Voices and memories

Gunfire and bombs ended in Sri Lanka on 18 May 2009.

Since then to now this day is commemorated in two different ways, differing on ethnic lines. The Tamils commemorate those who died, and the Sinhalese also commemorate those who died. There are different political nuances. Those who want to hijack this day for their own reasons are aplenty.

18 May is indeed a victorious day for peace where the vow of never putting the country through such a phase could be very seriously looked at. It is a day for fresh hope but also for the freedom to mourn.

Whether Tamil or Sinhalese it should be a day to mourn the drastic loss of youth of the nation for nearly three decades. Youth who should have been starting businesses, creating works of art and making themselves useful for the nation in a hundred other ways either died or left the country. One set became enemies of the other.

Yet they all face the same fear of death, the same yearning for life.

In a discussion with a top official who is a devout Buddhist and who had to play a difficult role during the war, I asked him how he felt. Now a semi recluse but connected to propagating Buddhism he postponed the full interview but almost cried in a brief discussion when he stated as cited below referring to the time period of the war when he had a key duty connected to national security.

“Believe me if you will. For months I lighted a lamp every morning and prayed in front of the Buddha statue that I would be able to capture the LTTE leader alive without hurting him and with the intention of ending this bloodshed. I do the Maithri Bhavanawa. The loving kindness meditation. Every morning for an hour I did this practice. There were four attacks on my life. Probably on account of that merit that I did not want to hurt him, none of the attacks materialised in hurting me.”

Such accounts are aplenty for a peacebuilding researcher who searches for them without agendas. Some of the accounts are harrowing.

Below is the narration told to this writer during the war by a young Jaffna based journalist whose sister had joined the LTTE and who used to dread being asked to go and report her death. He had developed serious anxiety problems and could not make friends. Seeing him alone in a corner at a public function I went and spoke to him, noticing that he was very young, and he introduced himself as a trainee journalist. On account of his distress as he spoke of his sister I purposely changed the topic and took his attention to the potential of higher education. I still recall the sadness in his eyes. I tried hard to bring some hope to his gaze and was extremely happy when he ended the conversation with a tentative smile and asked if I could recommend some foreign universities for him to explore studying journalism abroad.

A lawyer from Columbuthurai, Jaffna had heard only certain versions of the South till he one day during the peace process ushered in 2002 arrived in Colombo with a plastic bag containing his clothes. He was ready to be arrested or detained just for being from Jaffna. Instead, he ended up staying and putting up a private practice. Today he is a much-respected corporate lawyer and most of his clients are Sinhalese and Muslims. He takes pride in speaking of his hometown and the development projects he has started especially to link people from the South with the North. Twenty years ago, he did not know any Sinhalese except military personnel. Today some of his best friends are Sinhalese.

Two other narrations are worth mentioning. One by a young academic who at the height of hostilities was caught directly in the crossfire on her way to the university every day. Yet she continued going for her lectures. During a lull in the fighting there was a notice from Colombo for a Mahapola scholarship student exchange program. Despite concern by her parents, she left to attend the program. There she met a rural youth from a farming family in Polonnaruwa. He could not speak English. She could not speak English. He could not speak Tamil and she could not speak Sinhala. Yet they conversed enough to know quite a lot about each other’s family members. Soon there were letters exchanged. It was not a love story. It was just communication between two friends who met and liked each other. He was to get married, and he sent the photograph of his bride and asked her what she thought of his choice. He told her she would have to come and pose for photographs standing next to his sisters in the family group photo. Amidst this exchange of letters – in the English language – that he somehow managed with the help of the dictionary, the war intensified. The LTTE came to her home and asked her to join. She refused.

“I may have joined if I had not met him. I had never met a Sinhala university student from a rural area in the South. I was from a rural area in the North. We faced the same hardships in different ways. I told I cannot join. I could not do it. His innocent face prevented me. I could not kill the Sinhalese – they were his people,” she told me around 2007. The emotion in her voice spoke volumes. Her comments came during the second phase of the fighting after the failed 2002 peace process.

The next episode is connected to an Air Force officer who was a close friend of a Sri Lankan Burgher expatriate family who had come to settle in the rural South for a while. He was one of the guests at a party. 

A totally informal occasion. He was in civil attire. A friendly, dignified and calm person. He was a serious meditator and highly dedicated to spirituality. The conversation over dinner turned to war time and the concept of peace. This was around the year 2012. I made the mistake of wording a query on how difficult it must be to kill another being, in quite an insensitive way but I did not think much of it at the time.

What happened next was drastic. He got up and his calm vanished, resulting in an outburst where he demanded if I meant he and others who wore the uniform did so because they wanted to kill. I never ever meant such a thing but the way he reacted, almost with tears in his eyes, taught me a very important lesson. That it is not normal for a human being to shoot another and that every dedication should be towards preventing the need for full scale military combat.

Peace is not an alien concept to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a country that never conquered any nation although there was a time period it had immense ship building power such as in the 8th century. It had a famed military which nearly decimated the Portuguese after they invaded the country in 1505 and waged war.

There were no race wars in Sri Lanka during the time of ancient kings. The only remotely ethnic centred war was to oust an invading king, Elara, although a just man and due respect was paid in the battle ground by his young opponent Dutugamunu. This confrontation cannot be viewed as being relevant to Sri Lanka’s Tamil community although it is taken well out of context to suit diverse machinations.

There are academic and historical records how the then Tamil king of Jaffna sent troops to assist the Sinhala kings to take on the invading Portuguese gunfire. In the modern world of nation states, histories must be remembered to highlight everywhere possible the sanity of upholding the only war worth commemorating; the war within oneself. The War of Good over Evil.

Where the Sri Lankan commemoration of 18 and 19 May is concerned; the days when the end of the civil war are remembered the following could be kept in mind;

1. There are no heroes in war. Only corpses, and maimed humans.

2. Terrorists and war heroes are created by the world. No man is born a terrorist or a war hero.

3. Whatever uniform a human being wears, there remains in the heart, within whatever depth it resides, the willingness to love and understand.

4. A politician is a creature who is given honour and position as an employee of the people and his or her primary job is to ensure the curse of scourges such as riots, acts of hate and war do not plague the nation.

5. Countries such as Singapore have shown that keeping a nation out of unrest and war is not a utopia and one human with vision did this while transforming both material and non-material poverty into riches. This transformation began first in the mind and then perfected the will power which was manifested into strategic action.

6. Having said the above, let each human also understand that every individual is a powerhouse of love. The collective of humans that form a citizenry of a nation is the real government. They govern their destiny. Leaders of youth and determination emerge from this citizenry to prevent the mistakes of the past and to take forward a new future; of forgiveness, understanding, empathy and magnanimity.

Note: The Harmony page has for the past three years promoted May as a month of peace and reconciliation. (SV)