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A Tamil heroine unmourned and the sociology of obfuscation
Murdering the aspirations of a peopleContinued from Saturday
Mrs.Sarojinidevi Yogeswaran, 65 year old widow and mayoress of the City of Jaffna, was shot dead on 17th May 1998 by two assassins who called at her home during the morning. To dismiss it as just another of those political killings within Tamil society, to be mourned and forgotten, is to miss the point. Indeed this is how a very influential section of Tamil society treated it. Running against many obstacles and ridicule from these same quarters, she was elected Mayoress of Jaffna on 29th January 1998 to the general relief of the populace. She came to be a motherfigure whose sentiments about restoring normal life in Jaffna and seeing an end to 'gun culture' found a resonance in the deepest longings of the people. There was a growing thaw in the political atmosphere and functions of the Jaffna Municipal Council were becoming a focus for revival of democratic activity.
This much would have made her a major flgure in Tamil political life in the context of total paralysis brought about by 20 years of internal and external terror. The task called for enormous courage and determination that is today extremely rare in Tamil society. Her significance goes much further.
There is hardly any room to doubt that the tone and character of Tamil political life today is determined by the LTTE. From 1986 it has been trying to ensure that all Tamils who are allowed to function in public life, whether as politicians or as leaders of civil society, could only do so as its cohorts. Terror was the primary means of bringing this about, and its ultimate goal was the creation of a totalitarian fascist polity. To this end anyone who did not fall into line or was involved in any activity, however innocuous, that had the potential to develop into a healthier alternative for the people, was likely to be eliminated.
Many who found it uncomfortable to function under these constraints, found a ready refuge in Tamil nationalism as a means of overcoming their reservations and excusing their cowardice. Where one avoided looking at the long term consequences, violations by the State provided some justification for this position. Toeing the LTTE's line need not always involve action. Most of the time it could merely involve being silent in the face of something totally inhuman and unacceptable as will be seen below. The end result provides substance to the contention that fascism is in essence the culture of mediocrity. Mediocrity results from narrowing one's mind and conscience to conform to the dictates of a fascist polity. In most individuals such conformity leads to a loss of self-esteem requiring an outlet, producing a diseased personality. This is the key to understanding individuals who provide a variety of services for the LTTE.
The LTTE in July 1989 murdered TULF leader A. Amirthalingam and V. Yogeswaran, former MP for Jaffna and Sarojini's husband. The trauma Sarojini experienced from seeing her husband killed before her own eyes, led her to strong aversion for 'gun culture' and her courageous stand 8 1/2 years later, resulting in her own tragic death. At the time of their murder, the two leaders were working for a constitutional solution under the Indo-Lanka Accord. From the early 1990s the LTTE has been working on turning the TULF into a party, effectively of its spokesmen, resorting to culling by murder when individuals were seen to fall out of line. Such was the murder of A. Thangathurai, whose work in the rehabilitation of displaced Tamils in the Trincomalee District was a threat to the LTTE, whose appeal depended on the continued alienation of Tamils.
Sarojini Yogeswaran had come to pose an even greater threat without being very conscious of it. Moreover she was careful not to criticise the LTTE in her public statements. But unlike Trincomalee, Jaffna had been crucial for the LTTE's international public relations. Events in Jaffna after the October 1995 Exodus and the takeover by the Sri Lankan Army had been very damaging to the LTTE. Under the LTTE Tamil elite spokesmen who undertook public relations for the LTTE had succeeded in putting it about that the people were solidly behind the LTTE. But after 1995 when people could communicate more openly and even write to the press, it became dear that among a substantial section of the populace there was long accumulated, deep seated anger against the LTTE.
This threatened the huge publicity edifice the LTTE had painstakingly constructed beginning with servile members of the intelligentsia in Jaffna, extending through Colombo and having a global reach.
The task of this network was to sell the LTTE as a liberation group accepted by all Tamils as their sole legitimate representatives, with the exception of a few 'traitors' or 'misguided persons'. What became very clear from 1996 was that the Tamils wanted a healthier and saner alternative to constraining their children to carry arms, and wanted moreover a life free of terror and 'gun culture'.
