New Year Togetherness

| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

( April 14, 2014, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Today is New Year in Common to Sri Lankan Buddhists and Hindus. When the time at which we celebrate tradition is Common to two or more cultures – we naturally come together. That togetherness happens naturally. Even when we blame each other – at the same time – so long as we blame naturally - we become common through a common purpose. It’s a kind of memorial value. If however, we find fault or even praise at a particular time – for some selfish reasons – it has negative value.

I believe that each one suffers as per their own depth of investment in human civilization. Those who invest at the deepest levels – would find their peace through the Truth they know within. When majority of us do this by limiting ourselves to earned areas – there is already harmony towards realizing peace. Along with your email came another – calling me a mad woman who is an agent of the Sinhala State. These are realities that we Tamils face and only when we have the courage to renounce our earned positions and opportunities with those groups are we able to absorb the pain from those insults. Often though when we come into the common forum – which by nature would be of majority Sinhalese – we have the requirement to maintain our Equal status – on behalf of the minorities we represent. This is often achieved through investments in higher structures – such as Administrative structures. That was how I believe we were able to maintain harmony. But the moment we sought to be relaxed like the majority – we lost that advantage in our own minds and became the minority power by default. Until Tamils invest more in Higher Education and higher Administrative structures to balance the power of the majority – we would continue to have problems under One state. This is the preferred path - given that we are not a large country. Otherwise – we would need to devolve and live in our own local areas - as in India. As per my life, I believe that we can make it work by investing more in higher education than we are doing now. To us – the real investors - the motive ought to be for higher common thinking and not for business purposes.

In essence, those Tamils who are not able to ‘include’ Sinhalese and v.v. – do not have power in common areas due to lack of height of their local structures. They certainly need devolution/separation to live in harmony - wherever they are. But that structure would not be as high as the common structure.

Those who exclude habitually, end up developing ‘ghetto’ mentality – to become like the very opposition they keep blaming. That is the natural punishment for imagining and expressing authority that they do not have. The higher the social status of the perpetrator is the greater the accumulation of such negative energy towards oneself and one’s own group. This is already happening on both sides of the ethnic border in relation to Sri Lanka.