{"id":124703,"date":"2014-05-18T00:10:30","date_gmt":"2014-05-17T18:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=124703"},"modified":"2014-05-24T13:08:11","modified_gmt":"2014-05-24T07:38:11","slug":"victories-grasped-and-un-grasped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/victories-grasped-and-un-grasped\/","title":{"rendered":"Victories Grasped And Un-Grasped"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"Malinda<\/a>

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

When there\u2019s fighting, when there are bombs exploding and there\u2019s expectation of explosion, when there\u2019s death and displacement, there\u2019s an oft articulated wish: the end of fighting.\u00a0 When a nation has been gripped by the clash of arms for close to three decades there are costs that people bear, individually and collectively, costs too numerous to enumerate here.\u00a0 There are things that war taken which war-end does not return.<\/p>\n

The end of war means different things to different people.\u00a0 Those who count themselves among the \u2018winners\u2019 will naturally celebrate, the joy overriding the inevitable losses.\u00a0 Those who believe they lost, lament, quietly for the most part.\u00a0 Whichever camp one belongs to, there\u2019s common relief on one matter: the end of gunfire and bomb explosion.<\/p>\n

Time passes and those with a political bent re-assess strength and subsequent to a consideration of evolved circumstances re-invent themselves and redesign strategy.\u00a0 As the years go by end-moment, when revisited, is viewed with new eyes with gaze that is invariably colored as much by event-memory as by the political \u2018imperatives\u2019 of the day.\u00a0 And so we have political commentators impressing their political preferences or rather the \u2018prerogatives\u2019 defined by their ideological bent on \u00a0reading this moment, that is the fifth anniversary of what is officially called \u2018Victory Day<\/span><\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

By the time things came to an end on May 18, 2009 in the environs of the Nandikadal Lagoon, a nation that had lost so much over three decades recovered an essential ingredient for reimagining a different future. Hope.\u00a0 Naturally, what was hoped for depended on perceptions of \u2018moment\u2019, extrapolations thereto and preferred outcomes, short term and long-term.\u00a0 This is apparent when reading \u2018readings\u2019 of Victory Day 2014.<\/p>\n

Naturally, those whose preferred outcomes with respect to the conflict did not materialize back in 2009 are disappointed that \u2018post-war\u2019 developments did not deliver their fantasies.\u00a0 It is almost as though these \u2018analysts\u2019 believed that the political \u2018coming together\u2019 which resulted in a particular reading of the LTTE<\/span><\/a> and thereafter chose a particular course of action would disband itself, abandon political project and let the \u2018losers\u2019 design the post-war political tomorrow.\u00a0 Understandably, these commentators were either \u2018neutral\u2019 about the LTTE, behind-the-scenes supporters of the LTTE or else objectors to the LTTE but not to the LTTE\u2019s project, albeit in a this-side-of-Eelam formulation.\u00a0 They were and remain a tiny minority.<\/p>\n

Without doubt, post-2005 politics in Sri Lanka was about defeating the LTTE militarily.\u00a0 If those forces that backed the stand taken by President Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> were asked to state ideological position, the vast majority would have stated, \u2018for the preservation of the unitary state\u2019.\u00a0 They would not fiddle around with vague and patently non-political terms such as \u2018united\u2019 because vagueness and ambiguity (e.g. one can theoretically have unity in either a federal or unitary set up) can only mislead.\u00a0 To ask, therefore, for any \u2018solution\u2019 that subverts \u2018unitary\u2019 at this point would amount to robbing victor of victory confer political defeat on the military victor and be insulting to all the soldiers who fought and died to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the nation.\u00a0 One can attempt this, but there will be costs and that\u2019s certainly not something this regime would dare risk at this point.<\/p>\n

The above, however, does not mean that all is well and good in the country.\u00a0 Still, the Tamil people have not lost the right to air grievances and demand redress.\u00a0 Indeed, \u2018Victory Day\u2019 created space for the articulation of grievance in a more democratic environment.\u00a0 It also created the conditions for representatives of that community to remove myth and fantasy from grievance and aspiration respectively.\u00a0 This has not happened and that\u2019s unfortunate.\u00a0 The space still exists, though. That\u2019s what it most important here.<\/p>\n

The government, for its part, has opted to think \u2018development\u2019 (as per its definition) as an all-cure.\u00a0 This is wrong.\u00a0 Instead of playing cat-n-mouse with the TNA with respect to parliamentary select committees, the government could take the initiative, throw gauntlet as it were.\u00a0 The following could be said out loud:<\/p>\n

\u201cName your grievances and tell us how devolution \u2018works\u2019 for your community considering that the majority live outside the North and East.\u00a0 The geographical lines on your grievance-maps have no scientific basis and have been drawn by colonial rulers and you swear by them: what\u2019s the logic?\u00a0 Would you go for a re-demarcation?\u201d<\/p>\n

But then again \u2018Victory Day\u2019 was not about the LTTE and the Eelam project alone. It was about winning space to bring back issues that the war had \u2018shelved\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, the economy, but not only the economy.\u00a0 We had a draconian constitution and we are still saddled with it.\u00a0 If there was hope that the rule of law would be restored, then there\u2019s little to celebrate today.\u00a0 The same goes for insulating citizen from politician.\u00a0 The institutional arrangement remains flawed and anti-citizen.\u00a0 Five years is long enough to fix these things. They remain un-fixed; indeed the flaws are openly celebrated by way of abusing the same.<\/p>\n

The guns are silent and we are grateful to all who made it possible, from the President down to the most humble soldier and everyone else who in word and deed contributed in whatever way.\u00a0 Many other victories are within sight or rather could come into full view, but only if the correct policy paths are chosen.\u00a0 The Government has kept us waiting.\u00a0 For a long, long time.<\/p>\n

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

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