By Sivas Premjeyanth –
Sivas Premjeyanth
Dear my friend,
I am not joining your protest (Aragalaya)
Doesn’t mean I don’t wish you success…
We don’t protest anymore…..
Because…
Our voices are never heard….
Our protests are never cared…
They don’t matter to anyone anymore…
Like you very much,
I also want our country
To be corrupt free,
Ruled not by thugs and racists,
But by true leaders and visionaries,
Helped and guided by
Great thinkers and theirs ideas
Where Buddhism teaches true dharma,
Where law enforcement agencies
Judicial systems and forces
Protect the country and civilians,
Not the corrupts and politicians.
But, still I am not joining your protest (Aragalaya)
Because my association will weaken you,
Will not strengthen you…
Because I am a Tamil.
While you can shout loud at Galle Face,
Stay all day and all night at 3G
We can’t even whisper here…
Thinking of supporting you itself
May become a punishable crime here…
Let alone participating…
Because our civil and laws are
Maintained and monitored by the military…
We don’t live here..
We simply exist here…
Be they for mothers’ searches for their
Disappeared sons and daughters…
Be they for the lands forcefully taken away from us…
Be they for the release of political prisoners…
Be they against the sand mafia and their cronies…
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Be they school and children programs,
Be they social and humanitarian programs…
Be they cultural and community programs,
With questionable intentions,
Or sign of oppression,
Or sign of aggression,
Military and intel officers
Are to be invited to all the functions,
We don’t feel normal…
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Every morning,
We always Wake up
With an eerie feeling,
Where in vicinity
Rifle holding, combat ready
Rough looking army soldiers
Staring at us as criminals from distances..
That we always try to avoid the look…
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
We know
He may be nice and innocent
But, we never smile,
we never speak.
We never understand.
We never know the reasons…
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
We receive our
Documents
Even birth, and other vitals..
All in Sinhala….
And we don’t understand,
We can’t even check its veracity
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
President and Prime Minister..
Party leaders and ministers
Speak, but we never understand them.
They never bothered us too,
Because they speak
only in Sinhala,
Not even subtitle on TV
Let alone speak in Tamil.
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
We were helpless
As fathers and brothers
when our women
Stripped naked,
Beaten and paraded…
Started with Premawathi
Will not end with Isaipriya.
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
We always welcome
Sinhala friends and neighbors…
But, all we come to know
Guarded by armies
Guided by Buddhist monks
State aided settlements
Even though they are innocent,
Taught to treat us as enemies….
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Great Tamil leaders
Defended and fought with
British to save
Many Sinhala leaders
From execution to elimination
But eventually ended up
Getting expelled
From the system and governance
Still, we don’t protest anymore…
Be it
National Anthem,
National flag,
National flower,
Our opinions
Never asked…
Never bothered…
Never cared…
Never mattered..
In all decisions..
We are excluded…
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Once hard working Tamils
Along with you all
Helped build
Sri Lankan economy,
Sri Lankan education,
Sri Lankan corrupt free civil services,
All were kicked out
Ended up as…
Immigrants and refugees…
In other parts of the globe…
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Economy destroyed
By riots and pogroms…
Education broke by
Sinhala only and Standardization…
Culture and heritage annihilated
From burning library to
Destroying our lands…
On a daily basis threatened by
Militarization and colonization.
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Even before Emperor
Ashoka’s son and daughter came to Sri Lanka,
Many Tamils had already known Buddhism.
Buddhism is not an alien to Tamils.
Only religion in the world
That never used army and violence to spread
Alienated Tamils for no reasons.
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
Still, we don’t protest anymore….
But My friend,
I wish you all the best and
May the protest
Become successful
May the system
get changed,
May we live in
Peace and prosperity.
Once and for all.
As we lived before our Independence.
The list is endless,
It can keep going..
Dear my friend,
As Budda said,
A lots of problems would disappear
If we talk to each other,
Instead we talk about each other…
So, I thought of writing to you…
I am not joining you …
Doesn’t mean I don’t wish you success.
Simon / June 27, 2022
So SORRY of your plight. Yet so SORRY to say that you are one among many “THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS” who either STRETCH out hands to the sky and pray “GIVE US ALL THAT WE NEED” or “LET OTHERS FIGHT FOR US AND GET US WHAT WE NEED” or most probably DO BOTH.
In summary, you WAIT until others WORK HARD and FIGHT to get all your needs. I don’t blame you, because you belong to the “MAJORITY”. In human history, only a “MINORITY” has STRUGGLED and FAUGHT to get WHAT is NEEDED for what we are enjoying today. This history will continue to be REPEATED with people like you around and among many of us.
