Dear LS Reader,
Having been poked and prodded into writing one of the inaugural posts for the Lanka Solidarity Blog, I finally relented out of my hope that this would in some small way contribute to making Lanka Solidarity fertile ground for debate and discussion among the diaspora, a place where progressive, open-minded individuals of all ethnic groups can exchange ideas about how to move our community forward. It is also my hope that Lanka Solidarity can help articulate a vision of a Sri Lankan identity that transcends the differences that have been too-often emphasized between the ethnic communities, and instead focuses on the commonalities that we share. This is no easy task, but a task that I feel is imperative if Sri Lanka is to move forward productively.
Currently, Sri Lanka appears headed on a path to repeat the mistakes of the last several decades, and widen the chasms that already exist between the communities. We have, in Mahinda Rajapakse, a president who does not see fit to even acknowledge the existence of minorities—as though simply proclaiming minorities do not exist would somehow sweep away their grievances. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, "Sri Lanka Looks to the Future," the only time Rajapakse uses the term "Tamil" is to describe the terrorism of the Tamil Tigers! Not a mention of the legitimate grievances of Tamils and other minorities. On more than one occasion, I have heard reference to the defeat of the LTTE as the defeat of "the Tamils" (once by Sri Lankan Ambassador on a BBC interview, and once by a slightly inebriated Sinhalese friend). It is precisely this thinking, this equation of 'Tamil' with terrorism and the LTTE, whether or conscious or subconscious, that has made 'Tamil' a four-letter word in Sri Lanka. It's all right if you are Tamil in Sri Lanka, the message seems to be, just don't proclaim it too loudly and just make sure that you are a Sri Lankan first. But what people fail to realize is that the more you attempt to suppress something, the more people will attempt to cling to it.
And that, in my view, is what has happened over the last several decades, and more so recently. You have a Tamil Diaspora that identifies itself pretty much exclusively as "Tamil." Anyone who refers to themselves as "Sri Lankan" or joins a Sri Lankan group is perceived, to a large extent, as having sold out. The perception of "Sri Lankan" as synonymous with Sinhalese is pervasive among the Tamil Diaspora. In order to establish the solidarity that I feel is so important at this juncture, this kind of thinking has to change.
When asked how he identified himself, a friend of mine, a Tamil from Negombo, chose the term "Canadian Sri Lankan." And when asked how he could identify himself as "Sri Lankan" instead of "Tamil" when the notion of what it is to be Sri Lankan had not been clearly articulated, when the Sri Lankan state had committed so many atrocities on his people, his response was that even though he had lost family members in the anti-Tamil riots of 1983, he felt it was more important for him to communicate a message of unity, and that to him being Sri Lankan was not about being Sinhalese or being Tamil, but something that transcended that.
A "Sri Lankan" is not four parts Sinhalese, one part Tamil and one part Muslim, with the Sinhalese being the "special part," as the national flag seems to indicate. This would necessarily entail that to be Sri Lankan would be a lot easier for someone who is Sinhalese, whereas someone who was Tamil or Muslim would have to give up far more of their core identity in order to be considered Sri Lankan. Thus, the notion of what it is to be Sri Lankan has to be radically redefined and rethought: it cannot merely be an amalgam of the various ethnic groups in their respective proportions. A Sri Lankan has to be something more than that. It has to also get at what is common between all of us.
Growing up in Toronto, arguably the capital of Tamil Eelam (for it exists more in the minds and hearts of people here than those in Sri Lanka), the differences between Tamils and Sinhalese were always emphasized. There were all kinds of stereotypes: Tamils were supposed to be intelligent, the Sinhalese charming. There was a Tamil look and a Sinhalese look, and so on. But what I have found over the last several years, in travelling to Sri Lanka and in making many Sinhalese friends, is that we have a lot more in common than we may think or care to acknowledge.
One incident in particular really woke me up to this fact. I was on vacation in the Dominican Republic when a local, a Haitian actually, came running up to me exclaiming "Sri Lanka! Sri Lanka!" This was a guy who had never once left the island of Hispaniola, and while he may have come across several people of Indian origin, I had no reason to think he had met anyone from Sri Lanka. It turns out that there is a Sri Lankan UN Peacekeeping mission on Haiti and this fellow had befriended some of the army commanders (all Sinhalese), and had even learned a few phrases in Sinhala, which he proceed to try out on me (much to his dismay). But to me, this was an awakening. Whatever commonality this guy had been able to detect in the Sinhalese army commanders in Haiti, he had also seen in me! Here was someone from the outside world, who knew nothing about Tamils and Sinhalese, identifying me as Sri Lankan.
Upon reflection, I suppose this shouldn't come too much as a surprise given the thousands of years of history that both Tamils and Sinhalese have on the island, and the strong likelihood of intermarriage between the two groups. And there is even the recent genetic research revealing that Sri Lankan Tamils and Sinhalese have more in common with each other than any other groups in the Indian sub-continent. Clearly there is something in our DNA—or perhaps more importantly, in our character—that is distinctively Sri Lankan. By helping to articulate this shared identity, and by ensuring that all ethnic groups feel that they have an equal stake in this identity, we go a long way in healing the rifts that have formed over decades of civil war and, ultimately, building a better future for all Sri Lankans.
Yours in solidarity,
ThamiLankan
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