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By Rajpal Abeynayake
(July 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Though it’s certainly not this columnist’s intention to mediate or intervene in any way in the spirited debate between Malinda Seneviratne and Dayan Jayatilleke on the 13th amendment in one daily newspaper, I’m inclined to think that a fresh perspective on all of the issues so far aired is called for, and would like to extend an invitation to both Malinda and Dayan to voice their own views on what I think animates this current phase of Sri Lanka’s ongoing national debate.
There have been arguments by Malinda Dayan and others so far, which attempt to enlarge or attenuate the role of history in the conflict, and with regard to the issues surrounding the 13th amendment. There have also been other theories that revolve around the premium we should place on our friends in the community of nations, when considering the political fate of the 13th amendment.
I have a different take on the issues, a different narrative if you will. To me it appears that the wider historical continuum of Tamil Sinhala ethnic relations is made somewhat irrelevant by the fact that there was an interregnum when the coloniser, the British, basically adopted the Tami community as the buffer between the resistant majority, the Sinhalse and themselves, almost the same way that the then ruling apartheid regime in South Africa used the considerable Indian community as a mediating (and sometimes physical) buffer between the native Africans and themselves.
The moment the British promoted the Tamils to the status of a ‘supra-class’ (..pardon the word coinage ...) with a view to dividing and ruling — and marginalizing and cowing down the resistant Sinhalese — the historical contours of race relations in this country underwent an almost immutable change.
Fiercely resisted
To make a long story short, the British left, and the Tamils began to consider themselves if not a co-equal minority, a super minority that was by virtue of the status they enjoyed under the British, superior to the collective majority Sinhalese of the island.
The newly emancipated Sinhalese justifiably, fiercely resisted this Tamil claim for supra ruling class status and therein in my mind lies the genesis of the current lingering tension between the Tamil and the Sinhala communities.
The Sinhalese would not accept the idea of a supra minority or even a co equal minority and by co equal I’m trying to use a loose term for a minority that is assertive and belligerent in asking for strictly equal terms —- relative to the other communities in the relational dynamic that eventually evolves to define the ethnic contours of the state.
I see that in contrast some minorities in certain parts of the world are not such co equal or supra minorities but are basically secondary entities, in terms of collective status in relation to the dominant cultures and the dominant communities. The blacks in the United Stats for instance, are such a minority, coming out of a status of subjugation and a history of suppression, and would not aspire to any sort of truly co equal status collectively over the dominant whites, no matter that an individual African American is now the president of the United States. The immigrant minorities in Europe, the large community of Indians Pakistanis and Arabs for instance are collectively not co equal or supra minorities, having chosen to integrate into the dominant culture albeit as minorities that have no collective desire of hegemony over the dominant cultures.
But the status of say, a federal level or cantonal level minority in Switzerland is different, because minorities irrespective of their location in the layers of the Swiss national structure, consider themselves co equal for all purposes, and would settle for nothing less than a co equal status in the decision making process that animates the affairs of the state.
The Muslims in India have never really for all practical purposes considered themselves co equal or supra minority that needed any special rights that would strictly make them co equal in a nation numerically dominated by the essentially ruling community of Hindus.
Now, one can argue until the cows come home and say that there are more constitutional rights in America for the blacks, or in India for the Muslims, that make them equal to the majority community, as opposed to say the Tamils in Sri Lanka vis-a-vis the Sinhalese, but it’s the history of the way the polity evolved that is of import, and not the theoretical elements of the constitutional document. For example, the African Americans as is too well known, were subject to utter depravity and humiliation as slaves and an epic struggle emancipated them and brought them into the mainstream as citizens with reasonable rights and privileges, though the U.S constitutional document theoretically always offered equal rights to all citizens.
In Sri Lanka the British left behind at the time of the grant of independence, a numerically smaller entity, a minority, which was a ‘supra minority’ which asked for superior status particularly in the bureaucracy and the other important arms of the state. The Sinhalese majority would naturally not countenance this, and the resulting conflict resulted in long drawn out political tensions culminating in an armed campaign by the younger generation of post independent Tamils, who were the inheritors of this supra legacy that was bequeathed them by their Tamils parents who had acquired a de facto superior status via the sponsorship of the colonizing British.
