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காதலும் கணக்குபண்ணிறதும்  இரண்டும் ஒண்டுதானே என்று நீங்கள் யோசிக்கிற கோணத்திலை யோசித்தாலும் சரிதான் ஆனால் என்ரைவாழ்க்கையிலை இந்த காதல் கணக்குப்பாடம் இரண்டும் ஒண்டுதான் ஏணெண்டால் இரண்டிலையும் நான் அடிக்கடி கோட்டைவிட்டிருக்கிறன்.படிக்கிற காலத்திலை அனேகமாக எல்லாப்பாடத்திலையும் நல்ல புள்ளிகள் எடுக்கிறனான். அனால் இந்தக்க கணக்கு பாடம் மட்டும் ஏனோ தெரியாது எனக்கு மண்டையிலை ஏற சரியாய் கஸ்ரப்பட்டுது.  கணக்கு கொப்பியை எடுத்தாலே உடைனை நித்திரை தூக்கியெறியும் . இல்லாட்டி ஏதாவது யோசினையள் வந்து குளப்பும்.

Last week the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka celebrated its sixtieth independence day. The ruling elite lead by the four Rajapakse brothers kicked off this celebration by displaying military hardware along Colombo's sea front promenade and explaining its war effort to the Sinhalese people through exhibitions of military hardware in the South.

During this show of military might the city of Colombo was closed off to civilian traffic and the majority of Colombo residents stayed indoors. Even mobile telephone text message service (SMS) was suspended by the regime due to “security reasons”.  

The President of Sri Lanka Mr Rajapakse made a militaristic speech. He described “those who kill the Sinhala people by the thousands” as terrorists and said that the “challenge bestowed upon us by history is the defeat of terrorism”.

He warned against the behaviour of  “lamenting and sighing, heaping blame on politicians, while looking at and envying the progress made by other countries” as treacherous and a betrayal of the Sri Lankan motherland.

He claimed that the international community approved Sri Lanka’s human rights record and good governance thus he has “been able to obtain and use aid that is beneficial to the development of the country” while inspecting an impressive military parade, which featured Chinese made multi-barrel rocket launchers, armoured personnel carriers and artillery pieces, Israeli-built gun boats and Russian MiG-27 fighter planes.

During this celebration Sri Lankan President claimed Sri Lanka as an “example to the world” and a liberal democracy. He magnanimously proposed a political solution to Sri Lanka’s “terrorist problem” i.e. provincial level devolved “administration closer to the people within the framework of our Constitution”.

Is Sri Lanka really a liberal democracy?

இவ்வார கல்கியின் ஆசிரியர் தலையங்கம் 'விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் கொடிய சாதனை" என்ன சொல்லியிருக்கிறது ? விடுதலைப்புலிகள் குறித்த அமெரிக்க எவ்.பீ.ஐயின் ஆதாரமற்ற குற்றச்சாட்டுகளுக்கு கல்கியும் தனது பங்குக்கு ஏதோ கலக்கியிருக்கிறது. வளமையாக பல இந்திய ஊடகங்களின் மிகைப்படுத்தப்படும் பரபரப்புச் செய்திகளும் பொய்களையே பரப்புரைக்கும் பண்பையும் கல்கி மீண்டும் ஒருதரம் நிறுவியுள்ளது.

This is the moderate position on Eelam: Eelam is your right. It is not a
gift, not an act of charity but something that is already yours. As with all
things, you can claim it or lose it. Others can try to take it away from you
but that would constitute an assault, a theft.

When the founding fathers of America made the case for their nation, they
did not rely on a cultural identity that had evolved over thousands of
years. They did not rely on a common language, let alone a few thousand
years of a shared literary heritage. They did not even rely on the concept
of a traditional homeland. For, they had none of these on their side.

