The Resonance Of Reconciliation (#heallanka)
This is another story by Brigadier (Retd) LC Perera. Here, he is talking to wounded officers and soldiers and the resonance that reconciliation has with them. For more please check out the #heallanka tag.
I still hear how reconciliation is impossible or how Sinhalese/Tamils/Muslims are this or that. Still I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t want reconciliation or peace on a human level. Nor do I meet anyone who is so defined by their ethnicity. That is why these human stories are important.
TRANSCRIPT
I said you [wounded officers and soldiers] have the power to heal this nation. I didn’t know what the reception would be. They could have said ‘no, you’re talking to us but we’re the people without legs and arms and eyes’. But they said, ‘sir, imagine if we go to Mullativu or Kilinochchi and if we can help for one day one of those who have lost their limbs in the conflict to build a house or do anything, what a strong message that would be’. These are people who have lost their limbs. That’s the resonance healing and reconciliation has among our people today.
Across the board, wherever I have spoken, that resonated, the response has been spontaneous. Yes, we must heal. We are healing, and we will
reconcile. But we need time to heal.
For more stories please see the Brigadier’s previous videos on losing his own troops in an LTTE ambush, setting up an IDP camp during the 1983 riots, setting up an IDP camp for Sinhalese after an LTTE massacre, and seeing the writing on the wall in Jaffna in 2006. More will be uploaded under the tag heallanka.
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