Thus following the Exodus the credibility of the LTTE's network was placed under severe strain. Their role in grossly misrepresenting the people could not continue without exposing themselves as contemptible liars. In Jaffna itself the pro-LTTE elements were constrained into a resentful silence by public opinion that was very much in the air. Mrs. Yogeswaran's role threatened to continue these developments much further by providing a democratic forum for the people's wishes.
Another individual who did a great deal to discredit the LTTE's claims to represent the Tamil people was Brigadier Larry Wijeratne. He came to be loved by the people (a rare distinction in Tamil public life) to such an extent that many unhesitatingly referred to him as 'our god'. By maintaining strict discipline on the Army and going among the people he created a fresh atmosphere and organised activities where the youth of Vadamaratchy - supposedly the home base of the LTTE - had regular interaction with youth in the South. The LTTE had to resort to the cowardly and reprehensible act of using a suicide bomber to kill him on 14th May, during ceremonies spontaneously organised by the people to bid him farewell.
Both these murders must therefore be seen as part of the cruel conspiracy to misrepresent the Tamil people as subhuman, who in the face of healthier alternatives in the present world, support a monstrosity that compels mass suicide on their children. The logical step following the murders was to make the events seem trivial by character assassinating the dead, spreading confusion about the murders and greatly diminishing the significance of the persons and their loss.
The absence of any firm cue from the TULF provided the opportunity for the Tamil press, through inclination or otherwise, to play the LTTE's game and deepen the confusion. The 'Uthayan', the Tamil daily published in Jaffna, had the merit that a reasonably perceptive reader would not have been left in any doubt as to who killed Sarojini and Thangathurai.
In Jaffna itself Mrs. Yogeswaran's murder was greeted with a haunting silence, not just from individuals, but from practically all civil institutions, including the university and all religious bodies - not even a timely word condemning the cruel and cowardly murder of a well-meaning widow past three score years.
In the case of Mrs. Yogeswaran and Mr. Thangathurai, division, confusion and fear within the TULF played into the LTTE's hands. The TULF failed to name the LTTE as the killers as was amply evident, and place in stark terms before the people why the two were killed. While one section of the TULF remained silent, another section actively tried to shift the blame onto other Tamil groups, thus trivialising the deaths and the enormous significance of their sacrifice.
Following Mrs.Yogeswaran's murder, only the local trader's association closed shops in protest. The leader of this association too was later killed. It must therefore be kept in mind that we are here talking about a very abnormal society, and this calls for much circumspection in gauging the opinions of the people.
In such a society silence makes one an ally of oppression. This can be seen in some of the propaganda gains made by the LTTE after the murder of Mrs. Yogeswaran. A few weeks later a group from Tamil Nadu including 24 MPs signed a memorandum calling upon the Indian prime minister to prevail upon the Sri Lankan government to stop the war and withdraw its troops from the North-East. Making allowance for the foibles of politicians, would this memorandum have been possible at all, had it been clear to the people of Tamil Nadu, that in the Tamil society of this country, among whom finding courage and heroism is like looking for a needle in a haystack, the LTTE not only killed a courageous woman, but also a widow, to whom every civilized society owes a special courtesy?
The LTTE's claim to be the sole representatives of the Tamil people must therefore be judged in the abnormal context that it relies compulsively on total silence on the part of the very people it is meant to liberate. This silence has been brought about by terror. Terror works by creating a diseased society where individuals are denied healthy and humane options. For the LTTE's image it has worked wonders. Confusion about its nature has led well-meaning outsiders to draw parallels between the ethnic question in this country and the problems in South Africa and Northern Ireland which have been amenable to constitutional settlements. The key difference is the role of terror. In the latter societies pluralism was never in question and the use of terror by certain groups never succeeded in reducing other sections of society to total subservience, or in silencing the voicing of other options and alternative visions for the future. The case of Tamils is so pathological that the totalitarian claims in which the LTTE has trapped itself cannot be met in a constitutional settlement compatible with basic human and democratic rights.
Also little understood is the vast gulf that exists between the pro-LTTE elites widely accredited as purveyors of Tamil opinion and the people on the ground. When Mrs. Yogeswaran was killed, the people were silenced but at the same time greatly disturbed. A very representative comment coming from Jaffna was, 'The Tigers are all out to plant their flag on a mound of ashes'. When Brigadier Larry Wijeratne was fatally struck by an LTTE assassin, a large number of civilians so lost themselves in sorrow that they rushed into the Pt. Pedro Army Camp - something totally unprecedented.
