Relatives and Foreigners in Politics

| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

( March 28, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) I write in response to the article ‘Paramilitary leader’s website praises Tamil quislings supporting the government’ by a special correspondent of Sri Lanka Guardian.

As per this report ‘The paramilitary leader and the government minister Douglas Devanand’s proxy website JalaJalappu (Jolting muddle) published the names of the expatriate Tamils and a Tamil Muslim who had come out of the way to rescue the Sri Lanka government at the Geneva session of Human Rights Council. News titled ‘Expatiate Tamils campaign in support of motherland’ published in the controversial Jalajalappu website presented photographic display of the three determined campaigners accused of being in the payroll of the government.’

My interactions with all politicians including the Hon Douglas Devananda, have been strictly on Administrative basis coupled with my Truth. The former helps me strengthen Law and Order in the country and the latter helps me strengthen Dharma/Righteousness within me – to help me become a universal person. Until yesterday, whenever pro-LTTE groups called pro-Government groups ‘traitors’ I was not overly affected by it because I am independent of both and accepted their lawful expressions of belief as their right. I took it as part of their political opposition. Last night a senior Australian Tamil professional rang me to express appreciation for my article on the UN Resolution, published in Sri Lanka Guardian. This Tamil stated that the blame attributed to the LTTE should be shared by all armed groups including Minister Devananda’s group EPDP and the JVP. Prior to that during the day I received information that the picture presented by Tamilnet.com about the meeting of the Sri Lanka Reconciliation Forum Sydney on Sunday 25 March, was very different to the one presented by me. I wrote to our Foreign Minister, as feedback from a true Australian.

To me, that group lacks Administrative structure and therefore would not contribute to Tamils Administering themselves. They are not good politicians either because they did not stay within their Truth and therefore belief. Had they identified with what happened through their own Truth – their picture and my picture would have added strength to each other and complemented each other, to help us relate to each other. Given that Tamilnet.com and the protestors in Epping made out that to them we were not a genuine group fighting for self governance, I have decided to discredit and disregard all accusations of disloyalty to the community, including about the above mentioned Expatriate Tamils apparently close to Minister Devananda. Each one of us who take up leadership status one way or the other, need to, for our own purposes, allocate status to others in our own minds. This would help us quickly assess the Truth, validity and relativity of their expressions and actions. Whether they are on our side or are our opposition, we need to bring in only the Truth we know about them into our mind, to have inner harmony. Beyond that we need to show only our side of the work and leave it to the opposition to complete its side. That to me is true democracy and true respect for others’ privacy. Once the other side is completed we need to understand the whole picture if we are to be leaders, through the new picture.

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke states in this regard, in his article ‘After Geneva: Avoiding the trap’ states ‘Understanding requires knowledge and reflection. Understanding requires, above all, thinking, and thinking through. Understanding is a prerequisite not for academic disquisition, but an imperative precisely for survival itself, says Fidel, and cautions that without learning how to understand, we shall never learn how to survive.’

I agree that leaders who seek to lead consciously and expressly need to understand. Those who seek to be driven by their Truth don’t need to understand. They would tend to develop their belief through the Truth they have experienced. If one starts leading prematurely, one loses the opportunity to believe and therefore to connect intuitively to others. That to me is what happened on Sunday, 25 March 2012, with the Tamil protestors. They were hasty for leadership and therefore their protest lost credibility to that extent. They were actually protesting against themselves – their violence against others’ genuine work for self-governance.

One driven by Truth survives in any environment, by becoming part of that environment. Once we are part of an environment, we naturally share in the belief of others in that environment. To stay and live in harmony within that environment, belief is all we need. Hence the system of devolving power. It is when we need to interact with others external to that environment that we need to consciously ‘understand’ the total environment. The Sri Lankan Government as well as the pro-LTTE sections of the Diaspora are to my mind, guilty of lack of understanding of not only their opposition but also wider world. They are both dependent on ‘foreigners’ in one form or the other. UN was that ‘external’ environment to the current Sri Lankan Government. This Government’s failure to ‘understand’ is also the failure of all UN personnel of Sri Lankan origin, including Dr. Dayan Jayatilleke. If Dr. Jayatilleke had felt part of the UN and also part of the Sri Lankan Government – the two would have naturally been bridged through Dr. Jayatilleke. Likewise all expatriate Sri Lankans with their respective Governments. To the extent one does not feel part of one or the other, one needs to consciously understand and reconcile.

Why do leaders need to understand? Leaders do not follow particular individuals who are current custodians of power. They follow themselves through rights and wrongs of an issue and hence need discriminative thinking on the basis of the substance of an issue. Wrong must follow Right in this vertical system. Once this is done and we keep in mind the ‘rights’ they become the base through which we ‘relate’ to or ‘separate’ from others. We relate if we seek to separate on the basis of time – by paying costs now to benefit later – as in child respecting parent to later become a parent. Hence we call them relatives. We separate if we are not able to see ourselves through those who pay the costs and/or enjoy the benefits in that environment. Hence if we facilitate Equal basis – so that we pay and the other receives immediately without having to wait – we complete the picture from both sides – independent of each other – except to sell and buy. Then there is no ‘waiting’ and there are no disappointments and we are entitled to sell or buy independent of each other.

To my mind, understanding is required by an Administrator while belief is required to be the basis of voting towards good governance. . The UNHRC decision needs to be taken as being belief based – the belief of custodians of Global Powers. Until Sri Lanka becomes part of this leadership – it would not be able to influence outcomes that reflect the Truth that it identifies with. Understanding without belief leads also to separation. This is productive if we apply what we understood to the environment we believe in and no more – for example – the Sri Lankan Government to apply this to its own electorates. Even the law needs the endorsement of believers / parliamentarians.

When the separation is only surface separation, it attracts us to each other. Hence the value of devolution of powers to accommodate diversity. But when it is deeper than the surface, it separates at the roots and weakens both sides. Those whose roots are one have the opportunity to grow exponentially. They invest deeply which provides returns in the future as in compound interest basis. Some produce to suit wider world and hence to suit other cultures. This has the effect of investing in the roots of those other cultures through those consumers. Hence the benefits / returns compound themselves. Investment in wider world requires ‘understanding’. By getting defeated in a foreign environment, the Sri Lankan Government has confirmed that its investment in other cultures is weak. After the UN Resolution, some Sinhalese leaders are finding fault with the Australian system of Management also. Once they ‘own’ their defeat – as we have owned the defeat of the LTTE, they would ensure that any future conflicts would be clean of violations of Human Rights. Two or more cultures without strong commitment to Equal Opportunity principles and values = conflict followed by separation. Understanding at surface level only = calculations through quick additions and deductions and therefore loss of opportunity towards exponential growth which produces more than we invested in the issue.