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A curse that is Unitary Constitution and the Tamil peoples’ collective dignity

“Under no circumstances would we consider the homeland concept of the Tamil people and any power sharing mode as an alternative would be strictly within the paradigm of a Unitary constitution”. This or words to this effect are that of the President of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa in an exclusive interview with Reuters on 13 February 2006. Don’t these words portray the image of a feudal dynasty ruler who has no idea of changing the entrenched imperialistic thinking?

Behind the lavish mouthing of a ‘new Lanka’, the Tamil people see in these words nothing other than the reality of the continuing racial oppression mentality. Is there in the South a right thinking Sinhala citizen who would dare to define this as a statement from a far-sighted leader of a country where this mindset has failed to bring about a democratic relationship between the different people and has contributed to the two decade old war taking a human toll of 80,000 lives? This indeed is a serious dilemma in the Tamil psyche.

This statement from the President, an individual regarded as an heir to the Giruwagampattu dynasty, confounds the confusion the Tamil people are in as to whether he has the slightest of consideration for the Tamil people vis-à-vis the interest of his coalition partners. It is fifty years or more now since the Tamil people have proclaimed that they cannot continue to be imprisoned and get oppressed and killed within the ‘card-house’ unitary constitution framed by the white colonialists to meet their vested interests. It is now a long time since this yearning for freedom has been, from the Tamil peoples’ doorsteps, transformed into a gigantic flame of freedom. If the Tamil people are to become ‘yes-men’ to a feudal lord from Ruhuna addicted with an unlimited lust for power, then there is no meaning for the life-sacrifice of nearly twenty thousand heroic Tamil youths.

Let us put aside for a moment the indignity the President’s affirmation has caused to the Tamil people who have paid a supreme price for what they yearn as collective human dignity. But, is it not an indignity to the right thinking Sinhala intellectuals and the political stream that judge with circumspection the inevitability that forced the Tamil people to take up arms when they found that their political aspirations expressed democratically and peacefully were met with and suppressed by state armed violence? Is the Sinhala electorate that has, by experience over the past few decades and the political wisdom it has acquired, comprehended the fact that the imperialistic unitary form of government does not permit dignified co-existence of the Tamil and Sinhala people with mutual respect and sense of fraternity to each other, going to watch with docility the under-estimation of their pragmatic thinking?

President Rajapaksa has demonstrated through this press interview not only the lack of political diplomacy but also the lack of basic political circumspection to fathom the political crisis within which is embroiled the electorate that he provides leadership with. There is no doubt that he who as prime minister endorsed without any difference of opinion the stance of a government that spoke ad-nauseam on regional councils and federalism is now engaged in pushing the Tamil people into the unitary set-up all of a sudden only because of his need to stir Sinhala racialism to stick on to power.

The concept of the Tamil homeland, nationhood and the right to self determination have been the inalienable prerogative of all the Tamil political parties and groups from the time of the Thimpu talks in 1985. Echoed through this was the collective Tamil national aspiration. Based on this fundamental concept was the liberation struggle spearheaded by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in later years. Is it not the realisation of this ground reality that the ruling elite in the south did not for the last decade and a half not indulge in any talk of resolving the political conflict within the framework of a ‘unitary state’?

Those with an acquaintance of history and little logic would clearly comprehend not only the danger to the future of the Tamil people but also of the Sinhala people one could discern from this distortion of the President barely two weeks to go for peace talks. This imperialistic thinking in no way paves the way for realistic co-existence and mutual respect in a society that has seen bloodletting in cold reality for two decades. Rejection of the Tamil homeland concept, even if chanted thousand times, is not going to nullify the reality. Nor does the exercise of executive power going to imprison the Tamil people into the unitary state. It is an exercise in futility. It is no doubt a litmus test for those who fail to grasp this simple truth from the pages of history. To be tested and ascertained is the question whether this leadership would be capable of leading the Sinhala people, facing the challenges twenty- first century would pose.

17 March 2006

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