Light a lamp for ‘Maha Viru’ national tragedies

“Wiggy vows to light lamps in every Jaffna household to commemorate dead LTTE cadres” was the heading of a news item carried in The Island on 27.11.2020 with the cartoon of the day, depicting ‘Wiggy’ lighting a lamp with a flame in the form of a tiger head.

The JVP commemorate their fallen comrades in November ‘Il Maha Viru Samaruma’. The ‘LTTE’ also commemorate their fallen cadres in November ‘Maha Viru Day’. Both of these groups are viewed, according to different perspectives, as either terrorist groups or liberators. When it comes to terrorism, it seemed, the JVP was on a much smaller scale of a home grown variety of terrorism; with no international support or training, targeting a select set of people on a specific ideological basis. On the other hand, the LTTE was on a massive scale that earned them the title of being one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations of the world. The LTTE had an enormous amount of international support and training, with killings and massacres of an unprecedented scale. When it comes to liberators, the difference is that the JVP was interested in liberating the entire country, regardless of ethnicity or religion, from what it perceived as a ‘pro capitalist government’, supported by an international base that was exploiting the masses of this country. The LTTE on the other hand was interested in liberating a specific part of the country exclusively for the Tamils, which they felt were being exploited.

Nevertheless, the truth is that both these groups were made of the youth of this country- the future of this country – who were ‘forced’ into this ‘terrorism’ through sheer desperation as a result of being ignored by ‘us’. When one considers the JVP, in their case at least, they were on their own. In the case of the LTTE the tragedy is much worse, as this group’s frustration was hijacked and exploited by a set of power-hungry politicians, who were in collaboration with ‘an international agenda’ with no regard to the loss of life and destruction caused.

A Colombo-based Mr. C.V. Vigneswaran, is demonstrating from his actions that he is indeed one of those politicians who has no scruples in continuing to exploit the Tamils for his own personal agenda. But we as a nation should rise above this. We as a nation should all light a lamp for the ‘Il Maha Viru Samaruma’ and the “Maha Viru Day’ — not to commemorate those who lost their lives but to remind ourselves of the meaningless destruction that we as a nation were/are responsible for.

The government should organise events for both these days that involve a serious socio- economic/political discussion that analyses the factors behind this national tragedy. Let us stop lighting lamps that symbolize the rebirth of terrorism and destruction, but light ones that symbolize a rebirth of a nation.

Dr. SUMEDHA S. AMARASEKARA