This Race-War Is More Appalling Than The Dutugamunu-Elalan Conflict
By Kumar David -May 18, 2014
Dr. Kumar David
Five years after the racial civil-war: This race-war is more appalling than the Dutugamunu-Elalan conflict
The war that ended five years ago was a race-war. I do not say this as a hard, cold fact; I have no patience with euphemisms. Let’s call a spade a spade. In my judgement 99% of Sinhalese longed for the defeat and obliteration of the LTTE and the death of Prabaharan; 90% were convinced that the Tamils had no problem and that an armed struggle was unjustified. That’s plain vanilla Fact-1. I also know that at the height of the LTTE’s popularity two-thirds or more of Tamils empathised with it. Tamils were and are convinced that they were and are an oppressed, discriminated minority, that peaceful attempts and political avenues ended in a blind alley, and that the LTTE, by taking to arms, wisely or unwisely, was at last standing up for them. Face it, that’s Tamil opinion; plain vanilla Fact-2. Whether you are Sinhalese or Tamil face it, most lousy Lankans are racists.
Vigilantes ‘inspect’ Muslim business premises in Colombo
The Dutugamunu-Elalan conflict was not a race-war to anything like this extent, his purported para-demaluremark notwithstanding. My understanding of ancient history is drawn from standard sources and I see nothing akin to today’s racism in the second century BC. Dutugamunu’s campaign was to unify a fragmented country and the war with Elalan was an element in that strategy. His reign, as best as I can work out from standard sources, was one of material prosperity and concord. The period leading up to, and his reign itself (161-137 BC), cannot be likened to the racism of post-independence Lanka. The Mahavamsa, put together in the 5-th Century AD, projected what is now know as the Mahavamsa Ideology, backwards to a time in which it did not belong. Remember the punitive invasion of Raja Raja Cholan was much later in 993AD and an entirely different story.