Don’t worry. What that “MINORITY” would get also will be FOR YOU.
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SJ / June 29, 2022
Well said Simon.
Blinkered vision prevents people from seeing opportunities when they arise.
The tragedy of narrow nationalism is that it does not allow one to see the problems of others in similar situations.
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Mallaiyuran / June 30, 2022
That is right. Keeping the eye wide open and grappling opportunity…. …. In that Saddampi & Deva are Kings. See what Deva has done to NP Tamil, (not for Eastern or Colombo or Up Country Tamils… he brought ships to KKS & Planes to Palali while the backbone-less Demelo Pariah Dr. Jeisankar refused to do so from India. After all Deva is a person wanted in Chenai for the Murder he committed so he cannot go there for any talks. What an Achievement, without blinking an eye. And you…. which comment here you missed to put your bottom mouth & rub on it to fart on it.
Don’t do Kuranaku Chedai (monkeying around), please! Before you reply to the essays or comments, for god sake read them at least once. If you are not able to grasp the contents in that, take it to the road and wait there until a nursery kid passes and ask it to explain it to you. (Please, in that process don’t spoil that kids the way UOJ was destroyed)
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SJ / June 30, 2022
“grappling opportunity”
Can you tell us some more on that art?
/
Humble / June 27, 2022
Ruled not by thugs and racists
————-
The only real form of racism at play in Sri Lanka (and the rest of the world) is the tares (satans serpent bloodline of cain) and freakmasons, discriminating against the rest of real humanity.
Right throughout the islands ugly history of communal violence and civil wars since 1948, the wealthy ruling class Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims etc have all been in bed together, filling each others pockets, while brainwashing the poor from all communities to oppress and kill each other.
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Rohan25 / June 27, 2022
So beautiful and accurate. Thank you. This how 99% of the Tamils feel
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Eagle Eye / June 27, 2022
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Eagle Eye / June 27, 2022
My Dear Tamil Friend,
“As Budda said,
A lots of problems would disappear
If we talk to each other,…”
—
It was racist separatist Tamil politicians in Yapanaya who prevented Tamils talking to Sinhalayo who accommodated them in their country by asking Tamils not to learn Sinhala to keep the two communities apart for their political survival. If Tamils in Yapanaya learnt Sinhala and decided to live in peace and harmony with Sinhalayo, they would not have had the chance to promote their separatist agenda and demand for a separate State.
How can we talk to each other when Tamil politicians say ‘Sinhalayo are not welcome in the North’? You should protest against these selfish, opportunistic politicians who are the main barrier for reconciliation.
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Eagle Eye / June 27, 2022
My Dear Tamil Friend,
“We receive our
Documents
Even birth, and other vitals..
All in Sinhala….”
—
Do you know that even when Sinhale was ruled by British and the official language was English, Sinhalayo who lived in Yapanaya got their birth certificates in Tamil? I have seen the original birth certificate issued in Tamil for a person born in Yapanaya on 14 June 1947. When Tamils did such things to indigenous Sinhalayo, it was alright.
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Eagle Eye / June 27, 2022
My Dear Tamil Friend,
I am sorry to say this to you. You are spewing anti-Sinhala racist venom.
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Blabla / June 27, 2022
‘Aragalaya’ started on the wrong foot. Isn’t there a proper translation in Tamil for the word ‘Aragalaya’? Why is the Sinhalese word ‘Aragalaya’ written in Tamil, and the same in English? Tamils do not know what it means so that is one reason Tamils kept a low key even though sort of supported. Because we both had a common enemy Rajapaksas who have done a lot of damage to Tamils. So, enemy’s enemy is a friend.
I feel Aragalaya is just buttering Tamils which only is skin deep. Tamil issues or minority issues are far deeper. We had a bad experience when we fought for Independence, Tamils too joined the Sinhalese in the fight for independence from the British. We did not stab the Sinhalese in their back like Ali Jinnah did to India. But what happened is now history. Thereafter SWRD Bandaranayake brought his Sinhala-only rule in 1956. His wife Mrs. Srimavo Bandaranayake discriminated against the Tamils by her ‘media-wise standardization’ for university admissions, starting from the 1969 Advanced Level exam. State-sponsored colonization of Tamil areas.
continued……. part 2
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Eagle Eye / June 28, 2022
Blabla,
“We did not stab the Sinhalese in their back like Ali Jinnah did to India.”
