Separate state leads Tamils to extinction - Prof. Hoole

The Appapillai Amirthalingam 80th Birth Anniversary Memorial lecture on 'A Time for Tamil Introspection and Reassessment in the midst of Myth and Propaganda delivered' by Prof. S. Ratnajeevan Hoole in London on August 26.

It behoves me to begin this talk by first thanking the organizing committee and the family of the late Appapillai Amirthalingam, the one time Leader of the Opposition in Sri Lanka, for honouring me by inviting me as the speaker today. I am as humbled as I am beholden.

While this is a memorial talk and not one on late Mr.Amirthalingam himself, please permit me to digress a little as seems fitting, to say a few things personally about Mr.Amirthalingam and the Federal Party that he so ably led in dark and difficult times. I make bold to speak here on this occasion because given the times in which I grew up, the Federal Party or FP is part of my make up and being.

My family has for long been associated with the FP. The late M. Tiruchelvam, Neelan Tiruchelvam, Uduvil Dharmalingam, C. Vanniasingham, and Kopay Kathiravelupillai were all relations of sorts. SJV's niece Samathanam Muthiah married my uncle Peter Somasundaram who was an FP Member of the Jaffna Municipal Council.

My uncle, the late K. Nesiah, was one of the principal civilians who prevailed upon the FP and the Tamil Congress to merge into the Tamil United Front, which later became the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).

It is worth remarking that Mr.Thambithurai's son Kumar of the Tamil Eelam liberation Organisation (TELO) was the first Tamil to get political asylum in the US. His grand-daughter is married to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the LTTE's Rudrakumar.

In the event, after several court appearances we were thwarted as lawyer Rasa Viswanathan ably defended Waragoda against me, and calling me all kinds of names.

Despite several court dates, the case was never heard as hearings were postponed using a note from the Tamil SP claiming that Waragoda could not be present because of emergency duty at Elephant Pass.

It was a time when, in the FP frame of mind, particularly for the Peravai, the three relations GG, Alfred Duraiyappah and the SP were the agents of the state, traitors advancing personal wellbeing through cooperation with the state.

Alfred Duraiyappah, a politician with a significant following in Jaffna, had barely lost to C.X. Martyn in the 1970 general elections but was still Mayor of Jaffna. He was working with Mrs. B. to build up the SLFP in Jaffna.

His trick was to get a monopoly on bicycle tyre sales though the Co Op. Everyone who needed a tyre that is almost every male in Jaffna had to go to the Mayor for a permit which was duly given on giving Rs. 2 and signing the SLFP membership form.

As party membership swelled, Mrs. B. thought he was really building up her party and sent more and more perks for distribution through him.

I too went to him and queued up at the Municipality in desperation and the Mayor, a master at personal relations, greeted me thus: "Hello young Hoole! What can I do for you?" He immediately gave me a permit without asking me to sign the party membership.

He knew me as from a family not in his camp. In another instance, he gave a lift to a person who had written against him and instead of quarrelling with him, simply asked him with a smile to be kind to him the next time he wrote.

I suppose that is how the gracious Mayor won over many people and always had a good third of the people of Jaffna behind him. With the rest of Jaffna divided between the FP and the TC, he always had a good shot at being MP for Jaffna as well as Mayor.

It is no secret that Alfred was seen as a traitor by many, while a good number believed that he represented the Tamils well by steering a non-confrontational course.

It is difficult to dispute that when Alfred was Mayor he developed the city (and perhaps as his defenders would say, ate a little of the hay much like a threshing bull) "I say this because when the FP was in charge of the city,we made good thundering speeches about Tamil freedom and did little about bread and butter issues like pipe borne water for the city and the new market that Alfred was so good at.

"Where I actually got to know Mr. Amirthalingam personally was at the Tamil Conference in Nanuet, NY after the 1983 riots. His description of the happenings in Jaffna and Colombo was clinical and without exaggeration. Numbers relating to Tamil victims he mentioned were well below the numbers mentioned by expatriate Tamils.

Mr. Amirthalingam mentioned 2000 dead, while the expatriates had previously mentioned II thousands upon thousands" before a Senator. Anyone listening to his account, despite the total lack of exaggeration, still came away with a clear idea of the huge enormity that had been visited upon us Tamils.

The Tamil organisers of the event though were hostile to him and Mr. Sivasithamparam. The organisers worked through youth from Germany to attack the TULF at the conference, calling for a full push for Eelam.

