TNS Corner
Looking for the Pony in 2010 (Opinion)

Feb 1, 2010, 20:28

There is an old story about a young boy who bounds down the steps on Christmas morning only to find the living room brimming over with horse manure. Ever the optimist, the boy finds a shovel and starts digging with enthusiasm. When asked why he seems to be so excited, the boy cheerfully replies, “With all this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!” 

In a world full of geopolitics and national interests, thinking or commenting about the future of Tamils is challenging. With the moribund political climate in Sri Lanka – almost everyone in Tamil Diaspora is confused by what’s in store for Tamils in Sri Lanka. I would argue that if you’re not confused, you probably haven’t been paying attention.

The optimists who predicted a sudden peaceful resolution got it wrong due to the peace talk euphoria of 2002. At the same time, the pessimistic prediction of an outright meltdown has come to pass.  Currently optimists look a little silly. Recent pessimists’ consensus among political forecasters is that the ‘Eelam’ moment will never arrive. This is partly a bet that with time the showdown with the Tamils will be resolved by Sri Lanka. It is also, as is the case with all forecasting, a guess – not a certainty.

What is for certain is that Sri Lanka’s financial health is in deep water. It is bankrupt and swimming against global economic current with a begging bowl in hands as a floating device. The current financial mess is compounded with double digit economic declines, rapid inflation, beleaguered government, and ballooning military spending. But with the help of conscienceless communist China, idealistic India and the world's most dangerous Korean – Ban Ki-moon – Sri Lanka has so far prevailed, leaving us Tamils with more anxiety and heartache. Between their anodyne oratory, and unsteady grasp of the Tamil freedom struggle; not to mention torrent of boringly predictable childish utterances, I found that I had been lulled to sleep.

Generalizing about the differences between Tamils and Sinhalese is about as rewarding as sticking your arm into a blender. This issue is just too rife with controversy, contradictory data, deep-seated emotion, manufactured fears, and political agendas of all kinds. But the meltdown of Sri Lanka and its ethnic cleansing tendencies has lately shed new light on this decade old and deeply contentious conflict, leaving us – as possibly the world – with the question, should the leaders of Sri Lanka be criminally charged for their unsavoury behaviour?

Regardless of the answer, Diaspora Tamils have a responsibility to care for and to protect our people, as the International Community – especially UN, is inept at this. It all started when Sri Lanka’s juvenile tactics and attributes were unbounded and unchecked, and Milošević types were allowed to run amok.  As such, Sri Lankan atrocities were dialed-up to unprecedented levels; preying on Tamils was outsourced without restraint which undermined the entire civil society, imperilling all, including the predator. World couldn't stop the carnage. It couldn't cure Sri Lanka’s demons.

The claptrap bureaucrat Ban Ki-moon and his palsy brain, is famous for ignoring Sri Lankan atrocities; still can’t boss up to the torture, rape and starvation of innocent Tamils, proving to us that he has all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible diction, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

As tens of thousands of Tamil refugees lingered under fire on a narrow strip of beach in Sri Lanka, Ban did nothing and then made a trip to war zone after war ended, issuing utterly forgettable statements and as such he has become a kind of accidental tourist, a dilettante on the world stage. 

So UN isn't merely unhelpful to us Tamils – it's largely irrelevant. As a result the world is treating us Tamils like the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one around to witness its crash – if they don't really hear us, do we really exist?

We can make them hear us if we unite together under the right platform – which of course requires money – and lots of it. As the old Chinese saying goes “If you have money you can make the devil push your grind stone.”

I believe, more than money we need unity – which we lack. The events of this year in Sri Lanka should have certainly increased our ability to unite together – but it hasn’t. Unity will always be a magical commodity that is difficult to attain and easy to lose, and its badly needed at this juncture of our history to help us avoid getting conned, because Sri Lanka is always prone to deceive others.

Similar to financial markets, the political arena sometimes rewards contrary thinkers handsomely. It seems this very strategy by Tamils needs to be explored – at least for now. "The world," as philosopher Wittgenstein once noted, "is non-stationary. It moves around, and it does so in ways that make prediction problematic." With Sri Lanka tiptoeing and tripping around humanitarian issues, the political situation appears now to have changed direction again, but this time for the worse, at least from the Tamils' perspective.

While we go through five stages of grief we have a responsibility to make things right, our collective behaviour of infighting to-date has been abysmally pathetic. We lose the freedom cause when we change the principles of our behaviour. In the post-war era we have become so far in the minority and as a result we have all become free agents. We fight and argue over esoteric concepts while stranded in reality gap – a reality of nightmare. We never should confuse our position with our best interest. Sometimes best way to protect our interest is to give up our position.

