)

The full report in the Express News should be kept on record to reveal the humiliating failure of Prabhakaran – the arrogant megalomaniac who led the innocent Tamils, particularly the children, to slaughter like a latter day Pipe Piper. The report said: “Recalling the ‘sibling rivalry’ indulged in by the Tigers, killing senior leaders of other groups which were working for the Tamils’ cause, Karunanidhi referred to an interview given by Prabhakaran to a magazine in 1987 wherein he had favoured a dictatorial rule for Tamil Eelam.

“I was shocked to read the reply of Prabhakaran. From then on, I became sick of the Tigers’ war... later, many people were killed by the LTTE and the sympathy towards that movement was dwindling gradually and at one point, it completely vanished,” he said.

“To highlight the LTTE cruelty in killing their Tamil brethren, Karunanidhi cited how veteran leader Amirthalingam was killed in front of his wife. “But the DMK has ignored these incidents... only to help the suffering Tamils in Lanka...but it is being viewed as support to the LTTE...this view is totally wrong...our support is only for the Lankan Tamils and not for individuals there,”

Though Prabhakaran can turn round and say “Et tu Brute!” Karunanidhi hit the nail on the head. It is Prabhakaran’s fascist iron fist, his political arrogance, ruthless persecution and liquidation of dissidents and self-defeating intransigence that led to his down fall. There is no one to blame for the plight of Tamils except Prabhakaran.

This time the Jaffna Tamils cannot blame the Sinhalese – their common and traditional whipping horse. Jaffna-centric mono-ethnic extremism never failed to blame the Sinhala-Buddhists for perceived slights, or what they called “discrimination by successive Sinhala governments” -- all of which could have been adjusted (as proven in subsequent events) through non-violent politics. Peninsular politics was traditionally a closed society fertilized with a culture of hate against the Sinhala south. Prabhakaran is the political python that came out of the womb of Jaffna devouring more Tamils than anyone else, As he uncoiled and fattened on the flesh, blood and bones of the Tamils the trusting but misguided Tamils, particularly those in the diaspora, felt elated and went all out to feed his insatiable appetites believing that the only way out for the Tamils was to keep the monster alive.

Even the Sinhala leadership, especially Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe, gave all what they could give to appease the monster. India, the regional power, and the international community, represented by Erik Solheim, bent over backwards to extract the maximum from the weak Sinhala leadership and hand it over to Prabhakaran. The Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement and the Cease Fire Agreement are monuments to the folly of Sinhala leadership, on the one hand, and, on the other, gravestones for the political arrogance and vain ambitions of Jaffna Tamil leadership. National and international peace agreements failed to dislodge the Vadukoddai Resolution from the violent political base of Jaffna.

Vadukoddai Resolution was passed by the so-called Gandhians by the ruling vellahla elite for the vellahla elite who hoped to ride on the backs of the brain-washed youth to power. When power shifted from the conservative vellahla elite to the low-caste Prabhakaran he paid back with interests for all the brutal violence committed by the vellahalas against the low-castes Jaffna Tamils in the feudal, colonial and the pre-Prabhakaran phase. He fired the bullets that came from the Vadukoddai Resolution right into the heart of the vellahla leadership. And the more he killed -- the vellahlas as well as the non-vellahlas – the more he was revered as their “Sun God”. Drunk with the unexpected pomp and glory, Prabhakaran overestimated his power and intransigently refused to move away from the extremist path common to all Jaffna Tamil leaders: the path of Oliver Twist demanding more and more.

Blaming the Sinhalese at every turn with the sole objective of gaining more political power at the expense of all other communities is not going pay any dividends any more. This blame game is not marketable in the current climate. Of course, ultimately, it forced “the Sinhala government” to say: Enough is enough! All along, it was the innocent Jaffna Tamils who were forced to pay for the sins of their leaders. The Tamil leaders hid behind the misled Tamil people like the way Prabhakaran is hiding behind the Tamil civilians who are forcibly held back to face the last salvos of the advancing Sri Lankan forces. Looking back, it is clear that the Jaffna Tamils were the victims not of the Sinhala south but of their own misguided, self-serving, extremist Tamil leaders who promised them the earth and gave them nothing in the end..