Nowhere was the chasm between US Tamils and the Sri Lankan Tamil leadership more evident than at this conference.

"Most significantly I know from first hand sources that in 2005 a representative came to New York to raise money for the so called final push for Eelam. When concerned potential donors asked if there would be no problems from their giving to a proscribed organisation, they were assured that the money could be given through the TRO or the Thamil Changam.

Western intelligence agencies have their foul-ups but they are not stupid. We must assume that when they go after the TRO they have something solid to go on. When they know the true facts and we argue for the TRO, western governments have little respect for our community and stop listening to us.

"Anyone who disagrees with us is a traitor. Our second mistake - grave and self-defeating error that has robbed us of several of our ablest leaders - is our assumption that those who disagree with us are traitors to our cause.

What we have created is the Tamil Bandwagon that everyone must climb on to and as it assumes the proportions of a juggernaut. And those of us who refuse to climb aboard the Tamil juggernaut immolate ourselves.

A long line of Tamil leaders such as Mr. Amirthalingam, Mr. and Mrs. Yogeswaran, and Neelan Tiruchelvam came forward to see if some via media could be worked out for the Tamil people to live in Sri Lanka with a modicum of self-respect and safety.

They tried to make the harsh world we faced under Sinhalese aggression as comfortable as possible for us in the circumstances. Mrs. Yogeswaran, my class teacher's sister, tried to run the municipality and tried to do something for our people through it.

They were all deemed traitors and killed. I trust we can see how wrong we have been. M. Sivasithambaram whom many of us federalists did not like at one time because of his (Congress roots) became a genuine hero to us.

Kumar and Raviraj both are our heroes, praised by the very same people who once were against them. There was a time when Mr. Sampanthan, Mr. Suresh Premachandran and others were "traitors" hiding in the Non-aligned Flats guarded by the state.

Today they are our leaders. Is it possible that Alfred too, if he had not been so brutally murdered, would perhaps be a hero today? Or perhaps even a Maamanithan?

Who is a traitor and who is a hero for us Tamils? It all seems stage-managed according to convenience. In the event, I would like to defend and pay my humble respects to two of my leaders. Mr. Amirthalingam experienced first hand the inveterate racism and unyielding expansionism of the Sinhalese state. He saw in India a friend, a great friend of the Tamil people.

It may be argued that India had to sell it interests. Surprised? Every state has permanent interests which it pursues, sometimes without principle. What is relevant is that Indian interests were confluent with the interests of the Tamils given two factors - the intrinsic anti-Indian ethos of many Sinhalese and the common cultural links between India and the Tamils.

Mr. Amirthalingam simply saw an avenue for advancing Tamil interests and moved strategically into that opportunity. Those of us who were in Sri Lanka as the Indian Peace Keeping Force (lPKF) moved in are deeply aware of our very high expectations - realistic expectations. Criminals settled in the East had run away.

An it like institution for the North-East was in the making, as was a modern highway along the east coast from Batticaloa to Jaffna. It all came to naught because of our puritanical all or nothing attitude towards the 7 seats of the Provincial Council.

Can anyone today really argue that Mr.Amirthalingam was wrong? We have been practically eliminated, slipping in numbers behind the Indian Tamils and the Muslims.

Our educational indices are badly down. According to a Ministry of Education study, Jaffna is behind Kilinochchi.

"I do not say that Tamils abroad have no sympathy for our brethren at home or that they have no role to play on their behalf. Rather, what I say is that the Tamils abroad have different needs and often their work is detrimental to the interests of their homebound brethren. We have already seen the purple ribbon syndrome.

"Unlike the Tamils who live in Sri Lanka, generally the Tamils abroad have a different world view. Here I speak of those who are presuming to act politically on our behalf and against those of us who will not fall under the wheels of the Tamil Juggernaut that runs our lives.

The myth is that these activists are interested in the wellbeing of the Tamils at home. Consider the self-styled Diaspora Tamils at Schliran Salmen Hall in Zurich, on July 24, 2006 marking the occasion of the 1983 riots.

They sloganeered thus: "Death Won't Deter Us" Do you think any of them faced death there, far across the seas in Germany? I am sure that nearly all of them will die of old age as their lives are artificially prolonged by western medical technology. Surely they mean that deaths of Tamils in Sri Lanka will not deter them!

"This July 23, many of my Tamil friends in the US had a demonstration in Washington DC from noon to 3:00 PM, supposedly organised by "Tamil Americans and Friends for Peace". I was also asked to attend or at least send my children.

