Tamil Struggle vs Black Struggle. (A reply to BeyondFrame)

When it comes to so call Tamil Struggle in Sri Lanka, there are few deferent views among Sinhalese out there. The first group of Sinhalese haven’t spend a day in their life to learn what it is, but pick a bit from there and bit from here like a old cow in a barn, eventually surrender to someone else’s assumptions since it is easiest thing to do. Then there is other group, who honestly don’t bother. I kind of like this attitude for so many reasons. They accept all the terrifying bombs, never-ending war and daily bad news as a fact of life like in-laws or neighbors. The other group opposes to the Tamil Struggle and they are very well annoyed by it. The last group, that I assume Beyond Frame also belongs to sympathized the Tamil Struggle and believe in a root cause. They believe by treating root cause, we can solve the terrorism too, which is a part of so call Tamil Struggle. It is quite logical and sensible approach.

Beyond Frame wrote this blog about black struggle in America and current situation of black community. Even thought it received very less attentions than his usual fiery posts, that is a topic I find very interesting. He suggests, rightfully, we should look at similar situations in other countries, such as Black issues in America and compare them with our own issues.

Here is my comparison.

1. Minorities always get their ass kicked.
There are minorities in every country, Tamils in Sri Lanka, Muslims in India or Gays in America. They all get their ass kicked one time or another. I find American homosexuals issue is pretty interesting to look at. Blacks, who were discriminated back then, voted for a bill to discriminate Gays in California this year. My point here is, there is no country without faults. Correcting them is a journey, not an event. Sri Lanka also had her faults, she corrected lot of them, there is lot more, and we will correct them along the way too.

2. Minorities always win.
Minorities always win rights at the end. But they never win rights only for themselves; instead they create rights for everyone. If any minority group gains rights only for themselves, it won’t pass the brutal test of time. Blacks in America did not won rights only for blacks, they create set of Civil Rights that can enjoy by whites, blacks and every other color in that country. Tamils in Sri Lanka are not fighting for set of civil rights like how blacks did in America. They are exclusively demand for themselves. Whenever situation is such, they have to use excessive amount of violence to achieve such goal. And even if they successive, it cannot survive without continues use of force.

3. Conflict is a Compulsory Evil
If you look at history of any free country, it is the minorities, who always won rights for everyone and make the country better each time. Even though face of Tamil Struggle is selfish terror campaign, as a byproduct, Sri Lankan social structure may possibly improve.

3. Black vs Tamils, discrimination.
This I find quite interesting. Blacks were slaves and Tamils were not. I guess until British gained control of the whole island, Tamils who was the ruling class of the Kingdom (also elite Sinhalese) had Sinhalese Slaves (source: Kanadian court records) and owners had rights to punish even by the brutal act of amputation. After the power swap, Tamils dominated the upper class of the country, and Sinhalese worked as servants for them. Now there is nothing wrong with serving anyone and matter of fact, if you talk to those old people who spend their youth as servant-boys, they still speak very highly of their Tamil masters and they have a bit of pride too. This is complete opposite to the African American situation.

13% of Americans are black, but they all speak English or Spanish, not Kiswahili. Or any time of the history they did not demanded any African language to be an official language. And matter of fact, use of African tongue was banned all together back then. Now talking about Language, English was the Language in Sri Lanka until Bandaranayaka changed it in to Sinhala “with reasonable use of Tamil” (the part everyone forget to mention when they talk about this), and later on, Tamil also considered as national language.

Unlike blacks in America, Tamils in Sri Lanka had access to Parliament since the day one. When blacks were fighting to sit front of the bus, Tamils are demanding 50-50 seats in the parliament. Democracy or parliament may not be perfect, considering it is the democratic system that banned gay marriages in US or been gay a crime in SL, still democracy have ability to self correct and do the right thing. Therefore it is the best system we have so far, and Tamils had all the rights (or even more than Sinhalese) to participate in it.

More than Sinhalese I said? Yes. Let me explain why. By Sri Lankan constitution, Tamils have exclusive right to own lands in north of the country while they also have freedom to own land in any other place of the country. In otherworld, Sinhalese could not own land in north of the country till this day. That gives Tamils possibility to represent the parliament from any part of the country as they usually do, while rest do not have same possibility.

My point of all these examples is – Tamils were not discriminated as such as Blacks or quite possibly not even as much as Sinhalese. Now again, I do not deny Tamils were discriminated (or gays or children) or I don’t say blacks are not discriminated in America even now either.

4. Separate county.
Black struggle had three diferent goals, overlapping each other time to time. Specially in early ages, they wanted to go back to Africa. They thought Africa is the rightful place and quite large number of Black Americans moved to Liberia. It is quite contrary in Sri Lanka. They fought to stay here first and then they gave up the complete idea, Tamilnadu is their homeland.

Second face of black struggle is a separate state. This mainly lead by Elijah Muhammad and supported by Malcolm X at some point. Now this is very much equal to Tamil Struggle in Sri Lanka by so many ways. They both had influence of other countries and backing of religion. But this face did not work out for black people and did not work for Tamil people either.

Third and most successful face is Civil Right movement lead by MLK and others. MLK valued and respected America deeply. Let me repeat it again. MLK value and respect America deeply, the country that kept his people as slaves for hundreds of years, baned reading or writing, vote, and even owning property. This is totally opposite to Tamil Struggle in Sri Lanka which the main tactic is destroying Sri Lanka economically and structurally (that they did quite well)

MLK speak in Montgomery:

“We are here, we are here this evening because we're tired now. Now let us say that we are not here advocating violence. We have overcome that. I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation that we are Christian people. We believe in the Christian religion. We believe in the teachings of Jesus. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest. And secondly, this is the glory of America, with all of its faults. This is the glory of our democracy. If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a Communistic nation we couldn't do this. If we were trapped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime we couldn't do this. But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right.”

5. Where is Tamil Beyond Frame.
Beyond Frame and many other Sinhalese, continually speak for Tamil rights; criticize the government all the time. But I have not seen a single Tamil criticize even the most terrible acts of LTTE (well, except Anandasangari). Some says, because Tamils are scared of LTTE. Well, Sinhalese also die for criticizing the government isn’t it? And Beyond Frame still speaks his mind and it is same with the black community in US too. But end of the day, all Tamils voices are very much monolithic.

Unlike Black struggle, only two things can put a stop to Tamil Struggle. Tamil Rights are not one of them, because Black struggle is a struggle for rights. But Tamil struggle is not. Giving them what they are fighting for, asking for, can stop the Tamil struggle, which is a separate country. Or a Tamil leader who value and respect Sri Lanka with all her faults, just like MLK did, can put a stop to so call Tamil Struggle too.