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Can Sri Lanka produce a ‘Tamil Obama'?

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

Sapumal Kumaraya was a Tamil

It appears that those who have written to the Island newspaper on the above question have forgotten the history of Sri Lanka. In the alternative perhaps, they still operate with a mindset framed on the Colombo paradigm or the separatist paradigm of the late GG Ponnambalam and SJV Chelvanayagam (1920-2006). Internationally, the lobby behind the terrorist outfit of Prabakaran tries to capitalize a historic occasion to propagate tehir Tamil genocide theory. For examples, an overseas Tamil group recently created three separate Tamil websites, "Tamils for Obama," "Tamils for McCain" and "Tamils against Tamil genocide," and hired an American lawyer Bruce Fein to write to American newspapers about Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka. "Can a country with Tamil genocide elect a Tamil Obama," is then a highly attractive fund-raising topic. This genocide song was put to rest in America as far back as in August 1984 (Ref. the Report: "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), yet even Nobel Prize winners like former president Carter and Archbishop Tutu go bananas when they hear the word genocide.

Sinhala-Buddhist cultural heritage

The history of Sri Lanka is replete with examples of local models of the "Obama phenomenon." We called them Sapumal Kumarayas. The Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist society has been a tolerant fertile soil for local Obamas to grow and thrive. Just take one simple example: McCain got Sarah Palin on the ticket aiming at the Hillary Clinton's democratic women voter block. Women in America thought in 2008 that they were going to get a woman president with Hillary. When did Sri Lanka get its first woman prime minister? In July 1960! Full forty-eight years ago. When I ask Americans which country produced the first woman PM, they answer Golda Meir? Indira Gandhi? Or I know it was Margaret Thatcher from London. They get disappointed when I repeat No, no. When I finally give the correct answer, they ask, why it so happened in that unknown place called Sri Lanka.

Actually, I used to do this to test my political geography students. I told them that I think there were two reasons for this "enlightened" behavior of Sri Lankan voters. One is that Sri Lanka was given universal suffrage in 1931 just four years after the women in England won it! When Nelson Mandela had to wait in jail for 40 years to use it and when Blacks in America had to face police dogs and water hoses to win it, Americans can understand very well that Sri Lanka was so fortunate to win it battle-free. In fact the irony was that the "educated" and rich Ceylonese protested against its introduction by the colonial master! Sri Lanka is the oldest democracy in Asia.
The second reason is that in Buddhism men and women are treated as equals in intelligence and ability. The Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers had to resign from his job in February 2006 for telling something that went against this Buddhist principle! He suggested in a speech that "intrinsic aptitude" could explain why fewer women have excelled in science and math. In America, the attempt to have an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution did not pass, but in Buddhist societies women were allowed to become "priests" 2600 years ago. I do not think the former president Carter, Archbishop Tutu, Ambassador Blake or the R2P boss Gareth Evans from Australia are aware of this human rights revolution because for them it all began with the human rights violations that began in Europe in the1940s.

Examples of Sri Lankan Obamas

Sri Lanka's last king was a Tamil. The feudal leaders worked for him at or near the palace learned Tamil either to please him or his Tamil queens. In turn he took a Sinhala name and supported Buddhism. The colonial governor was all out to capture his kingdom and used John D'Oyly (1774-1824) who was fluent in Sinhala to destroy the unity between the king and his feudal lords. When the king began to kill even the infant child of his rival, he lost the support of people and was unceremoniously dethroned.

The Kandyan kings were known for their role in giving political asylum to persecuted minorities. He allowed Muslims hunted by the Portuguese and the Dutch to settle down within his borders. He allowed the Portuguese-converted Roman Catholics killed by the Dutch Reformists to live in villages within his kingdom. These were not political or economic decisions like what we see today. The refugees today supply cheap labor to western countries for their manual or janitorial jobs. Skilled refugees are those who worked as local employees/translators for the white invader or trader (NGO?). The classic example of Buddhist tolerance comes from what had happened in Ceylon since the early 1900s. When the city-based Christian missionary priest made circuits to hunt for new converts in the remote villages where did he sleep in the night? The local Buddhist temple was his motel. Buddhist monks do not eat in the night, but they even prepared dinners for their guests!

