{"id":116144,"date":"2013-12-03T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T18:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=116144"},"modified":"2013-12-09T13:40:50","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T08:10:50","slug":"the-traditional-homelands-tells-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-traditional-homelands-tells-a-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Traditional Homelands\u2019 Tells A Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/b><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile in a parallel universe\u2026.<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been here long.\u00a0 Longer than those who claim me.\u00a0 Their earliest ancestors, i.e. those who hadn\u2019t coined a name for me, had to first make their paw prints on my breast.\u00a0 That\u2019s how old I am.<\/p>\n

I was here when Raja Raja Chola, in the year 993AD named my body-soils as well as the body-soils of my neighbors as Ila-mandalam with the descriptive, \u2018The land of the warlike Sinhalas\u2019. The inscriptions at the temples in Tanjavur and Ukkal are clear.\u00a0 Raja Raja Chola congratulates himself not for robbing Sinhalese who lived in Ila-mandalam but Ila-mandalam itself, which he says \u2018belonged\u2019 to the Sinhalas.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know much about \u2018belonging\u2019.\u00a0 Something happens to all those who (think they) own and claim, I\u2019ve noticed. They all die.\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to dig into my heart to know that my body is scatted with remnants of a flourishing Buddhist presence.\u00a0 Now Buddhism is not ethnicity-bound. It is not the preserve of the Sinhalese, although some Sinhalese think that only Buddhists can be Sinhalese.\u00a0 One of the greatest scholar bikkhus<\/i> was Rev Buddhaghosa and he was ethnically Tamil. Rev Buddhaghosa however was a one-off and the fact that the scholarship-oriented philosophy did not make for texts in Tamil of any import tells a tale; a tale that will pass of course, all things being impermanent and all that.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s leave all that to academics to decipher.<\/p>\n

I was told recently that Muttiah Muralidharan doesn\u2019t know me, that he is from another part of what some people call \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019.\u00a0 Well, when you\u2019ve lived as long as I have, this business of knowing and not knowing is laughable. I was amused.\u00a0 For example, which part of \u2018Sri Lanka\u2019 is C.V. Wigneswaran from?\u00a0 Does he know me well?\u00a0 Does he know me better than Murali does?\u00a0 Callum Macrae, Gordon Weiss, Frances Harrison and Jonathan Miller: do they know me and if so is their knowledge superior to that of Murali?<\/p>\n

How about those who left without even leaving footprint for whatever reason? Do they know me? Do their children and grandparents who make claims based on what has happened to me and who feather nests in other lands know me?\u00a0 Fr. Emmanuel says a lot about me.\u00a0 Does he know me, what happened to me and what is happening to me?\u00a0 I remember him being pally with those who deliberately orchestrated processes that caused blood to be splattered all over me.<\/p>\n

Does Mahinda Rajapaksa know me? Does his brother Basil know me? Does Namal Rajapaksa know me?<\/p>\n

When did all these people first \u2018discover\u2019 me? When did they think fit to name, describe and distort? When will they forget and why? I have lots of time and I spend it reflecting on such questions.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard some people say \u2018this land is mine\u2019 and I smile.\u00a0 No, I do not say \u2018Excuse me!\u2019 in a tone where incredulity is mixed with objection.\u00a0 I just called some land-pals a few hundred kilometers to the south.\u00a0 I asked some questions.<\/p>\n

\u2018There are people who \u201cown\u201d me who say that only a certain community can walk all over my body; is it the same in your corner of the island? Some call me \u201cTraditional Homelands of the Tamils\u201d.\u00a0 Now tell me brother, whose \u2018traditional homelands are you?\u00a0 Have you been \u2018ethnically cleansed\u2019 of all communities but one?\u00a0 Do you welcome only those who belong to a particular community and do people who speak on your behalf talk of others trying to fiddle with \u2018ethnic composition\u2019?\u2019<\/p>\n

My brother replied.<\/p>\n

\u2018The answer to your first question is \u201cno\u201d. \u00a0The second, well, according to the law that exists now, \u201canyone who walks on me, anyone who builds on me and lives on me\u201d.\u00a0 The answer to the third is \u201cNo, although I feared something like that might happen about 30 years ago.\u201d The fourth is a two part question and the answers to both would be \u201cno\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

People coin names, people stake claims. They are born, they decay and perish.\u00a0 Names change and there\u2019s a lot of names that have changed or rather \u2018re-ethnicized\u2019.\u00a0 People use the \u2018traditional homeland\u2019 tag on me.\u00a0 It amuses me.\u00a0 But if they insist, then I would rather be called \u2018The Traditional Homelands of Hope\u2019.\u00a0 Right now, it seems they\u2019ve chosen \u2018The Traditional Homelands of Intransigence\u2019.<\/p>\n

It has not rained enough to wash away the blood and I sense that more blood will flow before \u2018Hope\u2019 can make a claim.\u00a0 Given how long I\u2019ve lived, it\u2019s a small matter to me.\u00a0 Just saying, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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