The nature of, and events surrounding, the murder of Mrs. Yogeswaran provide us with a context to probe the pathological state of affairs governing the destiny of Sri Lanka and of the Tamil people in particular. In addition to elaborating and clarifying comments made in this chapter, we will explore the social mechanisms, both local and overseas, by means of which a detestable regime of falsehood and oppression is sustained.
Continued Tomorrow
From the book 'The Palm of His Hand' by E.C.T. Candappa
The baby that survived a fatal bus accidentContinued from yesterday
About the author
E.C.T. Candappa was one of Sri Lanka's been feature writers in the mid-fifties till the seventies. He was an outstanding journalist at Lake House and distinguished himself as a reporter and feature writer. He is now domiciled in Australia but still very much interested in his country of origin. He visited Sri Lanka last year and interviewed many of the personalities featured in this book.Nationalisation brought an unification of the services, a rationalisation of resources and security of employment to the biggest single group of workers in the public sector.
But discipline suffered as unions would not permit any punitive action and the organisation was so huge and sprawling that overall control was minimal.
Raj read the story. The fully loaded bus had gone down a steep incline, sixty feet below the road level, or the height of two coconut trees as was often reckoned.
The only survivors had been the driver, who had jumped clear of the vehicle just as it rolled over, and a baby who had been found unscathed suspended on the limb of an overhanging tree.
He read on till he came to the list of the dead passengers.
As there was no chance at all of his knowing any of them in that region, he skipped it.
It was only later that day, when his parents came to visit him that he learnt that among the dead had been his father's niece, and her husband, and that the surviving baby was theirs.
The story, as gathered by relations who had gone to claim the bodies, was that they had been on their way to purchase a car. When they reached the bus stop there had been a large crowd waiting for that particular bus which was passing a popular shrine at which a festival was being celebrated.
The couple had been advised, the bus being far too overloaded, to take the next bus considering they had a baby with them. However the husband had told the bus conductor, optimistically, that they didn't mind the inconvenience as they planned to return by car. Well, they certainly had not anticipated swift and sudden death, yet it had come to pass. Raj had not expected to hear of their death, or of any death in the family, yet it had come to pass.
There were boundaries to analysis.
In the end, God, he concluded.
The surgeon came the following day, accompanied by his retinue, and stopped first at Raj's bed.
"Ah, let's see how you are getting on."
The inevitable screen, a male nurse in attendance, the sarong pulled down unceremoniously. Before Raj ever knew what would happen next, the surgeon held one pointed end of the large plaster between skillful thumb and forefinger and ripped it off his skin. Raj had just enough time to emit one startled gasp.
The surgeon, accustomed as he must have been to scenes of great fuss, permitted himself a most unbecoming leer.
"You can go tomorrow if you wish."
Raj knew of the surgeon's desire to have the beds cleared for other patients both in their interest and his own. But Raj preferred to stay on till after the sutures were removed to ensure everything was well before he left. He did not wish to return if something went wrong.
"I'd like to stay a couple of more days," he said.
"Ah," said the surgeon, "you are enjoying yourself here." Then he added: "I hear you are getting on well with the nurses."
Raj blushed darkly under his brown skin. Who on earth could have been talking?
He decided, wisely, not to say another word.
Another unbecoming leer from the distinguished surgeon, and he was gone.
He returned again two days later to remove the sutures. This time he was accompanied by several medical students. It was part of their training to observe the suturing of this particular surgeon as he was renowned for excellence in this area.
Raj pressed his eyes tight, regardless of what the surgeon or the medical students might say. He also gritted his teeth fearing he might cry out in pain.
A few moments later, Dr Juriansz said: "You may open your eyes now." He and the others were grinning.
Raj had felt only a few tugs in the region of his operation but no pain at all.
Now he had crossed all the bridges.
"You can be discharged tomorrow. But you will have to come in a few days to the ward. The matron will let you know."
"Thank you, doctor. Thank you very much for everything."
The surgeon winked at him and moved on.
The matron paid him a visit again. This time on the very formal business of presenting him the bill. This time without her retinue.
