As a Sri Lankan it breaks my heart whenever this type of topic is brought up, the amount of damage colonizers including the British did to my country, my culture is just heart wrenching.
How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable.
But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starting to realize what's missing and are actively trying to bring back some of the knowledge and wisdom that was lost all those many years back.
Yes and no. The civil war that waged in Sri Lanka was something really complicated, where at one point it was hard to choose who was right or wrong in the conflict.
As far as I know the Sinhalese started the whole civil war but the LTTE escalated the situation where they were committing atrocities I cannon't write on a forum like this. And mind you, both sides committed some pretty messed up atrocities.
After the war ended despite what's been told in international media, as a Sri Lankan who represent an ethnic minority there I can say I feel safer now, people have seem to forgotten about the war to some extend and there's a lot of healing that is being done (no thanks to the government though) personally I remember a time when we took different buses to school/work even if we were all heading in the same direction incase one of the busses were attacked by the terrorists we wont lose both parents in the family. There was a lot of mistrust and a lot of divide among everyone even in school you had different ethnic groups hanging out with their own ethnicity. But now we have a more diverse groups of friends we have businessmen, politicians and other elites in society that represent different ethnic groups.
There's a lot of improvements to be made, but I think we as a nation have done really well to rebuild after being enemies for over 30 years.
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and as for the parallels I haven't heard of stories where the ltte or the army forcing sons to rape their mothers after salting the earth of an entire town like the way the British did. What the British did was wipe out our culture, our history and basically taking away what made Sri Lankan's unique.
I've heard many horrific stories and first-hand accounts where Tamil people were tortured, raped and had their entire families wiped out.
The Sri Lankan Government burned down the Jaffna Library in an attempt to erase Tamil history. They wiped out entire villages with bombs and forced generations to leave Sri Lanka forever.
The British were horrific but let's not ignore what the Sri Lankan Government did to its Tamil people.
LTTE committed war crimes. But, the Tamil people are not the LTTE. Sri Lankan government committed genocide. They bombed UN medical camps and safe zones setup by the Government.
As a Sri Lankan, most of us like to whinge about our past. We like to think we're the only country that was "oppressed" and the colonizers are the reason for all our current problems.
> How the British and other colonizers go unpunished
I have to wonder how it's possible to decide whom to punish when the vast majority of those involved are dead, if any are left, and what you would punish them with?
Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm cutting down the population of "colonizers", you did point at "the British" so it should be up to you to clarify the bounds.
In this case its super easy - Great Britain, a specific state next to continental Europe. Punishment as such can be done ie financially via direct aid. Building schools and hospitals. You name it.
But this would be a direct admission how monstrously they fucked up this world for centuries and that's something no politician will admit, no matter what they think personally. Also, we talk about most of western Europe here (GB, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Italy). US also had its colonies like Philippines.
The world is not fair. Rather than waiting for a sorry and help from bullies, get your stuff together and define your own destiny now that you can. I've been to Sri Lanka, have seen former prisons. Same as everywhere else, ie not so far on Andamans.
There’s also a question of how far back to go. With few exceptions, human history is an unbroken procession of brutal conquests. Many colonized peoples were oppressors at some stage in their history. That doesn’t justify the horrors of colonialism, but it does complicate attempts to make absolute moral (or legal) judgments against one group or another based on the crimes of their ancestors.
Should modern day Italians pay for what Rome did? Turks for Ottomans? Mongols for Genghis Khan and his children’s empire? The Danish/Norwegian Vikings for taking over large parts of the British isles? The Moscow Rus for taking over the land that became Russia?
Basically human history is one long bloody path for conquest and sadly rarely do the victors pay for the cruelty they inflict on the defeated.
Well sure our history is one of pathetic murderous species, with few exceptions. That doesn't make it anyhow being OK with what your/their ancestors did, does it.
