{"id":87437,"date":"2013-05-19T00:15:51","date_gmt":"2013-05-18T18:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=87437"},"modified":"2013-05-24T11:46:57","modified_gmt":"2013-05-24T06:16:57","slug":"let-us-celebrate-let-us-mourn-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/let-us-celebrate-let-us-mourn-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Us Celebrate, Let Us Mourn Too"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>

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

Four years ago the nation, which had held its collective breath in fear and uncertainty, breathed again.\u00a0 It was a deep breath that was taken and the exhalation was naturally long.\u00a0 There was dancing in the streets.\u00a0 This was called \u2018triumphalism\u2019, with the word laced with derisive commentary.\u00a0 Let us, at this moment when Sri Lanka celebrates the 4th<\/sup> anniversary of the vanquishing of Eelamism\u2019s military apparatus, it is a word that is worth reflecting on.<\/p>\n

When Sri Lanka beat Australia to win the World Cup in 1996, there was celebration.\u00a0 It was a triumph that warranted celebration.\u00a0 There was \u2018triumphalism\u2019.\u00a0 When US security forces pinned down suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing<\/a><\/span>, killing one and arresting the badly injured other, people cheered.\u00a0 Triumphalism.\u00a0 True, it was accompanied and preceded by a lot of religious intolerance and anti-Muslim invective, but there was unmistakable relief expressed by a citizenry that had been kept on its collective toes for several days.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka took almost 30 years to remove terrorism from the political equation and the daily lives of the nation.\u00a0 That\u2019s thirty years of not known when you or your loved ones would be killed or how or where. The recovery of breath, the expansion of the dimensions of hope, the freedom from unnecessary fear and the return of predictability were all cause for celebration.\u00a0 It was called \u2018triumphalism\u2019, as mentioned earlier, in derisive tone.\u00a0 The Sinhalese were supposed to be celebrating the defeat of \u2018Tamils\u2019.\u00a0 In other words, Sinhalese, routinely accused of conflating \u2018Tamil<\/a><\/span>\u2019 with \u2018LTTE<\/a><\/span>\u2019, couldn\u2019t celebrate the defeat of the latter without celebrating, simultaneously, \u2018a defeat of Tamils\u2019.\u00a0 It seems that the true \u2018conflators\u2019 were these very same objectors.\u00a0 After all, it was fashionable at one time to say \u2018The LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamil people\u2019.\u00a0 So, THEY<\/strong>, more than the Sinhalese read \u2018LTTE defeat\u2019 as \u2018Tamil defeat\u2019.<\/p>\n

People cannot be denied the right to celebrate the recovery of freedom, even if only in part.\u00a0 Mis-educated or ill-informed or myopic onlookers, spoilers and others who preferred different outcomes can read things as they will of course.\u00a0 They too \u2018won\u2019 some freedom of movement, for bombs and suicide-bombers don\u2019t check and separate friend from enemy when launching random attacks.\u00a0 Some relief may have slipped out of their lungs but they would never admit nor applaud those who made that kind of exhalation possible.<\/p>\n

It is good to celebrate, to commemorate those who sacrificed their lives to give us that moment as well as the terrorism-free years that followed, especially since Eelamism is not dead.\u00a0 Eelamists in reduced circumstances haven\u2019t stopped trying to achieve objectives in the little-now-more-later manner through relevant myth-mongering (using the 13th<\/sup> Amendment<\/a><\/span> as stepping stone of course).\u00a0 It is also important to mourn the massive loss of lives of those who fought and those who were caught in crossfire and terrorist attacks, regardless of communal identity and political loyalty. They were all citizens of this country.<\/p>\n

We have celebrated enough, I feel.\u00a0 We\u2019ve mourned very little and this is not only because we are a resilient nation that has its ways of achieving \u2018closure\u2019 and moving on. There has been forgive-and-forget, but there\u2019s been selectivity in this, political allegiance being a critical factor. There has been rehabilitation and reconstruction, facilitation of skill-development and re-integration into society of LTTE cadres, captured or surrendered.\u00a0 But if KP and Karuna are forgiven and forgotten, then there\u2019s nothing to stop the Government from facilitating and even encouraging the open mourning by friend, family and others of the LTTE dead, Prabhakaran<\/a><\/span> downwards.\u00a0 No Sinhala Buddhist can object to this because this has been part of the \u2018Sinhala Buddhist story<\/a><\/span>\u2019 in all conflicts and invasions they\u2019ve lived through.<\/p>\n

There will be those who would abuse such sanction, but the benefits, moral and otherwise, would far outstrip these irritants.<\/p>\n

Today, therefore, is both a day of celebration as well as a day of mourning. Celebration because there\u2019s reason to be happy, to be grateful too, and mourning because of the lost years, lost opportunities, needless deaths, childhoods that were destroyed and most of all for the reluctance to mourn and sanction mourning and consequent detracting of something of our common humanity.<\/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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