Sri Lankan Tamils and the
Col. Karuna paradigm (2006->)
C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B.,
Ph.D.
American presidential election (2008) and the American First Lady (1861-65)
Two Tamil Websites-"conservative Tamils for McCain" and "progressive
Tamils for Obama"-created by a group of Tamils living in Los Angeles,
California, just a few weeks before the November 4th U.S. Presidential
Election reminds one of the story behind Mary Todd Lincoln. As a young
girl she dreamt that one day she would become the First Lady of America.
Circumstances brought her in to a fortunate position of being able to
"date" both Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln who became
the rival candidates at the Presidential election in 1860. One of the
men lost the election but Mary Todd won her dream. Similarly, the same
Tamil group created two opposing websites so that they will finally
win while either Obama or McCain will lose!
The problem however is that the message in both websites is the same-there
is Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka and America should force the Bosnian
(Kosovo?) model on the Sri Lankan government. Other than Vaiko, Nedumaran
or Ramdoss in Tamil Nadu, the only person in U.S.A to act behind this
genocide story is the American lawyer Bruce Fein, who recently challenged,
of all the people, Dr. Subramanian Swamy, the co-founder of India's
Janata Party and a former Indian Union Minister for Commerce, Law and
Justice, for a BBC-sponsored public debate on Swamy's denial that there
is Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka (www.tamilcanadian.com, 10/30/2008).
The same Tamil group who are behind the Tamils against genocide.org
Website pays Fein a monthly fee of $40,000.00 for such utterances. Just
24 hours before the presidential election I thought of writing this
essay because even Nobel Prize winners (e.g., President Carter and Archbishop
Tutu) can get carried away when hear the word "genocide."
The Genocide story in America ended in 1984
This genocide song of Los Angeles Tamils, Vaiko and Bruce Fein was
put to rest in America as far back as in August 1984. I quote below
from the Report titled, "The Human Rights Implications of the Sinhalese-Tamil
Conflict in Sri Lanka, Hearing before the Subcommittees of Human Rights
and International Organizations and on Asian and Pacific Affairs of
the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 98 Congress,
August 2, 1984, pages 66-67,
"Mr. Torricelli (New Jersey): Ms. Young (Amy Young, the Executive
Director, International Human Rights Law Group who submitted a prepared
statement on Sri Lanka), like everybody here on the committee, I too
was troubled to hear of the abuses of people's liberties. But shouldn't
we put this in context? Shouldn't we recognize that while there may
or may not be police brutality the chief of police happens to be a Tamil.
That while laws may or may not be exercised properly, the Attorney General
is a Tamil? The commands may or may not be coming down from the Attorney
General, four of his deputies are Tamils? That while justice may or
may not prevail on the island the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
is a Tamil?
It is not that your case is not an important one. But I was thinking
of the credibility that Martin Luther King would have had if George
Wallace had been black (KKK-supporting white Governor of Albama who
later in his life became a savior of Blacks).
It is a relevant point, I think. I would appreciate your comments.
Do you think my characterization is unfair [?].
Ms. Young: No; I certainly think that your characterization of that
is accurate. There are many Tamils in very high places throughout the
Government...."
Unlike the city of Berlin in the 1930s, two-thirds of the population
in Colombo is Tamil or Muslim and more Tamils live in the Sinhala south
than in the "mythical Tamil Homeland in the North and East."
After the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Tamil terrorists in Jaffna
and Kilinochchi what is happening in the pure-Tamil terrorist region
is amazing. Tamils in the pure Tamil North are risking their lives to
escape and to go to live in the south with the Sinhalese! To add to
Mr. Torricelli's (New Jersey) observations in 1983, the IGP of Sri Lanka
and the four DIGs were Tamils!
Genocide story in Sri Lanka ended as R2P
No Tamil living in Sri Lanka talks about a genocide. Instead, what
we see is the Colombo-living, 99.9% Christian-dominated NGO agents propagating
the idea that Sri Lanka is an "abusive" state and that the
human rights violations make it a "failed state" requiring
UN intervention. It must be emphasized that this essay is not against
Christians in general. Poor Christians living in villages and remote
towns are different from the establishment Colombo-based NGO Christians.
With the "war is not winnable" theory getting out of place
"people are losing their human rights" has become the new
slogan. Some think that the EU should punish Sri Lanka for this offence
by withdrawing the preferential tax benefit given to the textile industry.
