A Soldier says Tamils, Sinhalese and all others can live in concord in Sri Lanka, and here is how ( True stories & facts) - Part One

Ebony and Ivory live together in perfect harmony. Side by side on my piano keyboard, oh lord, why don't we? - Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder

Written by Day

(August 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In today’s 10 second sound bites discussions or depictions of decades of the issues created by imperial powers to divide and rule a nation appointing minority overseers with powers vested to supervise and control a majority community in order to keep them subjugated so that an imperial power can plunder a country of its resources the true story of Sinhalese and Tamils does not come to light or is not conveyed effectively to the wider world either by a journalist here in Sri Lanka for short pit stop or a diplomat based in Colombo.

I decided to write this article, to write with a purpose, to see Sinhalese and Tamils live in concord, as I know they can if they really wish to. I may have come out very strong with arguments and facts. I might sound angry, emotional, absurd, foolish, sarcastic or vulgar to certain people. I needed to be that way as I wanted to be very effective, which remains to be seen. I request you to read my article completely and receive what you want and discard the rest. I, a soldier serving in an active war zone, spent three days of my time to do my part as a well-wisher of Sri Lanka to tell what I know and what needs to happen for the good of the many in Sri Lanka. A common man on the street can do more for racial harmony and amity than a politician in his own freaking world. Do intellectuals on both sides of the ethnic divide educate the poor common man in a dilemma when it comes to Tamil Sinhala relations; help them open their eyes to see a better way to live as a nation rather than a Chinese protectorate in the south and an East India Company in the north. Let merit has its place, remember, Muttiah Muralidharan was a Tamil who put Sri Lanka on the highest pedestal as a cricketing nation or a cricket powerhouse helped Sri Lanka. Would Sri Lanka won matches, a World Cup, been talked about by billions of people all over the world if he was discriminated against? Your answer is as good as mine.

Very Important: If I have used word ‘Tamils’ in this article negative light that is to be meant to describe 90% of hypocrite local or the Diaspora Sri Lankan Tamils. My observation and understanding is that there is only 10% moderate Tamils. If Sri Lankans are to live in concord ever then that percentage has to increase up to about 80%.

True Story (TS) #1

On a recent day in a Middle Eastern country a young man in his mess hall (Chow Hall-Dinning Facility-DFAC) uniform was walking hurriedly on a road in a military camp. A driver in a Toyota minibus servicing or plying the ‘Blue Route’ (a bus route for the soldiers, contractors and civilians in the camp, and the other being the ‘Green Route’) stopped the bus suddenly and picked the man in mess hall uniform –Please note, according to the bus route rules a driver is authorized to pick up passengers at the bus halts only. A conversation ensued in Sinhala; the driver asked “Why are you in a mighty hurry?” The passenger said “Machang, I overslept and am late for work!” “I did not go to bed till about 1:00 o’clock in the morning (0100 hours)”. The driver said “I am going to bed early. It is very difficult to this job to drive 12 hours a day, not only that lack of sleep and AC (air conditioning) cause me fall sleep on the wheel”. The bus reached the DFAC and driver asked a question “you want to sneak in through the ‘frontage or the rear gate’? “ The passenger said ‘my supervisor is mean and I need to sneak through the rear gate!” The driver asked one last question “Is she the black female with a ‘huge posterior’? The driver then said to the passenger in question “Take care!” The driver stopped the bus ‘illegally’ again in between the bus stops to drop the passenger ‘strategically’. The passenger said “Yes!” and “See You!”

The Driver is Jayarathne, from Hanguraketha area and the passenger is Naushad (a Muslim) who waits at the Ice Cream stall at the DFAC and is from Galewela area. They are just two workers out of more than a hundred of the Sri Lankans working in this small camp in a still active war zone though the major combat operations have come to an end.

Let’s look at the lessons we can learn or observations that can be recorded from the above true story I as a soldier witnessed;

#1: A ‘Sinhalese’ is willing to ‘break rules’ to help a Muslim.

#2: A ‘Sinhalese’ is willing to save a ‘Muslim’ from trouble.

#3: The Sinhalese driver was very duty conscious

#4: There was no language ‘issue’ or ‘problem’ in this situation.

#5: They behaved like as if they were ‘brothers’.

#6: After all, they are all ‘SRI LANKANS’!