"If you leave before ten o'clock tomorrow morning you don't pay for tomorrow. So I have made up the bill up till today. You can give this to your people when they come to see you."
Alone, without the aura of bureaucratic power around her, she walked less tall, less briskly. Nor did words march before her. She patted the sheet down by habit, smiled, and just as she left looked up on the bracket at the head of the ward where a vase full of fresh irises stood. Having made the wordless connection, she trotted away.
His family were overjoyed, and yet his mother looked momentarily troubled by the announcement. She would have only a few hours in which to prepare for his return. And in that time, or less, she would prepare food not only for Raj and the family, but for the innumerable relatives and friends who would call that day and the following day when the news spread.
People who arrived at meal times would be persuaded to sit at table. There was always food for unexpected visitors.
His mother's major distress during the war – World War 2 – was the food rationing that prevented her from entertaining on the scale to which she was accustomed. Indeed, she had problems feeding her own family.
There were so many means of human communication. The sum of it was an intricate web. A whole book could be written about it, thought Raj, as he pondered at the end of the day on the mystery of how four discharged patients, Haniffa, Ajantha, the clerk and Patil all came to know that he was to be discharged the following day and how they had succeeded in coming at the same time, the afternoon visiting hour, to visit him.
None of them was really fit to travel the distances they covered and yet they had hired cars or taken taxis to see him before he left the hospital. They came accompanied by their relations, bearing sheaves of betel leaves in homage, the homage that one paid to parents and superiors. Raj himself had his own parents around him as well as relations and newspaper colleagues, and it caused him much embarrassment to be paid this attention.
He tried to minimise the effect by ribbing the Indian over his visit.
"You came to see the nurses, no?" he said, grinning impishly.
Lalchand displayed his row of neat betel stained teeth but said nothing. He knew there was more than a grain of truth in the banter.
"When are you going back to work?" he asked Raj.
"Ah, in about two weeks."
"But we must take some exercise. Why don't you come to the Vihara Maha Devi Park. We can meet there."
"But that's miles from your place and mine."
The Indian grinned again. "It's exactly half way."
"But I'll have to get a taxi each time."
"We'll spend the same amount!"
The old Moor, Haniffa, was unrecognisable when he came. He was shaven smooth, his silver hair closely cropped and that recently, for the standard vaseline used by the barbers of Maradana, the locality where Haniffa worked, proclaimed aloud its tawdry fragrance. He was completely clad for a person of his social class – in a rich palayakkat sarong, a checked design, starched shirt buttoned up to the collar with shiny brass studs, over which he wore a dark brown tweed coat. His sandals, too, were expensive chappals.
It amused Raj to see him upright, uncovered by a bedsheet, with his eyes open and not muttering an alternation of prayers and obscenities. The man carried himself very well, and his grey blue eyes, though a little low on fire, were still lightly aflame with mischief.
He walked with some difficulty and was attended by one of his grandsons.
"Mr Haniffa, it is very nice to see you but I am sure getting about was not very good for you."
"Mr Indra, I am an old man, and it does not matter when I die. I have lived my life. But according to the Holy Koran, we must pay our debts, and I owe a debt to you. I will never forget what you did for me, and for us."
Here overcome with emotion, he took a huge red cloth – it could not be called a handkerchief – and blew his nose very loud. That done, he returned to his normal form.
Nationalisation of several services by the socialist government was still a new and vigorously debated topic.
He came close to Raj, and aware that his parents were close by, said in his well-known whisper: "How is your private sector getting on? Don't let anyone nationalise it."
Raj stifled a laugh. That was another fear that if he laughed too suddenly or too loud the sutures would give way.
"I brought you a small present," he said.
It was a small bag and did not bear the shape of fruit, the commonest gift brought to patients. It had right angular edges.
"What is it?"
A small smile played over his well-trimmed white moustache.
"Open and see" he said.
Raj did that. It was an exquisite draughts set inlaid with black and white porcupine quills. The pieces were painted fish bone.
"This is my most treasured possession," the old man said. "On this board I have fought and won many battles. I have also made and lost fortunes on it. I wanted to leave it for my family when Allah calls me, but for you...my friend...I am a poor man...I will give you half my wealth...You are a Christian and yet you served me a Mussalman when I was in need. That makes you my brother. You are a man of great learning and wisdom. Use this board well and fortune will smile on you."
