He was
at one time the foremost Tamil leader espousing the Eelam cause, a man who
fired the separatist imagination of a generation of Tamil youth, a man who went
from being referred to ‘Thalapathy’ (Commander/General) by admiring supporters
to ‘Thurogi’ (traitor) by the very same one-time admirers and later killed by
forces he himself unleashed. He was assassinated
on July 13, 1989. Only the inimitable
D.B.S. Jeyaraj, provider of the above information, remembered the 25th
anniversary of his assassination.
Everyone else forgot ‘Thalapathy’.
‘July
1983’ or ‘Black July’, a part product of the communalist politics that the
likes of Amirthalingam indulged in and benefited from, is annually commemorated
on the other hand. There’s politics and
commerce in commemoration. Chandragupta
Thenuwara, for example, gets mileage for his ‘art’, claiming unending trauma
associated with July 1983, a kind of angst that did not touch him in the far
more brutal and mindless violence at the end of the same decade.
‘Black
July’ is also a frequent referent used by those concerned with (obsessed by?) peace,
conflict-resolution, reconciliation and other such processes/concepts that have
currency in the ‘free’ market of ‘activism’.
The NGO-economy has thrived and the money that has propped it does not
and will not come agenda-free. ‘No More
July’ is therefore an assured fund-bringer in the political economy of
commemoration.
Let’s
not get confused here. July 1983
happened. It should not happen
again. Not to anyone. To the extent that commemoration reminds,
warns and insures against reenactment, it is certainly a useful exercise,
dampened only by the not so innocent politics of the commemorators and other
profiteers.
This side of the positives,
looking back, is an issue which is less colorful and hopeful than what the
kites, lamps, candles and other commemorative frills exude. Let us call it the underside of ‘Black July’.
It’s
more than 30 years since ‘Black July’. Rarely
have those who consider the Sinhalese (and of course Sinhala-Buddhists) as
villains (for whatever reason) failed to tag the entire community to that
violent political moment and the blame-game pertaining to it. The politics of commemoration and reminder have
gone beyond the blaming, in both intent and effect. ‘July 83 PLUS’ (shall we call it?), that is a
moment and violence blamed on all Sinhalese (‘anti-Tamil pogram’ implies
unanimous intent and involvement by the communal other, the Sinhalese), was thrown
in the face of every Sinhalese who thought fit to object to Tamil
Nationalism/Separatism in any of its many ideological forms and concrete
articulations including assassinations, explosion of bombs and other acts of
terrorism.
There
was a time when affirmation of identity was denied to the Sinhalese and
Buddhists through instilled fear of vilification. Instead they were required to affirm and
champion a ‘Sri Lankan identity’ even as identity was not only the flagship
political of other communities but was affirmed by gun, bullet and bomb. Proxies of that kind of politics included a
deliberate vilification of any political position that championed the unitary
state. The Sinhalese, by being
constantly reminded of ‘Black July’ were duly ‘guilted’ into ideological
silence. Communal projects of other
groups had a field day throughout the nineties and in the first few years of
the new millennium.
So who
benefitted? Certainly not Appapillai
Amirthalingam, Vettivelu Yogeswaran, his wife
Sarojini or the many Tamil politicians who planted and watered the communalist
seeds in Tamil youth. Extremism was
empowered and one reason is probably the fact that objection from Sinhalese was
muffled or stifled. That empowerment
effectively robbed voice of those who advocated saner and in hindsight more
pragmatic courses of action. Extremism
had a good run, but in the end the entire Tamil community suffered the kinds of
violence that put ‘Black July’ to shame.
Abduction of children, hostage-taking, the obvious depravations of armed
conflict, assassination, infighting among Tamil groups, you name it, it was the
Tamils who lost most and not at the hands of the so-called ‘Sinhala Buddhist
State’ alone. In short everyone lost.
We are not done with commemoration politics, it seems. ‘Black July’ was resurrected when ‘Alutgama’
happened. There’s logic to it that goes
beyond narrow communal politics and the by now old and boring vilification of Sinhalese
and Buddhists. Few wanted an ‘Alutgama’.
Few want another Black July. But
there was over simplification, wild extrapolation and veiled and direct
vilification that did not and will not help the cause of national unity. Lost in ‘Alutgama’ was ‘Welipenna’. That’s not an accident. That’s political.
If the politics of reminding forced Sinhala objectors to
Tamil chauvinism, separatism and extremism to preface statement with apology
and solemn vow not to let Black July happen again, today those who have
ideological issues with certain extremist Muslim political positions or even
justifiable anxieties of intense identity assertion by that community are
forced to first back-foot themselves, apologize on behalf of extremists and for
violence they unleashed. It’s post-Black
July all over again, one might say.
There is danger in silencing through vilification. There is danger in taking the majority
community out of the equation of identity politics. It will not affect those
who are ideologically predisposed to vilify the Sinhalese and Buddhists, among
them of course agents of destabilization located strategically in NGOs with
fairytale names, adherents of other faiths operating under the cover of
‘secularization politics’ and thereby winning space for cultural erasure and
other kinds of body blows that make control easier. But it will impact the very same communities
in whose name and in whose ‘defense’ this silencing is attempted.
Today, no one talks about the critical role played by thugs
who were part of the then ruling party’s trade union, the JSS in ‘Black
July’. There may very well come a
‘tomorrow’ when few remember the BBS and ‘Rev’ Gnanasara. There is many a Black July waiting to happen.
Theoretically there can be any number of ‘Nandikadaals’ too. Between these, there’s only one thing
possible: tragedy. For all.
See also: