03-17-2006, 12:26 PM
Points to ponder on Lanka's peace journey ; The good times: Where will they lead?
by Professor S.Ratnajeevan H. Hoole Engineering Faculty, University of Peradeniya
It is the time of peace they say. Everyone is upbeat. Many are just glad that there is no fighting now. Tamil boys are returning from abroad to their villages and picking up local brides, easing the pressure on the women left behind. As a Tamil priest remarked to me recently, with no Eelam and no government atrocities, if the government and the LTTE can keep talking about talks for ever, then the rest of us can get on with life and will not ask for more.
Unfortunately, talks cannot go on forever. They must lead somewhere, perhaps to a resumption of war or to lasting peace. As rational persons, we hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the more positive prospects for peace rather than on the return to war. What if there is lasting peace? What if there is a settlement between the LTTE and the government? Would that lead to peace and democracy? Would the freedom from the ravages of war mean as its concomitant, freedom in its widest possible sense? I do not propose to answer these directly. Rather, I shall examine attitudes and conditions that are necessary if the freedom from war is to mean real freedom.
Community rights and Asian values
The war years have pulled us to the bottom of rankings of nations in many aspects. The Tamils as a community have lost much during the past 20 years. Although some of us take pride in the government having been forced into talks, collectively we have become nobodies. Although census figures for the Northeast are incomplete, I venture that Tamil numbers have dropped far below the 18% we used to be. This census vacuum is convenient for everyone. While systematic discrimination of Tamils is now legally off and massacres are not as common as before (and indeed non existent since December 2001), we have this feeling that the new generosity arises from a position of numerical strength.
Thus within the Tamil community there is a wide perception that we very much need our own region where we run our own lives and institutions for better or for worse. We speak of preserving our community; of the language; of our way of life in freedom and safety.
The above reasoning is more in line with the African Charter stressing the rights of the community rather than the rights of individuals. This is Lee Kuan Yew and Mohammed Mahathir's Asian values which are held to be antithetical to Human Rights. It is a uniquely Asian thing. Although Asian values are spoken of only in the context of East and Southeast Asia, the arguments apply equally to South Asia. Asian values, according to literature, include i) a stress on the community rather than the individual, ii) the privileging of order and harmony over personal freedom, iii) a refusal to compartmentalize religion away from other spheres of life, iv) respect for political leadership, v) an emphasis on family loyalty vi) a belief that government and business need not be natural adversaries vii) an emphasis on savings and thrift, and viii) an insistence on hard work.
The last 3 are seen to be clearly western as well (the so-called Protestant ethic) and might well have been cooked up by Asian autocrats to back up their economic and political agenda. But the first five are very much more eastern today than western.
If we look at these first five Asian values, we see (with corresponding numbering) that it is these that are at the root of many of our ills in Sri Lanka:
Here is a sort of paradox. It is a sense of community and shared suffering that pushes us Tamils towards self-government. But to make that community wholesome, we need to push for the rights of the individual rather than the community. For true freedom, we need to break from the community concept and move towards what the advocates of Asian Values derisively call "the western narrative": human rights.
Despite all weaknesses, a just society must be based on human rights which does not mean selfishness as the Asian values detractors argue. For, built into human rights is a hierarchy that takes care of selfishness - for instance, the right to life in the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights is unquestionably higher than the right to vacations with pay in the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Warped minds and legal rights
Unlike in the 1960s to 1980s when discrimination against Tamils was systematic, the last few years of the previous century saw new laws coming into force in Sri Lanka by the backdoor - the minority and individual rights that Parliament was shy to endorse came into force through the Foreign Minister and the President signing on to International Covenants.
Anyway, by that time we Tamils were almost eliminated from public life and there was little need to put us down. For example, Tamil performance at the A. Levels had dropped so much that medical seats at Jaffna University remain unfilled - mocking the protests against standardization that coalesced youthful Tamil resentment against the state in 1970. In the few instances where Tamils had to have their wings clipped a little, an occasional human rights case that most did not know how to file or finance, highlighted Sri Lanka's new image. At ground level, however, the reality was different - check points, PTA arrests, bogus inquiries, drawn out judicial proceedings against those charged, etc. In many ways the enhanced image that Sri Lanka had earned, compounded Tamil frustration.
Let me illustrate this using my own experience with engineering students at Peradeniya. They are some of the best Tamil minds at our premier university, the legal successor to University College Colombo and the University of Ceylon. They resented the new laws because they knew that the reality was different. They became private grumblers while publicly they seemed part of the system. To me in private, they would recount tales of how some engineering lecturers lecture in Sinhalese, how they were refused training at the CEB because of being Tamils.