Since there was no compromise, and the Sinhalse wouldn’t recognize a supra minority there seems no way out of spiraling and exacerbating conflict, which culminated in an armed struggle that eventually came to an end with the Sri Lankan forces militarily defeating the Tamil Tigers who had basically hijacked the armed struggle and introduced such unsavory and unorthodox elements into it, that the armed campaign morphed basically into a terrorist threat.
I say now that for the first time since the intervening British created the problem, the showdown has come to a logical end — it’s the first time in post independence history that the confrontation has come to a tangible denouement. Now, I’m not talking of the merits and demerits of military methods or other aspects, but simply putting across the point that for the first time the post independent conflict has a post independent finale.
In other words, I feel the long running clash of forces on either side has led to some logical conclusion at long last, and therefore, that now we are passing the phase of a national post independent catharsis.
At the threshold of this phase, the Sri Lankan Sinhalese have demonstrably militarily shown that they are not ready to accept the position of the Tamils as a supra minority, and would consider the Tamils as a co equal minority if and only if their own status as a community that’s free from molestation by Tamils or Tamil sponsored entities is long-term guaranteed. Yes, I am saying that basically the Sinhalese were mortified by the Tamils being assertive to the point that in asserting superior or co-equal status, the Tamils, or the Tamil leadership to be precise, threatened the Sinhalese with terrorism and internationally aided and abetted intervention and interference, to the point of the Sinhalse feeling insecure not just as a majority but as a community per se, that had a right to an unmolested existence within the territorial limits of this island.
The other reality
Therefore, as space permits, let me derive some logical conclusions from the foregoing, with a view to perhaps expanding on these postulates at a later date. In this phase of catharsis, when finally a long running national drama has reached denouement, there is but space for recognizing just a few realities. One is that the Tamils would perhaps realize that there is no establishing a superior status in this island over the Sinhalese, no matter how they may be egged on to do so by the British who created for them that status in the first place. The other reality is that the Sinhalese have a justifiable sense of angst of being swamped, of being manipulated into a status of subservience subjugation and harassment, after a long running terrorist campaign by Tamil leaders in pursuit of the chimerical status of supra-race came to an end. Therefore in this cathartic phase it is not incumbent upon anybody or any power to ask the Sinhalese to even consider a co equal status for the Tamils by agreeing to the 13th amendment which as Malinda states, is a piece of legislation decided on the basis of a geographical referent, and could be subject to manipulation by elements of the Tamil elite who may still not have woken up from the ‘supra-minority’ dream.
It is too early after a long running drama that has finally reached curtain call, to enforce positions, to decide on a future basis of symbiosis between the two communities. Such symbiosis would depend on the evolving political narrative of the future — whether the Tamil leadership will morph and change to take into cognizance the general desires of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, who I wager — as opposed to the Tamil diaspora — have long shaken off any desire for ‘supra-status’, but want to be a part of a mutant Sri Lankan state predicated upon new goals and new aspirations such as development, economic mobility etc., which are aspects not denominated by the categories of race.
In this cathartic phase, the chips will fall where they may, and the nation would decide when and how a co equal status for the Tamil minority should be hammered out over time, or whether the Tamil minority would even eschew such a status but morph into a community that similar to the African Americans in the United States would co exist with the majority, but would not want to collectively assert power equal to the power wielded by the majority, by themselves —- based upon a geographical referent or otherwise.
Let me state in one sentence that as a nation we have to risk any international pressure by friends or otherwise to enforce the 13th amendment or any other solution, when the nation deserves to decide the shape of its future on its own and due to the predilections and aspirations of its own two communities, now that finally - - finally — the hangover past the lifting of the colonial yoke, which led to all this trauma in the first place, has been dealt with. Some may say that such a journey into the future has elements of risk, but I say risk takers succeed, and it’s better to go where our people would eventually want to take us as in the case of the recent war, which was fought despite all the pressures from external arbiters who had a different script in mind.
Courtesy: Lakbima News
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