Others think that the war against Prabakaran should be stopped to prevent
the army violating the human rights of Tamils trapped as human shields.
With Anandasangaree demanding Prabakaran to let Tamils leave the Wanni
and Douglas Devananda, Chief Minister "Pillian," and Col.
Karuna desiring the end of Prabakaran era, anti-Sri Lankan lobby in
Colombo are struck in the mud, unable to proceed. What we hear is the
lonely voice of a person like professor Rajan Hoole who is in exile
in New York, who has finally decided to blame Prabakaran for his crimes
against Tamils, helplessly appealing India to intervene with a "solution"
and the Tamil Net Website wants a solution beyond the "rotten 13th
Amendment" (11/4/2008)
Political solution vs. Military solution
The former President of India Dr. Abdul Kalam, who previously served
as science advisor to the government of India and who has a Muslim-Tamil
parentage once said that the solution to world's problems lies in Buddhism.
Obama who has a Buddhist half-sister could benefit from the Buddhist
approach in not getting in to a new Afghanistan military debacle, my
only disagreement with him on his otherwise acceptable rescue plan for
American salvation. He cannot be a Ralph Nader in a two-party democracy.
Since the November 2005 Presidential Election Sri Lanka has been demonstrating
to the world that the kind of Buddhist politics that Abdul Kalam was
preaching has worked. The evidence is already there for the world to
see that the politics of Buddhist Middle Path is working in Sri Lanka
with a two-prone approach-promoting democracy, liberty and peace in
the liberated areas on one hand and bombing the bunkers in the land
"given" to the terrorists under the CFA of 2002 on the other.
While keeping strict silence when Prabakaran kills civilians, the American
ambassador Robert Blake who is crisscrossing Sri Lanka with a smiling
face plus pockets full of dollar bills gives a strange reason to stop
the war. He says a thousand Tamil terrorists will disappear into the
jungles unless a political solution is found! Why are people like Blake,
Hoole or some UK MPs blind to the political solution already at work
in Sri Lanka? They are blind because knowingly or unknowingly they operate
under the Chelvanayagam-Ponnambalam separatist paradigm that destroyed
Sri Lanka for 70-80 years. They do not want to see the solutions taking
place under the new Karuna paradigm which began in 2006.
Separatist paradigm of SJV Chelvanayagam
The late Mahanayaka Thero, Balangoda Anandamaitreeya once said "if
Sir D. B. Jayatileka became the first prime minister of Ceylon, the
island's history and fate would have been different." The colonial
master did not want DBJ in Ceylon just like prior to DBJ the colonial
master and the Colombo black-whites got rid of the Anagarika Dharmapala,
forcing him to migrate to India (in fact they tried this trick on SWRD
offering him ambassador job in India). When one looks at these incidents
now in 2008, it is clear that Sri Lankan politics was controlled by
the Tamil separatist paradigm from the 1920s to 2005. The black-white
ruling families in Sri Lanka included the Colombo-living English-speaking
politicians of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim origin as well as the Marxists
who started their long journey of Bangaweva (destruction) operations
in 1935.
From 1832-1931 these black-whites thrived under the colonial patronage
based on "communal representation." Around 1920 with winds
of liberal democracy blowing out from London the colonial masters in
London directed the colonial Governor in Colombo to follow a shift toward
"territorial representation." In India, the colonial policy
from the beginning was for a "two-India solution." Tamil Nad's
Marxist-bent Tamils (then Madras Province) wanted it to be a three-India
solution with a big Dravidasthan. Influenced by these Indian approaches,
Colombo Tamil black-whites thought that they can have a Tamil country
in the island, if they cannot maintain their superiority status in Colombo.
In fact Sinhala and Tamil Colombo black-whites agreed to a secret formula
of this sort in 1923-24 with the active support of the Governor who
secretly promoted Sinhala-Tamil rivalry (divide-and-rule)!
British Commissioners who came from London rejected such plans twice
in 1928 and 1943. They rejected allegations of discrimination made by
Colombo-Tamil Christian politician GG Ponnambalam. The Sinhala masses
were surprised by these allegations. The black-white Colombo-living,
mostly Christian Sinhala politicians, however, succumbed to this allegation
because there was no organized indigenous non-English-speaking, non-Colombo
leadership in national politics. In 1956 there was an opportunity but
black-white control was so over-powering that the experiment died after
1959, and ever since family politics of half-baked ethnic majority agents
messed up the island. These ethnic-majority Colombo rulers with heavy
Christian domination (60% of the cabinet was Christian in 2000) humiliated
Sinhala Buddhist masses so much until an ordinary monk rose up to the
challenge and resurrected the dignity of the Sinhala-Buddhists until
his tragic death in Russia in December 2003. It was the late Ven. Soma
who supplied the political capital and fuel for Mahinda R to win the
2005 election on a "protect the motherland platform."