How they were, while on industrial training, denied admission to sensitive plants but asked to copy the diaries of Sinhalese students who had been allowed into the sensitive plants. But the moment I asked them for a written complaint for forwarding so that a solution could be found, they refused. "We would be failed at our exams; that is why they do not allow rescrutiny of answer scripts," they argued. When a student gave me a complaint in writing about his training experience and I raised it officially since it resulted in different academic standards for the different communities in a training program that affected the class a student got, I was asked by the Faculty Board to take up the matter with the authorities which I declined to do in fear of my own safety. The students told me "we told you so."
Another student testified on TV to being ragged by a staff member, he was hauled up before an enquiry committee and casually reminded that he would be a student for 3 more years. Thereafter he was asked to withdraw his statement in writing. He complied fearing retribution. I know his story to be true because a senior don verifies that such ragging did take place and that he had ticked off the errant staff member who ragged.
Five years after the event, now a graduate but still smarting over being humiliated into saying he lied on TV, he encouraged me to take up these issues. But when I wrote up his story and asked him to sign the statement, he pleaded that his degree might be withdrawn and he had to consult his parents.
With one exception, I could not persuade anyone to go to court which I saw as their and my duty to the nation, ourselves and the university. It was difficult to convince them that they would win. They did not know their rights. They did not know they would likely win if they went to court.
Backbone: a student example
That exception I referred to shows how cleansing it can be when we have recourse to the courts. U. was a quiet diffident boy from the outskirts of Trincomalee who had come to the engineering faculty. He had no father and one of his hands had been crushed by an army shell. After a month, the UGC and the university tried to move him to Ruhuna to make way for someone else. He courageously agreed to test his cause in courts when internal appeals to justice failed. With A.P. Niles, ably representing him pro bono and other costs equally shared between U. and 3 staff members, he first obtained an injunction and finally prevailed. Today he is a confident and positive member of the student community.
The backbone shown by student U. is a shining example to the university community where the culture of subservience to the Asian values system run by "elders" extends to the pinnacle. For example, at my Faculty Board of eminent Ph.D. holders, when there is a sensitive vote, the sum of ayes, nays and abstentions would be well below the numbers present. Many are so scared of the "elders" on either side of an issue that they do want to be identified even as an abstention! When those most able to hold their own behave like intellectual eunuchs, how can more be expected from students? A modern university becomes a Pirivena or Gurukula School run by a few Maha-achariyas or Gurus. How can the staff who behave like children make adults out of the children who come to them?
The intellectual culture and the leadership calibre at the highest intellectual levels of Sri Lanka therefore appear seriously stunted and will not allow any rights to be asserted. Indeed, there is no bold academic to ask how parliamentary candidates of the Sihala Urumaya can be allowed to remain as professors and lecturers, if the system has any integrity, to grade non-Sinhalese students who have preserved a distinct identity against the wishes of the SU. The result of this culture has very deleterious effects on the Tamils; much more than on the Sinhalese who have more political alternatives.
The result is a Tamil elite that is angry, frustrated, and waiting to run abroad. When abroad, they would become effective agents against the state. The situation does not make for nation building. If they knew their rights, they would be happy wholesome persons contributing to this land rather than moving abroad to destroy it.
How good any new emerging nation state or states would be, would depend on how quickly we can effect a culture of human rights awareness. We need education on our rights. We need in-depth education on how to uphold those rights through a nonviolent, orderly, legal system. We need information on how to approach that system.
We need broad education from the lowest levels upwards on our rights. We need especially to break the upper levels of society out of subservience to a stultifying repressive regime imposed by so-called elders. We need to break free. We need to empower every individual through these rights.
We need to learn that peace is wholesome and non-threatening to both the majority and the minorities.
Many NGO's do yeomen service in taking cases before the courts. Others work to educate the people on their rights. Save the Children UK is working on getting children involved in issues of governance. The UN helps us to set up Human Rights institutions. Colombo University's Centre for the Study of Human Rights has several programs including one to educate policemen and even judges on the new regime.
While some of us are skeptical, such education is the only way out if the absence of war is to be translated into true peace with freedom for every individual in every tiny corner of this island.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peace debate
This is the second in a series of articles by well-known writers and commentators on Lanka's peace effort and issues arising from it, which we hope to publish on this page regularly. Readers are invited to send in their responses to these articles for consideration for publication in our 'Peace Quest' page which is published every Saturday. Contributions of not more than 1,500 words should be addressed to:
The Editor,
'Peace Quest',
C/o 'Daily News',
ANCL,
Colombo 10.