All this was too much for him.
He drew out the red cloth again and this time trumpeted forth his emotion.
"Come and see me at the club" he said, referring to the seedy gambling den where he worked. "I work from nine to five."
He didn't add nine pm to five am but Raj knew.
Without another word, he left.
When some minutes later, Ranasinghe, the clerk who had bled after the operation, came with his mother and sister, the scene was played on an entirely different key.
The young man was clad in a white, long-sleeved shirt and a white sarong, the traditional garb of the Sinhalese male.
The garb became the young clerk well. It heightened his gentle and serene manner and invested him with that dignity which the unspoilt peasant possessed naturally.
He offered the sheaf of betel leaves which is a mark of respect to anyone honoured, even up to the highest in the land or the most exalted religious dignitary.
The green heart-shaped leaves of the creeper are held together in the folded palms of the hands and offered with a decorous bow. Raj accepted the sheaf and joined his hands over them before setting them on the table by the bed. The clerk's mother then came forward, and with the most benevolent smile offered a large bag filled with a cake, packets of biscuits and home-made sweets. They then fell back and stood awkwardly.
Other patients had naturally witnessed these scenes somewhat to Raj's mild embarrassment.
He was taken aback considerably when, an hour or so after the visitors had all left and quiet began to descent on the ward, the schoolmaster decided to cause a stir of his own.
He got off his bed with ponderous deliberation and, standing beside it, cleared his throat noisily to attract attention.
"It is considered a noble virtue in Buddhism to minister to the sick. While this is done in this hospital as part of the paid duty by the staff, there are others who do it purely in the spirit of service. Such a service has been rendered to all of us by Mr Indra. As he will be leaving this institution tomorrow, I will not have an opportunity of serving him. Nevertheless this day will not end without my performing some small upakareyak, service to him."
Considering that the service which Raj had been able to render was the offering of an urinal, he wondered, with a sense of panic, whether the schoolmaster was planning a return of the same service. This would have been awkward while all the patients were awake, while the lights were still on, while there was every possibility of a nurse or an attendant entering the ward, and especially since Raj had not the slightest inclination at that moment to pass urine.
But the schoolmaster had a different notion.
This man who was among the triumvirate in the village who commanded respect and exercised power, this man who was visited by civic and religious dignitaries, this man who was used to being served, condescended to make a cup of tea himself and serve it with both hands to Raj. The rapt silence which followed indicated the profound impact that the simple act had made. Given the context that a Sinhalese did this for a Tamil underlined the high regard the schoolmaster had for Raj. Raj drank the cup, and the schoolmaster washed it. The act of service was then complete.
With these stirring events running through his mind, and the prospect of returning home and sleeping in his own bed with his own people keeping him in a mood of elation and excitement, it was well after midnight when he fell asleep, a deep, untroubled, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 40
And in that sleep he dreamt of the hill, the one beloved of his childhood, which he had climbed most often at sunset with the sun just beneath the summit, dashing down to dip into the harbour and into the vast Indian ocean beyond.He walked with his father and mother holding his hands on either side, and as they turned the narrow metalled road and left at the railway gate, he could see with an increasing patter of his heart, the railway lines stretching beyond and disappearing into a small tunnel under the hill.
The train that served the harbour and carried goods and ballast to and from the harbour plied a few times a day, and then very slowly. Raj was permitted by his extremely nervous mother to walk on the sleepers and often he hopped taking two at a time.
There would be a few workmen by the rails, and what work they did remained for all his life an unsolved mystery for they were always seated on their haunches clasping their knees, their implements idle beside them, chewing betel and spitting the blood red juice all round them. They always spoke in very loud voices for what reason he knew not but as though they spoke above the sound of the waves and thunder unheard by other ears and most probably, the roaring of their guilty consciences tormenting them for wasting public funds.
The grass always smelt freshly mown and sweet though no one ever led a mower over it but the cattle that cropped it finely and released the green sap. Their dung, too, combined with other scents; the acrid coal smoke from the trains, the foetid smell of stagnant marshes and dead fish.
It was, for the heart of a crowded, slummy suburb, also the heart of a pastoral setting. He used to fish there, a kind of sordid fishing with cans and nets, for tiny fish with bright silver streaks on their spines which faded with the swift death that overcame them when placed in chlorinated water.
