A walk down memory lane three years ago awakens every one, living in Sri Lanka with the historical full stop to the bloody war that lavishly gulped down more than 100,000 human lives on both warring sides. Completely knotting up the socio economic and politically woven fabric of the country’s twenty million inhabitants in different directions, the war viciously stamped down its destructive organs on thousands of homes, property, flourishing fields swaying with bountiful crops and deprived thousands of youth from living their dreams. What began as raising one’s voice to gain an equal footing on a land mass of 65,610 sq km blew into a full scale ethnic war voraciously gulping down thousands of civilian lives, in the name of liberation.
A battle fiercely fought with either side stubbornly refusing to come to a consensus continued with increased military might, until a Norwegian brokered peace agreement in 2002 silenced the deafening artillery. Alas the sigh of relief breathed by the civilians did not live to see the light at the end of a dark tunnel. Months later the peace that was tabled in Oslo and Geneva flew into pieces and evolved into a fully fledged ‘eye for an eye’ marathon. A marathon where once more thousands of civilian lives were ruthlessly grabbed, this time in the name of a renewed pledge, in the fight for ‘own territory’ – territory proclaiming to uphold the rights of the Tamilians in the North and Eastern provinces of the country, culture preserved and governed by the countless academics, who by this time were tired of being what they claimed to be discriminated. Until 2008 September the battle for a separate homeland continued with hatred brimming well enough to continuously squander on each other’s villages and massacre farming families who were sleeping after a hard day’s work in border villages dotting the conflict ridden districts, destroying houses and the few possessions - all in the name of liberation.
From October 2008 until May 2009 the fighting was severe and continuous, dragging many more lives into graveyards, driving thousands out of their homes without any of their possessions and eventually filtered in to welfare camps, placing a pause to human dignity in having to spend life in a tent for months with unknown people with the least privacy. Then came the red letter day – 19th of May 2009 where all Sri Lankans who simply wanted to live a normal life will cherish dearly. The mango shaped island that captured the attention of the world, for all the wrong reasons was suddenly done and dusted with a brutal war and there was an outburst of celebration over the triumph of a menace once considered unprecedented.
While, for some of the hands that took up arms, the rotund figured, protruding macho chests decorated in bullets and guns, the boots that trudged the battle grounds planting land mines in villages, rice fields and main highways did not live to see their dream of a liberated land, for the others it was a case of jubilation proclaiming a nation free of terrorism with military might.
After the big full stop, rays of hope began to flicker, in want of pushing a scarred past behind and moving on. The plight of around 300,000 Tamils filtered to Manik Farm camp having escaped the bombing, shelling, gun firing during the final phase of the war undoubtedly ranked No.1 in the agendas of all humanitarian agencies, government, civil society networks and every other Sri Lankan whose conscience ticked hard. Never in the historical annals of the country has there been such a human orchestrated catastrophe where every responsible mantle was shouldered with the herculean task of restoring normalcy for these war beaten people, this time positioning the country on a higher seat in the donor map. Once more, in true Sri Lankan style many reached out to help the betrayed and battered Tamilians housed in the camps. Affluent school children teamed up to take educational material for the children in the camps with parents and teachers supporting their effort. Very ordinary men and women travelled 250 km to the camps taking the clothing, medication, sanitary and hygiene products for the Tamilians who were christened as refugees. This was in addition to the usual outpouring of international aid agencies doing their usual rounds of relief distribution and support service.
The craving to usher in a kind of reconciliation that would free the knots which had tightly engulfed the daily grind in life was felt very strongly among all civilians who will live to tell the tale of horror experienced over 30 long years. A tale that will recollect shivers down the spine when narrating the countless times bus bombs went off gulping down children returning from school, men and women either going to or returning from work, curfews, military checks, suspicion, doubt over each other, scrambling to get off busses and trains over parcel bomb alerts, some being the unlucky victim of a cross fire during a blast and how three wheeler drivers and every private vehicle driving by stepped in to help wheel the injured victims to the nearest hospital.
On the other side of the fighting squads, young men and women as young as 18 from peasant farming families from all parts of the country, stepped in to deck the country’s military uniform and vowed never to part with a divided country. Their pledge was so strong and steeped in die hard patriotism so much so that some of their siblings followed in their foot steps in the battle to save the country. Over the years some of these young men and women returned to the mud huts they grew up, in a coffin leaving behind wailing girlfriends, parents and siblings. During peak periods of fighting, almost every by lane had a white flag hoisted to signify the death of a young man or woman who chose to give up farming, carpentry, fishing and stand up for a unified nation.
For the Tamilians their militant don was their only saviour- the one who would get the their own homeland where their precious Dravidian culture could be preserved. Alas but what took place at the final stages of the battle was something they never imagined… around 300,000 of them were used as shields by their own saviours, who by this time were choking and gasping in their final struggle to cling on to their dream by escaping military confrontation. The glorified Tamilian Don was not a saviour but a Judas and betrayal it was in the first degree!
Tamilians from the North and East claiming to be the 'only true Tamilians' were always renowned to be embedded in Tamilian culture entwined with rituals and customs passed on by generations. They were proud of their ancestry stemming from South India which some ridiculously refuse to accept but claim they are the one and only original Tamilians !!! Here was a community where caste and social status mattered to a great deal even to the extent of socializing where one could be looked down upon if associating a person of a lower caste. Once during a visit to the North, I was sitting on the doorstep of a village woman and helping myself to the vadai she had made only to find there were many other villagers standing near the fence and staring at me. What had I done wrong ? Ooops I had committed a sinful act of eating from a woman of a lower case - bah baloney...I helped myself to many more vadai's and to everyone's horror held the woman's hand and thanked her for giving me such delicious treats. What I can't fathom is how is it when amazingly with all due respect to their sacred book the Bhagavad Gita, claims that a caste of a person is determined by his or actions can such a distorted perception be passed down from generation to generation - and that too from the so called educated ? What a whirlwind ...suddenly the people who were so conscious of their caste and social status were left to adjust with a scattered life having to share a tent with 13 or more people whose caste, social status was unknown. During many of my visits to the North, I pondered if this was a wake up call for them to let go of the utterly foolish perception. Maybe it was one of those moments where a brick lands on your head and makes one to reflect on one's own stupidiy??? Somehow in the name of humanity I feel very strongly on the extent of bruising and bashing they had to undergo caught up in this liberation madness !!!
The thousands of young men and women deprived of a decent education lingered in camps with shattered dreams, the older men and women who worked tirelessly tending to rice, vegetables and other crops suddenly became dependent on packed ration, the saree clad hardworking women who took pride in caring for their families were suddenly idle having to rely on free relief packs given by the aid agencies. This was a community who regarded education as the seat next to God and hard work the only way to real success, now had to deal with a life confined to a tent, living with people whose caste and social status was unknown.
How could this degree of destruction struck in every sphere of a human being’s life be brought to normalcy?
How do you explain to all the young children that some adults decided to fight for 30 long years to claim a separate homeland and that is why they were not able to go to school, play, make new friends or spend time with their families?
How will the once brainwashed militant minded young men and women who were only groomed to kill in the name of a free land, learn to live very normal lives?
How do you tell these young men and women that watching movies, listening to music, having different hair styles, dressing up and falling in love are not something bad but are very normal things when a human being hits the teenage milepost in life?
Why were the thousands of young men and women of peasant families picked to fight in the name of freedom while children of the top brass guerilla war mongers got the finest education in the West?
Where is the jerk who deprived all the young men and women of a formal education?
What do you do, when you have lost everything and have absolutely nothing to begin life?
No comments:
Post a Comment