Or e-mail to editor@dailynews.lk
http://www.dailynews.lk/2002/07/24/fea01.html
by Professor S.Ratnajeevan H. Hoole Engineering Faculty, University of Peradeniya
It is the time of peace they say. Everyone is upbeat. Many are just glad that there is no fighting now. Tamil boys are returning from abroad to their villages and picking up local brides, easing the pressure on the women left behind. As a Tamil priest remarked to me recently, with no Eelam and no government atrocities, if the government and the LTTE can keep talking about talks for ever, then the rest of us can get on with life and will not ask for more.
Unfortunately, talks cannot go on forever. They must lead somewhere, perhaps to a resumption of war or to lasting peace. As rational persons, we hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the more positive prospects for peace rather than on the return to war. What if there is lasting peace? What if there is a settlement between the LTTE and the government? Would that lead to peace and democracy? Would the freedom from the ravages of war mean as its concomitant, freedom in its widest possible sense? I do not propose to answer these directly. Rather, I shall examine attitudes and conditions that are necessary if the freedom from war is to mean real freedom.
Community rights and Asian values
The war years have pulled us to the bottom of rankings of nations in many aspects. The Tamils as a community have lost much during the past 20 years. Although some of us take pride in the government having been forced into talks, collectively we have become nobodies. Although census figures for the Northeast are incomplete, I venture that Tamil numbers have dropped far below the 18% we used to be. This census vacuum is convenient for everyone. While systematic discrimination of Tamils is now legally off and massacres are not as common as before (and indeed non existent since December 2001), we have this feeling that the new generosity arises from a position of numerical strength.
Thus within the Tamil community there is a wide perception that we very much need our own region where we run our own lives and institutions for better or for worse. We speak of preserving our community; of the language; of our way of life in freedom and safety.
The above reasoning is more in line with the African Charter stressing the rights of the community rather than the rights of individuals. This is Lee Kuan Yew and Mohammed Mahathir's Asian values which are held to be antithetical to Human Rights. It is a uniquely Asian thing. Although Asian values are spoken of only in the context of East and Southeast Asia, the arguments apply equally to South Asia. Asian values, according to literature, include i) a stress on the community rather than the individual, ii) the privileging of order and harmony over personal freedom, iii) a refusal to compartmentalize religion away from other spheres of life, iv) respect for political leadership, v) an emphasis on family loyalty vi) a belief that government and business need not be natural adversaries vii) an emphasis on savings and thrift, and viii) an insistence on hard work.
The last 3 are seen to be clearly western as well (the so-called Protestant ethic) and might well have been cooked up by Asian autocrats to back up their economic and political agenda. But the first five are very much more eastern today than western.
If we look at these first five Asian values, we see (with corresponding numbering) that it is these that are at the root of many of our ills in Sri Lanka:
Here is a sort of paradox. It is a sense of community and shared suffering that pushes us Tamils towards self-government. But to make that community wholesome, we need to push for the rights of the individual rather than the community. For true freedom, we need to break from the community concept and move towards what the advocates of Asian Values derisively call "the western narrative": human rights.
Despite all weaknesses, a just society must be based on human rights which does not mean selfishness as the Asian values detractors argue. For, built into human rights is a hierarchy that takes care of selfishness - for instance, the right to life in the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights is unquestionably higher than the right to vacations with pay in the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Warped minds and legal rights
Unlike in the 1960s to 1980s when discrimination against Tamils was systematic, the last few years of the previous century saw new laws coming into force in Sri Lanka by the backdoor - the minority and individual rights that Parliament was shy to endorse came into force through the Foreign Minister and the President signing on to International Covenants.
Anyway, by that time we Tamils were almost eliminated from public life and there was little need to put us down. For example, Tamil performance at the A. Levels had dropped so much that medical seats at Jaffna University remain unfilled - mocking the protests against standardization that coalesced youthful Tamil resentment against the state in 1970. In the few instances where Tamils had to have their wings clipped a little, an occasional human rights case that most did not know how to file or finance, highlighted Sri Lanka's new image. At ground level, however, the reality was different - check points, PTA arrests, bogus inquiries, drawn out judicial proceedings against those charged, etc. In many ways the enhanced image that Sri Lanka had earned, compounded Tamil frustration.
Let me illustrate this using my own experience with engineering students at Peradeniya. They are some of the best Tamil minds at our premier university, the legal successor to University College Colombo and the University of Ceylon. They resented the new laws because they knew that the reality was different. They became private grumblers while publicly they seemed part of the system. To me in private, they would recount tales of how some engineering lecturers lecture in Sinhalese, how they were refused training at the CEB because of being Tamils.