True Story #2:

A few days later I was traveling in the Blue Route (BR) bus, all of sudden, the driver parallel parked his bus, in the middle of the road, holding traffic, the ‘Green Route’ (GR) one going in the opposite direction. This time the BR driver gave a few words of advice to the GR driver “Machang, when you drive, do not drive very closely to other vehicles and be careful when you apply brakes on these deserts roads. Because of sand you may skid.” The other driver smiled and nodded his head to show his acceptance of the words of advice.

I asked from the BR driver where the GR driver was from. The answer was ‘from Sri Lanka’. Then I asked him why he had to mentor the GR driver, and his answer was that the GR guy came from a bigger camp (we call it AA Air Base) was very new on this camp, not even 48 hours!

I was so happy and emotional and I went to a back seat just to hold back my tears. I did with it with difficulty.

The BR driver again is Jayarathne and the GR driver is Premadas, a Tamil, from Batticaloa.

Let’s look at the lessons we can learn or observations that can be recorded from the above .TS #2.

#1: A Sinhalese is willing to ‘hold traffic’ just give some friendly guidance and ‘take care’ of ‘another’ ‘Sri Lankan’.

#2: The Sinhalese driver ‘did not’ tell me the GR driver was a ‘Bloody Tamil’ or a ‘tiger’ from ‘Batticaloa’! Instead he said Premadas was ‘from Sri Lanka’.

#3: Again, there was no language ‘issue’ or ‘problem’. Both spoke Sinhalese.

#4: They behaved like as if they were ‘brothers’.

I was so mad at all the nationalistic and racist politicos and lawyers we have on both side of ethnic divide who are either in Sri Lanka or the Diasporas and decided to write this article.

In the TS #1 a Muslim could speak Sinhala. WHY? Sinhalese allow Muslims to live in Galewela, Beruwala and Hambantota, to name a few places, in the lengthen, breadth, middle or corner of Sri Lanka where minorities live and ’CAN’ live amicably, peacefully and in concord.

In the TS #2 a Tamil could understand and communicate in Sinhalese. WHY? Thanks to the ‘Jungle King’ Late DS and the Gal Oya Project and good policing and anti-terrorist operations by elite Special Task Force Tamils in the East can speak and understand Sinhalese thanks to the poor peasants or farmers decided to stay back and live braving the LTTE attacks or massacres and to cultivate ‘chenas’ and paddy fields.

A later day while travelling in the BR bus I started a conversation with Jayarathne. I just wanted prick and incite him and just be a little ‘racist’ to find out the Jayarathne’s true colors. I said to him “You know what, Premadas may be LTTE, a Pillian man or Karuna man”. Jayarthne said “No, sir! He is a good man”. Is not it surprising, after 30 years of terrorism and mayhem, murder and misery, death and destruction, the innocent being used as cannon fodder and at the receiving end, a Sinhalese can be so unbiased or with an open mind and defend a fellow countryman, a Tamil?

Jayarthene could have easily told me ‘what I wanted to hear’ and he could have easily resorted to curry favour or ingratiate himself with me telling like “Sir, he may be a tiger”. What the heck, after all, Premadas was not present there to ‘counter’ it.

It confirmed one more time to me what I have known more than three decades the ‘Curse of Sri Lanka’ is her corrupt, short-sighted and opportunistic politicians, Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim alike.

If the LTTE supported by shameless Tamil politicians DID NOT ethnically cleanse the Sinhalese and Muslims from the Northern and the Eastern provinces odiously and espousing the Traditional Homeland hogwash then a vast majority of Sri Lankans would be speaking the main languages today. Thanks to ‘homogeneity’ and there would not have been any issues with respect to the ‘government servants and policemen’ NOT speaking ‘Tamil’ in the North and the East.

By the way in Toronto, Canada, ‘Mounties’ do not speak Tamil. In London, England, ‘Bobbies’ did not talk in Tamil with MIA-Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam when she was living in a council flat nor Vany K was interviewed on BBC in Tamil.

Let’s go to the Research Triangle (RT), in North Carolina, USA for the True Story #3

True Story #3

If one (ask your university friends or the professionals, who are from SARC countries, living and working around the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) visits the Chatham Square shopping plaza or its nearby shops in Cary, North Carolina he or she would see shops, mostly belong to Indians and Pakistanis. Will one see an ‘LOC’ (Line of Control) separating the Indians or Pakistanis or their shops? Do you see the soldiers dug in sub zero temperatures and their arrayed artillery against each other’s shop or their nuclear warheads or weapons programmed with each other’s shop grid coordinates? NOT AT ALL! Instead you would see the perfect harmony; the Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, white, black, Hispanics and university students, academics, professionals from other countries walk in the same door and walk out in one piece.

