ON THE MAJORITY REPORT AND THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
The lead story of "The Island" of 8th December 2006 on "Sharp differences in Constitutional Panel, APRC over peace plan" carried certain information on the majority report submitted by the panel of experts. As the representative of the MEP in the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), I was dismayed over the publication of certain points contained in the "preliminary report" submitted by the majority of the panel of experts. Together with this report another report by four members of the panel, and two other documents were submitted at a joint meeting of the panel and APRC held on Wednesday the 6th. It was agreed that all the documents would be treated with utmost confidentiality and that their contents would not be divulged to the press. I am not aware how the contents of the majority report eached the press. Of course some pundits in the media in their wisdom remind us the lesser mortals that once the report is distributed among the members who were present at the joint meeting, the confidentiality of the contents is lost. However "The Island" report on 8th December mentioned that "Hindu" had claimed that they had obtained a copy of the report, probably before local media had access to the report. It is very unlikely that all the members present at the meeting held on 6th have contacts with "Hindu".
Though the APRC never requested the panel of experts for a report on a "solution" to the so called ethnic problem two reports and two documents were submitted to the joint meeting held on Wednesday the 6th. The APRC has not finished its deliberations, and it is hoped that once consensus is reached in the committee, the proposals would be communicated to the proper authorities. It is not a problem that can be solved in a few weeks, nor that can be dragged on for years without finding a solution. However, it appears that there is a person or a group that is interested in ruining the hopes of the APRC, by trying to rush the views of the former to the President and the public in the guise of a "solution" to the problem. It has to be emphasized that the views of the politicians who have been rejected at elections over and over again cannot be construed as a solution to the so called ethnic problem.
As the important contents of the majority group have reached the press, I am reluctantly compelled to inform the public through the press that I, as the member representing the MEP, am opposed to the views expressed in the report of the majority of the panel of experts, and that I do not consider the majority of the panel to represent the majority of the people of the country. Further it has fallen on me the duty of rejecting outright the contents of the "preliminary report" of the majority at the APRC, as the MEP does not subscribe to the views expressed therein. In any event I am happy to note that the government has categorically stated that the "preliminary report" of the majority of the panel of experts does not reflect the position of the government.
The "report" has been prepared in a hurry, apparently because the panel of experts was requested to submit a report by 6th of December. It is not clear as to who requested the "report" and the purpose of requesting it. Is somebody or a group of people trying to force their "solution" to the so called ethnic problem? In the APRC, I as the representative of the MEP, work with utmost care to reach a consensus. MEP perceives the problem in a different way and if we are forced to adopt the views of diehard federalists who want to devolve maximum power on an ethnic basis, as the solution then it would have drastic consequences.
There are some pundits who claim that this "preliminary report" is representative of the people as the majority of the panel of experts includes six Sinhalese four Tamils, and one Muslim, while the group that submitted the "minority report" consists only of Sinhalese. However, of the six Sinhalese one is the secretary to the ministry of constitutional affairs, and one wonders whether she was appointed by the President as a member of the panel of experts. I am sure the legal luminaries on the panel would give their opinion on it. However, would there be a majority opinion and a minority opinion on this question as well? Of the other five Sinhalas of the majority group how many are Marxists, ex Marxists, Liberals etc., whose views on this matter are guided by those of the non Sinhalas. Just because they are Sinhalas do they represent the Sinhalas in the country? In any event, excluding the secretary, of the eleven Sinhalas appointed by the President to the panel of experts six are against the "majority" point of view.
It is clear that it is those Sinhalas who are guided by Marx, the Church and others who are for a federal "solution" to what they think as the problem. In the final analysis, it is this type of people who do not allow the others to find a solution to the "problem", as they come to the panels, committees and other bodies with their pre conceived ideas of the "problem" with the federal solution. They try to impose their views without listening to the others. They work on the assumption that there are Tamil grievances or aspirations, though they do not mean the same, and that a solution acceptable to the "international community" has to be found to this problem, which could be presented to the LTTE by the government, at the negotiations, so that the LTTE would be in a position to bargain for more. If these people were left out of the committees the Sinhalas who are for a unitary state and those non LTTE Tamils who want a federal state would find a solution through negotiations. The home grown solution that the President expects could be found by the Sinhalas who represent the Sinhalas and the Tamils who represent the Tamils, and not by NGO types whose thinking, if they think at all, is guided by those who are neither Sinhalas nor Tamils. The NGO types very often only echo the views of their masters and mistresses. It is these people who have complicated the problem with theories on self determination etc., borrowed from others. They represent only themselves and their parties that have no elected members in the Parliament, and the President is well advised to ignore them. The government by dissociating itself from the "preliminary report" submitted by the majority of the panel of experts has taken the correct path. Let the "preliminary report" be the final report as well.