How they were, while on industrial training, denied admission to sensitive plants but asked to copy the diaries of Sinhalese students who had been allowed into the sensitive plants. But the moment I asked them for a written complaint for forwarding so that a solution could be found, they refused. "We would be failed at our exams; that is why they do not allow rescrutiny of answer scripts," they argued. When a student gave me a complaint in writing about his training experience and I raised it officially since it resulted in different academic standards for the different communities in a training program that affected the class a student got, I was asked by the Faculty Board to take up the matter with the authorities which I declined to do in fear of my own safety. The students told me "we told you so."
Another student testified on TV to being ragged by a staff member, he was hauled up before an enquiry committee and casually reminded that he would be a student for 3 more years. Thereafter he was asked to withdraw his statement in writing. He complied fearing retribution. I know his story to be true because a senior don verifies that such ragging did take place and that he had ticked off the errant staff member who ragged.
Five years after the event, now a graduate but still smarting over being humiliated into saying he lied on TV, he encouraged me to take up these issues. But when I wrote up his story and asked him to sign the statement, he pleaded that his degree might be withdrawn and he had to consult his parents.
With one exception, I could not persuade anyone to go to court which I saw as their and my duty to the nation, ourselves and the university. It was difficult to convince them that they would win. They did not know their rights. They did not know they would likely win if they went to court.
Backbone: a student example
That exception I referred to shows how cleansing it can be when we have recourse to the courts. U. was a quiet diffident boy from the outskirts of Trincomalee who had come to the engineering faculty. He had no father and one of his hands had been crushed by an army shell. After a month, the UGC and the university tried to move him to Ruhuna to make way for someone else. He courageously agreed to test his cause in courts when internal appeals to justice failed. With A.P. Niles, ably representing him pro bono and other costs equally shared between U. and 3 staff members, he first obtained an injunction and finally prevailed. Today he is a confident and positive member of the student community.
The backbone shown by student U. is a shining example to the university community where the culture of subservience to the Asian values system run by "elders" extends to the pinnacle. For example, at my Faculty Board of eminent Ph.D. holders, when there is a sensitive vote, the sum of ayes, nays and abstentions would be well below the numbers present. Many are so scared of the "elders" on either side of an issue that they do want to be identified even as an abstention! When those most able to hold their own behave like intellectual eunuchs, how can more be expected from students? A modern university becomes a Pirivena or Gurukula School run by a few Maha-achariyas or Gurus. How can the staff who behave like children make adults out of the children who come to them?
The intellectual culture and the leadership calibre at the highest intellectual levels of Sri Lanka therefore appear seriously stunted and will not allow any rights to be asserted. Indeed, there is no bold academic to ask how parliamentary candidates of the Sihala Urumaya can be allowed to remain as professors and lecturers, if the system has any integrity, to grade non-Sinhalese students who have preserved a distinct identity against the wishes of the SU. The result of this culture has very deleterious effects on the Tamils; much more than on the Sinhalese who have more political alternatives.
The result is a Tamil elite that is angry, frustrated, and waiting to run abroad. When abroad, they would become effective agents against the state. The situation does not make for nation building. If they knew their rights, they would be happy wholesome persons contributing to this land rather than moving abroad to destroy it.
How good any new emerging nation state or states would be, would depend on how quickly we can effect a culture of human rights awareness. We need education on our rights. We need in-depth education on how to uphold those rights through a nonviolent, orderly, legal system. We need information on how to approach that system.
We need broad education from the lowest levels upwards on our rights. We need especially to break the upper levels of society out of subservience to a stultifying repressive regime imposed by so-called elders. We need to break free. We need to empower every individual through these rights.
We need to learn that peace is wholesome and non-threatening to both the majority and the minorities.
Many NGO's do yeomen service in taking cases before the courts. Others work to educate the people on their rights. Save the Children UK is working on getting children involved in issues of governance. The UN helps us to set up Human Rights institutions. Colombo University's Centre for the Study of Human Rights has several programs including one to educate policemen and even judges on the new regime.
While some of us are skeptical, such education is the only way out if the absence of war is to be translated into true peace with freedom for every individual in every tiny corner of this island.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peace debate
This is the second in a series of articles by well-known writers and commentators on Lanka's peace effort and issues arising from it, which we hope to publish on this page regularly. Readers are invited to send in their responses to these articles for consideration for publication in our 'Peace Quest' page which is published every Saturday. Contributions of not more than 1,500 words should be addressed to:
The Editor,
'Peace Quest',
C/o 'Daily News',
ANCL,
Colombo 10.
Or e-mail to editor@dailynews.lk
http://www.dailynews.lk/2002/07/24/fea01.html