[ad_1]
go through masumantilan –
Masumanthiran MP
November 27, 2012 was a busy day for the Sri Lankan government. Government agents banned routine rituals at temples across the north and east, attacked and arrested university students for peaceful gatherings, broke into girls’ dormitories, beat up newspaper editors, vandalized vehicles of members of parliament, tortured political prisoners, injured a journalist and several university media students, patrolled cemeteries, and took time out to patrol private properties to extinguish lamps lit for the Hindu festival of lights, Karthiaai Vilakkeedu.
What could have prompted such drastic measures? On November 27, 2012, a single light.
This year, the religious festival of Karthiaai Vilakkeedu and the Tamil commemoration day of Maaveerar Naal both fall on November 27. Both festivals are traditionally commemorated by lighting lamps. The Karthiaai (Karthikai) lamps symbolize peace and harmony and mark the climax of the full moon festival of lights.
this Mavillar The Nar Lantern pays tribute to the Tamils who died in the war and symbolically commemorates the day of the first Tamil Karma. Both annual events are non-violent. This year, both events were suppressed by force or violence.
Both the festivals were found guilty of being associated with lights – Karthiaai Vilakkeedu for being associated with lights and Maaveerar Naal for being associated with tamil tigersUnder these excuses, the government decided that the event of the day, the lighting of the lamps, was unacceptable.
national law
The Constitution provides for the fundamental rights of all Sri Lankans to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 10) and freedom of speech, assembly, association and movement, in particular “freedom, either individually or in association with others, and to , expresses his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice or teaching (section 14(1)(e))”. Therefore, banning ancient Tamil Hindu traditions requires a higher standard than symbol phobia.
To ban the age-old Tamil Hindu tradition of lighting lamps for Karthiaai Vilakkeedu, the Constitution needs to be rewritten.
The government attempted to legally justify the November 27 action, but based on a faulty interpretation. The government relied on restrictions on fundamental rights of expression, peaceful assembly and association as provided for in Article 15, specifically that these rights can be legally restricted to preserve racial and religious harmony. On the face of it, it is clear that such restrictions cannot be used to restrict non-exclusive, non-violent and non-confrontational religious activities. Religious harmony cannot be protected by suppressing religion.
The full realization of the peaceful exercise of religious rights is the most basic necessary condition for religious harmony. In fact, Article 14(1)(e), which protects the right to express religion, is not specifically restricted by laws relating to the interests of racial and religious harmony. Rather, this section is subject to the more general limitations of section 15(7), which include giving priority to “the interests of national security, public order and the protection of public health or morals, or in order to secure the rights and freedoms of others, or to satisfy democratic Requirements of Justice for the General Welfare of Society,” in which the government called for a broad interpretation of the general welfare clause to justify its actions.
The same provisions that defend the religious practice of lamp lighting also defend the cultural practice of lamp lighting, and the above restrictions do not apply. Article 14(1)(e) provides that every citizen “shall have the freedom, either alone or in community with others, to enjoy and promote his own culture and to use his own language”. Similarly, racial harmony cannot be achieved if people are prohibited from commemorating their lost loved ones on the basis of their race or ethnicity. Even if these fallen family members were soldiers in a separatist movement, their enduring identity after death is still primarily one of race and family.
It’s important to remember that the conflict itself is divided along similar demographic lines. The cultural practice of commemorating the dead by lighting lamps cannot legitimately be described as a threat to national security and the government must resort to the same General Welfare Clause in Section 15(7) while Section 14(1)(e) Provisions on cultural expressions do fall under this provision.
Repression is self-destruction
The question is whether the lighting of lamps in the tradition of these two festivals is consistent with the “justifiable requirements of the general welfare in a democratic society”, whether from a legal or other point of view. (Since Karthiaai Vilakkeedu is criminalized only because of its connection with lamps, the real question is whether it applies to Maaveerar Naal.)
This question can be answered theoretically or proven in practice. Without the “thought police” of Orwellian dystopia, everyone would have a de facto right to remember what they want. Memorials are an organic extension of this memory. If a community or culture has collective memories, this will be reflected in their collective desire to express those memories. Such expressions can be threatening to those who are insecure about the past and the impact these memories may have on the future.
In the context of modern Sri Lanka, certain memories are repressed because of the fear that they will lead people back to the causes that were previously repressed. The tragic irony is that the act of repression erases painful memories from the past and roots them firmly in the present. We can never forget the past, but repression also means that we can never escape it.
Suppressing memories and memorials is akin to ordering someone not to think about something. The order and its every repetition generates the very thoughts the order seeks to prevent! Likewise, whenever memories of past political realities are suppressed, they are merely transferred from the public to the private imagination, where they can neither be examined nor measured, only stirred.
Furthermore, if violence is used to suppress violent memories, then this memory will not only be internalized but also updated. It is no longer limited to the past. In this way, every time governments use violence inappropriately, as they did on November 27, 2012, they replace scars with new wounds.
Both hands
In 2008, the government constructed a war memorial in Pudumataram. It is said to be designed similarly to the Maaveerar Naal and is meant to commemorate fallen soldiers, albeit in a more grand and lasting manner. The huge government monument shows a uniformed soldier holding a gun in his right hand and a Sri Lankan flag in his left. As an enduring symbol of the Civil War, the image is disturbing.
Open conflict may be over, but the current battle for national identity cannot be won with a gun in one hand and a flag in the other.
If Sri Lanka has bought peace with violence, only to maintain it with more violence, then perhaps what Sri Lanka has bought is not peace, but only a temporary stop. The government is at a crossroads. If Sri Lanka is to achieve a better destination than we remember, the government must take its finger off the trigger and stick the gun empty.
No matter who we are, we cannot deny our dead. We should not forget their mistakes, grievances, triumphs, failures and sacrifices. Instead, we should cherish for ourselves the hope they had for us: a better, brighter future for Sri Lanka.
[ad_2]
Source link
