#99Eelamtamilproblem: Cognitive dissonance

 

Eelam Tamils are yet again at a critical juncture. The pending Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election has brought about a lot of noise. The Eelam Tamil political discourse has taken a turn for the worse. As mentioned in the previous post, one of the ways soft power is exercised is through agenda-setting. So when you are invited to the table, your influence over the outcome is nil.

Sri Lanka and few international players are bent on containing the Tamil national question to the incompetent 13 Amendment. It seems, so far, that TNA has been co-opted into this plan. Tamils are distracted by the noise about unity. Tamils are forced to think about the day to day problems with urgency. The important question of Tamil nation’s future is once again ignored in favor of addressing this manufactured, tactical, agenda.

A politically inspiring and spirited discourse, dissecting TNA’s reasons for contesting and what it hopes to achieve, is missing.

TNA has not clearly and unambiguously said what this election means to the Tamils. No comment on if 13A is the “final solution”. No comment on the need for an International Independent Investigation of war crimes. Tamil people are being sold on false Choices in the upcoming election.

There is a common practice in product marketing. A company bundles a product and certain services together and prices it accordingly. Then, to convince the consumer that bundle is the greatest value on offer, they create 2 other choices. One at a much higher price point making that choice unattractive. And another at a lower price but with a much lower value. So when sandwiched between those two choices, the one that company wants you to choose looks much more reasonable for its value. Many smart consumers get suckered into this false choice unwittingly.

The choice of voting for TNA is sandwiched between the low value proposition of preventing someone like Douglas Devananda winning and the high cost choice of 13 plus: with an accompanying marketing message that 13A is a must and is urgent. Once we have 13A, we can afford to ask for something more in the future goes the sales pitch. Without a spirited challenge and in conditions of political monopoly, this leads to inefficient choices.

There is another area where this is practiced: in Magic. Not the sleight of hand kind. In a straight forward card trick. A magician puts 3 cards on the table. The big reveal is in the middle card and he already knows it. He wants you to end up with that middle card. Yet he needs to make it look like you are making all the choices. He asks you to choice a card. Let's say, you chose the card on the left. He does some smalltalk and asks “you are you sure”?. You insist. He says “good” and throws away that card. He asks you to choose again between the remaining two cards. This time you chose the one on the right. He makes his usual jokes while reminding everyone that YOU are the one making the choices. And again throws away that card. He then does his abracadabra and voila, you end up with the middle card as the final choice. He does the big reveal. Had you chosen the middle card the 1st time, he still would have done his usual small talk and jokes. But this time he would have said, “You are great. We are going to keep this card and throw away the other two”. Had you chosen the middle card the second time, while still reminding you that YOU are making the choices, he would have said “ this time, we are going to throw away the other card”. Moral of the story. A magician does not reveal the rules upfront when he asks you to make the choices. He makes up the rules, which card to keep or throw away, after you make your choices.

If TNA wants to get into magic, then they should be ready to have their tricks exposed.

And TNA should not put Tamils in a situation having to rationalize their choices under cognitive dissonance.

#99Eelamtamil problems. Not owning the narrative IS one.

 

Joseph Nye coined the term smart power that is now popular within the policy circles.  He , in the book, The future of power, defined smart power as the “combination of the hard power of coercion and payment with the soft power of persuasion and attraction”.

 In the context of the on going conflict between the Sinhala and the Tamil nations in Sri Lanka, it is important to visit this concept.  In this specific case, power projections can be

1)    Intra national: As seen by the neighboring Tamil and Sinhala nations within the island.

2)    Inter national: As seen by the international players

 In the intra national setting within the island, as argued in this blog many times, the Sinhala nation has been solely relying on hard power to deal with the Tamil nation.  The Sri Lankan state has no structural incentive to even attempt a soft power approach towards the Tamil nation. 

In comparison, the Tamil nation tried both soft power and hard power separately at different phases of the struggle to deal with the Sri Lankan state. A soft power behavior of persuasion exercised in the form of negotiations was tried prior to the 70’s and then the hard power of coercion was tried from the 70’s til the 2009.

 In the international setting outside of the island, in contrast, the Srilankan state has deployed soft power. Because in that arena, it has no means of hard power. It enjoyed an inherent advantage because it controls the state. The Sinhala nation has worked the two of the soft power behaviors, persuasion and attraction, to successfully enhance the third of agenda-setting.    

