| by Bishop Duleep
de Chickera
( December 9,
2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The recent tensions in Jaffna between
university students and security personnel, in which a student protest was
baton charged, a journalist assaulted and some students arrested and detained,
centres around the freedom to remember the dead; whether loved ones, friends or
heroes.
It is reported
that the students lit lamps to remember the dead. In this act they participated
in a universal rite, practiced by billions over centuries in homes, cemeteries,
places of worship and places where death has occurred. While traditions differ,
the essence of the rite is remembrance and the symbolic recognition that the
enlightening memory of the dead dispels the darkness faced by those left
behind. To respect this rite is a sign of civilisation.
In most
societies, specially those which strive to rise from sectarian violence, those
commemorated by one group are likely to be considered the enemy by another. Our
society is no exception to this. But this does not mean that one has the right
to prevent the other from remembering the dead. Much more, when the one which
prevents is the State, and when it uses resources that are meant to protect its
citizens to suppress them instead, this type of behaviour becomes brazenly
discriminatory.
If, there were
security concerns that the students had transgressed the law, these should have
been investigated professionally with due regard to the same law and the very
sensitive distinction between the real and that which is perceived. The
seemingly impulsive and forceful reaction to the students’ desire to remember
the dead implies a serious lack of ability to make this crucial distinction.
This is not all
it implies. The use of force appears to have been motivated by a determination
to tame an already wounded minority and demonstrates impatience with the right
of communities to their respective interpretation of history. But most
seriously it revives the memory of the structural and visible violence
experienced by the Tamil Community, which lies entrenched within the collective
Tamil psyche and which can once again provoke fresh manifestations of violence
that nobody wants.
In fact these
incidents draw attention to the common sense proposal of the LLRC, appointed by
the President, calling for appropriate provision for thousands of Sri Lankans
affected by violence to be able to come to terms with their grief with dignity;
and to then begin the shift to a healing of memories leading to reconciliation.
That such an event has still not happened and that the rights of the people to
do so are prevented tells a much more tragic and disturbing story.
This is why the
recent Jaffna University incidents, the impeachment of the Chief Justice and
some deaths among rioting prisoners in Welikada should not to be seen as
sporadic, rash or clumsy mistakes. They are all pointers to an expanding type
of governance and a shrinking democratic space. This is also why, regardless of
how far north or south we or the other may be, we have to recognise that we are
our sisters’ and brothers’ keeper.
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