Two hundred and five Tamil Christian
priests in the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka including Bishop
Rayappu Joseph have written to the members of the United Nations Human Rights
Council (UNHRC) asking for a so called international investigation on war
crimes and human rights violation. It is not my intention to analyse the
contents of the letter by the priests though invariably I will have to refer to
some of its parts. What is important is that we are in the process of creating
history and nobody can claim that the existing situation and conditions, should
be maintained in the future as well. The present is just another moment and
unlike the postmodernists who give much importance to the present, as far as
Buddhists are concerned everything is anicca, and present has no significance
over the pasts which had been present at sometime in the history. The pasts are
also important in creating histories. It is impossible to forget the pasts that
have led to the presents as seen b y different people and different groups
including ethnic or religious.
The problem with history as in other
fields is that there are many histories (not versions of history) and it is not
possible to come out with an objective history. If there is no objective
physics then the problem of finding an objective history is much acute.
However, when there are histories the method of deciding which history is to be
accepted is not by applying so called reason but by applying force in almost
all the cases. It is well and good if the decision can be made through
reasoning but it does not happen even in physics. As Max Planck who gave the
idea of Quantum in the modern sense to the world has observed physicists agree
on new ideas not by resorting to reason or to so called empirical evidence but
by the older generation passing away. In Physics the physicists do not kill
each other but the new generation waits for the older generation to disappear
naturally.
I am not an advocate of war but
unfortunately history (not in an objective sense) is made by force. We have
what is known as the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka but this is not a problem
identified by all the parties (stakeholders) the same way, and in that sense
there are many Tamil problems. The Tamils identify the problem as that of
discrimination of Tamils by the Sinhalas, especially the Sinhala Buddhists and
their so called Sinhala governments, but the Sinhalas do not agree with that.
The Sinhalas have different Tamil problems and one of the problems formulated
is that the Tamils are being used by the westerners to weaken if not destroy
the Sinhala Buddhist way of living or in one word the culture, and of course
the Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya. I do not want to justify my claim here but it
is doubtful that the Tamil Christian priests who signed the letter will agree
with me on most of the things I have said in these columns.
My contention is that there is no so
called international community but what goes by that name is only a bogus international community of
western countries and the westerners pretend to be the international community
not through any reason (the so called age of reason in European history written
by Europeans is nothing but humbug, which we also had to learn at school) but
by the sheer force of media and other instruments including the hegemony of
western knowledge, and there are international communities and not one
international community as such. The bogus international community or the
western international community is the Godfather, in many senses of the word,
of Tamil racism and I am not surprised by the letter of the Tamil priests to
their Godfather in the west. Incidentally we are told that all of us are
children of God and in the case of Christian priests it should be “more open
than usual”, as stated in a plaque in Peradeniya when the university was opened
by a member of the English Royal family. However, it appears that the Godfather
is very much different from the God and the former distinguishes
(discriminates) between Tamils and Sinhalas and also Christians and Buddhists.
I hope the Bhikkus would not write to the Godfather, but if they decide to
write asking him not to hold a so called international investigation would it
reach the Godmother, I am not referring to Navi Pillai, let alone the
Godfather. The Sinhalas especially the Sinhala Buddhists know that the
Godfather is biased, and any so called international investigation conducted
with his blessings would end up with the prosecutor becoming the judge ( naduth
hamuduruwange baduth hamuduruwange situation). The vast majority of Sinhala
Buddhists, except perhaps those who have been conditioned incorrigibly by the
English education they received irrespective of the medium of instruction,
oppose a so called international investigation. The verdict of such an
investigation has already been written as in the case of reports by Navi Pillai
and others who come to study the problem and report to the west.
The histories of the Sinhalas and
Tamils, which are processes, have been competing with each other at least from
the end of the nineteenth century, and as there was no agreement between them, had
to be finally decided with arms. Prabhkaran, with the aid of the west and India
took up arms in order to settle the issue in “war”. Of course, the west
pretended to be angels of peace and wanted the Sinhalas and the Tamils to
negotiate, however under the auspices of the Godfather. Solheim and others represented
the Godfather, and the intention was clear. It was to make the present created
by the Godfather in the past, the future as well. In other words the intention
was the establishment of an Eelam, and
as we understand today a greater Eelam consisting of Tamil Nadu and the
Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka. The Godfather failed, and the
LTTE, the agent was defeated in Nandikadal. If it was a mere struggle between
the Sinhala opinion and the Tamil opinion it would have ended in the Nandikadal
lagoon as in the case of many “wars” in the histories.
It was not to be so, and in spite of the
defeat in the Nandikadal lagoon Tamil racism is still alive and kicking hard.
It at least convinces most of the Sinhalas that the so called Tamil struggle is
not confined to the Tamils only. As we have said the Tamil problem was created,
nurtured and maintained by the west (mainly England), and the latter will make
sure that the problem will continue to be with us for some time. If the Nazis
had similar Godfathers the so called second world war would have never ended.
The Tamil priests have the following to
say in their letter to the Godfather. “At the same
time, we are concerned about the post war intensification of systematic efforts
to destroy the identity of the Tamil community. This is particularly so by
grabbing land for military establishments, development projects and government
organized settlement of Sinhalese in the North and East, where Tamils have
historically been the majority. The imposition of majority Sinhalese language
and majority Buddhist religion in the North and East is another indication of
attempts to destroy our identity. There has been no genuine political process
to address the root causes of the conflict, which are being aggravated. Thus,
there is a need for the international community, through the UN, to find
creative ways of assisting Tamils to live in dignity as a nation.”
I have several questions to
ask the Tamil priests, and following are just a few of them. Who settled the
Tamils in the present Northern and Eastern Provinces and when was it done? How
did they become the majority in the Northern Province (they are not in the
Eastern Province, even if we go by the demarcation into provinces by the
English) as the Portuguese tell us that the Sinhalas were the majority in the
North when they arrived? How old is the Tamil identity and the Christian
identity in Jaffna? What happened to the Buddhist identity in the North? Who
destroyed it? Why are the Tamil Christian priests interested in maintaining one
present and not the other presents in the histories? Why do the Tamil Christian
priests want to maintain the present created by the Dutch and the English?
Nalin De Silva
05-03-2014