 This Sinhala nation’s success in exercising the soft power in the international arena can be attributed to several factors.  British, wittingly or unwittingly, helped to set up the conditions favorable to the Sinhala nation to exercise this soft power. British furthered the myth, through a lot of omission, that the whole of island is a Sinhala Buddhist country.

1) Their agreement with the Kandiyans in 1815 to protect Buddhism, just as they were uniting the island into a single administrative unit, set the precedence.  This state patronage lived on and is now part of the constitution.

2) Enamored by the cultural uniqueness of the Sinhalese, attracted by the easy access to the diversity flora, fauna and the ancient ruins, British writers proliferated the Sinhala Buddhist views of the island.

 Building on this narrative, Sri Lankan state continued to make Sri Lanka synonymous with Sinhala Buddhism.  It also made its international dealings oriented towards eliminating perceived Tamil threat.  Having mastered the maneuverings over several centuries of feudalism, Sinhala nation has been willing to bargain away its sovereignty to buy time and space against the Tamil struggle.  Perversely, this willingness to negotiate its sovereignty (despite all the posturing for domestic consumption) is what has made Sri Lanka attractive to the International powers.  

 Using this, Sri Lankan state succeeded in pre emptying Tamil’s hard power from turning into a smart power.  It did so by soliciting international help to proscribe and delegitimize the LTTE under the war on terror slogan.  In Joseph Nye’s Book, The future of Power, taking away the legitimacy is the best way to deprive actors of soft power (pg 84). LTTE’s insistence of parity of status during the peace talks was to counter this de legitimacy campaign.

 Now Sri Lankan state is once again engaged in another exercise, with the help of the same international players, to blunt the soft power of the Tamil Nation.  Sri Lankan state fully knows “that conventional force has become more costly when used to rule nationalistic and socially mobilized populations” (pg 41).  Sri Lanka is seeking to contain the Tamil struggle within the parameters of the 13th Amendment.  So the diminishing value of its military can be retained under an impotent and a farce civil administration.

 Is TNA complicit in this ploy?

 In the current information age, a winning narrative enhances ones soft power. TNA has a golden opportunity to turn this international ploy on its head in favor of the Tamils.  Eelam Tamils have always struggled to show the world that it is the occupation of their homeland by Sri Lanka and not a domestic political violence as Sri Lanka claims.  Using the NPC election platform, TNA has a historical responsibility to release a manifesto that helps to set the future narrative of the Tamil struggle.  The TNA manifesto should be explicit in such a way that Tamil votes are not distorted into a wrong post election narrative.  The NPC election manifesto should state that 13A is not the solution to the Tamil national question. And by contesting the elections, TNA is not endorsing the de-merged North and East.  TNA should also state that an International Independent Investigations into the crimes against humanity is a necessary condition for peace and stability.    

 Will TNA stay true to the Tamil aspirations and mobilize the people once again?

#99Eelamtamil problems. but Unity ain’t one

 

if you happen to attend any large gathering of Eelam Tamils, they will have you convinced that Eelam Tamils are not united.  If you stick around longer, you will be convinced Tamils around the world, not just Eelam Tamils, don't rally as one.

I am not sure how this falsehood came to dominate the Tamil thinking. If not addressed,  this has the danger of becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.   

Eelam Tamils should be very proud of their unified struggle against a Genocidal state for so many decades.  If we were not a united people, the struggle would not have lasted for 3 generations.  And rest assured, this struggle will continue until Tamil’s safety and security are in Tamil hands and until Tamils own their economic future . Doomsayers will be proven wrong.

Dissent should not be confused for disunity.   Tamils have always been united in their vision of securing the safety and security of Tamils. Of course, there have been exceptions as you would expect from any large society. Few Tamils actively worked along the side the Genocidal Sri Lankan state to undermine the Tamil cause.  But Eelam Tamils have identified and rejected them at every turn. And they will continue to do so.  

Tamils have a proud and long history of dissent.  Many Tamils have paid for this with their lives.  Self-criticism makes a society better when it is embraced as a worthy quality.  It was the dissent of Thanthai Selva, Navaratnam, etc that set the Tamil struggle in the right course.  

A cost-benefit analysis of dissent can yield different results under different contexts.  For example, when a society is nurturing a secretive guerilla insurgency campaign Vs when the society is engaged in an open political struggle. In the former, dissent can be costly and enemy can exploit it as a counter insurgency tactic.  In the later, dissent can be a big asset.  But under both contexts, the society itself should see and be convinced of the trade offs.

