A Tamil Aside
From a US comic documenting their hysteria
Speaking more French than Sinhala, I have no particular interest in this Sinhala Buddhist thing. I am Buddhist (try to be practicing), but I’ve never found a country more difficult to meditate in. I honestly don’t identify with the Sinhala as much as ‘Sri Lankan’. There is still a rarefied cosmopolitan existence if you can eke it out, in certain houses now, cause reality is creeping into the bars. That’s why it’s strange upon meeting a metrosexual friend to hear that he’d spent the day in jail – for being Tamil. I mean, he’s Tamil like I’m Sinhala. It’s on his ID, but he’s English speaking and dresses and talks like it. But he spends the day in jail, explaining why he’s not a terrorist, and hearing that his race is ‘poison in the milk’. Of his nation. I should say that’s not right at all. There were some flies in the milk and we tried to kill them with poison. Now everybody’s sick.
People talk about terrorism like it’s fucking Skeletor or something. Like, you obviously fight Skeletor, he’s evil. The fact that George Bush uses terms like ‘evil-doer’ in official discourse emboldens idiots the world over. If you’re going to claim to fight evil you should have to wear a cape so everyone can see how ridiculous that proposition is.
The case is especially ridiculous in Sri Lanka because we’re not even fighting distant A-Rabs, we’re fighting our own people. As in, those people in the North and East are citizens like you and me. And the people in Colombo getting searched and seized and disappeared, they’re Sri Lankan. It’s easy to fight evil in the abstract, but how do you wage war against your own family? And why would you want to?
I just want to have lunch with my friends or know that the people at my office can travel home without knowing that they can get arrested or disappear based on what race they are. I don’t know think that’s too much to ask. Terrorism!
This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like 
Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
There’s nothing wrong with pornography, but there’s a lot wrong with porn. Nothing wrong with watching people have sex, but too often that sex is brutal, senseless and coerced. I mean how many couples are coming on each others faces every day? Hence, philosopher king Alain de Botton – after calling for a 
Sri Lanka is going to start offer 
You can’t really compare a civil war or ethnic conflict to a war between two distinctly different nations. I mean, my generation didn’t ask to fight the Tigers or choose to hate Tamils. I’m sure we’d all be happier bombing the crap out of the Indians instead, or the Australians. But we can’t. You fight the war you’ve got as best you can.
No, I’m not happy that the average Tamil can just be randomly picked up and locked away for a night if he’s lucky. It just happened to one of my agency’s copywriters. Yeah, it sucks. But it’s a fallout of the war, and yeah, I know, you’ll tell me it’s also the reason for the war. I know.
But there’s little point in saying “hey, leave me alone to have lunch”. This war’s defining Sri Lanka, and it will do so for generations after it’s over. I think it deserves a bit more attention. And participation. The reason this middle class is losing control of the country is ‘cos we’re too busy having lunch.
You think that’s bad? Now we have Sarath Fonseka essentially saying this country belongs to Sinhalese only. Minorities should not be demanding equal treatment, etc. I just hope racism doesn’t become the official govt. policy again.
I saw that, didn’t read the whole thing. Was shocked. But I guess actions have come before words… Hope things get beter.
He didn’t say that they shouldn’t demand equal treatment. Nor did he say that the country belongs to the Sinhalese “only”. Let’s not make up shit as we go along.
I agree with blacker ;)
I believe this is the comment you’re referring to, Gun:
“I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people…We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country…We are also a strong nation … They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things.†— Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, General Sarath Fonseka, in an interview with Stewart Bell of the National Post newspaper of Canada, published on 23rd September 2008.
wow… how loving….
That is the most patronizing bullshit ever.
Sri Lankans, under our Constitution, don’t need permission from anyone to live here. No race, no general, no party. Gun was correct:
And it doesn’t. It belongs to the damn jungle. Sri Lankans get to live here.
OK, this took awhile to get through, but here goes: I think you’re being a bit anal, Indi. SF’s not giving permission anymore than Sittingnut is when he says “You’re free to join the LTTE blah blah etc”. SF’s answering a question on policy that should never be put to a soldier. The reporter should’ve known better, and the GoSL should’ve reigned SF in. Policy is for politicians. Soldiers are there to kill people according to government policy, and SF does a good job of that. We should let him get on with it instead of asking him about policy. Same goes for Gota.