It is not my intention to analyse the "preliminary report" at this stage, when the government does not seem to be interested in it, and as a result when it is not a threat to the sovereignty of the country. However, the very first paragraph on understanding the problem compels me to mention a few words, as the so called solution stems from the way the problem has been identified. In solving a problem more than ninety percent of the effort is on identifying the nature of the problem, and the "majority" very correctly, it appears to be the only correct thing in the report, at the outset identifies (understands) the problem as such. However, it does not mean that their formulation of the problem is correct. The majority understands what they call the national problem, borrowing again non national terms, in the following manner. "The crisis in the Sri Lankan polity has arisen because, although the country is multi-ethnic and multi-religious, the numerically smaller ethnic groups have not had their share of State power, which in their opinion, would have facilitated greater integration." This is a myth just like saying that the present "ethnic problem" arose as a result of introducing Sinhala and Tamil as media of instruction replacing English, thus segregating the students!
Only a very few schools, including the central schools, had English as the medium of instruction in the late forties, and if the change of medium of instruction was the cause of the problem then all that has to be done is to reintroduce English as the medium of instruction in schools and we could live happily ever after. What these people do not understand is that people such as Ponnambalam Ramanathan, Ponnambalam Arunachalam, G. G. Ponnambalam, C. Suntharalingam, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, and D. S. Senanayake, all had their education in English, more or less in the same schools. Did the so called ethnic problem come into existence only after their sons and daughters or the grandsons and granddaughters began to have their education in Sinhala or Tamil medium? This is only wishful thinking of those who want to see the problem as a result of fifty six, making Sinhala the official language, the constitution of seventy two that gave recognition to Buddhism (in fact it did not give the recognition that had been given in the so called Kandyan Convention) etc.
What these experts and others do not want to see is that the "ethnic problem" began long ago with ethnic representation in the legislative assembly as a consequence of the descendants of the Dutch imported Tamils (they did not come on their own to Sri Lanka) dominating the Jaffna peninsula. The Tamil leaders were given out of proportion representation in the legislature and since then the Tamils have been demanding fifty fifty etc., enjoying privileges with the connivance of governors such as Manning, and whenever some of these privileges were taken away, the Tamil leaders who were educated in English at schools set up by the British cried foul, and incited those Tamils who had been educated in Tamil, claiming that the Tamils in general have been discriminated. This is the crux of the problem and not that the Tamils were not given their due share of state power. The Tamil leaders who had been educated in English had been given undue power by the British and these leaders never allowed these measures to be corrected. They simply prevented Sinhalathva being given its due place in the country.
I have dealt with the two senses in which multi culturalism is used and it is not my intention to go into it again. To the majority as well as to the minority in the panel of experts who want Sinhala and Tamil be made compulsory for G. C. E. (O/L), all that I would say is that Welsh is not compulsory for English students in Britain at the relevant examinations, and let the schools depending on the resources decide to offer optional subjects as practiced now, in the case of languages as well. Let the students and their parents decide what languages other than the mother tongue should be studied. Multi culturalism in Sri Lanka is definitely loaded against Sinhala, whereas in the other countries it merely recognizes that cultures other than the significant (dominant in the case of most countries such as UK and USA and even Malaysia) also exist. One has only to observe the recent uproar against the Muslim women wearing the "veil" in the western countries. As far as the Muslim countries are concerned I would give only the example of Malaysia where the medium of instruction in the national schools is Bhasha Malay thus forcing the Tamils, Chinese and other students in that country to study in a language not of their own. For God's sake stop bashing the Sinhalas for creating a so called ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. It has to be mentioned that those who want to engage in bashing the Sinhalas are not going to be helpful at all in solving the "ethnic problem". They would simply introduce more and more "ethnicity" to the solution thus aggravating the "ethnic problem". Whether they are Marxists, ex Marxists, Post Marxists, Liberals or whatever, they are only following the footsteps of the British.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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