| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
( March 0, 2013, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) I write in response to the Sri Lanka Guardian article ‘One voice of Sri Lanka’ by Victor Cherubim
Victor’s opening statement is ‘People with a sense of pride in one’s nation of birth will understand that nobody respects a refugee, a recluse or a recalcitrant. Identity is an essence of belonging, either to a nation, a culture or a civilisation’
Taken at face value, this means that all migrants who came to the U.K. as refugees are second class citizens. This is not the case. This is usually the case with majority seniors in a particular area. But not, as Victor states, with all of them. It is also not left in real terms to the senior to respect the junior. What matters most is how we respect ourselves. If we give in to unjust discrimination by our seniors then we are likely to discriminate unjustly against our juniors. But those of us who standup through Due Processes to establish our Equality / Commonness – make powerful contributions to globalization. This naturally empowers the nation through whose system we do so – in my case Australia and Sri Lanka in that order. Towards this, we need to feel part of the system/nation through which we are making the accusation. It is wrong to mentally live in British culture and judge Sri Lanka through Sri Lankan eyes – for or against. If we are British in real terms – then we must judge through objectively measurable global standards. If we feel Sri Lankan – then we are entitled to use our subjective powers as Sri Lankans but we must not use our British status or titles / uniforms when going through the analyses. Once judgment is delivered by us we need to not use those findings except through the Objective path, as outsiders to Sri Lankans to empower external governments - including the governments of our new migrant countries. We could use the power of that work but the form of our presentation needs to flow from objectively measurable outcomes delivered for common use by all investors. Hence unless Human Rights organizations are able to use the objective path – their judgments are highly subjective. To the extent the Sri Lankan Government used subjective influence to demote the global status of Tamils, it would naturally be affected by the return of that subjective judgment by those who abused it against Tamils.
Victor states ‘According to many people in Sri Lanka, the perception is “we often hear people talking about Human Rights, but we never really know what they mean.”.
If you asked senior Australian migrants who in their lifetime did not experience strong difficulties as minorities – they also would come out with similar expressions. Young ones would narrate their knowledge of Human Rights. Only a few would have had the experience of pain due to breach of what they believe to be Human Rights . Only a fraction of those who have experienced that pain would have the wisdom to give their pain and loss the appropriate form. In terms of form itself – like with various currencies – Human Rights of one nation would look different to human rights of another. There are basic rights that are globally common to all human beings. At the primary level this usually is to treat human beings like animals for no logical reason at all. At the Tertiary/Global level it is to deny a human the right to govern her/himself. In Australia this happened to me through breach of Equal Opportunity principles at the higher level of management and self governance. But most Tamils of Sri Lankan origin did not consider it to be a breach of Human Right. To me Equal Opportunity as a migrant is a breach of human right in Australia and in any country which enjoys global status as a democratic country.
It is not so easy to determine what constitutes breach in a particular area that is multicultural. In monocultural areas it is more easily identifiable through majority vote. Likewise within monocultural families and institutions. But that value as it is would not extend to the wider world. The way the dollar cannot be equalized to the rupee – the form of human rights and therefore their breaches cannot be equalized directly – from the USA to Sri Lanka.
Victor confirms this by saying ‘It is abundantly clear that there is a provocation to bring Sri Lanka to account, perhaps to use a small nation to teach others a lesson or two. For once our politicians have come to realise that they are running on parallel lines of communication, with the world at large.’
Victor goes on to elaborate as follows - ‘We see this in the way we presented our case at Geneva. We had our Foreign External Office sending variable message systems (VSM’s) to our Permanent Delegation in Geneva. We had reports in the media that Sri Lanka will decide whether it will decide to call for a vote on the procedural resolution brought by the United States. Hardly did they or we realise that we were on the dock, unable being a non member of this august body to call for anything.’
Well, the Sri Lankan Government was not alone in that kind of experience. Tamil leaders have also gone through such experiences due to their inability to influence the Government of Sri Lanka subjectively. Sri Lankan Government was trying to influence the UN body subjectively – the same way it successfully influenced the UN to list the LTTE as Terrorists – without demonstrating concern for the loss of status for Tamils as a Community. Hence their own karma came back to them. It did not matter whether they felt the concern or not. But as the Government they had the basic responsibility to Tamils as a Community to show concern through common forums.
Victor states in relation to Human Rights as per Buddhist form ‘According to our way of life, our Buddhist principles and our culture, we have come out of a near thirty year intolerable war and we need time to put our house in order, with so much left undone. To allow our lives to be controlled by the outside world, with way of governance alien to our customs and traditions, will neither change much from the wounds of war, or accelerate our return to our traditional and truly democratic way of life.’
Human Rights as per Buddhist culture would look different to Human Rights as per Hindu, Muslim or Christian culture. This has been confirmed yet again through the Halal issue. Those who claim to seek the solution through their own culture need to ensure that other distinctly identifiable cultures as per the category of faith chosen – in this instance – religion – are also facilitated to find their own solutions through their own cultural paths. In Sri Lanka – this is mandatory as per the Constitution. It’s the privacy needed by a community – the same way a country needs its privacy. Hence the right to sovereignty. When Sri Lanka respects and values this ‘community privacy’ needed by various ethnic communities under its governance – it would have earned the right to such privacy from all global governments. The rest would be temporary even if that privacy is apparent to the outsider. Such strength would not come from within and therefore would groom takeovers rather than mergers. This as indicated by Victor is a strong risk faced by Sri Lanka including by the Tamil Community being taken over by Tamil Nadu.
As it is we are blaming each other for the war rather than looking at it together objectively through the outcomes which give a picture of majority damage having been suffered by the Tamil Community. As stated above – the side that suffers more for no logical or apparent reason has the right to identify the form in which it believes human rights were breached in its Natural territory. Where man is not able to manage through common causes – one works backwards from outcomes to find the natural causes.
We could start off with the common principles on the basis of particular ‘cause’ and do the right and wrong calculations according to that cause/law/principle. If there is no agreement on which ‘cause’ is most appropriate for the purpose of allocating rights and wrongs – we have to work backwards from outcomes – objectively measurable outcomes. If the objectively measurable outcomes show a distinct pattern of one group suffering more than another – then the group that has endured greater suffering has the right to lead the inward search as to the cause – as per its belief. The path along which this happens needs to be transparent so that all concerned could derive their own values from such work. At the global level – the more active players would derive the values needed by them to keep their leadership roles active. This may not coincide with the value needed by the Sri Lankan Government – which has the primary responsibility to manage internally – to keep the existing internal harmony going and develop further with that as the foundation.
To the extent the Sri Lankan Government made out that it was doing a service to the whole world – it elevated itself to the level of these apparent global leaders. Now when called to deliver as per that status – it is struggling. Karma never fails.
 I write in response to the Sri Lanka Guardian article...){kind=link}