Dr. Rajasingham Narendran, September 5
    
The Portuguese arrived at the port of Kolomba (Colombo) in 1505 AD, wanting to meet the King of the Kingdom of Kotte. Kotte-the capital is approximately ten kilometers from the Colombo port, as the crow flies. The King’s men who met the advance party of Portuguese adventurers, welcomed the visitors with customary Sinhala courtesy and hospitality, and took them on a long and arduous walk lasting several days, to reach the palace in Kotte. The intent was to deceive the Portuguese into believing Kotte was far away from Colombo port. This story has become a legend among the Sinhalese and is often cited as proof of how clever they are. How the King of Kotte and his family subsequently became catholic and were conferred names such as Donna Catherina and Don Juan Dharmapala are usually glossed over! The arrival of the Portuguese was a momentous event in history that set the stage for the advent of Western colonial rule in Sri Lanka.

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- The Academic

This is another one sided story by a person surprisingly with a so calles "doctorate". The whole article is without facts but with a lot of generalisations. It repeatedly talks about "solutions" to "tamil problems", but at no place it describes what the "tamil problems" are that are not the problems to "sinhalese".

This is a illusion currently suffered by ethnic tamils in Sri Lanka including "Doctor." Narendran, where they are not sure what their problems are if any.

The real problems and discriminations were on the Sinhalese where they were not allowed to purchase land in Jaffna (thesavalamei rule), tamil examination markers falsly giving high marks to ethnic tamil students (eg:mosquito question) to gain unfair admissions to universities etc etc. Tamils were having more than their fair share in most of the administration and business areas, but still complain about some "dream" discrimination, in my opinion based on pure jeolosy because they wanted to rule Sri Lanka. This is like, minority Red Indians are trying to rule USA. Nothing wrong with that if it can happen, but you cannot beat the natural forces where minority will not be able to rule the majority.

I don't think tamils themselves would like sinhalese to rule if tamils were 80% majority! In a perfect "book world" it can happen not in reality.

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The real problems and discriminations were on the Sinhalese where they were not allowed to purchase land in Jaffna (thesavalamei rule), tamil examination markers falsly giving high marks to ethnic tamil students (eg:mosquito question)

You are misinterpreting thesavalamei, which merely gave a preferential option to buy to close family members irrespective of race, and your comment on lax marking in the Tamil stream is a canard, long known to be false.

Good Analysis N..When will the South learn. A vast majority think like Manjula. How do we get them involved in the process of nation building. In the interim let's tally the body count.

[quote="vishvajith"]Good Analysis N..When will the South learn. A vast majority think like Manjula. How do we get them involved in the process of nation building. In the interim let's tally the body count.[/quote]

Good point and that is exactly what any minority (race-wise, social values-wise, law-wise, age-wise or anything else)  should learn to accept. That is nature and you and I cannot change it. If a vast majority thinks in a certain way (in this case like me), then that becomes the accepted standard.

"Common Law" is a good example of such. Not absolutely everybody agree with common law, but the majority.

If you don't like it, bad luck! If I belong to a minority, exacly the same applies to me too.

If that results a body count in the name of a minority group who is not prepared to accept the norms acceptable to a majority, so be it. It is unfortunate, but cannot help. You cannot change nature and it's properties however you try.

Think what happens if the tamil minorities in Norway, Canada, South Africa, US or Australia or even India asking to sever a piece of that land for tamils, asking for their own army and ports etc, in next 300 years time, calling that area as their "traditional home land"!

Stephen Jones wrote:

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The real problems and discriminations were on the Sinhalese where they were not allowed to purchase land in Jaffna (thesavalamei rule), tamil examination markers falsly giving high marks to ethnic tamil students (eg:mosquito question)

You are misinterpreting thesavalamei, which merely gave a preferential option to buy to close family members irrespective of race, and your comment on lax marking in the Tamil stream is a canard, long known to be false.

he wouldn't know thesavalamei from a packet of looped siltex pads.  he's not alone.  the vast majority of our people think its a mechanism to prevent sinhalese from buying land in tamil areas.  they also think the north and east is a land of milk and honey that the demalas want to steal and keep for themselves.  most of them have never set foot in the arid dusty north-east, complete with brackish ground water that poisons topsoil, rubble filled towns and mine-strewn fields.  like the tamil diaspora, they will also never venture out there. and yet, they cheer the combatants like they do a cock-fight from the safety of a ring side seat


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History is locked. The future is not.
More mungatta please....