Bandaranayakes and Jayawardenas

The Tamil historian Cassichetty once wrote that two persons, one with Tamil ancestry and the other with Muslim ancestry were fighting to control the majority Sinhalese! SWRD and JRJ who through their relatives controlled Sri Lankan politics from 1956 to 1990 were perceived by the voters of Sri Lanka as person with Tamil and Muslim linkage, but their origin never influenced peoples' voting decisions. Obama was a small child when these things took place in Ceylon. Obama's parents were children when voters in the Anuradhapura electorate elected a white man as their representative in 1931. We were told that he (H. R. Freeman) waved a green-leaf tree branch and told the people, "If you vote for this color (green), I will go to the State Council otherwise he said, I will go back to London." In 1935 he won the seat without contest. He was admired by people for his past services as the government agent

The Kelaniya electorate was represented by R. S. Perera, a Catholic, for a long time. Mirigama seat was contested by a professor of Buddhist Philosophy (W.S. Karunaratna) who also had strong caste affiliation with majority of the voters there but it was won by a Tamil Christian woman (Siva Obeysekera). We know about the Sinhala Marikkar. We know that Kadiragamar did not become PM of Sri Lanka not because he was a Tamil but Mahinda Rajapakse had an inherent right for it as a SLFP member, a better right than even CBK or the late AnuraB, because he was with the party rain or sun shine. The late Jeyaraj Fernandopulle was a rising star who had the chance of becoming a PM. Both these, Kadiragamar and Jeyaraj were Christian Tamils but Buddhists came from all over the country to pay last respect for their services to the nation. Perhaps, the JHU party provided the best example. It said that if three people contest for the job of president in Sri Lanka, CBK, RanilW and Bakir Marker, it will vote for Bakir since he was a true national leader.

There is no doubt that Col. Karuna has a promising future to become a national leader. He is the only significant Tamil who gave up the myth of a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka. He is the only Tamil leader willing to take a language-blind approach to politics. Thus he severed the Tamil Nadu tail in Sri Lankan Tamil politics. In 20 or so years there will not be room for racist politics because the new generation is learning both Sinhala and Tamil. So the chances of a Tamil who also speak Sinhala to become the PM or President of Sri Lanka is very high compared to the situation of a Christian Sinhala getting these jobs. The Christians themselves created this hurdle by either converting or pretending to become Buddhists for political purposes (the Donoughmore Buddhists syndrome). Dr. Visvalingam (Island, 11/20/2008) mentioned caste as a hurdle but R. Premadasa disproved his logic.

The present day Karawa and Durawa castes living in the western and southern coastal areas of Sri Lanka were considered as south Indian people who came from Kerala, who became thoroughly assimilated into the Sinhala community. They later became the defenders and protectors of Buddhism and the Sinhala heritage. Obama is a person assimilated with the American society. The Germans and Italians and other ethnic groups migrated to America, did not demand separate countries. They became part of the new society while protecting their cultural heritages on a private and community basis. The military coup that took place in the Fiji Islands in December 2006 is an example of how native Fijians resist the Indian "aggression." The World Tamil Organization's motto, "there are Tamils in all the countries but there no country for Tamils" prevents a Sri Lankan Tamil to become a Tamil Obama unless he dismisses such demands or openly inform WTO to consider Tamil Nadu as the future Tamil country. Malaysia put a stop to Indian agitation by passing strict citizenship laws.

How Obama won the Presidency

Obama became the president by not doing the things that Tamil politicians in Colombo have been doing. Obama did not use the race card in the sense that other Black leaders did. They (example Rev Jesse Jackson) used the Black church as the nucleus of their election campaigns. Obama avoided this path which provides no room for a national path. Obama could use his half-white DNA background to his advantage. Obama also had the benefit of a historical fact that his black side had no slavery connection. He is black in color but his father came from Kenya. In Sri Lanka both Kadiragamar and Jeyaraj were married to Sinhala women. As mixed children Jeyaraj's children have a better chance in national politics than Janaka Perera's children.

