“We the Tamils feel the pain” an expression that is now dated

I personally get very offended when Tamils of Sri Lankan origin, especially Diaspora types continue to live in the past, and go on about the pain they are still under, as if the world owes them a living.

No one owes anyone a living. We have to make the most of the circumstances we find ourselves in and where injustice has been meted out, we must make every practical effort to correct the situation.

The reality is that there are many groups in Sri Lanka who have suffered continuously over mainly 50 plus years and some longer than that from institutionalized barbarism. Even today in Sri Lanka, every accused person is thrashed black and blue by the police to obtain a confession, often for a crime he did not commit. Nothing has changed since the British instituted this type of beatings at the time they set up police stations to handle local disputes. Even, marital disputes are settled by the Officer in Charge, ordering a warring couple to settle their differences at the threat of the innocent party being incarcerated! That is today.

So let us take a step back and realize that simple race based discrimination is not the issue in Sri Lanka, there is more raced based discrimination in the West where the Diaspora live than in Sri Lanka itself. It is individual cases of injustice, and not a collective one that has to be tackled.

The collective ones are also not race based like the disappearances of over 50,000 documented people, still technically missing, of Sinhala Youth in the Premadasa pogrom of the late 80’s where they were picked up tortured killed and burnt with no trace of what happened. 

Tamil people have no special call on this topic, as most of the suffering they endured was caused by their own, namely the LTTE forced conscription and forced seizure of personal property and demand for funds to fight their cause at the point of a gun. If anything the expression at the head of the essay is mainly directed at Tamil leaders who led the people astray, who must take most of the blame for their predicament, but they are in total denial of that fact. 

Why are many in the Diaspora in denial about the complicity of the LTTE in most of the violence against the Tamils? After all much of killings of democratically elected Tamil people and leaders were by the LTTE which continues to be held in high regard. When the world's most ruthless terrorist group continues to garner so much support, like the recent demonstrations with the proscribed Tiger Flag in the UK, it begs the question, do these demonstrators have any inkling of what was done to their community by those same leaders they espouse to follow and demonstrate for?

It is time that the Diaspora, who attempt to rally round a theme, namely the Sri Lankan government, realize they are only barking up the wrong tree. They must get a life and bark up against the injustices of caste and discrimination from within. The Sinhala people are the least to blame for their predicament. The Sinhala people have done more damage to their own than to Tamils, and so it is mere sour grapes that all their hate is directed in a misguided manner against the Government of Sri Lanka.

While no one disputes the President of Sri Lanka is a village idiot making a fool of himself on the world stage, the majority of Sinhala people are not racist or have anything against Tamils or any other section of community. Any hate is a misdirected action of a few racists, that give the whole community a bad name. I challenge that there are more racists within the Tamil Diaspora community than within the Sri Lankan mass.

The recent highlighting of one beating of a person, who claims he was repatriated when his asylum bid failed, is a mischievous ploy amongst the western media in cahoots to prevent further repatriation. History is replete with such events that change people’s perceptions and media owe a duty to the community to highlight real problems rather than isolated incidents that bear no comparison with the norm.

I do agree that the Government of Sri Lanka is not well versed in the behavior of the West to be able to counter this propaganda, and so always seem to fall victim to its own incompetence, lead by a leader who is the master of diplomatic failure and faux pas. Their reactions further exacerbate the efforts of many to show a true picture of the real situation and makes it more difficult to put in perspective all the claims made by the Tamil Diaspora about the real situation in Sri Lanka.

It is important to remember that it is the displaced people in the Island from whatever community they come from that require resettlement. They were removed against their will. It is a duty of a civilized govt with resources to ensure a modicum of humanity for their plight. I am afraid that the antics of the Diaspora that gets all the attention. They are merely trying to find an excuse for their continued existence in the West without integrating into the host culture. That is the real problem!

I appeal to Western media to truly investigate the situation in a balanced manner, without recourse to a race that has traditionally been brought up to believe that they have lost out, to lead you up the garden path. You will then be able to clear the misconceptions and move forward. 

I am for a just and lasting solution within a Unitary State as there are many more communities living within Sri Lanka and not necessarily demarcated by region. In a small country the size of Sri Lanka, which in itself has its natural boundaries of an island which also makes it unique, to have divisions based on ethnicity or language is plain stupid, no matter what the history, which anyway is all a matter of relativity, is purported to be.

A sea change in attitudes of both main communities is needed before a resolution can be brought about. The Diaspora however much one wishes them to be part of the solution, can never be a solution as they are actually going in a different direction. As for Tamil Nadu, it is an exercise in their dreams they cannot fulfill within a United India that they see as a chance of establishing one within Sri Lanka. It is only a matter of time before Sri Lanka becomes a de facto state of India, which is almost is but for the theoretical differences.

When the bridge across the Palk Strait carries people across like crossing the Kelaniya, in 30 years what is the point of a Tamil homeland to keep whom inside it!! These are mere hallucinations of ignorant and misled people.

Trust me in time we will be one world where goods land in Hambantota and will be taken by rail or road to Chennai and vice versa, so Trinco and Batti and Jaffna become irrelevant in the overall scheme of life. The universal language will be English, not Tamil or Sinhala, which will both have a unique status and literary languages of the world, but not commercial.

We will all live happily ever after and all these shenanigans by these Hela Urumaya Priests and small minded partisans will fade into oblivion. They are just mere nonentities in history trying to make a name for themselves as they are unable to contribute anything positive to society and country today.