{"id":116239,"date":"2013-12-05T03:22:48","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T21:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=116239"},"modified":"2013-12-10T14:13:23","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T08:43:23","slug":"the-yogarajan-reconciliation-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-yogarajan-reconciliation-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yogarajan Reconciliation Proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

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

Those who lecture Sri Lanka on what is best for the country and the people, claim that accountability and justice are necessary and non-negotiable preconditions for reconciliation<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Never mind their moral authority to pontificate there is truth in this position.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Forgive-and-forget\u2019 is easy to say but hard to obtain.\u00a0 It is the same for the aggrieved, whether grief arrived in May 2009 or somewhere in the mid-eighties for the simple reason that some sorrows can only be laid to rest with any degree of finality with the death of the sorrowing.<\/p>\n

In short, there are no shortcuts in the matter of \u2018closure\u2019. There can be no selectivity, not of community, not within community and not in terms of week, month, year or decade.\u00a0 Complete closure, as mentioned, will only come with death.\u00a0 This side of death, there are things that help and things that detract.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside the legality of the matter and punishment warranted if infringement is determined, S. Sritharan did not help when he did his \u2018Mahaveer\u2019 number in Parliament, calling Velupillai Prabhakaran<\/span><\/a> a national hero.\u00a0 It is hard to understand how a man who ordered hundreds of Tamils to be killed, abducted and conscripted thousands of little children to carry out terrorist activities and held some 300,000 civilians hostage could be hero to Tamil people, never mind the death, destruction, dismemberment and displacement invited and engineered by the man\u2019s preferred strategies.<\/p>\n

The leadership of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was quick to distance itself from Sritharan\u2019s position. Party Leader R. Sampanthan<\/span><\/a>, however, has skirted around the vexed question of hero-credentials, offering \u2018the man is dead\u2019.\u00a0 If the fact of death is itself a conversation stopper than the TNA (and Sri Lanka\u2019s detractors in the international community) can drop all talk of investigation, accountability and justice.\u00a0 TNA MP Sumanthiran<\/span><\/a> did no better when he chided Government MPs for not stopping Sritharan.\u00a0 Surely, he knows that charity begins at home?\u00a0 He could have himself intervened.\u00a0 Both leave us wondering whether they have a \u2018public story\u2019 or a \u2018Colombo story\u2019 about Prabhakaran as well as a private (Beyond-Vavuniya) narrative.\u00a0 Sritharan, in this aspect, appears more honest.<\/p>\n

If reconciliation is predicated on accountability and justice then the TNA and other one-time apologists for the LTTE who even now squirm and wriggle when questioned about Prabhakaran would have to turn searchlight inwards.\u00a0 Even if they don\u2019t they cannot stop the questions being asked.\u00a0 This is because reconciliation is a two-way street.\u00a0 They can\u2019t point finger without applauding the Government for saving more than 300,000 Tamils held hostage by Prabhakaran.\u00a0 They could ask Murali Reddy, embedded journalist during the last stages, what he saw and wrote at the time, if they still have doubts.<\/p>\n

All this indicates the amount of acrimony and distrust that still exists or else the pernicious readiness to pretend to be acrimonious and distrustful.\u00a0 That\u2019s Cameronesque politicking.\u00a0 The TNA can do better if only because all things taken into account they belong to a community of largely gentle disposition that can draw from a refined, accommodating and generous culture.<\/p>\n

If the TNA needs inspiration at this point, UNP National List MP R Yogarajan\u2019s observations on the issue of commemoration would suffice.\u00a0\u00a0 Yogarajan said, \u2018Both parties should commemorate war heroes together\u2019.\u00a0 One can dispute the suitability of the term \u2018hero\u2019 of course. One can argue about what the term \u2018parties\u2019 means here.\u00a0 Everyone, however, can commemorate the dead for that\u2019s \u2018common ground\u2019, \u2018heroism\u2019 being a contentious word that could revive old animosities.<\/p>\n

Yogarajan, when heckled by Government MPs, also said, \u2018Let\u2019s change the date if you don\u2019t want to commemorate on November 26th which was fixed by the LTTE\u2019.\u00a0 He was essentially saying that it is not profitable to get embroiled over \u2018best day to commemorate,\u2019 implying rather that what is important is the act of commemorating together.\u00a0 Yes, the key word is \u2018together\u2019.\u00a0 We can, after all, drop all labels and keep \u2018citizen\u2019 and therefore \u2018fellow-citizen\u2019 intact.<\/p>\n

We could theoretically argue until we are dead and (therefore) done about accountability, justice and the best pathways to reconcile, but nothing stops us from opting to do the little things that can heal.<\/p>\n

The TNA, perhaps for reasons of political expedience, may not have ears for the likes of Yogarajan.\u00a0 President Mahinda Rajapaksa, however, has no reason to object. Indeed, as head of state, he is better positioned to take the lead here.\u00a0 It will not get us to \u2018Reconciliation\u2019, sure, but it will get us out of hatred and suspicion.\u00a0 That would be a big step.<\/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":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Yogarajan Reconciliation Proposal - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-yogarajan-reconciliation-proposal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Yogarajan Reconciliation Proposal - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-yogarajan-reconciliation-proposal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-04T21:52:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-12-10T08:43:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-yogarajan-reconciliation-proposal\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-yogarajan-reconciliation-proposal\/\",\"name\":\"The Yogarajan Reconciliation Proposal - 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