As Joseph Nye argued in the book (pg 106), future of Power, toleration of dissent  and presence of self-criticism enhances credibility and creates attraction to the society in a global narrative.

As Eelam Tamils transition from an armed campaign to a new phase of political struggle, set on a world stage, we should adapt to use dissent and self-criticism as strengths rather than weaknesses. More importantly, not to confuse that with disunity.

We should be glad to see Tamil organizations occupy every space of a wider political spectrum. Thus denying that space to the Sri Lankan state.  The diversity of diaspora organizations, each operating in different spaces but united in the end goal is a strategic asset.  What is needed is coordination and communication between them to avoid disunity in the future. Not an endless discussion about the mistaken need to unite as one single organization.

Getting off the Srilankan Grid

 

Getting off the Srilankan Grid

The looming “great game” that will be played out in the in the Indian Ocean holds an important lesson for the Tamils of Eelam and TamilNadu.  

As I mentioned in the previous post, at the heart of the global and regional policy framework on the Indian Ocean is the stable economic growth.  It is essential that the Tamils chart their destiny thoughtfully given the pressure to submit to the 13th amendment.  Control over a Tamil national economy and the ability to select the nodes through which to connect to the global economic grid is a strategic imperative for the Eelam Tamils.  Tamil leaders need to keep this in mind when articulating the devolution model.

A brief history of the Tamil economic model is helpful.

The impact of colonial rule on the Tamil economy is significant.  The way of life and concept of trade irreversibly changed for the Eelam Tamils. This macro economic change had started under the  Portuguese rule, aided by the Dutch, and then accelerated under the British.

In the ancient times, India was the hub of the spice trade . Ceylon benefited by proximity to India and to the Indian Ocean trade route. This trade route was in the hands of the Egyptian and Turk navies.  Those navies engaged in trade but not in conquests. And the trade itself was a Royal monopoly both in India and in Ceylon.  Records show the Sinhala kings primarily sold Cinnamon while the Tamil king sold Elephants and pearls.  The Tamil trade was heavily tied to the kingdoms in the Coromandel coast through the narrow ocean path. There was minimal people to people trade with the neighbouring Sinhala kingdoms.

After the “age of discovery” , the Portuguese were trying to dominate the spice trade and the routes.   This quest brought Portuguese in contact with Ceylon in November 1505 when they were on their way to the Maldives to attack a fleet of Moorish spice ships.  After firmly establishing in India, and conquering most of Ceylon, Portuguese went about consolidating their power on trade and also focused on religious conversion.  Both Sinhala and Tamil people started to loose control over the external trade.  Portuguese continued to trade the same commodities as before and followed the same trade routes.  In the Sinhala areas, Colombo and Galle ports were upgraded. In the Tamils areas, focus was on Mannar and Point Pedro ports.  The administrative control for the Portuguese rule in Ceylon was vested with their Company in India.   

Dutch took over from the Portuguese in the early 1600.  This led to the altering of the administrative power centers and impacting the trade significantly.  Dutch expanded their administrative role in Colombo through an appointed Governor.   And that governor appointed a commander to Jaffnapatnam to look after the Tamil affairs.   

The existing elephant trade of the Tamils was expanded by the Dutch Governor Van Mydregt since 1689.  The elephants were caught by the different Vanni chiefs who ruled the region and were given to the Dutch as tributes.  And then the Dutch traded those elephants with the merchants from Tanjavur and Golkonda (current Hyderabad) in India. They removed the previous Tamil broker/agents in Jaffna.  Seasonal pearl fishing in Mannar remained a big source of revenue for the Dutch. Furthermore, the Moors of Bengal were trading at both Galle and Jaffna ports bringing in grain and sugar. Tamils were selling palmyrah and coconut products as well as Tobacco to Nagapatnam and further north through the Point Pedro port.

Dutch East India company also earned revenue selling pepper, Arca-nut, copper, etc from the Tamil areas .  And the Company tried to introduce linen manufacturing and dye making techniques from Tutucorin and Coromandel to the Tamil areas so that finished goods can be sold back to India but with a 20% duty.  

But for some inexplicable reason, the colonial Dutch governor in Colombo tried to restrict the export trade of the Eelam Tamils to the Coromandel coast.    

