Defining moments

of living with a Sinhala Buddhist 'guilt'

"What is the procedure in sending relief stuff to the IDP camps ?" asked a friend one
morning. "My daughter is helping some group to collect stuff for those people" he
added.

"We are planning to visit the IDPs next week." another colleague told me. "Rotarians
are doing some voluntary work at Menik farm."

"I was asked to join a volunteer group to Vavuniya. They had gone once. Is it O-k ?"
another asked me.

The internet more than the local Sri Lankan media is full of stories about the Sri
Lankan Tamil IDP's. It is an exodus to Vavuniya now, to see the IDP's "live" in their
true settings as refugees. Leaving out those freelance journalists who take these IDPs
as an opportunity to file stories, there are many many Sri Lankan groups from the
South who try to drive up to Vavuniya with relief material and for short time
volunteer work. All of them come back with their own "tearful human" stories and
often try to justify their trips to IDP camps by saying how helpful they were for those
thousands of "innocents" behind barbed wire fences. "Poor innocents" living a refugee
life and for how long, the new breed of local tourists wouldn't want to discuss about.

These Tamil refugees, have not only been uprooted from their normal lives in their
own ancestral patches of land due to a war they did not fight, they are over and over
again uprooted now, by these charitable Southern visitors to provide "charity". Its a
constant uprooting and displacing from the political conflict that made them refugees
to be thrown into the lap of "charity" and shown as "victims" of a disaster no one is
responsible for. There are those who compare these hapless Tamils to "Tsunami"
victims. Those who try to compare the Tsunami relief system to what is now there in
those Vavuniya camps. "Oh God, the army is doing a good job" they report.

For God's sake, "tax payers" did not fund the Tsunami to have thousands of
people displaced. Nor did the Sri Lankan society create for itself an ideology that
backed a Tsunami and reveled in it. These are not "Tsunami victims" that one
sees behind barbed wire fences. So what's all this abstract charity ? This tragedy
in all its wailing agony was created by tax payers money and is now being fed
and looked after by money appealed and begged out from wallets and hand bags
of "charitable" Southerners, not discounting those in the Diaspora too.

These "charitable hearts" watched their tax money being rained on those civilians as
"bombs" from countless air raids, day after day
for over a year. There were no 300,000 innocent
civilians then in the Wanni. All were "tiger
terrorists". These "charitoes" clapped and cheered
every death and every displacement caused from
their tax money, when the government said it
targeted "tiger hide outs" and they argued for
more. They then came out on the streets in
processions waving and decorating their vehicles with "Lion" flags (It was no more
the 'National' flag for them) to revel in the glory of "finally" defeating and killing
separatist Tigers with their tax money. They are used to such cracker lighting orgies.
They did that on city streets when the Tigers killed President Premadasa. But then, it
wasn't their tax money that was used, for sure.

For weeks they went on with this uncontrolled ferocity and

fury of celebrating the Sinhala victory over Tamil
separatism, patronized by this regime which is funded and
financed by their tax money. With that they have paid for
the creation of a "modern, undisputed King" larger than
Dutugemunu and also paid for a human tragedy that has
left over 300,000 Tamil civilians as refugees, left children
without parents, parents without children, mothers with
broken and lost families, young women without husbands,
young men without wives, youth without limbs and many
more hundreds gone missing, either abducted or "in
action".

They have paid for 03 whole districts, Mannar,

Killinochchi and Mullaitivu to be raised to the ground and now pay 03% as a Nation
Building Tax for "possible" reconstruction from what ever monies that would be left
after pilfering and siphoning off. With that they have paid for a massive human
tragedy, part of it gifted to grieving families in the South as "Weera-prasada"
celebrations, as "felicitations for old boys who brought glory to motherland" and as
"War hero" (Rana Viru) titles that can only be conferred by the Defense Ministry
now.

They are all ordinary Sri Lankan citizens, who would not have ended up in such
agonising tragedy, if the South was willing to allow a democratic answer to the
conflict, which was political. They are all SL citizens who are now herded behind
barbed wire fences and they need not be devastated and broken lives in thousands, if
the South, the Sinhala Buddhists in particular did not want that to happen. This was a
human tragedy, the now charitable ladies and gentlemen could have avoided, if they
opted to a more democratic way in solving the political conflict that was dragged
without seriously working out any answers for decades, since independence. But
social responsibility ? They did not want to be bothered with all that. They were
happy going round with a label that said "We Sinhala" and "This is Gauthama
Buddha's land".

Six decades after independence, now it’s a matter of reconciling these two
contradictory mindsets of the Sri Lankan middle class. The street orgies have died
down. The war frenzy is over for now. But the government is not letting lose its
snooze on the democratic life, even in the South which supported the government.
There are new stories of Poddala Jayanthas and Krishni Ifhams being abducted. It is
now confirmed the military would be further strengthened and another 100,000
recruited. Stories about news papers being burnt in bulk before distribution in Jaffna
and notices of death threats being handed over to a whole news paper staff don't mean
there would be peace after all. There is talk of rehabilitation and relief needed for

2
IDP's. Their previously disputed numbers have come to stay around 270,000 to
300,000 languishing in camps. What could be done now ?

It’s the typical, petty, Sinhala Buddhist mindset of the middle level village trader that
froths as usual, even among the urban middle class. The mindset of the Trader who
exploits the whole village the whole year through and then donates a basket of charity
for the village "Dan-sela" during Wesak, to become the most "Sath-gunawath
Mudalali Mahathtaya" (Most humane and pious Gentleman Trader) in the village.

Unfortunately for all, this charity is not going to work out answers to the issue at hand
in any way. The issue of how these IDPs would be settled, how soon, where and with
what conditions for living a normal life is directly tied to the core issue of finding an
answer to the decades old, festering ethnic conflict from which the South can not
escape either. The reason for semi permanent shelter, these ladies and gentlemen
would see in many Menik farm camps, may mean the IDPs would not be moved out
for resettlement soon. IF they are moved out, will they be billeted in security zones or
will they have their ancestral land shared with Sinhala colonies ? Charity even with
good hearts would not answer these basic issues that should not be allowed to go
unanswered by the highest in the ruling regime. They eventually decide the fate of
these IDPs.

Therefore, while organizing these charities as relief and making trips to Vavuniya,
these big hearted ladies and gentlemen have to realize these men and women who
peep from behind barbed wire fences too have the right to be on the roads and
traveling to where they wish. While organizing these relief and charitable projects
these good hearted souls have an obligation to ask the government for its programme
of resettlement of IDPs. For its "Road Map for Recovery and Peace". It can not be
mere "charity and consolation" without social responsibility.

No. They would not talk of all that. They are happy collecting funds and relief, happy
taking them to Menik farm and happy they went and "saw" first hand. It's pacifying
the Sinhala Buddhist 'guilt' that's sought for. Just that. Social responsibility ? That
would not happen. It wouldn't in petty minds that lack the ability for reasoning. Lack
the ability to read between what is told and what is seen. If they could, they would
understand the simple human logic within these lines.

"Do I know what it means…

To stand in the queue as a mere 13 year old,
Collecting charity for my younger brother
and widowed and aching mother,
a wound in my stomach which hurts and oozes.
With no one to care for the pain
To live on, not knowing why or the reason or meaning of
hope."
(Taken from the poem written by Sumathi R and posted by DBSJ in his blog)

Kusal Perera
01 July, 2009