Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

30 May 2018

                                                              

Sinhala Nationalism Infection in Australia?

 

‘At Sri Lanka’s Independence: Revisiting the crimes and communal disharmony created by the British’

The above article by Ms Shenali Waduge was forwarded to me also.  Of greater concern to me was that this was published by Spur Victoria at https://www.spur.asn.au/2018/01/28/at-sri-lankas-independence-revisiting-the-crimes-and-communal-disharmony-created-by-the-british-2/

The place where something happens and is acknowledged by its ‘home-powers’ is contaminated by that Energy – be it positive or negative. Australia also being my homeland I felt obliged to diffuse what I considered to be negative Energy for all Australians who respect their British Heritage. Likewise all Sri Lankans who value their British heritage also.

A highly educated member of the group stated:

‘A load of bullshit!  - lacking historicity. Even Sri Lankan historians of some repute have not chronicled such unsubstantiated "cherry-picking". Those who have not been taught History and how to connect the dots must not try to mess around by drawing their own conclusions, simply by "all-over-the-page referencing",  wily-nilly.’

 My own response was:

[Shenali,

By recognizing the experience under British rule - at the level of  'what happened' ( actus reus) only you are acting in breach of Article 9 of the Sri Lankan Constitution which requires you to apply Buddhist principles and therefore the philosophy of rebirth. 

What happened is interpreted  differently by different minds. Hence both - actus reus and mens rea are both needed to make a valid judgment. Are you saying that your mind is the same as the Sinhalese mind of that time? If yes, you are stagnant in terms of globalization.

Gaja

On that issue, my attention was caught this morning by the Island article ‘Tamil Guardian report on Genocide Remembrance Day irks GSLF’ at http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=185411

The author of the above article states:

“Sri Lanka brought the war to a successful conclusion on the morning of May 19, 2009, on the banks of the Nanthikadal lagoon.

The spineless current administration gave up Sri Lanka’s right to celebrate its triumph over terrorism, with a Victory Day Parade, immediately after the change of government, in January 2015. War-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa inaugurated the Victory Day Parade in May, 2009. It was last held in May, 2014, in Matara.”

On the basis of the above, one is entitled to conclude that as per the writer’s mind, the LTTE were ‘foreigners’ and NOT Sri Lankans. Hence ‘Sri Lanka’ successfully brought the war to an end. If that were accepted, then all those who are related to the LTTE – through various relationships are foreigners living in the area administered by the group that “won” the war.

One who ‘wins’ is acknowledging Equal and Opposite status to the other. One who disciplines considers the other as a junior.  To the Island writer and all those who celebrate May 19 as Victory Day for Sri Lankan Government are foreigners to not only the LTTE and their relatives but also to those like me who Discipline the LTTE and rebels in the Sri Lankan Tamil Community.

Since I consider myself a Sri Lankan and because I respect the LTTE members who operated within the limits  – I do not consider the events of May 2009 to be Genocide.  But the UN does recognize Genocide as follows:

[Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind, …and is contrary to moral law and to the spirit and aims of the United Nations. …
The General Assembly, therefore, affirms that genocide is a crime under international law…whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds…] United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96 of 11 December 1946, titled "The Crime of Genocide",

Being made foreigners in an area considered to be that group’s  ‘home’ amounts to Genocide where majority of that community are ‘told’ by another community that they were not part of the Nation. To my mind it is not different to women being told by men that they belonged in the kitchen! As per admirers of American Meghan Markle, Ms Markle fought against such ‘telling’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkb-zg4JCLk

If Tamils also declared that they would not be ‘told’ by a community that did not share common faith with them – which they have been for a long time, then that is a claim of Equality and not Terrorism.  To the extent Tamils acted in breach of the laws common to all communities – they were entitled to be disciplined as juniors and not alienated as ‘foreigners’. Every person who considers her/himself as a Sinhala Nationalist has no authority to tell any other community except through the law common to both and likewise every Tamil who considers her/himself as a Tamil Nationalist. That is what I said to a Tamil Officer in Jaffna who said that I was a ‘foreigner’ due to being Australian Tamil. I said ‘use the law and not your personal thinking’.

The problem with both ethnicities is that they have ‘forgotten’ their ancestors who gave us the higher structures through which our experiences are lifted to the higher level. Hence the practice of paying our respects. To me that is the real value of those who remembered the dead during the May 2009 events. Those who take current credit while benefiting from that heritage – including from the British – would naturally invoke the opposition from their parallels in those nations. After our bodies perish – our karma is shared with those to whom our then home  is currently ‘home’. It’s the third dimension that most of us fail to recognize until it is too late to prevent our ignorance from manifesting itself.