Conflicts are often like flying. Frequent fliers are used to turbulence. When the skies get a bit choppy, the captain asks passengers to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts until he can find smoother air. Occasionally, when the ride gets very turbulent, the captain asks the cabin crew to take their seats as well — even if they are in the midst of serving dinner. With the kind of political turbulence in Sri Lanka, if we were flying a jumbo jet, one would now ask the cabin crew to take their seats and fasten their seatbelts. While we all still expect and hope a safe flight — it could be an unpleasant one for a while.

That said, with the exception of Sri Lanka’s recent arrogance of seeking advantage by creating the impression that it is willing and able to deal with Tamil uprising rather than find ways to coexist, all of the above is basically old news.

Even if we do have to wait awhile for clear signs of a resolution, the Tamils throughout the centuries have shown a remarkable capacity for muddling through hardship. Despite unprecedented setbacks, a nagging political problem, a sharp increase in misery, and a wave of non-reality-based media propaganda that decimated our collective confidence, Tamils still have a chance to make things right despite the harshest inconvenience on record.

It is tempting to say that our failure in solving the Sri Lankan conflict is nothing new or that Sri Lanka has progressed into a fascist state – while both points would be correct, but neither is compelling. The recent developments, the resulting state of misery, the onset of war-fatigue is worrisome to Tamils living behind the lines and away from the conflict zone. Despite these lurid aspects, we must remain united.

Regardless of varying opinions and silly squabbles, what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and if enough people believe in this idea and act on it, then I reckon we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done. This challenge does not build our character as a race, rather it reveals it. Strength does not just come from winning all the time. Our struggle develops our strength as a community and shapes us. While we currently go through hardship, if we unite together and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

Despite our earnest efforts, to our dismay IMF approved the loan to the thug state. Seems to me if there is a moral point of no return IMF long since passed it. This shows we have no representation – confirming our long held belief that defending Tamils is Tamils’ responsibility.

We are friendless Tamils facing annihilation. We are on our own. We need to tackle Sri Lanka economically and optically. We shouldn’t give drowning Sri Lanka a life-raft, rather a garden-hose in the throat. We need to get aggressive with our “No to Sri Lanka” campaign coupled with effective lobbying work to optically make Sri Lanka look as bad as South Africa during apartheid era and isolate them. So how can Tamils keep buying Sri Lankan products? It’s unconscionable.

We cannot continue to bellyache or commiserate about the world’s indifference towards us if we are not willing to speak up forcefully for the silent victims. We can’t expect much when are wearing Sri Lankan made garments while our stomachs are full of Rajapakse’s groceries, tea, and planning a vacation on Sri Lankan Airlines to Sri Lanka. Such actions are hypocrisy at its apogee. The splattered blood from Tamil victims of Sri Lankan tyranny will stain our conscience forever if we have any part in supporting the Sri Lankan economy.

Brave Tamils paid the ultimate sacrifice. They did not bear the shame. They resisted, sacrificing their life for freedom, justice, and honour; and now rest of us are forced to live in a world without them. In that process the Diaspora Tamils have borne witness to the cold destruction of a venerable struggle. Perhaps the evasive human beings of the bureaucratic kind who sought to end the lives of these brave souls might get a glimpse into the devastation that they have sponsored which the survivors face each day behind barbed wires.

Decades ago we started on a journey to free our people. It is now clear that we still haven't reached the destination. Their state of freedom is as precarious as when we started – or worse. Without anyone’s help we are like a soloist with two strings left: “Money and Unity.” Sri Lankan tanks and guns can't take that away from us. Nor we will ever forget what they did to our kith and kin. We should be united not divided, determined not delusional, and dedicated not distracted. After such carnage of epic proportion is levied on our people, if we can’t unite, turn the page, bury the hatchet, hit refresh on our browser of past then I am afraid we do not deserve freedom.

There are people who tell me Tamil freedom struggle is now a hopeless quest. Maybe our continuous efforts may help our people, maybe not. I can’t speak for everyone in this regard nor have the foresight to predict the future of Sri Lanka’s Tamils. I can however speak for myself. I can tell you that by witnessing my peoples’ courage and humility and their willingness to be freed, I’ve learned the dignity of being loyal to something Tamils collectively believe in, and holding onto it. Above all else believing without question that one day my people will be freed and it will take me home – once and for all. In that, I feel like that young boy on Christmas morning looking for the pony.

roy_ratnavel@hotmail.com