Obama did not talk about a separate country in USA like the way Sarah Palin was sympathetic to a separatist group in Alaska who wanted a separate country to be carved out of USA. Liberia was created as a separate country for American Blacks who wanted to leave USA but Obama proved that he was no typical African American with a black liberation thelogy. This is what Col. Karuna is demonstrating in Sri Lanka today. This way Obama demolished the theory that there are two types of blacks in America: Bargainers and Challengers. Challengers were the likes of Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. Challengers call the bargainers Uncle Toms. The Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Condoleezza Rice are examples of the bargainers. They bargain with the white establishment, they say you treated us as slaves and you can overcome your guilt by giving us a place at your table. This was similar to the educated Ceylonese demanding a share of new jobs etc. from the colonial master in the early 1900s.

Instead, Obama concentrated on the young and the educated in America. He used the internet to reach to them. He had a super organizational structure and efficient election campaign machinery. While Obama did not use the race card, his color helped in creating "guilt" in the white minds. This was why Hillary Clinton's advisor, former Vice Presidential candidate (in 1984 election) Geraldine Ferraro had to resign her position for commenting on Obama's black heritage. Hillary Clinton herslef played the race card as a last minute desperate attempt to win the nomination which boomeranged against her. She said the poor whites and uneducated whites will not want for Obama. McCain and Sarah Palin tried this by stating that "Joe-the-six-pac," or the "ordinary soccer mums" were with them (hard-working blue collar workers). Finally, they even got down the actual Joe, the plumber on to the election platform.

But ultimately Obama won because of George Bush. Just like JRJ of Sri Lanka Bush ruined everything that he touched. He made America and the American the laughing stock in the world. The Reagan- Milton Freedman-Alan Greenspan free market model finally collapsed just one month before the election. It was the end of Republican Party's hope of getting the Presidency. People were sick of cow boy, old boy's networks and craved for an intelligent, educated president. As one of my friends said not Obama but anyone would have won it! White Americans used to vote for values or prestige in 2000 or 2004 under a numbers strategy of Karl Rowe but they said enough is enough with the economic hit. It was similar to three wheelers and the Jaffna youth marching on the streets with the lion flag after the army captured Pooneryn (November 15). For them what animal is on the flag does not matter, they want space to live free of hunger and free from the fear of abducting them for the "liberation war."

Cyclical nature of life

It is easier for a Buddhist society to allow minorities to live in harmony because unlike the western faith-based religions in Buddhism life is considered as cyclical-birth-death-birth. In Buddhism humans are part of the nature and not apart. The animal kingdom is not created for human consumption. All living things are part of an integrated eco-system evolved and evolving. Buddhists are expected to follow the Middle Path-compromise, reasonable-which is the foundation of modern democracy. When life is impermanent there is no room for manipulating others purely for one's self-interest. Humans are not supposed to engage in unwanted killings, even an ant. A Buddhist who does not exercise his right to kill another for self defense is considered a better person than one who uses it which we see as a basic human right in western liberal democracies. In a Buddhist society there is no concept like the constitutional right to own guns as in USA. A Buddhist society rejects the idea of enjoyment one was supposed to get by shooting wild moose from a helicopter. Destruction of the Baniyan Buddha statutes by the Taliban rebels was shocking to Buddhists as they never tried to convert others into Buddhism by force. Come and examine, not come and believe is the Buddhist model.

Until November 2005 Sri Lanka had rulers who had very little exposure to Buddhism or who used Buddhism as a cover up. Because of this so many rulers did not follow Buddhist principles and created hardships to Tamil minorities. In retrospect, Tamil Christian Colombo-living politicians were responsible for creating a confused environment. When the motion to declare Vesak a public holiday was made by the colonial governor in 1883 the Christian representative of the Sinhalese opposed it and the Tamil Hindu representative supported it and a white American (first white Buddhist?) Col. Olcott promoted it. There were several Burgher Buddhists. That kind of Tamil-Sinhala harmony was destroyed by the Colombo-living, English-educated and mostly Christian Sinhala and Tamil "leaders" who competed for crumbs from the white master. By the 1920s with the secret support of the British governor a separatist paradigm began to raise its head. The first Sinhala-Tamil clash took place when GG Ponnambalam ridiculed the Sinhala kings! Tamil separatists were encouraged by the British policy in India to divide India into two, a Muslim India and a Hindu India. Marxist-bent Tamils in the Madras Province thought that they too can have a separate country. Hopefully, the year 2008 will mark the end of this separatist paradigm in Sri Lanka and a new generation of Sri Lankan Tamils will follow the path shown by Col. Karuna.

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