Ceylon Today Editorial

LAST CHANCE FOR NATIONAL RECONCILIATION?

24 November 2016

The Constitutional Committees have formulated a slew of proposals to effect a breakthrough in the process of national/racial/religious reconciliation which go far beyond the proposals of past by any government which were mere dichotomies between reality and bogus posturing by that ugly section of the polity which deals in nothing short of populist politics aimed at extending its power.

The nation could well have been taken aback by the forthright manner in which these committees have said outright to all players in this sordid saga of racist supremacy versus the eternal underdog, that, in effect "Here's the solution. Let the people decide, let Parliament decide."

The problem said a sage, is not in how a people intelligently and humanely respond to major issues which assail a nation but in the manner in which opportunistic politicians stir up the ignorant masses with appeals to racist and religious supremacy, and prevent a rational examination of failed attempts of the past instead of agreeing on what's best for the nation as a whole, whether based on presumed historical facts or on differences interpreted in so-called historiography.

The proposals made might seem to suggest an attempt not so much to revise historical facts or deny majoritarian claims...but clearly is an attempt to revise the approach to a solution that has eluded us for more than a dozen decades. It's the same, virtually, in relation to Palestinian-Israeli stand-off, with each demanding supremacy – and thus making rapport as a single nation impossible, merely divided by religion and culture and the need for space for greater 'nationalist' freedom and expression within a united State whose territorial integrity must at all costs be preserved.

It's the threat to that territorial integrity by the killer squads led by Prabhakaran and his proxies in the TNA and other Tamil parties and political organizations – here and abroad – that led to the inevitable response. In three decades of a blood bath that only distanced the nation further away from any solution is now attempted by the Constitutional Subcommittees. But the lack of pejorative expletives from the Opposition in Parliament, one fears, is a time bomb primed for explosion at electoral level and one that will be used to devastating effect when the Local Government elections come around.

One hopes not, but it's been one too many times that the Opposition has exploited appeals to racial and religious majoritarianism to hinder any solution that could create an ambiance in which every Lankan can live in dignity and freedom, fully recognizing the fact that while together we make a multi-lingual, multi-religious society, we nevertheless do have the right for the fullest expression of a modicum of freedoms we individually and collectively enjoyed as our birthrights in the past.

It's time to tear up the chronicles on terrorist separatism, the hang-ups of the past and work out a formula that, however, leaves no room for the Tamil extremists to ever make an attempt to exploit and abuse the enormous quantum of power devolution the proposals of the Constitutional Committees (CCs) foresee.

Let's be clear: the proposals do not envisage or intend permitting any revision of the majority's stance on territorial claims. The CCs have made proposals which are entirely up to the masses and Parliament to ratify or reject, in part or in toto.

That is where the ugly influence of narcissists in our body politic who stir up sections of the Buddhist clergy and the ignorant masses to mount public demonstrations aimed at derailing governance and all attempts to solve the national crises via methods which are perceived to inherently detract from racial and religious supremacy. It's this very fact that drove extremist Tamils to pick up the sword in the first place by rousing a then massive groundswell of anti-Tamil sentiment which turned thousands of Tamils into human torches, triggering one of the most massive human refugee crises of recent decades in the world, with over a million Tamils fleeing the land of their birth with death dogging them at every step.

As a whole, we need to reevaluate our past feeble and totally inadequate attempts to solve this tragedy by any method short of frittering away our territorial and collective national integrity. On their part, the Tamil leadership, especially the TNA and the NPC Chief Minister, must put an end to their stupid attempts to hoodwink the Tamil as well as Sinhala masses and the global community, and back their public avowals of ending the demand for separatism by demanding what in effect is the laying of a groundwork that can serve as a precursor to that very separatism. To the Tamil leadership we say, "stop your brinkmanship and grandstanding and get real, not one single man or woman in the rest of the country is ever likely to forget your past as terrorists' proxies.