it is right that we remember and never forget what happened on july 1983.
other bloggers have written about this yesterday and today. mostly in the form of personal recollections but with some reflections, more or less, on broader concerns (i have written about my personal experiences of 83 somewhere else sometime ago, i may write more fully again in the future).
however i have several moral concerns about how we write about it and our motives. because i believe that most of the writers had the best motives, i am not accusing anyone, but i will point out what i consider wrong and should be avoided when writing and reflecting about 83. readers and writers can read the articles and posts concerned and others of similar ilk, and judge for themselves. (all these judgments of mine are of course, as with all moral judgments, completely subjective. while i consider them wrong that does not mean i am urging bans on people who express them, rather i am pointing out why i find them morally unacceptable)
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when we write about july '83 (or anything else for that matter),
1/
we should not indulge in generalizations, such as, "sinhalese" did that or "tamils" this etc etc. people who do that are racists and only marginally different from racist rioters who attacked innocents. if we accuse, we should be specific; either naming people and/or their specific actions. for instance it is wrong and racist to accuse "sinhalese" in general, for '83.
2/
we should not exaggerate, either to increase the emotional impact of suffering or to ... boast ( i think that is the right word, tough i gave it some thought before using it ) about "good deeds". it is completely ok to describe suffering, and write about people acting with common humanity and helping others. but please do not exaggerate. exaggerations unless done by a great creative artist, are not hard to detect.
3/
do not speculate about "lessons for people" and other such nebulous stuff.
major point brought up when people reflect on '83 is about what majority of people "learn" (or did not learn ) by it. such questions are by nature unfocused, superficial, and unanswerable, and do not contribute to rational discussion. writers who ask this then generally tend to go on a tangent and indulge in unfounded speculations. "people" is a big word ,do not speculate about people's knowledge or actions because they are by definition unknowable. instead give your opinion after clearly indicating it as such. in doing so stick to facts if you can, and in this case observe what happened when similar preconditions for july 83 prevailed later.
4/
finally do not commit the major error of believing and implying in those writings, that ltte terrorism resulted from july '83 or that it was a major contributing factor in intensification of that terrorism.
that is false causality.
atrocities of ltte do not necessarily flow ( as some believe) from grievances of its members even if some of them have suffered grievously during 83. (imo what happened was that some criminals without any moral base used 83 as excuse to join ltte and ltte used 83 as a propaganda justification for its crimes).
to believe such a lie is a grave injustice to all those who have suffered and did not take out their anger on innocents. do people take out their fury on others unjustly? yes (this is not limited to ltte cadres) .but they are doing so by their own free will and as such are criminals no matter what they suffered. (to put it in another way, poverty is no excuse for theft.).
people choose to kill and commit other crimes. imo we are human beings because we have free will. (if you do not believe in free will and think human beings to be automations reacting blindly to events, you should ask yourself why you are writing about july '83 on the first place, beacuse by such reasoning everything, including riots, were inevitable).
killings of 13 soldiers by ltte is not an acceptable excuse for rioting. killings of innocents and other crimes on july '83 by rioters is not an excuse for joining ltte.
individuals who commit crimes (either rioting , joining ltte, or stealing, etc) giving some grievances or other ( real or fake ) as an excuse, would have committed those crime or something similar anyway; by choosing to commit crimes they betray their lack of a moral base for making such decisions, nothing more.
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ps.additionally some people have reflected about
indifference (or not) of majority of people in '83. that too is a generalization, but if
applied to specific individuals it is a valid question.
in this regard it is more relevant to ask such questions about the present. we should all
ask from ourselves as individuals what we are doing, now,about the existence of criminal ltte (which is incompatible with principles of human rights, justice, peace, and democracy, as the existence of criminal rioters on the streets was).
are we willing to appease ltte and sacrifice fellow sri lankans to ltte terrorist pussies' mercy, and be indifferent to their suffering to get a (unsustainable) "peace", that does not respect human rights, justice, peace, and democracy? what makes that diffrent from being
indifferent in 83 ?
ngo peacenik criminals, that is people like paikiasothy saravanamuttu, jehan perera, jayadeva uyangoda, sunila abeysekera, sunanda deshapriya, sunila abeysekera, nimalka fernando, rohan edirisinha, jeevan thiagarajaha, and their ilk (and
their underlings like sanjana hattotuwa), some of the
most vocal commemorators of '83 have indicated by their actions that they
willing to be "indifferent" to others' suffering in order to appease ltte, as some politicians in 83 government were indifferent to sufferings of victims to appease the rioters. once again peacenik prove themselves to be professional
hypocrites.
