Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

10 January   2021

 

 

 

AMERICAN DHARMA & JAFFNA HERITAGE

 

These days I am often reminded of the following words of wisdom.

“Dharmathin vazhvu thanai soodhu kavvum; dharmam marupadiyum vellum. / Treachery will capture the life of Dharma / Righteousness ; Dharma will return victorious again.”

A friend of mine from school days in Jaffna forwarded the following  from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

“Canadians are deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy in the United States, our closest ally and neighbour. Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld - and it will be.”

What about in Canada? Is Democracy being upheld in Canada?

IndieWire reports as follows:

[Errol Morris on the Specter of Steve Bannon in the Capitol Assault: ‘The Evil Genius Behind It All’

Although the filmmaker faced criticism for making his Bannon documentary, "American Dharma," we now see that his instincts were right ]

Dharma, to my mind, is the concept of Justice based on our conscience. Conscience in Tamil is ‘Mana Saatchi’.  It is the Consolidated Evidence , with the Mind as Witness. Towards this the mind has to be steady and still and be blind to all external distractions.

As per my discovery – this insight happens when we are self-governing. Sovereignty is the key to achieving this. Towards this we need to be true to ourselves.

Around the same time the Canadian PM released the above ‘observation’ , I received the following ‘judgment’ from the  Tamil Rights Group:

[Markham, Canada – Tamil Rights Group (TRG) condemns the Government of Sri Lanka’s latest attempt to erase Tamil heritage and calls upon the Government of Canada to do more to hold Sri Lanka accountable for its ongoing genocide against ethnic Tamils on the island.

On January 8, 2021, Sri Lankan security forces comprising of police, military intelligence, and the Special Task Force – a paramilitary unit of the police notorious for its brutal encounters with Tamil civilians over the years – entered the premises of the University of Jaffna to demolish a memorial shrine installed by students in 2019 to commemorate the 10th year anniversary of the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka. The final battle, which came to a bloody end in the coastal village of Mullivaikal, resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 Tamil civilians according to official UN estimates and nearly 150,000 based on local census records.]

I read about ‘what happened’ and included my interpretation as follows in my yesterday’s article:

[As per Virakesari , the monument celebrating LTTE combatants has been removed from the University of Jaffna, by government forces. This restores the sovereign power of the University – born out of Jaffna’s pain of standardization. LTTE’s reaction through armed revolution is a relative power – and is the parallel of Buddhism foremost. The removal is service to Goddess Saraswathi – the Goddess of Education]

Later through Tamil News, we heard student leaders claiming they were representing Tamil Public. But one who participates in Nallur festival of Jaffna, would immediately know from the numbers – that this is a false claim. So is the claim by  the Tamil Rights Group(TRG) .

The time and place will lead us to construct the ‘fact’ that reflects the Truth.  The war memorial  is being described by the TRG as ‘Tamil heritage’ . What about the LTTE killings of Tamil Politicians who fought non-violently over decades for Tamil self–governance – not as a separate state but as part of  Sri Lanka?

If the Special Task Force of the Government is being classified as being ‘brutal’ what about the LTTE that killed our politicians whose contribution was blessed by Dharma itself – as known through the 1977 Parliamentary Elections, through which Tamils became the Equal Opposition in National Parliament.

Often Dharma is imprisoned by Cleverness in a ‘free’ environment. That is what led to the riots in America and the installation of war memorials in an educational institution, with the effect of disturbing  the sovereignty of that institution itself .

As per my understanding, the core purposes of a University are Research and Teaching. Anyone who sacrifices towards this is the hero of a University. I did this at the University of NSW and I carry the Universal power of education with me. Towards this,  the urge to manifest premature reactions and displays of victories need to be sacrificed. LTTE combatants are heroes to those of military culture. If they weaken our investment in Education and its logic, then they are traitors of Jaffna culture.

As per the conscience of Jaffna – the LTTE also committed war-crimes. Those who listened to the victims at that time, would know this truth. If they do not have knowledge of this they are not Tamils. To therefore go to UNHRC, with a clear and steady conscience,  Tamils have to have enough credit as per UN standards and Universal principles to first eliminate the LTTE wrongs through the rights of the Global Tamil community. Groups such as TRG which seem to theoretically mark the Government wrong , effectively cover up the wrongs of their side.

As per my discovery, what Dharma does then is to separate the groups internally which eventually leads to isolation of the local groups, who are last in the lists of priority of the Diaspora groups who are bent on writing the ‘history’ in their favour – just as the Sinhalese have been doing through majority power.

One who truly owns would go inside the community and find its own balance – not to ‘show’ but to be. Separatists have to ‘show’ and hence they would often fall short of the ultimate goal of ‘being’.

UN is the closest that we have to the Court of Natural Justice. When we take one-sided emotional picture to the UN the return comes through the local parallel of the UN – which at national level is the Parliament. The Resolution against Sri Lanka was led by the USA and to my mind, someone invoked Dharma to first eliminate the identical wrong within the Tamil community.

By blaming the government only – groups such as the TRG are propagating their own activities and in the process ‘hiding’ the truth known to them and to others also. The result is that civilians who suffered get cheated by both sides – the Government as well as their own leaders – who choose not to be accountable through One Principle or  Truth and Truth alone.

Jaffna University is now more independent of the war karma than it was, as America is now more independent of Media karma than it was before during the Trump leadership.

In both cases, the laws have more or less become mythical.