Black Tiger Down
Read an interesting article by Ruwan Weerakoon (via Bailaman). It’s an interview with a Black Tiger suicide bomber, now in custody. One thing that stuck with me was the quote: “One day, I came across the Tamil shop owner speaking in fluent Sinhalese to another person who was Sinhalese. This surprised me: During our training in the LTTE, we were impressed upon that the Sinhalese were the bitterest rivals of the Tamils.” One reason I never understood Eelam was Colombo, which is majority minority (Muslim and Tamil). No matter how much the LTTE tried to drive the races apart, we still can and do live together.
We simply have to. The place isn’t big enough for two states, especially two at war with each other. If an early separation had happened I suspect it would have been terrifying, like India’s partition, with trains of dead people going back and forth. If Tamils have land in the north, then what? Don’t we still need equal rights for the Tamils in Colombo? What about estate Tamils? Don’t the Muslims in the North and East deserve some consideration as human beings? Don’t we all need to travel and visit family and use the airport and just look at birds and go swimming and stuff? Can’t we all get along?
As mentioned, I don’t believe in Tamil Nationalism anymore than Sinhala Chauvinism because I don’t think race is a good thing to build nations or a future on. Races mix and change. I know children of second generation mixed marriages who are almost post-racial. They’re just Sri Lankan. I know mixed families and many suddhas with a great love for this country. They need a place where they too can feel at home.
I still have hope for Sri Lanka because, like America, we can still salvage our Constitution from years of neglect. Because there’s still the framework for equal rights to emerge. I see no such potential in Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Nationalism. I mean, the ‘Tamil’ bit in there just keeps a lot of people out who have every right to be on this island as well.
Sri Lanka today does not have equal rights and Tamils have less freedom than Sinhalese. However, we can and do live together and we can gain civil rights for all of us, together. Sinhalese and Tamils are not doomed to be rivals, we actually have a lot in common. For one thing, we’re all Sri Lankan.
at the expense of being shot down for racist thoughts. im utmost honesty, sri lanka would be a fucking awesome place to live in if it were run by tamils. living here for a shitload of time i havent come across many good examples of sinhalese socio management or whatever you call it. the very race culture doesnt suit prosperity. we were much better off being subservient to the british and most probably will to a tamil rule; and im not biased, just observant. i dont give a fuck on whats going on here yeah XD a tamil eelam to the frustrated and castrated tamil genius prodigal mind would seem a good compromise to the sinhalese people as opposed to getting the whole country under their wing, with which they could then prove how they can run a country better. as they could not have it, i guess they got pissed off and started to blow themselves up. the whole idea of democracy is bullshit if you ask me. there are way more assholes than brilliant men. its just a fact. damn that was a lot of text. please dont hunt me down
@mondo yucky: That’s a load of crock. If anything the Sinhalese live in the true island spirit. They love their music, their booze, the Ganja, and like the Jamaicans they enjoy a laid back life.
The island does not belong to the Sinhalese like you think the north belonged to Tamils. Sri Lanka as a whole belongs to Sri Lankans not any specific ethnic group.
@India: Thanks for the link back!
Sinhala Chauvanism and Tamil Nationalism. Long live the double standard!
And even if Sri Lanka became a paradise of civil rights, there would still be the issue of ‘ Tamil Aspirations’
You know about those?
1) The unwillingness to get integrated into the Sri Lankan Nation.
2) The violent resistance to the idea that Tamils are a ‘race’ within the Sri Lankan Nation
3) The compulsion to go on reiterating that they are a Nation. With a Nation’s attendant rights and trappings; traditional home lands whose present racial demography should be sacred and inviolate, the right to Autonomy and Self Determination, the right to secede from the Union of Nations (Sri Lankan + Tamil) at any time if conditions so demand
Tamil Aspirations are not limited to Tamils. Not all Tamils harbour them. Tamil Aspirations float in the Sri Lankan ideologisphere finding hosts. And hosts are found aplenty. From among the Sinhalese, Tamils, mixed races, foreigners.
To infinity we will have to live with Tamil Aspirations. It is quite depressing.
To infinity people will keep using Tamil Aspiration as the launching pad for their political careers. It would not have been depressing if Tamil Aspirations had a basis in reality. If there had really been a Nation living in their fairly gotten territory ruled by their rulers; Territory, rulers, people imbued with a common Tamil identity.
But instead what do we have? An island which was by Nature a unitary state where the sovereign writ of the ruler was effective throughout the land. During some periods of its history various South Indian invaders wrested the northern territory away and ruled it. Like any self respecting country the rulers and the people felt an irresistible urge to unite the country again and again.
And even within this pre colonial Sri Lanka, Nation building was going on. They called it the Sinhala country because that was what people did those days. Nobody was into multiculturalism those days. Nominal uniculturalism was in. But everywhere in the world the nominal unicultural State/Nation was in reality multi cultural. There was a strong Tamil component within this Sinhala Nation. And the integrating forces were at work.
Those people did not call it the Sri Lankan Nation because it was not the nomenclature of the Age. But they meant it. I think.
i’m sure it wouldn’t add value to your current employer but do read up on ‘the state’ and how it came to be. Not from the hoary past, unto the current generation, unchanged and pristine but through many grubby and human hands, through many changes and throughout, the survival of the idea hinged upon it’s thriving and obliterating all other ideas before it.
you think SL was always so? patently wrong, my dear.
you liken a country to a human being? you obviously haven’t seen a corpse.
You bring William T. Vollman aspirations to a chicken-scratch? pitiful.
Dayan is already SL’s Benny Morris, issuing “just-so” post-facto justifications for whatever his youthful self might have raged against. Don’t add an utterly incoherent Sarah Palin to the mix.
I just got back online after Friday and saw your reply. You never cease to impress me with your erudition.
This post is several days old now and I don’t know if you would feel it worth your while to reply to its comments. But do a Sarah Palin a favour and explain the following
When you say ‘you bring William T Vollman aspirations to a chicken scratch’ do you mean I am trying to atribute William T Vollman aspirations to a chicken scratch? If so what was the chicken scratch? The armed struggle?
“You think SL was always so? Patently wrong” No I don’t think SL always managed to maintain itself in an unchanged and pristine unitary condition. Too many grubby and human hands to contend with. South Indian,Portuguese, Dutch, British. But it aspired to. Oh how it aspired to… Because it was only right only fair only fitting. Sri Lanka remaining one country has a ‘rightness’, a fairness, a fittingness in the scheme of things. This sense of rightness speaks to me, has spoken to millions of Sri Lankans over the millenia. Don’t you hear it Nayagan?
I would just like to make a suggestion. Write a blog post giving us your take on the Sri Lankan State, Nation building within SL etc. How do you think it all should turn out.
Where have i likened a country to a human being? Where?
question: why do you refer to it as Sinhala Chauvinism and not Sinhala nationalism?
I guess because no one really uses the term Sinhala Nationalism. Any such sentiments are generally referred to as Chauvinism. I guess it could be referred to as nationalism.
Nationalism and Chauvinism are not the same thing. They may have common features but Chauvinism goes beyond the premise of Nationalism. In my observations, all four flavors exist in the SL context, i.e. Sinhala and Tamil Chauvinists and Nationalists. Look up the definitions – Wikipedia is wonderful :-)