It was the Jaffna Tamils who officially endorsed violence in the Vadukoddai Resolution and took up arms. No other ethnic community decided to go down the path of “extra-parliamentary” violence to pursue their political goals. And when they were getting a taste of their own medicine they didn’t like it and cried foul. They initiated and launched the violence that led to violations of human rights, particularly against the Tamil people. But, as usual, they refuse to accept responsibility for the consequences that flowed from the Vadukoddai Resolution. They blame it on “the Sinhala governments.” When an exasperated “Sinhala government” decided to take the sacred Tamil bull by the horns their agents went right round the world crying for help. In the end even Erik Solheim of Norway who was playing ball with them at the highest level said bluntly: Surrender!

The Tamil today feel let down. They are not only friendless but also leaderless. Prabhakaran, their last hope, is running with his tail between his legs. No diplomats of foreign countries are going to run after him now. He had blown all the chances given to him. Rajiv Gandhi told him that he would make him the Chief Minister. He told him cockily that he is already the Chief Minister. President Chandrika Kumaratunga offered him the north and the east for ten years. He spurned it. Ranil Wickremesinghe gave him the north and the east on a platter. He kicked Wickremesinghe in his teeth by ruthlessly violating 95% of the agreement he signed.

The “Sinhala governments” had given to the Jaffna Tamils more than to any other community in Sri Lanka. The “Sinhala governments” cannot be blamed anymore. It was the Tamil leadership that made the fatal mistakes of (1) stretching their demands further away to the extremes each time “the Sinhala governments” got close to them and (2) refusing to share the island with the other communities. They wanted to divide Sri Lanka like India leaving more Muslims in India than in Pakistan. It was a recipe for disaster. In the end it was the folly of Jaffna Tamil leadership that was defeated and not the Tamil people who want to share the nation with the other communities. The Tamil leaders who are saved today are those who abandoned Prabhakaran and his extremist ideology and decided to cast their lot with the other communities. Jaffna politics will find its peace only on the day they decide that the Tamils will have to live, one way or another, with the Sinhalese, whether they like it or not..

Ironically, it was the so-called Gandhians of Jaffna who produced a destructive political culture which found its full expression in the Vadukoddai Resolution. The violence they endorsed in the Vadukoddai Resolution, which was aimed at the Sinhala south, boomeranged on them. The post-independence history of the nation and the lives of all communities would have been spared all the agony and bloody travails if Jaffna had a more open-minded, tolerant, liberal, far-sighted leadership willing to co-exist in a multi-cultural and democratic society sharing the island – the whole of it – as their homeland without veering into the violent path of carving out an Evil-laam based on fictitious geography and concocted history.

But right now the friendless, leaderless, hopeless Jaffna Tamils must not be abandoned by the Sinhala people. I know that the Jaffna Tamils went round the world demonizing the Sinhala people as their oppressor and enemy. I know that the Jaffna Tamil leadership, in passing the Vadukoddai Resolution paved the path for the destruction of the culture of the Sinhala people, their way of life, their economy, their civilization and the Sinhala people as a whole. I know their political culture preached nothing but hatred against the Sinhala people. I know that the Tamil leadership and their agents in Churches, academia, NGOs blamed everything on the Sinhalese even though they shared the best and the worst that any community could have in Sri Lanka.

With all its infirmities the Sri Lankan state has been a liberal, democratic, welfare state that opened up space for Tamils like Anton Muttucumaru to be the first Sri Lankan Army Commander, Rajan Kadirgamar to be the second Navy Commander, his brother, Lakshman Kadirgamar to be the potential candidate as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka if the Tamil Tigers spared his life, Muthiah Muralithran to be the greatest bowler breaking world records, Siva Pasupati to be the Attorney-General advising J. R. Jayewardene only to become the constitutional advisor to Prabhakaran after the migrated to Australia, and Maharajas to be the one of the leading entrepreneurs, etc..

The list is long and a credit to the Sinhala people who gave pride of place to the Tamils who shared the land as its trustees. As in the past the Sinhala people have not been quite tolerant of those illegal claimants to any part of Sri Lanka. Like most civilized communities they have been generously fair to those who had not been a threat to their historical legacies. They have reacted aggressively each time they were provoked. But those explosions have been like the fizz of the soda bottle. They had never officially adopted a policy of declaring war against another community. Nor have they officially adopted discriminatory legislation (e.g. bhumiputra policy of Malaysia) against any minority to blight their careers or advancement.

