Continuity And Change In The Tamil Nationalist Project
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
The keynote speech of R Sampanthan at the ITAK Convention 2012 echoes in significant respects those of Velupillai Prabhakaran.
It is with shock and dismay that I found that the keynote speech of R. Sampanthan at the 14th Convention of the ITAK in May 2012, echoes in significant respects those of Velupillai Prabhakaran, to the extent that that there are near-identical passages. Here is a single sample:
“The world does not revolve around the axis of justice. The freedom struggles of persecuted communities are not measured on the scales of justice. Global powers that preach of Democracy and Human Rights are themselves not the epitome of justice. We do not expect governments around the world and international organizations that support them to take pity on us, sacrifice their interests, and ensure that our rights are given to us.” That’s Mr R. Sampanthan at the ITAK 14th Convention, May 2012.
Now ladies and gentlemen, here’s Mr V. Prabhakaran: “We are fully aware that the world is not rotating on the axis of human justice. Every country in this world advances its own interests. It is the economic and trade interests that determine the order of the present world, not the moral law of justice nor the rights of people. International relations and diplomacy between countries are determined by such interests. Therefore we cannot expect an immediate recognition of the moral legitimacy of our cause by the international community.” That’s from the Maha Veera Day Address of November 1993.
Mr Sampanthan, the most prominent local leader of the Northern Tamil community, which exists a few miles away from the sub-regional landmass, reiterates his party’s commitment to achieving with the support of the international community, the same ‘soaring aspirations’ that could not be achieved through armed struggle. He asserts – some would say confirms – that ‘the international community’, through its current stance, may open the space for the achievement of that goal: “…The current practices of the international community may give us an opportunity to achieve, without the loss of life, the soaring aspirations we were unable to achieve by armed force.” (R. Sampanthan, speech at ITAK 14th Annual Convention, Batticaloa, May 2012, Colombo Telegraph)
Plainly the ‘soaring aspiration’ is that of Tamil Eelam. He calls for the restoration of the degree of sovereignty that the Tamil people are said to have enjoyed over 500 years ago, prior to the advent of colonialism. This refers to a completely independent political existence. “…Up to 500 years ago, the Tamil people established their own governments, and governed themselves. Our party symbolizes a time in history…during which our people had their own sovereign Tamil governments…Our fundamental objective is to regain our community’s Home, its historical habitat and its sovereignty. The symbol of the House symbolizes this unshakeable aim…” (Ibid)
If the world were to be re-ordered by restoring the status quo ante of no less than half a millennium; if every minority of roughly a million people or a small fraction of a country’s citizenry, were to demand this right and seek its exercise, the world would be plunged into anarchy, chaos, bloodshed. This project cannot be entertained.
Mr Sampanthan’s transparent declaration of tactics could have been critique or caricature penned by a Sinhala chauvinist, and had it been authored by a Sinhalese, would have been dubbed ‘racist stereotyping’ (even by me). “…The softening of our stance concerning certain issues, and the compromise we show in other issues, are diplomatic strategies to ensure that we do not alienate the international community. They are not indications that we have abandoned our fundamental objectives…In other words – we must prove to the international community that we will never be able to realize our rights within a united Sri Lanka… Although the issue at hand is the same, the prevailing conditions are different. The struggle is the same, but the approaches we employ are different. Our aim is the same, but our strategies are different. The players are the same, but the alliances are different. That is the nature of the Tamil people. Although we still have the same aim, the methods we use are now different…” (Ibid)
How then is one to apply the policy of containment to the Tamil secessionist temptation? It is far too risky to transfer provincial powers through an election to a party which openly declares that it not only dismisses the 13th amendment as solution; but also dismisses the unitary state as a framework and actually believes that a solution is not possible within a united Sri Lanka. It strategizes to convince the world community of that fact. In short it hopes to convince the world community that a solution for the Tamils is possible only outside a united Sri Lanka, i.e. in a separate, independent state. If such a party takes power in a Provincial Council it will doubtless feel impelled to push for more from the outset; to create situations of tension and confrontation while it uses the Council as a base for external recognition, which it will doubtless obtain from some quarters and to some degree. If Colombo dissolves an adventurist provincial administration, some external forces (such as a legislative assembly of co-ethnics in the sub-region) may recognise the boundaries/borders of the dissolved provincial unit as a basis for an independent state or transitional administration. This is how the former USSR and Yugoslavia broke up.
Similarly and conversely, it is imprudent in the extreme to abolish the existing Constitutional provisions for autonomy, unless it is as part of and superseded by an agreement with all parliamentary parties, including crucially, the main Tamil party. Here we are speaking of a successful outcome of the hoped-for Parliamentary Select Committee process. Unless that happens it is imperative to retain the status quo and avoid the deadly mistake that Milosevic was tempted to make, namely the constitutional revision that abolished the autonomous status of Kosovo which the Tito Constitution had provided. The Serbian ultranationalists regarded Marshal Josip Broz Tito as a (Croatian) Communist who had given away the historic rights of the majority Serbs. In pushing through the reversal of the autonomous status of Kosovo as a province of (within) Serbia, they lost their country a few years later and experienced the state of Yugoslavia forcibly shrunk through externally supported secession and military intervention, to Serbia alone.
