Gajalakshmi
Paramasivam
07
June 2019
MUSLIMS NOW ; TAMILS THEN
I took
the coach from Colombo to Jaffna. The travel time was greater than travel by
train but the seating as more comfortable than the train seating. Loading my
baggage was also easier. It so happened that the tuk-tuk guy was a Muslim. He
spoke all three languages. We were stopped on the way - around
Puttalam-Kurunagela junction. Some bags were checked. Those who seemed Muslim
were checked more rigorously than us. I felt for them but realised that as
minorities we have to endure such difficulties to feel more strongly Sri
Lankan. From the point of the Sinhalese soldier, common faith was lacking to
know whether the Muslim passengers were likely to use destructive weapons in
public areas. Hence I consciously urged in my mind, for the soldier to do his
duty. The checks in Jaffna are now by civilian officers. I decided to make it
easier for myself by carrying only a few items in my handbag. It is indeed very
different to the Jaffna I was groomed by.
The cab
driver in Sydney said in relation to the Easter attacks, as to why the Muslim
leaders did not openly reject the guys who were showing signs of
disorderliness. I said they did but that it was not enough. This morning when I
received communication about Ms Ananthi Sasitharan leading a group that was
lamenting about missing persons. I have served their parallels within the
Vaddukoddai community and hence it was not a new issue. But the ways in
which we deal with the issue are
different. Ms Ananthi was blaming Tamil politicians. I helped the women to rely
on their strengths after escalating the
matter to the highest level possible. I pooled my own resources towards this. I
guess that the lesson learnt through my own maternal uncle who was tortured to
death during World War II helped me not feel responsible as a member of the
family. The decision was made by my uncle to earn money for my mother’s dowry.
That was a noble cause which resulted in premature death. But if not for that
decision, my uncle would have been just one of the others and not special.
Being special, he receives ongoing credit through marriages - my mother’s
her children’s and grandchildren’s. The credit happens through the Universal
system of truth which is not limited by time and place relativities. But we
need to invest in that system.
If the
purpose of those who joined the LTTE was noble - for the family, community or
even to preserve one’s individual dignity - then they would be celebrated
exponentially provided we have submitted our pain to the system of Truth and
therefore Natural Justice. If they rely on politicians who have not invested in
wider world but are often the instruments used by selfish persons - and waste
their energies for lesser purposes - then they fail in their duty to their
loved ones, through their own local system in which they have invested.
Ms
Ananthy Sasitharan talks about Human Rights. As a group, militants who
recruited forcibly deprived those recruited - of their basic human right to be
with their families until they independently make up their minds.
UN or the Lankan Government cannot restore those rights that the
militant leadership that Ms Sasitharan represents took away. One of the ladies
said that her husband who was taken away was in the ‘movement’. He then has to
pay off his debt to the members who were forcibly recruited znc their families.
In our case, our uncle made up his mind as an independent person. Hence his family
is clean of negative human rights karma and all of us enjoy the value of noble
cause exponentially.
Human
Rights are the rights that are based on truth that humans discovered. The
investment that the discoverers of truth made becomes the rights of their
heirs, including by birth but not limited to birth. Since I was born to parents
who chose to be governed by the common law of Sri Lanka and by the law of
Thesawalamai - I have every right to live through that pathway and consciously
reject any other pathway. In fact it is a natural duty to the extent my parents
invested in that pathway. Children born to militants have the duty to carry on
along that pathway and face the consequences. But not so the children of
civilians.
Therein
lies the solution which would protect us from getting cheated again and again.
No comments:
Post a Comment