They were short of a crowd. Some Senators would be there, I was told as an inducement. In the event only an aide to a Congressman turned up.

Within an hour of the event TamilNet.com had photographs and the resolution showing the hidden hand behind the event. Declared the resolution "We, the Tamil Americans, resolve that our struggle to establish the right of Tamil people to Self-Determination, and to establish self-rule will continue until our goal is achieved." I point to the key phrase "our struggle."

"What is their struggle except to have meetings in 5-star hotels and organise picnics in Washington DC for their children who have nothing to do in the summers?

"Meeting a Senator and possibly taking a photo with him was certainly one of the attractions. TamilNet proclaimed that a thousand had come.

We must regard those activities that do not take into consideration the wellbeing of the Tamils of Sri Lanka, as those of a deracinated crowd looking for ways to enhance their status and have activities of an entertaining nature for their past time in their rich but boring corners of the world. At best, it is their way of telling off the Sri Lankan government with which they are justly angry.

But when they demonstrate and make speeches that list only the Sri Lankan government's atrocities against the Tamil people and do not recognise the plight of children who are forced to bear arms, do not recognise the plight of those Tamils who are shot dead for holding different political opinions

Do not recognize the right of the Tamil people to buy, publish and sell newspapers of their choice.

Do not recognise the right of the Tamil people to vote for the representatives of their choice Do not recognise the right of the Tamils to seek the mandate of the Tamil people for their ideas their work must and will be dismissed as Goebbelsian propaganda perpetuating the Tamil people in slavery.

"And those who hear only half the story from us, have scant respect for us. Sinhalese intellectuals can claim for example, that Tamils never had a problem until the LTTE came into being.

They are so full of their magnanimity to Tamils and their dispensation as good rulers, that it never occurs to them that we have problems, very serious problems. Likewise, South African Whites believed that Blacks were well looked after by them. The British believed that those over whom they ruled were privileged to be under them learning to be civilized.

Is it then possible - perhaps even remotely possible - that the Tamil ruling classes are equally unaware that their yoke is heavy on those whose lives they run?

I strongly suggest - indeed I put it to you - that Tamil society is controlled by a Mafia-like Vellala elite. The LTTE may not be Vellala but its intellectual base very much is.

At one time the Vellala Ilangaith Thamil Changam proudly declared in one its articles that Roman Catholics and coastal people are low caste. Now one can see this same intellectual base trying to give the people of Valvetithurai a high royal caste status through new writings.

The caste ethos demands that Valvetithurai be elevated before its leadership has acceptability - much like Thamotherampillai needs to be made a born-Hindu to make his contributions legitimate and the Bible's translation attributed to Navalar before its quality can be extolled.

The late Anton Balasingam's Maamanithan status also needs some conformity with the ideal that good things come only from the high caste.

These flip-flops in Eelam rhetoric come from Vellalas who articulate theory from safety while the others do the dying in the battlefield. Almost everyone in leadership in Killinochchi I presume is the non-Vellala other.

It is true that many non-Vellalas have risen to power within the LTTE. But so long as their power status needs to be justified through a higher caste status, the caste ethos will continue.

In a couple of generations they will become Vellala or even Kshatriya. We see this in TamilNet, presumably from Vellalas abroad, making the claim this Aug. 6 that the Paraiyar, are "prestigious ancestors of the Tamil social formation." Yet, I doubt that TamilNet's editors would be happy to be called Paraiyar, given the hypocrisy of the ruling Vellala classes.

Instead of attacking caste as the fiction it is, we try to make token elevations of those who cannot be kept down, so that the system is preserved and, with it, the status of the Vellala. "If you cannot keep them down, invite them selectively to our ranks!"

The caste domination of the Vellala and the boredom of the newly wealthy in the West have combined to spawn a new industry. If one pays a tidy sum to some of these new professional genealogists, they would oblige by giving you your family tree tracing you back to the ancient kings without any evidence.

I am aware of those who show little culture in their personal lives going about with these family trees claiming high Tamil culture. Even as the Vellala Ilangaith Thamil Changam has put down the Roman Catholics as low caste, another overseas Tamil family with Roman Catholic background has re-established the Ariya Chakravarty line, proclaiming "His Royal Highness Prince Remigius Kanagarajah" as the "Head of The Royal House of Jaffna".

How foolish the Tamil community is made to look when its affairs are handled by these out-of-touch - even virulent - sections of overseas Tamils! It undermines the credibility of us Tamils as a whole and our cause.