The doctrine of containment of Tamil proto-secessionism has necessarily to consist of strong positive reforms. There must be a serious change in the nature and functioning of our state and society through a purposive shift to a policy of integration (not assimilation), the recognition of pluralism, equal rights, non-discrimination, multiculturalism and meritocracy. Enlightened self-interest dictates enlightened reform.
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka- Are you so naive! Where were you for the last few decades? Is there any other option for the Tamils to persue other than the option the singhalese politicians have driven the tamils to a dead end? Is it so surprising for you to hear Mr.Sampanthan’s speech! Get real for once.
Dayan Jayatilaka is a war criminal and racist trying to escape justice and refuses to see justice done to Tamils.
Tamil Eelam should be established for peace in SL ; like the parting of Singapore and Malaysia and their coexistence now as friendly and developing states
It is wise on the side of singala polities to heed DAYA`S advice in the last paragrabh.
It is too late to remould their MENTALITY on your way of enlightend reforms .It is too much to ntake!!!
Till there is SINGALA ONLY how can you integrate ONLY ASSIMILATION IS WANTED and in the abscence of any RECISTANCE from tamils it is being carried out AT A N unimmaginouble SPEED..
Int. community is only watching !!!!
Tamils’ CRY is echoing every nook and corner …
What will happen next NOBODY KNOWS !!!!
Let it be good for both communities !!!
The Lost Rights of the Tamils
By C. Naganathan
At the 14th Convention of the ITAK in May 2012, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan was spot on when he said,
“…Up to 500 years ago, the Tamil people established their own governments, and governed themselves. Our party symbolizes a time in history…during which our people had their own sovereign Tamil governments…Our fundamental objective is to regain our community’s Home, its historical habitat and its sovereignty.
Until the 10th century AD, the people in the island irrespective of their racial background were scattered all over the island with the Tamil settlements more towards Rajarata (North of Anuradapura and close to Polonnaruva). According to the historian Dr. M. Gunasingham, from around 10th to 13th century A.D, (Subsequent to the Chola domination of Sri Lanka in the 10th century A.D), people who identified themselves as Buddhists and Hela/Sihala shifted their seats of rule from the ancient kingdoms of Anuradapura/ Polonnaruva (ruled alternatively by both Sinhala and Tamil kings) towards South, West and Central Sri Lanka while the people who identified themselves as Saiva and Demela moved their ruling structures from these same regions to the North and East of the island. For many centuries from then, until the Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom from the Tamil king Cankili 11, the Tamils and the Sinhalese were living in two separate regions in Sri Lanka. Just like the Sinhalese, the Tamil people of Sri Lanka also established their own kingdom/government, and governed themselves independently. The Tamil kingdom, which extended up to the eastern province, came under Portuguese domination in 1621, and this was how the Tamils lost their sovereignty, independence and their traditional homeland.
Even after the European colonialists (Portuguese, Dutch and British) arrived, until the British united the Tamil North to the Sinhala South in 1833 for their convenience in administration, the Tamil speaking areas remained a federal region. The Portuguese, when they captured the Tamil kingdom, appointed a captain-major as the governor of Jaffna and administered it as a distinct political unit. The Dutch continued the same. The British gave credence to a united Ceylon in 1833, ignoring the historical realities that existed. This uniform administrative structure and the idea of a “united Ceylon” spelt doom for the Tamils’ distinctiveness, again, something the Sinhalese rulers had failed to achieve.
When the European colonialists arrived, what all of them clearly observed and experienced during their period was that, in the island of Sri Lanka, there were two different Nations (Sinhalese and Tamils) having two different languages, religions, cultures, and living in two well defined and clearly and naturally demarcated (with thick jungles, lakes, river, etc) land areas with their own kingdoms within their traditional lands. The Tamils lived as a majority within their separate land area (North & East) and the Sinhalese also lived as a majority within their land area (South, West & Central). The British, on seeing the naturally existing borders of the two ethnic groups used their technology to demarcate them as two separate regions (occupied by two separate ethnic groups) and created the maps for the first time somewhere in the 1800s. In their map published in England, the area that constituted the traditional homeland of the Tamils is unmistakably shown to extend from Chilaw northward and eastward to a point near Madawchchi; south of Padavil Kulam extending to the Trincomalee district; and the Batticaloa district down to the mouth of the Walawa Ganga in the south.
Later in 1833, the British created one government with one centralized, unitary form of administration under a governor in Colombo without the consent of the people, and in doing so ended the hopes for a Tamil nation as a distinct political entity, something that no conqueror had managed to do – to stifle the flame of an independent existence. The introduction of a unitary form of government (creating a single majority) was a tragic step in the wrong direction which led to the Sinhalese hegemony over the Tamils. It was the grave mistake on the part of the British to bind together in a common polity the two ethnic groups with no common links, and to bind them together by the whip they wielded. It was a death knell for the Tamils’ distinctiveness, freedom, independence and their centuries-old sovereignty.
In his speech Sampanthan only speaks about restoring our legitimate rights which we lost to the Sinhalese via the colonial rulers (British).