Rebels or Terrorists ?

The pictures in our minds naturally influence us – irrespective of whether or not they are based on Truth. The minds of those with positive strengths would be filled with positive pictures. Hence discipline as we grow up. Those without such positives would be adversely affected by negative pictures.

by Gaja Lakshmi Paramasivam

(April 07, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) I have been pondering about the legal meaning of ‘Racial Hatred’ as referred to in the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, here in Australia. Legal meanings do not always coincide with social meanings, which often results in conflict in a multicultural society. In fact, with those driven by Faith – they usually do not. Similarly, the meanings of Terrorists and Rebels. It seemed to me that when responding to a recent complaint of mine, the Australian Human Rights Commission seemed to have taken the word ‘hatred’ as per their social interpretation and seemed to expect me to provide evidence to satisfy them as per their definition. To my mind this had the effect of blocking my democratic path to give my form to my experience and if the substance satisfied the legal description of hatred, then my complaint was legally valid. That which is legally valid need not be socially logical and v.v. If laws are to help us live in harmony with each other – then there needs to be active reconciliation between the legal meaning and the social meaning. In the process of responding to the Australian Human Rights Commission, I discovered that one of our former Premiers of Queensland – Sir Joe Bjelke-Petersen, sued the Commonwealth on the basis that the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 did not have the authority of the Constitution ! As per the social meaning of his community – that might have been right. It may even have been technically / legally right. But Australian Labor Party’s efforts facilitated for us to participate in this issue Globally. Sir Joe, declared the land that an Indigenous Australian wanted to buy – a ‘National Park’ – an act that earned the description ‘spite and prejudice’. We continue to have the likes of Sir Joe – not only in Australian society but also in Sri Lankan society – on both sides of politics.

In his article ‘April 5th events and the 1978 constitution’ published in the Sri Lanka Guardian, Mr. Basil Fernando of Asian Human Rights Commission says about uprisings in Sri Lanka ‘The 1953 uprising virtually shattered the political arrangements of the country and the impact of this great event has not yet been properly grasped. As compared to this, what happened in 1971 was a few activities by groups of young rebels who were loosely organized and who believed in taking up arms against the state. However, between the idea of making an armed uprising and the actual performance, there was a vast gap. Perhaps that was due to the exposure of the attempts to make hand bombs in a few places. The government, which was alerted, immediately went into action, granting license to kill anyone who was suspected of having any kind of a connection with the JVP.’

Most Tamils likewise, would describe the LTTE as rebels even though the UN has listed them as ‘terrorists’. I have read many Sinhalese refer to the LTTE as terrorists.

Mr. Basil Fernando says also ‘With the easy victory won in 1978, JR Jayawardene proceeded to displace the basic democratic system itself by giving himself powers and legally destabilizing the system of checks and balances. It can be said that the greatest beneficiary of the 1971 events was JR Jayawardene. His political scheme was to displace the country’s rule of law system and the notion of the separation of powers.’

President Rajapaksa is currently being accused of going through similar pattern through the ‘terrorism’ label given to the LTTE. Not only presidents but ordinary citizens at various levels also tend to take advantage of ‘wins’. The problem with that is that if the ‘losing’ groups concerned did not actually earn that label relative to the Government, the individuals who failed to take responsibility to seek and find Truth but conveniently use Government’s labels acquire the qualities of the government. This would affect their personal lives and therefore the communities and countries they feel a part of.

The pictures in our minds naturally influence us – irrespective of whether or not they are based on Truth. The minds of those with positive strengths would be filled with positive pictures. Hence discipline as we grow up. Those without such positives would be adversely affected by negative pictures. Unless therefore, we have position responsibilities and / or are genuinely hurt, it is best not to ‘judge’. The exception to this is ‘Service’ work – which is work without expectations of benefits.

The decisions we make just for ourselves would comfortably be supported by our faith based interpretations. But when we come out into multicultural areas we are no longer protected by common faith and hence we need to consciously use merit basis. Tamils and Sinhalese of Sri Lanka need to use this actively, if we are to live in reasonable harmony. As a first step we need to not judge but present our cases from zero base. What does it matter whether someone is called a rebel or terrorist by others. We, the commoners need to be driven by the effects of their actions on us – as per our genuine work and savings and not what benefits we can get from judging them or losses we cause them to have by punishing them. Ultimately – we do to others today what others would do to us tomorrow.

After reading Mr. Basil Fernando’s account of the significance of 05 April, I compared with LTTE and concluded that whilst LTTE was like birth family to Tamils, JVP would be like in-laws through marriage. Until we include the ‘other’ side rebels – we would not have enough strength to be a powerful democratic opposition to the Government.