No matter how much care was bestowed on them, how much artistry with weeds and pebbles, they did not last an entire day.
Raj was dreaming. And in that dream he was doing an impossible thing, and most likely something he might have always wanted to do, had his mother let go of his hand. He was standing on the top of a heap of ballast in a bogey of that harbour train, barefoot, and he could feel the sharpness of the flint beneath his feet and the fine dust in his nostrils. The train chugged along slowly but ponderously and he could feel the weight of the twice-metalled monster shudder under him as it snaked along the rails.
Woo, woo. He reclaimed the childlike delight. Then the engine gathered momentum. The bogey trembled under him and swayed a bit. The cattle on either side were unmoved. They lay on the grassy banks and chewed on serenely.
The workmen, too, were unmoved.
He turned round and his mother was waving him to stop.
"No," he said to himself defiantly, "not this time..."
Now the train was speeding and the world around him was a blur. The whole world except the tunnel.
Its black mouth grew bigger and bigger and larger and larger, and then without warning its lips were alight with flames that belched outwards. He could feel the heat now and the train was rushing towards it. Woo, woo, woo!
Now the engine entered it, now the first few bogeys and now...
He woke up screaming. He tried to rush out of bed and soft hands held him down. Miss Hapangama's face was almost on his.
"It's all right, it's all right. Did you have a bad dream? It's all right."
He gazed at her and the flaming tunnel turned into the gentle brown loveliness of her eyes. Oh, such peace came from them, and such tenderness.
His body shook with an unknown dread, then subsided.
He smiled feeling he owed an explanation.
"It was a bad dream," he said. "I thought I was going into a burning tunnel..."
The brown eyes clouded over with apprehension and the smile, too, faded. Her Buddhist consciousness read more into the dream than it meant.
"Did you tie threads?"
"Threads?"
"Yes, the pirith threads."
He knew of the Buddhist custom of chanting over a length of cotton thread, sprinkling it with water over which chants had been pronounced as well, and then trying it over the wrists and arms of people to ward off evil of all sorts.
"No, we don't," he said.
"Then what's that?" she asked.
"Oh, that. That's not a sacred thread. That is just to hold the medals I'm wearing. The medals are blessed."
"They have power to keep off evil?"
"I believe so."
"That's good then."
The mesh of multi-cultural practices and religious customs. Even in his weakened state, Raj thought of the practical difficulties of inter-racial inter-religious marriages. It was particularly during times of illness and crises that the cultures clashed.
By the end of that day Raj was convinced that the danger of death had passed. It was a Saturday and he was sad that he would not be able to attend Mass at the convent chapel. He remembered with a gush of gratitude the trouble Miss Hapangama had taken to find out the time of the Mass when he had arrived.
Raj was a religious man, more than usually devout; and in his introverted, introspective manner, a profound practitioner of the Catholic faith. In the depths of his being he missed the presence of the divine: no, not that; he was aware of the divine presence at all times, the ritualistic awareness of the divine at this time, and deeper than that, an intimate communion with the divine.
His family came and went in subdued silence, the other patients stood around his bed for a while but spoke not a word as though in the brooding presence of possible death silence was due.
Raj felt well all over. There was in his mouth a lingering taste of drugs. The fever, he was told, was steady at a hundred and one. He was neither hungry nor thirsty and the fear of death had left him.
The nightly cycle of darkness and silence and death and birth and survival began, and quiet spread like a numbness. He was wide-eyed and awake and alive.
Then he heard the familiar tread of nurses' feet and from the way their rhythm broke he sensed there were more than two of them. Soon Miss Hapangama and Miss Gunawardene were beside him.
"I spoke to your chaplain," Miss Hapangama said. "I told him you are after surgery. He will see you at nine o'clock," she glanced at her watch, "in about two hours. And he will come again tomorrow morning at seven."
She had a half smile, not really a smile but the pleasant expression of one who had discharged a pleasant duty.
"Oh, thank you," he said, "you're just too wonderful. You remembered."
Now she was smiling, and Miss Gunawardene did likewise sympathetically. Then Miss Hapangama fetched something else from her uniform pocket.
"I brought you this," she said, and placed a coil of cotton thread on his hand.
