”Paradigm Shift Needed In Tamil Thinking”

By Vishwamithra1984 -June 11, 2014

“The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.“ ~Thomas Sowell

Velupullai Prabhakaran had a dream until it turned out to be a terrible nightmare that kept on haunting the forlorn hearts and minds of the people in the North in particular and the majority Sinhalese in the South for nearly thirty punishing years. After many thousands of young men and women have perished, some as fighting soldiers on the battlefields in the North and East and others, innocent civilians, as victims of suicide bombings and indiscriminate slaughter, the dust doesn’t seem to have settled. The two communities, Sinhalese and Tamils, are as divided as ever, more so politically, than in the ordinary spheres of culture and economy. The distrust and lack of empathy for each other in both communities are growing invisibly. The rhetorical utterances, especially those made by Sinhalese Government politicians, are most closely backed by their allies in the clergy but these utterances have become empty words, with more noise than voice; nothing more, nothing less.

This play-acting by both communities is mainly for the consumption of the foreign media and overseas leaders. While portraying themselves to the global marketplace as fair-minded and compassionate, the governing circles, particularly those who are closely identified with the First Family as well as theTNA leadership, are posing to the indigenous audience as diehard nationalists whose only purpose of political existence is the safeguarding and the well-being of their respective communities. Enmeshed in a indirect and intricate socio-political maneuver of nationalistic propaganda, both communities and their respective leaders have been betrothed in a mad rush to drive their peoples to extremes; that extreme seems to be receding further and further into irreconcilable postures adopted by both parties with each successive event or sub-event that is overtaking the speedy flow of politics and legislative process.                              Read More