Deeds, not words
D.S. Senanayake understood this when he inducted the then political leader of the Tamil community and the proponent of 50:50, G.G. Ponnambalam, into his Cabinet.
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike knew this when he signed an agreement with the then leader of the Tamil community, S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, as did Dudley Senanayake a decade later.
J.R. Jayawardene was instrumental in creating both the DDC system and then the 13th Amendment. R. Premadasa negotiated.
Chandrika Kumaratunge tried to push through the “package” while fighting the LTTE. Ranil Wickremesinghe tried under the CFA as did Mahinda Rajapaksa in the early days of his presidency.
The grand gestures of Constitutional reform have been degraded. We have had 20 years of greater and lesser violations of the 13th Amendment; four plus years of blatant disregard for the provisions of the 17th Amendment; and the nibbling away of the principle of Parliamentary control of government finance by all arms of government. What value is law that is heeded by none?
Any official language, anywhere, any time
Let us take as an example the lowest hanging fruit: enabling a Tamil-speaking citizen to interact with the government on mundane everyday matters in her own language.
I am robbed; I am threatened; I am mugged. I need to communicate with the Police. Is it too much to ask that I be able to do this in language I am comfortable in, without having to take my neighbor along as an interlocutor? It appears to be so, in much of the country today.
We simply do not have enough bilingual government servants, even though we have more people working for government, per capita, than any place on the planet. Mr Lionel Fernando tried to solve this problem; Mr D.E.W. Gunasekera is still at it. But the evidence is clear. Conventional approaches are not working.
The solution is staring us in the face. The ubiquitous telephone.
With just a little tweaking of the 1919 Government Information Center, we can enable any citizen anywhere to speak to any government servant in any official language of his choice. Even today, 1919 is one place in government where questions are answered in all three official languages, politely. Why not just extend it into a full-fledged government interpretation service?
If anyone has trouble communicating with a government official, all she would have to do is dial 1919. Ideally this would be a free call. Even if not, it’s better than what we now have. All sorts of bells and whistles can be built in starting with simple conference calling, so that there’d be no need to pass the phone from ear to ear.
Does the government official have to be at her desk? No. Mobile phones work everywhere. You can call from a check point. You can call from the middle of Yala. Will this be limited to the rich? Oh no. LIRNEasia research shows that by October 2008, over 70 percent of households at the bottom of the pyramid (defined as socio-economic classifications D and E, corresponding to households earning less than USD 2 a day) in the country, excluding the North and the East, have some kind of phone. If that is the case for those with the least income, it has to be higher for those at the top of the pyramid.
If someone wants to be picky, they can start a rent-a-phone service. Rent-a-phone is easier than rent-a-neighbor. But there really is no need.
How long would it take to offer anytime, anywhere interpretation services? Weeks, not months. The private company currently operating the 1919 center can be asked to go 24/7 and increase the number of calls that can be handled at any given time. Improve the connectivity of government offices. All very cheap: telecom is the only thing going down in prices these days. But note, you need to buy from the cheapest supplier.
Find bilingual speakers and add them to the current team; take them out of government offices if need be. Accelerate the development of the databases currently used to provide information to callers so that some calls can be handled without connecting back to the government office at all.
Use the built-in capabilities of call centers, analyze the sources, types and times of calls that come in and use that data not only to improve the services from 1919, but also from the physical interfaces of government.
Start using mobile payments. Conference calling. MMS. Imagination is the limit.
More ideas now
Imagine this service rolled out by May Day. Would this not be a good way of showing that the government is more likely to meet the aspirations of the Tamil speaking people than the LTTE?
Not enough, by far. But not a bad start. And much, much better than endless talk that results in dead-letter law.
This is just to get the conversations started. We don’t need more villagers getting massacred and bombs going off. The LTTE will no longer have land. Let us deprive them of their true oxygen: people.
Wait too long and their failures will be forgotten. Address the needs of all our people, including Tamil speaking people, and we will have a united, peaceful country.
That is the choice.
We need more ideas and less celebration. Your ideas as well as mine. Now.
We need more action and less words. Not necessarily the government’s actions. Ours too.
The Sinhalese hardliners obviously will not buy the argument, because the trilingual chaps are mostly Muslims and Tamils. Majority of Sinhalese are barely bi-lingual (Sinhala and English). The dominant race also resents any moves by the minorities, to earn some quick money.
They fail to see beyond their noses, that if they bothered to learn another language, they can add another degree to their 360 degree perspective.