SF is answering from the POV of a soldier, as Dayan Jayatillake explains (http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20080704_04). Generals all over the world have been famously criticized and fired for being politically incorrect with policy comments (remember MacArthur wanting to nuke China?). The only difference here is that the GoSL is allowing military officers and civil servants to make policy statements to the media. But then I guess it’s a free media so you can’t very well censor the interview, no? ;)
indi, You its not that bad in srilanka, you are exaggerating stuff
that’s troubling that people are picked up based, it seems, only on social identity. i think this may be a more intense period, but its certainly is not the first such period. there has been an ebb and flow in the intensity of ‘ethnic’ profiling, through out our modern history; reaching a zenith around 81-83.
we are quite far from understanding and tolerating difference. for example, people i know, who point to the harassment of Tamils, as black mark against this regime, say with the same breath, that is wrong for some Muslims, to wear a head or face covering.
they don’t see why making a dress code compulsory is intolerent.
On a related note, which I will expand when you reply — and i have written a paper on this — what kind of ID are you referring to when you say: “I mean, he’s Tamil like I’m Sinhala. It’s on his ID…” Surly not the National ID?
I mean national ID. You’re right, it doesn’t literally say ‘Tamil’, but for Tamils (if I’m correct) it’s in both Tamil and English (not Sinhala and English) and his birthplace and surname identify him as Tamil.
‘It’s on his ID’ as in he can be clearly identified as Tamil based on that.
No, not quite.
Mine is entirely in Sinhala; and I’m Tamil. Several other Tamils I know also have IDs written in Sinhala. Lots of Muslisms have IDs in Tamil or Sinhala. I think the categories involved are more complicated.
Let me reminisce:
When I applied for the post office ID, as a teenager (before i was issued a National ID), in the box for ‘Nationality’, on the form I wrote Sri Lankan. The post office made me an ID where it said, nationality Ceylon Tamil. I went and saw the Post Master and said, that’s not a nationality, I want it to say, Sri Lankan. He made it Sri Lankan Tamil.
This must have been in 1976. So that was that; that document actually uses ‘nationality’ as a ethnicity/race check. Actually, I was wrong in a sense, in Colonial English nationality means race. If you think carefully about what the Inter-National in ‘Women’s International Club’ means, you’ll get my drift.
But no, the national ID card is only an comparative document, strange though that may seem (its related to counting, but not really categorizing — which is the work of the census (from where the category ‘ceylon tamil’ comes, lived, in 1976, four years after the constitution of the 1st republic!)), and as such it has no socially identifying information, except an address.
The language it is written in is administrative, not ethnically categorical. i was issued a national ID to take an national examination, the A/L. I took this exam in Sinhala, and the school submitted a mass set of applications. Since I was studying in Sinhala mine went through with the bunch.
It was not unnoticed by the relevant administrator as ‘different’ though. Of the 40 odd applicants from my class, I was only one who was asked, in a short note, for my father’s National ID card number. (Ahh, they were checking, by birth, registration or kalathoni!). I sent that in, and the ID was issued, and I have said, its in Sinhala, even though obviously the relevant person knew I was Tamil.
that’s been my life, the subtleties or not, if you like, of being different.
You damned academic, I think they were right the first time, or close. You are Ceylonese. There was a land before time.
But that’s not what it’s like on the street.
All Tamils who studied in the Sinhala stream and where the school got the ID got “Sinhala” ID’s.
The Tamils get ID’s in Sinhala and Tamil and thats what they look for at checkpoints.
A Tamil I know who has a “Sinhala ID” has been whisked through checkpoints many a time with the words “we dont like to trouble Sinhalese” They dont even read the thing properly.
I’m told it is also the easiest document to forge.
As a kid, Appu used to take his tennis ball and bat to go play with the kids down the lane. When Appu told those fellas that “this bat and ball belongs to me, but you can also play with it” there was absolutely no ambiguity.
Everybody, with the obvious exception of David Blacker, knows what Sarath Fonseka meant to say and no amount of hair-splitting is going to make a difference.
