Overcoming past traumas through communication

By Prof. Rajiva WIJESINGHE

When I started the column entitled Colombo Changes in the Sunday Observer , I saw it as in a sense self-indulgence. I was going through my memories and, though I thought that it would be useful to record what Colombo and also Sri Lanka were like in those years of transition, I hoped simply that these reminiscences would merely entertain those who find the past interesting. Though obviously I would have to make reference to social and political trends and changes, I had not thought the articles would be read with any great emotion.

I was therefore deeply touched to receive from a Tamil academic a message regarding the piece that appeared on February 13, and which the editors had entitled Standardisation hits university admissions, focusing quite sensibly on what they saw as a principal theme of the piece. The piece began by thanking me for being fair to us traumatized Jaffna Tamils. It then went on to give further information about the Cyril Mathew affair, the widely publicised accusation that Tamil examiners were cheating favouring Tamil students by overmarking Tamil medium scripts.

It seems that the Examinations Department did conduct an inquiry, though my interlocutor was not clear about the motives of those who administered this. The process was not easy given that a Tamil examiner had to translate the marked scripts into English for the Sinhala examiner detailed to work with him, and the latter had to judge on the basis of this oral translation. But at the end of the process, I was told, THE TAMIL EXAMINERS WERE EXONERATED.

But this served no purpose. As the message said, Unfortunately, this exoneration received hardly any publicity. Many Sinhalese, including some highly educated persons, believed Cyril Mathew. It hurt. It still hurts. And, as I noted, the system was changed to indulge Cyril Mathew, and once more

Tamil students were discriminated against with regard to University admissions. That system of discrimination, introduced so wickedly, still by and large persists for what are seen as prestigious courses. Typically, with regard to Arts Courses, which are not of great concern to our decision makers, the system is more equitable, but of course the end products are at the bottom of the ladder anyway as far as employment prospects go.

My interlocutor, who has been advised not to worry about such matters, notes that Since I don't have better things to do, I rage and goes on to suggest "Couldn't you use your expertise and influence to get traumatized Sri Lankan Tamils to write about their personal experiences?" I think writing was therapeutic in my case and helped me to get over dislocation and depression. I think traumatized Tamils need help to write without rage.

After I replied, I received an even more moving message. Some of it should be quoted in full, because it suggests a mindset of great generosity that seeks a way to reconciliation through sympathy and understanding." I feel very strongly about such things because:

There are middle-aged Jaffna Tamils who are bitter about standaradization even though they have somehow survived that storm and are now prosperous.

Despite their prosperity they call themselves victims of standardization. (What are we to call those who fell by the wayside?) But believe me, they are even more bitter about their Sinhalese friends who don't realise they are victims.

These same middle-aged Tamils have not heard and do not want to hear that there are and were poor, rural Sinhala students who were and are victims of educational policies. We were at the University of Peradeniya in 1971 and I try to tell them but they don't want to understand.

People are generally bored with history, politics and statistics. People who consider themselves victims are also bitter about the way other people rewrite and interpret history.

However, victims and others may be interested in individual experiences of suffering, generosity, sacrifice, heroism and even brutality on both sides.

I would like to suggest then a column in which people who wish to reflect on the past without bitterness may do so, to record facts as to how they suffered from discrimination, how perhaps they were helped by other individuals, how people were crushed by systems introduced without consideration for the vulnerable, and how sometimes they overcame problems of this sort.

I would agree that this sort of self-expression may help with the reconciliation we are pursuing.

But I think too that we need to deal more expeditiously with reform of educational policies that have created so many victims.

The poor Tamil students who were abused by the Cyril Mathew syndrome at least realised they were victims. The poor Sinhalese students who have lived through fifty years of neglect of rural schools assuaged by positive discrimination that only benefits a tiny number, should also be given better treatment.

The Minister of Higher Education and his officials have shown a willingness to think outside the box, and have met every argument against their proposals with intelligent argument as well as sympathy.

It is high time officials in the Ministry of Education too came up with proposals, not merely to tinker with the system, but to change it radically so that the poor victims of years of neglect, Tamil and Sinhala and Muslim, of years of enforced separation from each other and the world outside, can be empowered properly to take their rightful place in the modern world. The message I got indicates the enormous goodwill that can go together with anguish.

I hope that those mandated to promote reform work swiftly in the spirit in which this appeal was written.