He sensed its significance somewhere within him, but asked routinely, "What's this?"
"A pirith thread" she said, "it will protect you. Tie it on your wrist."
Raj looked at her for a while and said. "Thank you. Thank you very much."
They smiled and left, one on stilt-like legs, the other with her most engaging waddle.
When their footsteps had merged into the night, Raj clutched the thread and suffered an intense sadness.
Two gifts had been given to him with two hands, and for one he was profoundly grateful.
For the second time this Buddhist girl had cared, in the deepest way, for the religious yearning of a Catholic. The fact of her remembering the day and his need and attending to it spoke of other matters as well. Here was the tolerance that permitted many faiths to flourish in an overwhelmingly Buddhist land, faiths as diverse as Hinduism, Islam, and the bewildering range of Christian sects, the most dominant of them being of the Catholic persuasion.
Sri Lankan Buddhists had seen these faiths, especially the Christians, planting their alien beliefs in their midst, often at the cost of a decline of Buddhism, if not in numbers, in influence.
Now at the national level, among legislators, ultra-nationalists, political agitators and sincere Buddhist revivalists, there were attempts to stifle the Christian faith,but among the mass of the Buddhist people, especially among the rural people, there was no acrimony towards the Christians or towards any other faith. They permitted them to build their churches and kovils and mosques often in close proximity to the Buddhist temples.
Raj had often been quick to point out to visiting foreign journalists some areas in Colombo and Kandy where several places of diverse worship clustered together in a proud demonstration of religious harmony and purely, of a cultured people.
Buddhists often watched, with never a hostile word or gesture or taunt or the mildest disturbance, processions of other religionists, whose customs sharply contrasted with their own in mood and manner.
Even the Marxists who scoffed at all religions had never used a religious occasion to provoke religious animosity.
The cultural soil of the people would not have accepted such a seed of dissension.
What, Raj wondered desperately, could he do with Miss Hapangama's second gift?
His profound sense of his own faith with its insistence on the first commandment would make the wearing of the thread an acceptance of a strange god. Even if he did it merely to please the girl, his parents would object most severely to his doing so. Not wearing it could hurt the nurse deeply.
How could he explain to her, who had no knowledge of the grammar of Christianity, that two practices could not co-exist. The Hindus with their ready acceptance of an ever-expanding pantheon of gods could receive anything. The Moslems with their monotheism would have nothing to do with the Christian God either, though there was no difference except in the names by which they called Him. To Miss Hapangama wearing medals and scapulars could be equated with pirith threads and holy water with pirith water, the lighting of candles with the lighting of joss sticks, intercessory prayer with the placating of Hindu gods by Buddhists, a result of South Indian invasions.
(c) E.C.T. Candappa
(Continued tomorrow)
Iraq and its sad story
by Hilmi Junaid
Secretary General
Sri Lanka Friendship Association of Islamic NationsThe accumulation of years of War and U.N. Sanctions have crippled the once prosperous Nation of Iraq, which was flourishing with Milk and Honey. In 1990 the Iraqis due to circumstances, both Nation-alistic and Political, marched its Army along its borders into the disputed area and annexed Kuwait as an additional province of Iraq. Tension arose in the Middle East as a direct result, resulting a war in the Middle East, resulting in the Military Operation called "Desert Sto-rm". Desert Storm was handled under the auspicious of the U.N.O. approved by the U.N. Security Council, a military assault on Iraq to free Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.
The United Nati-ons imposed Sancti-ons on Iraq by the Security Council Res-olution 687, containing requirements for Iraq to implement to the effect that Iraq should destroy, eliminate or render harmless, under Internatio-nal supervision, any chemical and biological weapons it might have had along with all its missiles which had a range of over 150 Kilometres. The resolution also provided for the establishment of an ongoing monitoring and verification regime to be established in Iraq in order to ensure Iraq’s compliance with their requirements.
More than seven years have lapsed by now, costing Iraq a lot of efforts and reso-urces, the UNSCOM and the IAEA have yet to recognize the competition of their respective tasks in this regard.
