‘Take care of symbols’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 September 2010, 15:12 GMT]
Tamil Information Centre (TIC), London, has called for a Round Table Discussion on “Postwar Challenges Facing ‘Sri Lanka’s Tamil-Speaking Peoples” on 25 and 26th of this month in London. The discussion is a follow-up of the Zurich gathering held last November. Commenting on the programme a Tamil-speaking social activist in Batticaloa said: “While it is appreciable to work for unity and one voice of the Tamils of the island and to find ways of rebuilding society, livelihood, institutions and political structures for them, symbols of identity that are fundamental to all their regeneration with self-respect should not be compromised. The Tamil-speaking peoples of the island have to shun the identity of ‘Sri Lanka’ that has become a symbol of state oppression ever since the constitutionality of the identity in 1972.”

Further comments of the social activist in Batticaloa, edited and translated from Tamil, follow:

Political and democratic aspiration of Eezham Tamils for Tamil Eelam that has been mandated by them can never be a sin. While indelible stigma is attached to the ‘Sri Lankan’ identity even naively implying stigma on the identity of Eezham Tamils is not justifiable.

“It is natural and democratic that there are different political, cultural and non-governmental organizations among the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Muslims and the Upcountry Tamils,” says the discussion note of the TIC that envisages searching for a broad set of shared positions on issues that are common to all Tamil speaking communities.

The TIC discussion also envisages the Tamil diaspora finding ways to work with the Tamil speaking ‘peoples’ and organisations in ‘Sri Lanka’ for social and economic initiatives and institutional rebuilding as well as to work with Sinhalese political organisations against common threats.

Even for those to whom the Eezham Tamil identity is ‘technically inappropriate’ in such a ‘broad-spectrum’ gathering, there is still an official identity ‘Ilangkai’ available for the ‘Tamil-speaking peoples’ to use on such occasions.

The ‘Tamil-speaking peoples’ from the island coming for the discussion will be carrying passports that officially say in Tamil that their country is Ilangkai. Tamils should first learn to assert to their existing rights of identity and self-respect. No regeneration, whether in economy, society, politics or human rights, could come from peoples who have no self-respect.

The Tamil poetic genius Subramanya Bharati whose 128th birth anniversary falls today, once wrote citing a Quranic verse that a person who doesn’t have self-respect has no religion at all.

No funding agency sponsoring the discussion or GOSL could technically object when ‘Tamil-speaking peoples’ from the island, meeting among them, use a term in their language that is ‘constitutional’.

The war, incarceration of people, displacement, deterioration of democratic institutions, contradictions among communities, collapse of the rule of law and the human rights crisis in the island are not merely results of internal dynamics. They were deliberately allowed, abetted and promoted from outside for new appropriation of land and resources and for creating a new social order required by the outside.

The very same elements will provide space and funds to set nuances for rebuilding a structure suiting their agenda.

If the ‘Tamil-speaking peoples’ abandon the importance of symbols in meeting the existing fundamentals of the crisis then they could never free themselves from the impending internal and external subjugation.

What is perhaps needed in such discussions is finding ways of broadening and strengthening the already secular Eezham Tamil identity and nation to become more acceptable and more inclusive through consensus rather than structuralising disunity by the use of the term ‘peoples’ and diluting them as ‘subordinate minorities’ under ‘Sri Lanka’.

Whenever need comes to refer to the entire island in a geographical sense, even media like TamilNet should consider dropping its present usage 'the island of Sri Lanka' and instead should opt for 'the island of Ilangkai' or 'the island of Eezham', without compromising the identity and nation of Eezham Tamils.

Related Articles:
07.09.10   'India should stop calling Eezham Tamils a minority'
28.02.10   Langkaa / Ilangkai / Sri Lanka
01.01.10   Eezham / E'lu / He'la
18.12.09   Zurich, Vienna, war crimes and Tamil polity
14.12.09   Sinhala / Chingka'lam / Ceylon
23.09.08   Eezham Thamizh and Tamil Eelam: Understanding the terminolog..
03.07.08   Knowledge books mistreat Tamil history