If there was anyone that blighted the lives and careers of Tamils it is the Tamils. Which Sinhala leader has decimated the entire cream of Tamil leadership? Which Sinhala leader has killed more Tamils than Prabhakaran? Take the examples of Rajini Tiranagama and Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole, Who ended their careers and contributions to the Tamil community?

Despite all this I say that this is not the time to look backing anger. This is the time to forgive and forget. Or remembering to forgive and forget. This is the time to revive the generous and compassionate spirit of Dutugemunu – another denigrated Sinhala-Buddhist leader by the Tamil separatist and their agents – and honour and respect just not the Tamil dead but the living too.

This is time to go back to our time-honoured roots where the Sinhala-Buddhist built a vibrant culture to embrace all new comers from all corners of the globe, to embrace ideologies from Hinduism to Trotskyism, to embrace and protect the persecuted Catholics and Muslims when they had no one to protect them except the Sinhala kings, to establish and consolidate a democratic and liberal political society despite the denigration of the no-sayers and the doomsayers, to provide each and every citizen security, free education, free health services (even to Daya Master, who was waging a terrorist war against us from Vanni), and above all to make Sri Lanka a home for all who want to share its multi-cultural values, its liberalism (refinements are needed), its democratic base, its achievements and also its failures that must be put right collectively. .

There are, of course, the vexed issues of power-sharing, constitutional changes, devolution of power, 13th Amendment etc. If our recent history has taught us anything it is that man does not live by constitutions alone. Learning to live in a diverse, multi-cultural society is the central issue facing not only Sri Lanka but the world at large. The plain fact is that no constitution can put right the wrongs unless the collective will of all communities come together to coexist harmoniously, respecting each other, in a land shared commonly by all diverse entities. Our collective experience should by now open our eyes to the grim fact that separatism and violence are inseparable. And also recognize that violence of divisive politics cannot deliver the promises of “liberation”. If at all, it can only lead to a pseudo-separatist state under a fascist one-man regime. The nation has paid enough with blood and tears for the political illusions propounded by the failed theoretical kattadiyas. In any case, the theoretical mantras of assorted pundits have been thrown into the dustbin on the way to Mullativu by Gen. Sarath Fonseka and his heroic forces.

We have to find our way into the future at hand where we have no alternative but to live together. We have to redefine ourselves by strengthening our commonalities and not by reinforcing our differences. The people are tired of the war, the theories and the unworkable solutions that took us deeper into the blood bath. Our salvation is in bonding together and not in ethnic divisions.

Just as much as the Sinhala people must embrace the Tamils as their brothers and sisters the Jaffna Tamils too must come out of their narrow, ethnic, tunneled vision and review their past. If necessary they must have the courage go through an agonizing reappraisal of where they went wrong and look at the world from the promising perspective of living together. The dominant political ideology that made the Jaffna Tamils make-believe that they have a destiny separate from the rest of the nation is not only perverse, particularly in the light of the suffering endured by the Jaffna Tamils, but also counter-productive for the future of the Jaffna Tamils. Both communities have to engage in a constructive way to end separatism in any form or shape. There has to be a new map without borders. All communities must accept only the one defined by nature: the Indian Ocean. That is the task at the moment if we are to march into a new future without going back to the miserable past which we have just left behind. Both communities have to engage each other creatively and compassionately without getting bogged down in political myths that were never there in history or going to be there in the future.

Jaffna Tamil took to the violence endorsed in the Vadukoddai Resolution to impose their will on the rest of the nation. That phase is over. If the new Tamil leadership, which is yet to emerge in some consolidated form, insists on reverting to the pre-Killinochchi-Mullativu phase there will be nothing left of the Tamils. The new leadership has to adopt a policy of live and let live. But if by any chance the Jaffna Tamils decide to go back to the Vadukoddai Resolution then they must accept responsibility for the fate of the Tamils. The Jaffna Tamil leadership had ruined the lives and degraded the values and lives of the Jaffna Tamil people with their destructive ideology of separatism. The new Tamil leadership has no excuse to repeat the sins of their political fathers. They have no moral, political or legal right to drag their people into the horrors they bred in the extremist mono-ethnic political culture of Jaffna any more.

Our people – and I mean all our peoples – need peace. Removal of Prabhakaran from the political equation is only the first step. The rest is up to the Jaffna Tamils to make it or break it.

-Sri Lanka Guardian