They relied instead on something more intrinsic and universal. They relied
on the rights of man.
And so to quote from Thomas Paine, who articulated the concept most clearly
in his seminal book of the same name:
"The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own
personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to
produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a
right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist
…"
It follows that, by these principles, the nation of Eelam, can have and does
need only one form of legitimacy: a compact entered by the people who choose
to belong to that nation.
Of course, those of us, who have a few thousand years of historical cohesion
as a "civilisation", a common culture and heritage, and more recently a
shared history of oppression and injustice, to bind us together, may not
feel the need to explicitly enter into a "compact" with each other; we may
take it for granted that it exists and that it has done so implicitly for
millennia.

The talk of the town, I mean the Sinhala town, from the beginning of the year was the 60th “Independence Day Celebrations.” There were lots of preparations made, millions and millions of rupees were spent and what happened on the 4th of February it was “Pus vaanum” - a firecracker that died away silently. There were hardly any spectators and even those who had to be there on compulsion were terrified of a sabotage act by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Even the President, what ever he may be, one has to accept him as an eloquent orator, cut his normal lengthy deliveries to a few minutes and his voice was not the same as it used to be.

Peace and Amity

60 years back, when there was no racial animosity – not superficially at least – everyone the Muslims, the Burgers, the Sinhalese, the Malays and the Tamils participated with pride and hope in the celebrations of the 4th of February 1948. Of course the Sri Lankans did not shed even a drop of blood to achieve independence. To SL independence was virtually served on a silver plate for the mere asking. I was only 15 years old then. We were supplied with “Green” shirts free at our college and we all lined up along the road and waved our hands at the procession that passed by. Frankly I feel like kicking myself now for having donned that green attire and for not knowing then what it means now to us.

As I said above, this racial hatred had not crept into us at that time. But we started feeling the pinch of it in the 1950s. The United National Party was very popular among the Tamils even then. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party was not formed in1948. It was the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) that held the monopoly one could say. Thanthai S.J.V.Chelvanayagam and others, who formed the Federal Party, were originally in the ACTC.

This week I have been doing a lot of soul searching and wondered what I could possibly write that hasn’t been written about before and that will hopefully make an interesting read.

And so I turned to real life for inspiration, last week was my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary, which is equivalent to a quarter of a decade in matrimony. First I would like to pass them and whoever else has achieved this wonderful feat my sincere congratulations and wishes. What our parents have is something that us ‘youngsters’ may not be able to achieve. For we have grown up in a society that is worlds apart from how our parents were raised; and with values and morals that are both eastern and western.

It is common nowadays for people to fall in and out of love and go from one relationship to the other without thinking twice about what lies ahead or of their future plans. With each relationship the individual in question becomes both wiser and bitter– something that our parents never experienced. Whether they married through love or introduction from their families, the certainty is that they were probably both each other’s first partners. There is something alluring about the innocence of this sort of relationship and that is probably the reason that their marriages remain strong and they committed to one another.

This would be a rare thing to find amongst newly weds of the future, whereby both partners were each others first. Although to our parents this sounds unfamiliar and more often that not undesirable, it is something that they will have to get used to. However serious or meaningless a relationship what happened within that cannot be undone. This is a fact.

அண்மையில் தமிழ்நாட்டில் சில ஈழத்தமிழர்கள் கைது செய்யப்பட்ட சம்பவத்தைக் ;காரணங்காட்டி, கைதுசெய்யப்பட்டவர்களுக்கு புலி முலாம் பூசி, விடுதலைப்புலிகள் தமிழ்நாட்டை தளமாக பாவிக்கத் தொடங்கியுள்ளார்கள் என்ற பிரசாரத்தை இவ்விடயத்தில் அக்கறை கொண்ட சில வட்டாரங்கள் மேற்கொள்கின்றன. இதனை வாய்ப்பாக பயன்படுத்தி திரு. கருணாநிதி தலைமையிலான தமிழ்நாடு சட்;டசபையை கலைத்துவிட தமிழ்நாட்டுத் அரசியல்வாதிகள் சிலர் எத்தனிக்கின்றனர். மீளவும் விடுதலைப்புலிகள் விவகாரத்தை அவர்கள் தங்களது அரசியல் நலன்களுக்காக பயன்படுத்தத் தொடங்கியிருக்கிறார்கள்.