The Status Of Tamil Statehood
By Chandi Sinnathurai
30 April, 2007
Countercurrents.orgThe indigenous Tamils of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) are a distinct ancient nation. One would think, none would have any historical qualms about that matter at all. To the Sinhalas - the majority population of Sri Lanka, that surely does cause a storm in a tea cup. When the Tamils – both the up-country tea-plantation, the so-called Indian Tamils and the low country Tamils of the North and East were to be considered as a nation then the Sinhalas have to reconsider the position of a one-nation Sinhala state. It is precisely at this central point, like the ‘eye of the cyclone’, the violent conflict begins its vicious cycle.
The question boils to a singular question: Is Sri Lanka indivisible? If there were to be an amicable settlement, that might lead to a healthy compromise: Can there be two nations within a unified country? Tragically, the intransigence of the Sinhala state is still hell bent on an uncompromising attitude. To put it in to context, such an attitude has led to many a state-sponsored pogroms against Tamils and the war since the 1980s up to now has claimed over 80, 000 innocent lives. Many more have involuntarily disappeared. Over 150,000 people are internally displaced.
The human cost of the conflict is appallingly obscene. The human rights situation is vulgar. [1]
On the 26th April 2007, The senior correspondent in Sri Lanka for Hindustan Times wrote a piece entitled: ‘LTTE says air force will help claim statehood.’ The article [2] began by quoting LTTE’s [Tamil Tigers] military spokesperson MR Illam Thirayan saying:
‘The newly established "Tamileelam Air Force" (TAF) will help it gain recognition in the international community as an organisation running a full-fledged "state".’
Then in the Hindustan Times interview, Mr Illam Thirayan quite rightly pointed out that,
"We have territory, administrative, judicial and law enforcement systems; an Army, Navy, and now an Air Force. Let's call a spade a spade, we are a state!".
The Tamil Tigers have most recently revealed their precision air-strike acumen. Tamil Eelam Air Force’s entry into the undeclared war, quite literally “below the radar” is not just a new addition but, it is certainly a worrying development for the Sri Lankan state. For the Tamil Tigers, it has opened up a new dimension of strategy and tactic in terms of conventional warfare.
But what really concerns this writer is NOT the multi-dimensional capability of the Tamil Tigers.
The concern really is about the psychological make up of the Tamils in seeing them as a Nation. And then making the paradigm shift from the potentiality of a Tamil state into the REALITY of the State of Tamil Eelam. Such a psychological shift needs to happen in the minds of Tamils, one would think, prior to any one else’s recognition – or for that matter, gaining international recognition. Tamils should not fall in to another trap. And that is to be defined by others as to who they are as a nation. Colonialism defined, as Edward Said pointed out, the Orient from a Western perspective. And the decolonisation struggle is active outwardly as much as intrinsically. The colonisation of minds is a much harder reality.Dependence on international community cannot be down played in an inter-related globalised economy. For a state to run, as we all know, it needs to be connected to the international monetary system. And that is the “calling a spade a spade” of international relations. But as one leading public intellectual pointed out to this writer that, a well-rounded military capability alone does not constitute the status of their statehood. “It certainly isn't recognized as such by the international community.”
The argument is not as neatly distinguished, as black and white, as to whether the Tamils have a defacto or a dejure state in order to gain some sort of tangible “recognition”. The question remains still unanswered as to how the Tamils will achieve the status of statehood in the eyes of the international community - and that is to frankly mean in the sight of the West.
In the mean time however, the state of the Tamils is tragic. The point is, best part of the world is yet to know the narrative of the Tamil struggle. That is truly tragic.
NOTES[1] http://chandi.eponym.com/blog/
_archives/2007/4/24/2901175.html
[2]http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/
StoryPage.aspx?id=c37acc9f-ec51-4782-b7d0-90b6f5fb488e
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