In Oct,1694,the Dutch commander of Jaffna proposed to reroute the Areca-nut trade to Coromandel through Jaffna just as the Portuguese had been doing. He proposed that the Areca nut from the Sinhala areas be brought to Jaffna through land and then be shipped through the Point Pedro port.  But in July 3,1696, Dutch government rejected the proposal and decided to stay with shipping the Areca-nut through the longer Calpetty sea route (1 - pg19).    

Under the Dutch rule, for the Eelam Tamils, the center of gravity for both administration and trade shifted towards Colombo.  Reminiscence of recent state of affairs,  Vanni Chiefs and Tamil leaders started making their treks to Colombo to air their grievances to the Governor: bypassing the Dutch Jaffna Commander.

Colonial power then transitioned to the British in 1796 . The changes that followed had an accelerated impact on the Eelam Tamils.  British decision to treat Ceylon as crown colony much earlier than India ( India was under the control of British East India Company til mid 1800) empowered the British Governors in Colombo with more administrative powers.  It linked the Ceylon administration directly to the Crown.  It decoupled Ceylon from a India based supervisory structure (Yet , Burma was annexed to the British India).  During the British rule, the kingdoms in the Coromandel and Malabar coasts ceased to exist.  And British controlled the regional trade in its entirety.

With these developments, the Eelam Tamil trade route to the Indian coast came to a stop as well.

British also fundamentally changed the  export commodities.  It was no longer the Cinnamon, Areca-nut, Pearls or the elephants.  The staple products exported from Ceylon towards the end of their rule show the dramatic transition from the Dutch rule. Tea was the number one export from Ceylon and rubber was number two (2). The global economy had changed by then.  Elephants and Pearls were not as much in demand.  

Forced out of the Indian trade route, and not able to develop an external trade mechanism due to lack of economic or political autonomy,  the Eelam Tamils were forced to transform their local economy into a services based one.  It pushed the Tamil society increasingly into mercantile and civil service jobs thus eroding their agricultural basis. As mentioned in the previous post, the missionary educational investments in the Tamil areas helped to expedite this transition.

But for the 1st time, this also permanently tied the Tamils into a Ceylon economic grid.  

( note: Tamil complains to Soulberry about the negligence of the Vanni water tanks and agricultural infrastructure can be understood in this context (2)).  

Sinhala Buddhist rulers took over from the British in early 1930s.  Driven by a siege mentality, they worked to criminalize the attempted Tamil trade between Valvettithurai and India instead of regulating it.  This may have lead to the early friction between the state apparatus and the Tamil people and made that town the hub of early resistance.   

Would Tamils ever be able to exercise independence in the economic policies that impact them?

Anyone who cares to read the 13th amendment to the Sri lankan constitution can see the governor described in there is no different than the ones from the Dutch and British era in authority.  And it is not a coincidence that they are men of military.  The provincial Chief minister is nothing more than a ceremonial figurehead.   There are multiple layers of fail safe ( should the military governor decides to go native) mechanisms embedded into the amendment to ensure provincial councils can operate only “during the pleasure of the president”.

The current discussions on the 13th amendment focus on the very limited, provincial land and police powers.  A true devolution of those powers are directly tied to the safety and security of Tamil lives. No Tamil party should ever compromise on that.  Especially when the law enforcement of the state historically has been ethnically biased and excessively violent towards the Tamils.  And the state is pursuing a genocidal policy of demographic change.  Due to the Sri lankan state constantly moving the devolution goal post, one other critical and important aspect is pushed aside in these discussions which is the devolution of economic powers.  Tamil economic security is as important as any other.  

What controls will Tamils have over a future economic model?  

Tamils need to develop and articulate a framework that fits within the narratives of the global and regional powers talking about the stability and economic growth of the region.  The provincial list and the concurrent list of the 13th amendment do not allow the Tamils to choose how they want to conduct external trade.  

The total destruction of the Tamil Nation, in a perverse way,  has enabled the Tamils to re-imagine the economic framework.  Tamils should be discussing ways and means to ensure they are vested with the rights for such an economic policy.  As opposed to co-opting into the blind and misplaced policy of assimilation through development model the Sri lankan state is trying to impose.

Under the constraints of a military campaign, the tigers made an attempt at economic self sufficiency when they controlled territory drawing this US remark as mentioned in wikileaks.

That policy only moved the Eelam Tamils away from the Srilankan economic grid that the British put them under.  Tamils should now pursue alternate routes to access the global economic grid.