Now have you seen the military martial fervor, pomp and pageant and the tourist attraction at the Wagha (the Berlin wall of Asia) India-Pakistan border crossing during ‘lowering the flag’ each day, subtly baying for each other’s blood? Do you know the happenings at this border post have been a barometer of the India-Pakistan relations over the years?

Let’s look at the lessons we can learn or observations that can be recorded from the above TS #3.

#1: Indians and Pakistanis can live in harmony in India and Pakistan respectively as they live in concord elsewhere in the world.

#2: According to my personal observations languages, ‘Urdu or Hindi’, have NOT mattered at all for amicable living or shopping experiences for overseas Pakistanis or Indians.

#3: There are no visible signs at all of simmering tension between the Indian and Pakistani communities, and they come again to shop in each other’s shop or eat in each other’s eatery.

You know WHY they live in concord? There are NO corrupt and divisive Indian or Pakistani politicians around the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill! Not only that, do you remember the outcome, some decades back in London and a couple of years ago in Australia when ‘skinheads’ attacked the Indian students and youths? The Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and what have you, all got together and put up a good fight and beat the cr@p out of the skinheads and won the day. As late Minister Thondaman Sr. once said ‘worm had tuned!’

Even the overseas Indonesians and Vietnamese communities join hands with the Indians and Pakistanis when it comes to dealing with skinheads and mischief makers. If you total up, the people power or strength of more than two billion people. What cannot you do with that?

The Pakistanis and Indians know, fu@k the rascal politicians and border issues in Jammu and Kashmir, charges and countercharges of terrorism on each other’s territory, If they want to protect themselves and their families and survive in a hostile environment they have to adopt the ‘pack mentality’, attack like hyenas.

But look at Tamils overseas who attack overseas Sinhalese, their businesses and Buddhist temples. They forget that, as of now, Sri Lanka has only one international airport and every Sri Lankan has to arrive at and depart from the same airport. And the same time they forget they still have kith and kin in Sri Lanka and they are ‘vulnerable’ too like a ‘McDonald’ restaurant in Karachi or Lahore.

More true stories later and let’s turn to the topic of rape.

As you can find the legal and medical definitions of rape in books or on WWW, let me tell how I define rape and my personal view or opinion with regard to rape. I would say; rape is the most difficult thing to commit unless restrained physically or the victim ‘stilled’ by threat of force or death as God did not place vagina in an easily accessible place and God made it impossible a man to insert his penis without holding and guiding it when a women is hysterically moving or resisting. Simply put, can you thread a moving needle? A RAPE AT ALL CANNOT HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT!

If a woman is sexually raped by force by dragging her into a desolate area (I am not talking about ‘Date Rape’ here and I am not that hard on it as both parties are responsible to varying degrees) then the rapist should be given swiftest justice by ‘erasing’ him. There is no need for a lengthy trial but just check the facts and close the case quickly. If not, justice delayed is justice denied, instead of the rapist going to jail Colvin R De’s ilk will send a ‘pestle’ in lieu of a rapist s his penis to jail for 20 years to rape inmates!

That is what Amnesty international wants, that is what Human Rights Commissions (Asian or European) wants but that is NOT what a country needs. At least a judge in a swift trial must order ‘Bobbit’ action to deter the would-be rapists. You know what I mean, if not, for starters, chop the penis off in public on the block! (Do not try to be prude or holy and say it is barbaric. What is barbaric is to rape and kill a four year old and dump her body in a street in Trincomalee!)

True Story #4:

“Chamila Dissanaike (23) had been admitted to ward number 5 of the Negombo Hospital on 23rd October for a Surgery for a lump in her breast diagnosed as fibroadinoma. She had been discharged following surgery and asked to report after two weeks for a checkup. She had accordingly returned to the hospital on the 12th November 2007 and gone to the clinic in the ward of Dr. Indika Sudarshan Balage of Maradankadawala, who was arrested on suspicion of rape and murder. The victim had been raped, chloroformed and then pushed out from a 6th floor window. She died of injuries sustained during the fall.”

To be continued...