IMHO, it doesn’t matter to Sri Lankans that Sarath Fonseka said what he did.
We Sri Lankans have heard it since 1958, if not before! The only cause for concern is that Sarath Fonseka said it to a foreign (Canadian Newspaper) audience that is obviously not comfortable with the idea that the majority community can claim ownership of a country. Sarath obviously didn’t give a toss about audience perception, and as a result the government might’ve lost ground in the propaganda war. Perhaps the government doesn’t give a toss about that either?.
oh!
I know I’ve digressed but i couldn’t resist one more snipe….
:-)
the reporter was spot on in asking the leading military man that question.
In theory, if not in practice, Sarath’s military strategy (and tactics) must contribute to the implementation of government policy. Not only was it logical for the journo to ask the question, its also provides for interesting copy that breathes life into the story.
Any reporter worth his salt would do that.
Churning out canned statements and
How did you become a Buddhist? Is it by conviction? Your paternal grandparents are Christians, aren’t they?
By conviction. My paternal grandparents are Christian and my mother is Buddhist. I was raised with meditation from a young age, but I always thought it was boring.
When I was 18 or 19 my mother recommended visiting Bhante Gunaratne’s monastery in West Virginia. It was just a two day thing, but I found it entirely mind-blowing and have tried to meditate every day since. There have been gaps ranging from days to months, but I do try.
Ah, I should say that you must be one of the few non – Tamils who actually care about the way we are treated! It really is cruel. I’m a bit lucky because I happen to be born in Saudi Arabia and my address is in Colombo, so I don’t have anything which says that I’m from Jaffna, but for the others who do have such traces, it’s a life of hell travelling on the streets of Colombo, but they have no option considering the fact that the Army have nearly destroyed all forms of development that were taking place after the ceasefire!
Cricket, Indi cares because he is no Sri Lankan but a Western lackey living in Sri Lanka and imbibed in such alien things as democracy, free speech and all that claptrap that the primitive, biased Westerners think so much about and far inferior to the glorious 2500 year civilisation that belongs only to the true patriots of the land.
Indi,
Just out of curiosity, how many of your friends have ‘disapperaed’ so far?
A good analysis of this very question is available here:
http://www.island.lk/2008/10/05/features1.html
jokes aside, I am starting to like Rajapakshe now! Quite a bit of soldiers are being killed secretively (without right figures being published in Colombo & reporting some of them as deserters), while making majority sinhalese to pay for it, f$$ing up the country’s economy (mainly the beauty & the charm of the country)….and he spoke in Tamil :o)
Did you know that Prabhakaran got an axe to his head, and a hot metal rod up his ass? I think he was screaming like a stuck pig when he met his end.
rajapaske’s running game like stringer bell..
i mostly agree with david blackers first post. anyway, it amazes me how a seemingly level-headed blog (and most of its participants) such as this one continues to fail to see the reality of our country in its finer print
it mostly reinforces two things in my mind: how much we really like mental masturbation and sensationalizing our feelings about the things we think we treasure (vs taking a more responsible, less righteous road of empathizing with the people who directly deal with the heat). and how out of touch the ‘upper-/middle class’ is with the guts of what has made this country tick, and will continue to do so for a long period of time
its ironic that we pompously talk around the very problems that we know deep down we don’t have the practical capacity to solve if given the chance. the problems that engulf this country is a vast historic ridiculous sea and it’s a crime for journalist of any form to sum it up any measured, affected one-liners and *single-tear* shit about what ought to happen. newsflash: none of that shit happens in the world. maybe the best you can do is to bargain with it so as to settle somewhere in the middle
we are as disgusting as the ills we claim to talk about
The reality is this:
Need money to fight war
Government is short of money, tax base is too small to sustain this for any length of time, capacity to borrow is close to limit.
Run out of money in a year or two, if LTTE moves to guerilla mode, will survive and the current repression will breed them more support.
Policies of today are sowing the seeds of a worse conflict in years to come while leaving finances a wreck which means no way to respond to it either.
It’s truly hilarious reading these old articles by Indi. Ah, how much he’s changed
I think Indi’s now following the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” policy.