{"id":101796,"date":"2013-08-22T15:11:49","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T09:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=101796"},"modified":"2013-09-05T12:29:17","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T06:59:17","slug":"para-dhemala-response-to-confronting-charlie-ponnadurai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/para-dhemala-response-to-confronting-charlie-ponnadurai\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPara Dhemal\u0101\u201d: Response To \u2018Confronting Charlie Ponnadurai\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Charles Sarvan<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Charles Sarvan<\/p><\/div>\n

At the outset, allow me to clarify that well over forty years ago I legally changed not my name but their order, and since then have been Charles Ponnuthurai Sarvan.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have distaste for confrontation<\/a><\/span> (see title above) but must explain that the brief note on \u2018Para Dhemmala<\/a><\/span>\u2019<\/em> arose because two friends, one in Australia and the other in Canada, wrote independently of each other to say that \u201cPara<\/em>\u201d did not mean \u201cforeign\u201d. Discussing the matter with them, I said: It was reading Michael Roberts<\/a><\/span> several years ago that brought me to another, and far more significant, meaning of \u2018para\u2019<\/em>, namely \u2018foreign\u2019\u201d. I added, again quoting Roberts, that it is not the only meaning of \u201cpara<\/em>\u201d but one of several, depending on usage-context. My comment that even those who have expressed disappointment with Roberts should admit his extensive reading on Sri Lankan history and anthropology was not intended as a \u201cswipe\u201d at him but as a reminder to them that, in all fairness, his specialised knowledge should be acknowledged.<\/p>\n

Roberts is inclined to place me<\/a><\/span> as someone (a) \u201cfar from moderate\u201d, (b) a \u201cTamil nationalist\u201d who (c) hinders \u201creconciliation\u201d. What follows are some of my thoughts on these three, rather than a reply to Roberts.<\/p>\n

I wonder if in certain contexts the concept of moderation is applicable. For example, if a country oppresses and suppresses females, even to the extent of attacking with acid little girls who have the temerity to try to go to school, can there be a \u201cmoderate\u201d position? One may be supportive or oppositional; fearful, silent and inactive or indifferent, but can one be \u201cmoderate\u201d vis-\u00e0-vis an unjust reality? \u00a0Would moderation then be ethical, laudable? How would such \u201cmoderation\u201d manifest or express itself? Since some readers are quick to misunderstand; to take offense and become abusive, let me emphasise that the question is theoretical. I am not drawing a parallel with Sri Lanka but merely \u201cthinking aloud\u201d about the concept of moderation. Is \u201cmoderation\u201d always advisable and admirable? What, I ask myself, does it exactly mean to be a moderate in a situation of injustice and discrimination? Remember the witticism: \u201cI can tolerate everything, except intolerance\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201cReconciliation\u201d (differentiated from resignation and unhappy acceptance) is defined as the restoring of peaceful and friendly relations. Reconciliation, therefore, must be seen as positive, while resignation and helpless acceptance are negative. If indeed genuine and concrete steps are being taken by the Sri Lankan government (not just by groups and individuals, however noble, brave and selfless) to bring about reconciliation, then any Tamil who stands in the way must be in the mould of Shakespeare\u2019s Richard the Third \u00a0who enjoyed conflict, and had nothing but contempt for peace. Reconciliation is a first step to ushering real peace. Real peace, as distinct from enforced peace, implies justice. Peace and justice in turn mean harmony and happiness for all. Therefore, reconciliation is a corner-stone; a desideratum, an ideal passionately to be wished, and ardently to be worked, for – not hindered. If, indeed, there are Tamils who don\u2019t want reconciliation, and all that precedes and follows genuine reconciliation, then I am glad I don\u2019t know them.<\/p>\n

In answering Roberts\u2019 charge that I am a \u201cTamil nationalist\u201d I am compelled to be personal, \u201cpersonal\u201d not about others \u2013 that I always try to avoid \u2013 but about myself. Looking back, I see that I was a \u201cpara Dhemala<\/em>\u201d (in one of the meanings established by Roberts) in Ceylon. I was an Asian in Africa (Nigeria, Zambia); a non-Moslem in the Moslem Middle-East, and am now a non-white in generally white Europe. In other words, to be a stranger is not a strange, but a familiar, experience. Ethnic and political exiles, as distinct from economic exiles, are those who, not having been permitted to feel \u201cat home\u201d in what was once home, left it. Now, not having a \u201cHeimat\u201d<\/em>, when they travel, they neither leave home nor return to it. (The experience of those in immigrant countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA may be different. Fortunately, it\u2019s different with the succeeding generations.) I state the above without a trace of self-pity, being fully and constantly conscious that millions fare far, far, worse than me. Some of those without a \u201cHeimat\u201d<\/em> are blessed in having found their home \u201cZuhause<\/em>\u201d in a relationship.<\/p>\n

This personal experience and resulting consciousness leads me to tell my children and grandchildren that there is only one country: planet Earth; only one race: the human race; and one religion or morality: avoid harm or hurt to others; do the good, however little, that you can. I have stood against injustice whether on grounds of ethnic-group, religion or the colour of one\u2019s skin. (For the last, see the article, \u2018The term Racism and Discourse\u2019 in my \u201cSri Lanka: Literary Essays & Sketches<\/em>\u201d.) I have stood against class exploitation – I was and am a socialist, more by nature and sympathy than by rigid ideology. I have stood against the mal-treatment of women and children; have written on their situation and experience, and am a corresponding-member of a UK-based feminist group. If justice is indivisible, then so are fundamental human rights: they apply to all<\/em><\/strong> human beings irrespective of group, religion, colour, sex or class. (Extending this further to the non-human, a few years ago, my wife and I \u201cconverted\u201d to vegetarianism.) \u00a0I see myself first as a world citizen – by coincidence, \u201cSarvan\u201d means \u201cuniversal\u201d – and if I have written about the situation in Sri Lanka, I trust that will be viewed as understandable. Indeed, it would be strange and unnatural were it to be otherwise. Albeit very small, Sri Lanka is a part of the whole. Concern and care for a part imply concern and care for the totality, and vice versa<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA luta continua.\u201d<\/em> The struggle is both one of against and for. It is against<\/em><\/strong> domination and subordination by one group (whatever the criterion of \u2018group\u2019) of another, particularly through the use of overwhelming force. On the other hand, the struggle is for<\/em><\/strong> equality, acceptance and inclusion. The struggle is for the two freedoms: the \u2018freedom from\u2019 and the \u2018freedom to\u2019. I am inclined to think that we, human beings, will never win this struggle but I am also confident the struggle will never be given up because, as Keats wrote in \u2018The fall of Hyperion\u2019, if there are fanatics, there are also those to whom the troubles of this world are trouble and will not allow them be silent and inactive: \u201cthose to whom the miseries of the world \/ Are misery, and will not let them rest\u201d.<\/p>\n

By way of a postscript, when I wrote that all our roots are the same and can be traced back to India, I meant not the modern period but the roots reaching into the distant past. As readers know, sometimes because a thought is clear in our mind, we also mistakenly conclude that we have expressed that thought clearly. It was indeed \u201cmindless\u201d of me, as Roberts contemptuously comments, but I am grateful that I have been led to share these thoughts. I hope they will be seen as a very small but positive, rather than as a negative and destructive, contribution to thought and discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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