From 1931-2006 the Colombo black-whites did nothing to come out of
the Colombo-centered socio-economic thinking and increasingly came under
the control of the behavior of two Tamil separatists operating from
Colombo, GGP and SJVC, another Christian. No sane Sinhala leader can
agree to give up land rights to a group who fought for a mythical Tamil
homeland like what was proposed by the B-C (1958) and D-C (1966) Pacts.
God Vishnu protected Sri Lanka from such deals just like the army prevented
two other humiliating Pacts-JRJ's surrender to RajivG (1987) and the
nefarious CFA (2002). Because of this mental problem these two groups
of western-oriented Colombo politicians plus their English-speaking
Marxist "opponents" and the black-white CCS cadre, the freedom
granted in 1948 became not a freedom for the masses but an opportunity
for a paradigm of milk and honey to Colombo rich and forage to the village
poor. In 1971, JVP rebellion gave them a signal but Colombo elites got
really scared only after the 1990s when they found black cats were waiting
for their cars with bombs and guns.
The two sides of Colombo-living mostly Christian and English-speaking
Tamil and Sinhala ruling elites did not want the power of English removed
despite the fact that after 150 years only about 7% of the people spoke
it. They therefore, converted the Swabhasa movement into a Sinhala-Tamil
conflict. Anything done by the government to remove or correct injustices
perpetrated on the majority Sinhala people during the colonial time
was interpreted by SJVC as another step of "Sinhalization."
In 1949, SJVC formed the Tamil State party and after the Bangladesh
intervention by India he entertained high hopes of a separate country
in the island. As preparation for this eventuality SJVC fabricated a
myth called the traditional Tamil homeland in the Eastern Province.
Political solution - the Karuna paradigm
The Karuna paradigm discards separatist and racist Tamil politics.
It promotes territorial politics of socio-economic development. It rejects
language-based way of looking at others. It is a democratic way of presenting
the JVP demands of 1971. "Give us what Colombo gets" is the
Karuna paradigm. Col. Karuna first expressed this reasonable, language-blind
demand in 2006. He has further refined this now in 2008 after he became
an MP. He has set an example by deciding to learn Sinhala. His learning
Sinhala will help him and not the Sinhala language. But the separatist
Colombo Tamil politicians like SJVC and GGP got their children to learn
Sinhala and prevented the poor Jaffna Tamils learning Sinhala which
would have allowed them in getting jobs in Colombo. More importantly,
Karuna said police power is not essential in implementing the 13th Amendment.
This would make ministers Rajitha Senaratna and Tissa Vitharana look
ugly and disloyal to Sri Lanka for trying to create a crisis by dragging
police and land powers as life-blood of 13A devolution. Since the Karuna
paradigm has discarded the traditional Tamil homelands in the East myth
of SJVC, Marxist and black-white rabble rousers in Colombo and on the
APRC will have no strings to hang on to. They are like the proverbial
cat on a rock!
Karuna paradigm is Mahinda Chinthanaya
The Mahinda Chinthanaya (MC) presents a plan of action to empower people
at the village level. Thus, it rejects the Colombo paradigm of the Colombo
class. People can achieve their aspirations only if they are empowered
at the lowest political unit possible. This is the crisis and truth
that the liberal or capitalist democracies all over the world are learning
the hard way. Any other arrangement of devolution is nothing but allowing
a new set of politicians to exploit the masses. Was this not what had
happened with the white elephant called Provincial Councils in Sri Lanka?
We have now hundreds of new provincial crooks added to the list of Colombo
crooks.
Steps taken under the MC to go to village level is how Col. Karuna's
reasonable demand of "Give us what Colombo gets" is being
implemented not only in the East but in all parts of Sri Lanka. It helps
Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala villages. In those villages where the population
is mixed no one particular ethnic group will be a threat to other ethnic
group/s because a village is a small spatial unit. On the other hand
in Tamil majority areas Tamil villages can work together and achieve
economies of scale at the district level. Even though the achievement
"aspirations" is a private affair still there is a possibility
for expressing unique ethnic values at the district level without creating
fear in the minds of other ethnic groups (because in public sphere aspirations
is a highly subjective topic). Thus, achieving aspirations is not limited
to Tamils in living in Colombo (take the case of GGPonnambalam, his
son KumarP or grandson GajendranP) but opens paths for poor Tamils in
remote Tamil villages.