Cliche aside, with the raise of India and China, the world indeed has come a full circle to the ancient power balance.  And it is about time, Tamils, collectively,  reassert their place in that configuration. Soliciting the support of the Indo-US axis, Tamils should actively pursue a policy of reviving the old trade ties between Eelam and South India.  There will be worries that this will further alarm the Sinhala Buddhists in Sri Lanka and weaken the case for devolution.  But Tamils have been facing Genocide without even exercising this option.  Plus this is the most economically prudent and a reasonable economic policy within the policy realms of both India and the US.

Tamil nadu is the 2nd largest economy in India behind Maharashtra. The importance and the potential of TamilNadu is not lost on America as evident by the increasing investments of the US companies and by the visit of Hillary Clinton.  TamilNadu is empowered to attract foreign investments, sign MOU’s with foreign entities and to create special economic zones to promote commerce. (Note: Compare that to the drama created by Sri Lanka for the MOU between the trincomalee Urban council and the American Embassy for an american corner).  

TamilNadu has been on an impressive socio economic development trajectory. The literacy rate is comparatively high. It is home to the 2nd largest urbanized population in India  and is poised as a very powerful node on the global economic grid.  Eelam Tamils choosing TamilNadu, instead of Sri Lanka, as the vehicle to access the global grid, is an economically wiser decision.  Setting them up for a better windfall in the future.

Tamils on both sides of the palk strait should be agitating for the revival of this direct trade link. Be that the ferry service between the coasts or a future land bridge.  An interconnected eelam economic zone tied to the Indian grid is the best southern strategic buffer a sensible Indian government policy could strive for.

The lifeline of the Eelam economy is now made to run through the Chinese built Colombo-Kandy road and to be dependent on Colombo alone.  Designed to support the paranoid model of assimilation through development.  The Sinhala nation, due to its ingrained paranoia and racism,  will not see the economic benefits of a self sustaining, viable local model that will be far less draining on its budget.  Indian government Policy of achieving similar results but through the Sri Lankan state will backfire. The Eelam Tamil, TamilNadu and Diaspora connections are getting stronger not weaker.  

  On seeing the continuing occupation and the oppression of Eelam Tamils, an agitated and politically aware Tamilnadu, will reduce the soft power of both India and the US.  Seen as supporting the Sri Lankan policies, the anti US and Indian sentiments of the Tamil student protests should be an alarming signal to the Indo-US policy makers.  Tamils need to continue to stress that the true stability can only be achieved when Tamils in Eelam hold the keys for the safety and security of their lives and for the economic betterment of their future.  The TamilNadu assembly resolution seeking economic embargo on Sri Lanka is very powerful. But is ignored by the center.  Imagine a scenario of TamilNadu assembly upping the ante by taking legislative steps to make a point. By passing legislation that goods and services originating from Colombo or Galle will incur additional state duties and Goods and services originating from  Trincomalee, Mannar, or Kankesanthurai will be exempt from  duties.  This will be a very powerful and meaningful step.

Will Tamils on both side of the Palk strait earnestly take up the issue of reopening the direct trade and people to people connection that can help stabilize the growth remain to be seen.

1) Memoir of Hendrick Zwaardecron, Commandeur of jaffnapattnam

2) http://archive.org/stream/CeylonConstitution-1945/CeylonConstitution#page/n159/mode/2up

Random Music Post

 

A random post sharing music from the past.  A big fan of Chris Cornell but this song meant more in the post May 2009 context.  As a reference to my 4yrs on post.  

You can look a hurricane right in the eye  Twelve hundred people dead or left to die  Follow the leaders  Were it an eye for an eye  We'd all be blind, deaf or murdered  This im sure  In this uncertain time  So come pull a sheet over my eyes  So I can sleep tonight  Despite what I've seen today  I find you guilty of the crime  Of sleeping in a time when you should have been wide awake  Down on the road the world is floating by  The poor and undefended left behind  While you're somewhere trading lives for oil  As if the whole world were blind  So come pull a sheet over my eyes  So I can sleep tonight  Despite what I've seen today  I've found you guilty of the crime  Of sleeping in a time  When you should have been wide awake  Come pull this sheet over my eyes  So I can sleep tonight  despite what ive seen  I found you guilty of the crime  Of sleeping in a time  when you should have been wide awake 

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDIcWly4d0E