What? Tamils do not like this government?

Some hold the present conflict situation as one in which the minorities are bearing the brunt of it, and that too, as a fault of the incumbent leader, and his government.

The fallacy of that is self evident, so blithely self-evident, that those who say so, must now surely chow on their own words.

Two of the major minority parties are now in government ranks; well at least one is from last week - the CWC - and there is no prospect that the SLMC will desist from joining in the near future.

Please read our story on page 9 for the positive views of civil society actors on this political development, which will further hazard the blinkered front-vision of the regular and omnipresent Cassandras.

What do these nattering nabobs of negativism have to say about the assertion by a good swathe of Colombo's well regarded and sophisticated NGO and civil society gentry, opining that it is a positive sign that the government is securing coalition partners in the form of minority parties?

The CWC had a habit of being in government, and it's as if a "no CWC" government's is a rice and curry feed without the pol sambol.

But the current conjecture is not one in which the CWC's entry into government ranks could be taken as a given.

Pundits were over-working their vocal chords to berate the people on certain negative aspects of the current situation, which are ostensibly creating a great chasm between the government and the ordinary Tamil people.

But with recent developments, we would have to ask, why is Tamilnadu concerned about the 'plight' of Tamil people in Sri Lanka when there are Tamil parties representing a whopping swathe of the Tamil constituency joining the government? Is Tamilnadu worried about poorer cousins across the Straits, when these 'kinsmen' who are being sympathised with are voting with their feet to join the government?

We do not think that there is any argument that could obfuscate the fact that the CWC's gesture of politically embracing Rajapaksa, is one that could be read as a vote of confidence on him by the Tamil minority.

One reason is that the plantation workers have been identifying with the Sri Lankan Tamil community as a whole almost to the point of identifying with Velupillai Prabhkaran himself, and the LTTE. The CWC's leader Arumugam Thondaman has travelled to the Wanni, and met Velupillai Prabhakaran in his own turf several times.

If anyone says that his is a Trojan manoeuvre by the LTTE, it is then something else to consider. But then, Thondamn the younger is no spring chicken either.

It's clear that the political admixture of opportunity and constituency-pressure are at work here, to prevail upon grassroots organizations to sound their leaders about seeking opportunities to join the government. This is not pork barrel politics where a small group lobbies the government for favours; its expedient politics in which getting into government would mean that the poor and underprivileged have far better opportunities.

Put across in a less glamorous sounding text, it means that the poor and the unwashed are not in a hurry to rebel - - they feel there is more opportunity in being within the system, rather than opting out of it - and rotting - out of it?.

Possibilities

The Asian games may have been dominated by India, but the spunk of the local performers gives the Sri Lankan nation extraordinary hope. This seems to be the time for prodigies. The prodigious talent of our ten gold medal-winning swimmer? for instance is almost of ten gallon proportions. She reminds us of prodigies such as a Romanian gymnast, Nadia Comenici, who almost defined the potent possibilities of the time in which her nation was emerging from a politically imposed carapace of external domination.

Sri Lanka is probably undergoing a similar resurgence in these times --- it's a country coming into its own after an age of colonial domination, and then an eerily lengthy colonial hangover. Mayumi Raheem is the poster girl of that resurgence.