Karuna paradigm is Buddhist Middle Path
Mahinda Chinthanaya is based on Buddhist ethics of the Middle Path
which means reasonableness and compromise. When one compares the Karuna
paradigm with the Tamil separatist paradigm of SJVC and GGP, it is based
on reasonableness and compromise. It is this reasonableness that the
Army Commander Sarath Fonseka was trying to define. The only real estate
in the world for the Sinhalese is the tiny island of Sri Lanka. Minorities
should not ask unreasonable things just like the majority should not
create an unreasonable environment for the minorities. For example,
it was grossly unfair to reply in Sinhala to a letter received in a
government office in Tamil. On the other hand, if a Tamil medical doctor
wants a job in the south he cannot expect his patients to speak English
or Tamil. In the past there were Tamil IGPs and Tamil CJs, when the
poison of racist hatred is gone there will be no problem of police powers.
It was the 1962 police and navy Christian-Tamil coup which resulted
in the Sinhala domination of the police and the armed forces. Col. Karuna
has understood this reality and that is why he is not going to put the
cart before the horse by demanding police powers. Another aspect of
this compromise is the learning of Tamil and Sinhala by Tamil and Sinhala
children. This means that after 20 years language will not become a
subject of racist division.
Karuna paradigm and the Indian Panchyathi Raj Institutes
Indian politicians understood the hard way that language-based devolution
of state power did not help India to overcome poverty and misery of
the masses in India. Language based state demarcation implemented in
1956 took India on a path of racial and language war with serious threat
to Indian democracy. Indian army is on a daily fight with language-based
separatists now in 2008. This is why after 40 years of paying lip service
in 1993 Panchayathi Raj Institutes became the latest solution to the
question of empowering Indian villagers. People working at village-level
do not think of using racism as a method of survival like the way politicians
do from big cities away from the farms. Col. Karuna says he wants village
level development and what better way to do it than the village council-town
council system in Sri Lanka? Actually, each Grama Sevaka Division could
be the lowest spatial unit of people empowerment.
Karuna paradigm and the Ecological trinity in Sri Lanka
What is the most ecologically viable spatial unit for economic development
activities? New Zealand selected river basins as the basis for its local
administrative regions. In India Panchayath are based on village units
(if five people agree, then God is there), but in Sri Lanka for more
than two thousand years the village-level spatial unit was based on
hydrology. A village was centered on two other things, a temple (or
Kovil) and a water tank (or a river or Oya). Village-water tank- temple
(Kovil/mosque) was the socio-economic trinity of Sri Lanka and ethnic
communities have lived in peace and harmony in such environment. If
Colombo-Christian-based APRC officers, marginalized Marxists, and mostly
Christian NGO agents allow the Karuna paradigm to take roots without
spoiling it with Indian F solution or 13A Plus interjections, Sri Lanka
can become a paradise of the East (again). If new persons (replacing
the old crowd of SJVC, GGP and Kumar P) like Mano Ganeshan wants real
devolution which is empowerment of Tamil villagers, he should think
about the wisdom of Col. Karuna in finally putting to rest the death-seeking
SJVC paradigm. SJVC, who was once identified as the Moses of Ceylon
delivered death to thousands by advocating fight to death slogan in
the last days of his long life.
Bruce Fein and Buddhism
The late professor of Buddhist Philosophy W. S. Karunaratna used to
tell at UNP election meetings in the late 1960s that there was a need
for two types of revolutions-internal and external. External is the
material progress either under the capitalist or the socialist model.
We know now both these models have failed because there was no internal
revolution. Each person has to work on the internal spiritual growth
and advancement which in turn will lead to the collective external progress
of society or a country. The American professor Robert Thurman, in his
book, Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness
(Penguin, 1999) tells the same thing with regard to problems and dilemmas
in western society and especially in the American society. When this
approach is used
USA and so many other western countries become "failed states."
