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| Certain lines have been opened, hearts open more reluctantly it seems. |
This was written one year after the military defeated the LTTE. It is perhaps an indictment of sorts that it is still relevant five years later. Or perhaps it takes longer than we think for certain kinds of wounds to heal.
It is barely one year since the historical trajectory of
this country took a sharp and decisive turn, i.e. the complete annihilation of
the LTTE leadership. Since then we’ve
had two major elections, one fiercely fought and the other hardly making any
ripples anywhere. We had what was dubbed
a ‘split among the nationalists’ (described as such by rabid federalists,
closet Eelamists and those with a long history of Sinhala-bashing and
Buddhist-bashing) when Gen (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka, arguably the most visible of
the many heroes associated with ‘turning the point’, challenging Mahinda
Rajapaksa (clearly a name that history will not ignore) to the Presidency.
When Prabhakaran perished in or around the Nandikadal lagoon
all peace-loving people in the country cheered. They were vilified for being
‘triumphalistic’ by those who clearly were unhappy about how that particular
Act of the Eelam drama ended (yes, it is not over it). I did not light crackers, but I was thrilled
because I felt more at ease as a parent and proud to be a citizen of a country
that had vanquished the greatest threat to democracy and civilization since ‘Independence ’.
Not everyone was happy of course. The Eelam boys and girls in the I/NGO circuit
changed their tune, trying to resurrect the Chelvanayagam doctrine (‘A little
now, more later’), urging the President to give what he has no mandate to give
(devolution beyond the 13th Amendment) in order to ‘address Tamil
grievances’ (read, ‘myths’). They were
careful not to describe these ‘grievances’ nor to draw logical lines from
grievance to their called-for ‘resolution’ (devolution), skirting around the
relevant historical (the ‘exclusive traditional homeland’ claim is full of
holes), demographic (at least 53% of Tamils live outside the North and East),
practical (some 64% of the budgets for Provincial Councils go to maintain
institution and personnel) and of course economic (‘devolution for development’
is now passé!) issues.
R. Sampanthan, a racist Tamil politician if ever there was
one, and a shameless puppet of V. Prabhakaran, has called on the Tamil people
to ‘mourn’ on May 18, 2010. Why
‘mourn’? Mourn what? The end of the war? We are not sure. Does he want suicide bombers roaming in Colombo ? Does he want to
risk what he has often described as a ‘racist Sinhala regime’ to react in
‘racist’, ‘extremist’ ways and thereby cause further suffering to the people he
claims to represent? How much blood is enough to satiate Sampanthan’s thirst,
we are forced to ask.
Isn’t Sampanthan, by ‘mourning’ Prabhakaran’s death (nothing
else happened of note on May 18th, 2009), essentially reiterating
endorsement of everything that ruthless terrorist did, lamenting the fact that
Tamil children are no longer being recruited for military purposes, sad that
Tamils civilians are not dying in the inevitable crossfire that is so much a
part of war, aggrieved that bombs are not going off in crowded places, school
buses, supermarkets etc? He is and
anyone else who wants to mourn the end of the LTTE essentially being nostalgic
about terrorism and wishing for another round of violence?
It is Sampanthan’s right to mourn whatever he wishes to
mourn. Let him mourn. Let him also remember that the hatred that he
is spewing will not produce happy outcomes for the Tamil people. Wallowing in
the blood-memory that describes the LTTE will not help them. There was heroism, yes, and this should not
be forgotten. Not by the Tamils or by
the Sinhalese. Heroism is ethnicity-free
and we can recognize this, we can all benefit.
But hatred is not healthy. It
breeds unwholesome things. It sidetracks
real issues. Just like the 13th
Amendment and the whole devolution whine.
It’s essentially a red herring that postpones acknowledgement of true
grievance and resolution for the same.
A year after, there are a lot of things to be happy
about. It is also a time to mourn, not
that which Sampanthan wants people to mourn, of course, but other things. We mourn the fact that we lost close to a
hundred thousand of our fellow-citizens, among them many who would have helped
make us a better, stronger and more benevolent nation. We lost children, we lost hospitals and
schools, lost infrastructure and livelihoods. The nation was dented in many
ways. We bled. We are poorer, whichever way we want to look at it. Yes, we lost something of our humanity and it
will take a long time for us to recover and move forward.
We ended a 30 year war. That is the consolation. We proved
that we are in the end a we-can nation, a we-can people. We proved we are
resilient. We have to show now that we
are also a ‘forgive, forget and move-on’ nation, a ‘put-the-past-behind-us’ people. One year later we are not close to a healing
embrace but neither has that ‘option’ being deleted from the universe of the
possible.
The Tamil people will have to come to terms with who they
are, what their self-appointed representatives want them to be, the blood with
which their ethnic signature was tainted (or embellished, if they want to see
it that way) etc. So too the
Sinhalese. Wars are not pretty things
but they can be unnecessarily ugly.
There was heroism and sacrifice and there were terrible decisions and
barbarism as well. We are all
tainted.
We need to be angry with one another if not for anything, to
get the anger out of our respective systems.
But if we are made of anger and anger alone, then we are doomed as a
nation.
One year later, we have secured a magnificent victory. It is
called ‘tomorrow’. Not a ‘tomorrow’ of
triumphalism but a tomorrow of going beyond unwholesome attachment to identity
and a search for the commonalities that made for the full flowering of
citizenships, citizenry and civilization.
One year later, as we remember all the heroes, let us
remember, I repeat, that heroism does not have an ethnic identity. Courage is language-free. Sacrifice is a death mourned by parent,
child, lover and death. Grief is a tear that does not have signature.
I am hopeful.
Malinda Seneviratne is
the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com
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