Contrrol
The Anglo-Amer-ican control on the work of these two Organisations have prolonged this so as to delay Sanctions. Iraq has fully implemented its obligations during the past period by going through a huge volume of work. The IAEA has itself conceded that the picture of the Iraqi nucl-ear programme is clear, and no activity has been observed by the IAEA throughout the past two years to suggest any violation. A numerical balance has been completed for the missile engi-nes launched and warheads which have been totally destro-yed. All chemical agents in Iraq’s possession have been destroyed including all warfare factories and installations.
Everything connected with the biological programmes have been fully and totally destroyed even though same could have been converted to civilian production.
It is unfortunate that UNSCOM has yet to recognise these important fundamental achievements of Iraq and has failed so far to inform the Security Council of this fact. Today Iraq is now completely free of any weapons of mass destruction and not of the means to produce them but still remains placed under stringent and fool proof monitoring reg-ime. The allegation that the Presidential Sites are under as hiding places for biological and chemical wea-pons is nothing but a myth.
* The number of Inspection Teams visited Iraq since 1991 upto present day is 260, comprising of 3517 Inspectors,
* The number of monitoring groups is 161. Since 1993 upto now 6818 visits have been conducted.
* The American spy aircraft U-2 has conducted since 12th August, 1991 to 20th July, 1998, 415 Sort-ies amounting flying hours 1725.05. The French Mirage aircraft has conducted since 17th June, 1991 to 25th July, 1998, 12 Sorties flying hours 1544.
In spite of these requests been met by Iraq, still these "Wild Sanction which no country who inspect Human Rights in today’s world will endorse Iraq has lost nearly a one million population in this war owing to food shortage, lack of medicines and the direct results of this war children have been affected mostly.
The President of the Vienna based Yellow Cross Organisation, German Professor, Siegwast Hurt Gunth-er, who visited Iraq on two occasions after the Gulf War, says the U.N. embargo is unjust. He carried out a research in which he states that sufferings of Iraqi Children is due to the embargo and the hazardous effects of depleted Uranium Shells used by the U.S. in 1991. He also delivered many lectures in Madrid, Lon-don, New Delhi and Washington, where a number of Pentagon officers listned to him. Among those suffering from the war are American and British soldiers who took part in this war who are suffering from lung cancer. It is needless to say that in addition to its radio active dangers, uranium is chemically toxic like lead and can damage kidney and lung. There is today a considerable American and British population who are against Sanctions as they know the truth of this from their own soldiers.
We also feel that the uranium in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia be destroyed because large number of animals died of uranium released by fired shells. The U.S. made this a good chance to test their military skills. It is known now that 2200 American and 1300 British soldiers died due to radio active shells used by U.S. and there are more than 4000 soldiers from Australia, Can-ada and France suffering from mysterious illnesses.
It is regretting to-say, after all, the people of Iraq are paying clearly for a crime that they have never committed.
Americans killed thousands of innocent Iraqis and damaged their infrastructure. It is therefore time-up for the World to un-derstand that these Sanction against the Nation and people of Iraq is a violation of the laws of Humanity and mankind and that these sanctions sho-uld be lifted immediately without any condition and the people of Iraq should be free people in this World. Hence let us all extend our solidarity to Iraq.
Reasons
This war "Desert Storm" was waged for two reasons, we believe, firstly to make the Americans happy after the severe defeat the American Army sustained in Vietnam loosing nearly 55,000 Soldiers, hence this was nothing but a morale boost. Secondly, to destroy the friendly relationship and the up-coming of Arab Countries to the fore front. The war was totally managed by the American Media and that is why a section of the Americans feel that this war is only a "Media Victory and not a Military Victory". Anyway the Americans achieved their goal very well. There is considerable proof to say that the Iraqis were mislead and fell a prey to the American plot,
Today the outcome-is that the might of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq is reduced. Pork and Prostitutes were imported to Saudi Arabia, Our Holy Land by the Amer-icans. God must save these countries!.
In conclusion, we wish to state that it is time up for the World to understand that these Sanctions agai-nst the Nation and people of Iraq is a violation of the laws of Humanity and mank-ind and that these Sanctions should be lifted immediately without any condition and the people of Iraq should be free people in this World.
We strongly feel that as far as the blessings of Mohi-deen Abdul Qadri-Al-Gaylani, the Saint of Saint’s tomb is in Iraq, no force on earth can destroy Iraq.
Let us all extend our solidarity with Iraq and pray to the Almighty God to help to get that damn Sanctions out, immediately.