Bruce Fein, President Carter and Archbishop Tutu come to conclusions
without knowing Buddhist politics. For Christians life is linear, for
Buddhists life is cyclical. Impermanence of life is at the heart of
Buddhist behavior and because of this Buddhists cannot ill-treat or
discriminate against a fellow human being. Whatever past injustices
(e.g., sending a reply in Sinhala to a letter received in Tamil) were
due to the fact that the ruling elites of Sri Lanka until 2005 came
from a world of English, Christian and western influence. It was only
in 2005 that a village Sinhala Buddhist became the elected ruler of
Sri Lanka who does his best to become a just ruler. There are all sorts
of constraints and barriers erected against a just rule in Sri Lanka
and most of them a result of a draconian constitution implemented by
a black-white ruler in 1978.
Unlike Christians, Buddhists do not believe that the plant and animal
kingdoms were created by God for the enjoyment of man and woman. A Buddhist
is expected to do no harm even to an ant. Guns and killing animals for
fun is normal behavior for a Christian (Sarah Palin, McCain's running
mate, is admired for her hunting skills even when it was done from a
helicopter) but this is a sin in the minds of Buddhists. This is why
Buddhism is perhaps the only religion in the world which did not try
to convert others in to Buddhism. It is not a faith-based, historical
religion and it requests others to
"Come and examine, not come and believe."
Those who accuse Sri Lankan people (Sinhala Buddhists and Poor Sinhala
Christians) of human rights violations must realize that equal rights
for women, respect and protection of trees, plants and animals are part
of Buddhist living for the past 2500 years. World human rights movement
began after Hitler killed Jews and the racial wars in Europe. A born-again
Evangelist President Carter gave support to the modern thrust in Human
Rights which ended up as an instrument of new colonialism implemented
by the likes of Gareth Evans and Rama Mani with kiss-the-ring people
like the Christian Bradman Weerakoon in Sri Lanka. Buddhist culture
does not support discrimination and violence. It is a fact that most
human rights agents at any level in the public arena have a dark side
when it comes to their private lives. Most common is the ill-treatment
their spouses. This was the case of Gareth Evans or the coordinating
head of all human rights organizations in Sri Lanka. The latter was
ordered by a court of law not to ill-treat his wife! Look at those politicians
world around and look at their private behavior. There is no internal
spiritual revolution.
After Prabakaran accepts defeat, President Rajapakasa will have to
begin a second war, against corruption, crime in Sri Lankan society
from top to bottom. Hopefully, the victorious army could be deployed
to help the civilians at village-level to undertake this massive task.
13 A is a temporary solution for the transition of a hatred-filled generation
of Tamil youth into a Sri Lankan society where mutual trust and understanding
could be built on the basis of the Karuna paradigm. The nation has to
evolve into a village level and Grama Sevaka Niladharee (GSN) unit based
spatial demarcation system which will be language-blind. 13A must be
a temporary way station (an ambalama (rest area) for those who got lost
in racist war)and going beyond it means going to village or GSN level
and not the other way to PCs.
Two traditions of American help
Sri Lanka has two historical linkages with the American people (not
US government). After Ceylon became a colony of England in 1802, American
missionaries came to Jaffna as early as in 1813 and established educational
and health institutions that benefitted Tamils in the North and East.
This gave a head-start to high caste Tamils to learn English and come
to Colombo for government jobs under a divide-and-rule colonial policy.
The majority Sinhala-Buddhist people were the discriminated lot. Buddhist
priests in the southern and western coastal areas floated a campaign
against discrimination and harassment by Christians, and a resurgence
of Sinhala Buddhist self-respect began in the 1860s after the brutal
suppression of the last rebellion against the white man in 1848. The
Five Great Debates of which the Panadura Debate was the last took place
in 1873. It drew the attention of the American Theosophist Colonel Olcott
who first visited the British colony in 1880. Identified later as the
"first white Buddhist," he helped developing schools for the
Sinhala Buddhist children at a time the colonial government was helping
a system of Christian English schools. He was bestowed the highest respect
a Buddhist society can give to a human being, a Bodhisatva (a future
Buddha).
A few Tamils in America cannot fool the American people or the American
establishment. Sri Lankan Americans (reasonable Tamil and Sinhala people)
can join hands in making their childhood villages in Sri Lanka pockets
of hope, peace and prosperity if Tamils living overseas sever connections
with the World Tamil Movement which is dreaming for a Tamil country
at the UNO. It is unreasonable to expect a Tamil country in the tiny
island of Sri Lanka. If this a Tamil dream it should be established
in Tamil Nadu which is the Tamil homeland in the world like Japan is
the Japanese homeland.
|