The telcos can extend their call centre services to do translations and earn a small fee. They could even waive the fees as part of corporate social responsibility :)
But what I fear is that these well meaning folks who do translations, may be earmarked and picked up by white vans. These days even the cops are in the business of picking up people in white vans, and taking them on long journeys to record their statements.
So much so, for trusting the rule of law to seek redress.
When they advertise bor bi-lingual expertise you create incetives for the youth to study Tamil/Singhal as second language.
Intentionally or not Rohan's article also raise an interesting point. So called 13th and specially 17 amendments have become just slogans for decadent, ineffective and slogan less politicians than genuine concerns of the man on the street. But not likely to be implemented by any politician when in power. But practical proposals using least cost ICT such phone-in will directly benefit people in the North and the East.
Having said that, I appreciate the empathetic comment from the reader in the Middle East. I do not have great hope that my idea will be implemented, but I published it to show that we can come up with solutions that were not available to the previous generations, who bequeathed us this war. And to invite readers to come up with new ideas for implementation.
I am sorry some readers totally lack empathy. I also invite readers to looks at the example of Canada which has held off a strong separatist movement by addressing language issues sensitively.
All sign boards in Wales are in Welsh also. That is because they want it. If the Scotts don't want Gaelic of whatever that is their problem. No wonder that they do not want however, because British PM is Scottish. But Scotland not only has its own parliament but its football team as well.
In their own country (Sri Lanka is their country) they are treated like outsiders and are expected to be satisfied with handouts from the majority sinhalese. Lots talk about a Federal Govt / 13th amendment being the answer to the Tamil conflict. I am least interested in politics, hence, I do not know what a Federal Govt means or what the 13th amendment means.
Knowledgable, intelligent, educated experts on the subject should educate us ordinary citizens of what this means. This will avoid uneducated or even educated but those with no knowledge just jumping up and shouting against and stirring up mischief if the govt tries to implement whatever that will bring unity to the country.
Firstly we sinhalese will have to get off our high horse and acknowledge that all communites are equal and that other communities speaking a different language has the same rights as we have. Instead of us deciding what they should be given, we should ask them what they require to feel safe and to feel that they are true citizens of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka belongs to them in the same way it does to us, as we were all born in SL.
So, what right have we to say that they should learn our language so that they could carry out their needs for daily life. The benefits of unity, accepting each other respecting our differences will only benefit us as a country. You should live outside of Sri Lanka to appreciate the beauty, natural resources, climate, vegetation etc etc.
If there is no war, corruption by leaders and a Government that has a vision to take Sri Lanka forward and not just to get rich by ripping off the ordinary citizen, we could bring back Sri Lanka to be the Pearl of Asia.
Scots, who also had their own kingdom, and with a distinct language of their own, are speaking and working in English within a United Kingdom. So are the Welsh and the Irish. Why the Tamils can't is the
As part of EU, UK and other developed countries want to amalgamate their systems as much as possible because they have understood that unity is strength. Only backward thinking societies seek to divide.
Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world that has, stamps, envelopes, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates and all other important documents in all three languages. It's also one of the very few countries in the world that require all government servants ( majority) to pass proficiency exams in Tamil ( departmental exams) to be eligible for increments and promotions.
And these legislations have been in place since independence. Out of all the countries with a significant number of minorities only Benelux countries has implemented similar measures up to date.
Rohan's suggestion is quite practical, but rather than going through all these trouble and translating each and every government document in to tamil just to appease a community which comprise about 10% or less than 3 million, if those 3 million learn Sinhala that would be the most productive and easier way out of the conflict.
Or for that matter how did the sinhalese farmers( 80% of sinhalese) manage when they received letters in English?
Also there are other communities whose mother tongue is not Sinhala and they managed quite well.
The root cause of Sinhalese nationalism was born out of the demands of the Tamil politicians for a separate state.
Before the British took over The Tamils were royalty and got on well with the Sinhalese. The British were responsible for the destruction of the Tamil empire and enslavement of Tamils - not the Sinhalese.
It's the Gov backed it . . . have you forgotten it? Not me! Such incidents have been repeated many times.
After all this you think the Tamils will accept Sinhalese rule? I doubt that! I have lost my whole life due to 83 riots.
Now I have lost my land in north due to this conflict. I doubt any go. in south can fix this problem! Minimum way out of this is federal with internal and external self determination. Only then the south will be nice to Tamils to keep the Sri Lanka united! Without self determination (internal and external) Tamils are lost forever. Only god can save Tamils . . .
If used properly such social networking sites can be a very effective tool to unite and mobilize likeminded citizens. I don't have the right skills to do it myself so i urge somebody to do so.
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