At the same time look at the advisors and "struggling" activists of the LTTE in Europe and North America. Almost everyone is Vellala. Those who are not will hide that fact.

And look at those legal advisors who went for the talks to tell the non-Vellala others what to do- one-time collaborators and not just from Vellala families, but from families that make it well known that they are Vellalas. They claim to be the oldest true Vellala stratum before the rest of us jumped on board and claimed to be Vellala. Such is the human condition.

Again, on another aspect of our homogeneity, look at the leadership of the Tamils. Is it perhaps possible that Jaffna folk really dominate over the rest while Jaffna folk like the Sinhalese just cannot understand why our benign leadership is rejected by the others? I have seen serious difficulties at Eastern University among intellectuals that convince me that there is a huge problem. Col. Karuna could not have lasted this long without substantial support from the Tamil people of the East.

We must take note and cannot continue ostrich-like till we vanish as a people from Sri Lanka I am convinced that what we see going-on in Sri Lanka is a lot more than the struggle of the Tamil people to be free.

It cannot be just that when Tamil Vellala intellectuals are for the most part abroad worrying about buying their second house and a fancier car, while "struggling for Eelam"with toasts with the highest grades of liquor. Our propagandist attitude is very clear when we look at the Muslims.

They were part of 'the Tamil speaking peoples' when we wanted to claim a 270/0 Tamil population and Sir Pon. Ramanathan argued strongly that they were Tamils against the Sir Razeek Fareed and Muslim leadership's desire not to be called Tamils.

The FP bridged the gap successfully for a while by getting a substantial Muslim vote. But all that was brought to naught when they were deemed not good enough to live with us in the North-East. This is another instance where we want to talk about only one half of the problem of "the Tamil speaking peoples," and as a result no outsider takes us seriously.

Also remember the 1970s when we encouraged upcountry Tamils to settle in the Vanni and be a buffer between Jaffna and the Sinhalese? But when upcountry beggars displaced from the plantations came into Jaffna town, our true brotherly feelings became very evident.

In this rough firmament the larger struggle of the Tamil speaking peoples - yes, peoples - against Sinhalese-Buddhist hegemony is eviscerated. For us Tamils, survival as a people in Sri Lanka, necessitates recognizing first the aspirations of minorities in our midst.

If the Tamil people are to survive we need to stop "cancelling people." We need to recognise that the last 30 years of war have not solved our problems but really made them worse. Is there still anyone who will not concede this?

The course of war, has been tried. The power of the gun brought out the worst in us. We killed our own people and turned shamelessly on the Muslims who lived among us, shared our interests and spoke our language. War too has failed us.

A few more years of it, and we as a people will be no more. So what is the third way? The only way out is to get the international community to work for us. Only the international community, especially India, can make the Sri Lankan state treat Tamils as equal citizens. And what is stopping that?

As most analysts agree, the international community's hands-off position is because of lack of Tamil commitment to human rights - especially our killing our own people when they do not agree with the Juggernaut and the Juggernaut's attitude to Muslims.

After all, when two communities are fighting each other with unmitigated savagery, why would an outsider want to get involved? I strongly believe that a common commitment to human rights is what will make the international community move forcefully on our behalf and demand that the Sri Lankan state give us our due.

The International Community controls both the critical military and economic wherewithal the Sri Lankan state so badly needs to succeed and therefore the means of persuasion. To survive as a people, we need Sampanthan, we need Sangaree, we need Douglas and yes, we even need Prabhakaran with a new commitment to a pluralistic Tamil polity.

Those of us abroad can indeed help. For a start we can push for Tamil rights by exposing all who violate Tamil wellbeing, be they inside or be they outside the community.

Perhaps those who can help the most are those of us who have the confidence of the LTTE - by persuading Prabhakaran that it is in our self-interest to change course with respect to human rights and enlist the engagement of the International Community as a quid pro quo.

I know it is more easily said than done. But at least if we began thinking of these things, perhaps a way out for us as a people would evolve. There is no other way. We need to be mindful that human rights can become a tool as it all too often does.

Remember the talks when most of the political killings were by us? It is the same with our political predicament. We may feel that a full separate state with all the powers of a sovereign nation is the best.

If we work towards that, we will work on that forever as our numbers dwindle and we are finished off as a people. I am mindful that as we face extinction, some might ask whether this is the time for these thoughts. I think it is the very time when we are called to think and re-engineer our future before we die off as a people. We need to renew our commitment to the ideals of SJV and Amir and the great party they led.