Thursday, September 29, 2005
Being Sri Lankan |
A Comment left on Nittewa by one of our not-so-friendly neighborhood bigots said ‘I'm not Sri Lankan. Sri Lanka is a myth. I'm a Sinhalese.’. Personally I think it's a bit rich coming from someone who's trying very hard to become an 'Australian'. But we'll let that go for now.
This actually identical to what the LTTE has been saying for over 20 years.
'Sri Lanka is a myth. There are Sinhalese and Tamils, and the Sinhalese proved for over 5 decades that they don't want to share their space with the Tamils and therefore the only solution is to have a Sinhala state and a Tamil state and say to to hell with this whole thing about trying to be Sri Lankan, and trying to look for a Sri Lankan identity.'
Following on from this logic, the best friends of the LTTE are the the two new biggest fans of Nittewa (Astrocyte and Dextr), the Patriotic National Movement, the JVP and all the other ragtag right wing groups.
As long as they claim that this island is the homeland of the Sinhalese and the Sinhalese alone, they do nothing but strengthen the case made in the international arena by the LTTE, and bring the whole country closer to a bloody partition.
If you're a Sinhalese and not a Sri Lankan, and you want Sri Lanka to be the Sinhala-dveepaya (The Island of the Sinhalese), then you're going to have to also give some part of it to the Tamils. Unless of course you want to pack them all into boats and send them back to South India, which is supposed to be where they came from (we'll come back to this issue of origins later) or send them all to concentration camps and gas chambers like our 'aryan' brothers did 60 years ago. So if this island is going to become a Sinhala-dveepaya, then it's also going to become an Eelam. The louder you should that this is the homeland solely of the Sinhala people then stronger becomes the case for Eelam.
It is this ideology that the LTTE tells the international community about, and as long as the Sinhala right wing continues to be a dominating force in Souther politics, and their extremist ideologies remain in the mainstream, the LTTE's concerns, their extremist ideology and their demand for an Eelam will be justified.
The LTTE's Eelamist ideology and the Sinhala right wing's Sinhala supremacy ideology are like two sides to the coin. They form the ying and yang of the greatest threat to the idea of Sri Lanka. The notion that the Sinhalese and the Tamils cannot live together as equals, as Sri Lankans.
If the Sinhala right wing were to vanish, then the LTTE would have no leg to stand on. They would have no threat to the Tamil people that they could use to justify their demands for an Eelam. If the Tamil people of Sri Lanka did not have a Sinhala right wing to be afraid of, to be oppressed by, they would no longer support the LTTE, even secretly. The LTTE exists only because of its 'other'. If that 'other' were to cease to exist, then so would they. So too would the Sinhala right wing cease to exist if the LTTE were to vanish. They would no longer have someone from whom the 'Sinhala motherland' needed to be defended.
Meanwhile, neutral, sane, non-racist Sri Lankans who believe that Sri Lanka is very much a reality and not a myth watch our country fall apart.
The only way to seek a permanent solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka, with any hope of success, is to seek the construction of a solid Sri Lankan identity, which become our primary identity, over-riding our Sinhala-ness or Tamil-ness. Yes, many people have said this. It is not in any way a new idea, but it remains the only idea that can give anyone any hope for a better future.
The question is, how do we do it?
This actually identical to what the LTTE has been saying for over 20 years.
'Sri Lanka is a myth. There are Sinhalese and Tamils, and the Sinhalese proved for over 5 decades that they don't want to share their space with the Tamils and therefore the only solution is to have a Sinhala state and a Tamil state and say to to hell with this whole thing about trying to be Sri Lankan, and trying to look for a Sri Lankan identity.'
Following on from this logic, the best friends of the LTTE are the the two new biggest fans of Nittewa (Astrocyte and Dextr), the Patriotic National Movement, the JVP and all the other ragtag right wing groups.
As long as they claim that this island is the homeland of the Sinhalese and the Sinhalese alone, they do nothing but strengthen the case made in the international arena by the LTTE, and bring the whole country closer to a bloody partition.
If you're a Sinhalese and not a Sri Lankan, and you want Sri Lanka to be the Sinhala-dveepaya (The Island of the Sinhalese), then you're going to have to also give some part of it to the Tamils. Unless of course you want to pack them all into boats and send them back to South India, which is supposed to be where they came from (we'll come back to this issue of origins later) or send them all to concentration camps and gas chambers like our 'aryan' brothers did 60 years ago. So if this island is going to become a Sinhala-dveepaya, then it's also going to become an Eelam. The louder you should that this is the homeland solely of the Sinhala people then stronger becomes the case for Eelam.
It is this ideology that the LTTE tells the international community about, and as long as the Sinhala right wing continues to be a dominating force in Souther politics, and their extremist ideologies remain in the mainstream, the LTTE's concerns, their extremist ideology and their demand for an Eelam will be justified.
The LTTE's Eelamist ideology and the Sinhala right wing's Sinhala supremacy ideology are like two sides to the coin. They form the ying and yang of the greatest threat to the idea of Sri Lanka. The notion that the Sinhalese and the Tamils cannot live together as equals, as Sri Lankans.
If the Sinhala right wing were to vanish, then the LTTE would have no leg to stand on. They would have no threat to the Tamil people that they could use to justify their demands for an Eelam. If the Tamil people of Sri Lanka did not have a Sinhala right wing to be afraid of, to be oppressed by, they would no longer support the LTTE, even secretly. The LTTE exists only because of its 'other'. If that 'other' were to cease to exist, then so would they. So too would the Sinhala right wing cease to exist if the LTTE were to vanish. They would no longer have someone from whom the 'Sinhala motherland' needed to be defended.
Meanwhile, neutral, sane, non-racist Sri Lankans who believe that Sri Lanka is very much a reality and not a myth watch our country fall apart.
The only way to seek a permanent solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka, with any hope of success, is to seek the construction of a solid Sri Lankan identity, which become our primary identity, over-riding our Sinhala-ness or Tamil-ness. Yes, many people have said this. It is not in any way a new idea, but it remains the only idea that can give anyone any hope for a better future.
The question is, how do we do it?
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Hi there Morquendi! We always knew you'd end up an activist of some sort. :D I'd ordinarily just stay out of the discussions at Nittewa, but this post really caught my eye as I was going to blog something similar as a follow up to a previous post of mine. This continuing crisis of identity amongst people in general (yes, I digress, but I feel that identity is an issue that affects the global population, not merely Sri Lankans) is mainly caused I think by the increasing awareness that despite whatever labels we've given ourselves to set us apart, we're all the same. Faced with this reality that we are indeed all human and not really different from one another - where do the old traditions and old notions of racial supremacy go? But back to your question - how do we create an overriding Sri Lankan identity? I say - by working together. Our experiences with the Interact movement may have not been the same, but I'm sure that anyone who was part of the movement and was exposed to the different communities as a result would have gained a better understanding of people. We might not be able to change the world overnight, but like sittingnut pointed out - there are so many people who feel insecure and need to find purpose in their lives by becoming part of a group - to the detriment of their individuality. If we can talk to our friends, our immediate circle of associates and encourage them to be themselves, to use their brains and see through the labels that society seeks to slap on them, then I think we will have achieved something. After all, the greatest rivers begin as a mere trickle... I might be an idealist (always have been), but I believe in the Gandhian method - "you must be the change you wish the see in the world". |
As for being mixed, one cannot forget all the Porto, Dutch and English blood that runs in our veins. They sure screwed around a lot. |
dayan: excellent that for once a proper discussion is going on then dextr!! life is funny that way. dextr: so according to you d.s. is sinhala and dudly is not? |
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