—
Tamils jumped to the bandwagon of Sinhalayo when they realized that British are leaving not because they wanted to give independence but because they did not want to maintain a loss making enterprise.
—
If Tamils did not want to stab in the back of indigenous Sinhalayo why the hell SJV Chelvanayakam formed ‘Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi’ (toned down as Federal Party in English but the real meaning was Tamil State Party) in 1949 which had as its hidden agenda the establishment of a separate state for Tamils in Yapanaya grabbing land belong to Sinhalayo in NE.
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SJ / June 29, 2022
Blabla
Had Tamils participated in sufficient number a name would have emerged in Tamil.
/
Blabla / June 27, 2022
Part 2 continuation from above
Even now while Aragalaya is active, in Kurinchi malai the Hindu temple is destroyed against a court order to build a Buddhist vihara. Is this the respect for law and basic decency? Deafening silence by the Aragalaya.
My dear organizers of Aragalaya, you may most likely succeed in dismantling Rajapaksa family rule, but you will only replace them with another crook to carry on the ‘good work’ of the Rajapaksas. The so-called ‘unity’ will also disappear once your work in chasing out the Rajapaksa family is done, like what happened after ‘Independence’.
continued part 3 below …….
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Blabla / June 27, 2022
Part 3 continuation from above…
Many of my Sinhala colleagues who are professionals support Aragalaya and had taken part directly, but when they come to work and in our rest room they speak only in Sinhala when Tamils are there. All are fluent in English. Let them talk privately in Sinhala and that’s fine, but when speaking in common they should accommodate Tamils also by speaking in English. Speaking to all in Sinhala only is disrespectful and sends a strong message Tamils are not welcome. I don’t tell all Sinhalese do that but most of them do. This shows and gives a sneak preview of what it will later after the so-called ‘system change’.
Concluded
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Eagle Eye / June 28, 2022
Blabla,
“Let them talk privately in Sinhala and that’s fine, but when speaking in common they should accommodate Tamils also by speaking in English.”
—
Sinhale is the Land of Sinhalayo. What is the problem if they speak in Sinhala. Problem is with Tamils who refused to learn Sinhala, the language of the host nation believing what separatist politicians told them that they will establish a separate State for Tamils. This will never happen. Learn the language of the host nation who accommodated Tamils in their country if Tamils want to live with Sinhalayo in Sinhale.
—
Government of Sri Lanka made learning Tamil compulsory for Sinhala students and learning Sinhala compulsory for Tamil students to promote greater interaction between the two communities and reconciliation. This policy is implemented in Sinhala schools but according to information coming from Yapanaya, NPC does not recruit teachers to teach Sinhala in Tamil schools because they want to keep the two communities apart to implement their separatist agenda.
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Blabla / June 29, 2022
Eagle Eye and everyone
If this is the type of feeling his community has towards Tamils and other minorities, we can be see what it will be after the so called ‘system change’. Aragalaya most likely able to dismantle the Rajapaksa regime. But he will be replaced by yet another crook who will carry on the ‘good work’ of the Rajapaksas. Changing pillows for a head ache don’t work.
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SJ / June 29, 2022
If people are talking among themselves, should they not be allowed to use a language that they at home with?
If Tamils joined in the conversation from the outset, it may have been different.
*
Are Tamils not allowed to know some Sinhala?
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sithava / June 28, 2022
Beautifully put together the agony of our nation currently going through. Looking at some people’s comments , we have a long way to go to unite the country and fight the common enemy nepotism, corruption, injustice, and discrimination.
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Kanapathy Varunan / June 28, 2022
We talk to each other, We talk with each other, We talk against each other, We eat each other’s food, be it, Iddly, Thosai, Idiappam, Pittu, Kondai Cavun, etc. We get married to each other but the Sinhalese do not. understand? sorry, refuse to understand that the Tamils have their aspirations to live by themselves as equals like the Sinhala Sibling who lives separately after their marriage with no loss of love. Tamils respect Lord Buddha not because he was born to Hindu parents but because his philosophy is great. Sinhalese Pray to Hindu gods because they have no gods to pray to. But they don’t hesitate to remove the Hindu Gods found on hillocks and plant with Lord Buddha’s statues chanting Hindu mantras like verses. Why or Why?
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Eagle Eye / June 28, 2022
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Eagle Eye / June 29, 2022
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SJ / June 29, 2022
“We get married to each other but the Sinhalese do not.”
KV, then whom do they get married to?
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