Whataboutism about ancient civilizations does detract from current topic, Great Britain is the same place as 80 years ago, same government, same everything. Heck, almost the same queen. Same for France for example.
But sure you can try desperately to come up with excuses to avoid any responsibility and enjoy the riches your ancestors stole from poor folks. What do you think most western Europe has been doing for past 70 years?
It gets even better - out of guilt (at least 'officially'), they allow young smart folks from former enslaved colonies to study there with few restrictions compared to rest of population. Of course most will stay and not return. The poor place remains poor, but what do wealthy nations care, economy goes forward and demographic crisis is averted for another few years.
If you said this about any other country not inhabited by anglo-saxons or "white" people you'd be called a bigot and justifiably so.
No one alive today should feel guilt/responsibility for something people they've never met did, full stop.
>But sure you can try desperately to come up with excuses to avoid any responsibility and enjoy the riches your ancestors stole from poor folks.
Yes because that's how the world works. There is no responsibility. You're here today because you had ancestors that fought and survived, many of them probably doing "immoral" things. Just because your "riches" are less than others doesn't mean you deserve to have them. Why should YOU get to enjoy anything they have? All I see is a jealous naive individual asking for handouts. Sorry but that doesn't grant you the right to take from others.
I don’t think there is any whataboutism or desperation in asking where one puts the line. Effectively you are asking to punish one group of people based on their ancestry so having some idea where it stops would be nice.
> The poor place remains poor
Relatively yes but in absolute numbers no (this also applies within individual counties even the rich ones). In most places the poor have been getting richer, live longer and are better educated than ever. Basically being poor 80 years ago was much much worse for the individual than today.
Firstly, as pointed out in another comment, it's not whataboutism to ask what the principle is by bringing up other examples. Whataboutism is a fallacy of relevance, the point you were asked is not irrelevant, it directly grapples with the issue at hand.
Secondly, which riches were my ancestors (I'm British) enjoying, and which ancestors? Try to be specific, you're advocating punishment, after all, wouldn't want to find out you're simply being bigoted against a group of people in that vague way bigots do.
>How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable.
They're dead. Are you suggesting we punish their offspring for having their DNA?
You might consider punishing all the ancient Indian invaders your country had as well since that also completely changed your country.
This silliness about having to punish someone for stuff that's happened way in the past and has nothing to do with anyone alive today needs to stop.
Not sure why you and I are getting downvotes for pointing out facts. probably paid shills/rajapaksha fan bois are downvoting any comments critical of the current government.
Not related to the article, but would you be able to comment on why Sinhala is classified as an Indo-European language, rather than as a Dravidian language?
I speak and read Sinhala fluently. I can't speak to origins, but one thing that struck me the first time I learned a little Latin was the similarities:
It's more about linguistic structure than origin of words.
Kannada, Telugu & Malayalam, even pre-dravidan-movement Tamil have lot of borrowed sanskrit vocabulary, but they retain structure of Dravidian languages.
Also most common words used are also Dravidan origin.
Another small thing unique about Dravidian languages is clusivity, there's exclusive 'we' and inclusive 'we'. While modern Kannada, unlike Tamil / Telugu, doesn't retain this feature, some dialects such as Havyaka retain this feature.
Sinhala does not have the structure of Dravidian languages. However, the alphabet used to write Sinhala has a shared origin with the alphabets used to write Dravidian languages. Also due to long coexistence with Tamil in the island, Sinhala burrows lot of loanwords from Tamil.
I am Sinhalese who grew up in Sri Lanka. As such I am exposed to Tamil, but when I watch Tamil TV, at best I can pick few words here and there. But when I watch Hindi show, I understand a lot more due to the structure is very similar to that of Sinhala.
I don't understand sinhala but if it is classified as Indo Aryan language and not Dravidian, then that is the reason.
There will be always be some influence and loanwords from neighbouring languages but comparative linguistics can tell origin / family of the language pretty accurately.
Yeah, historical linguistics distinguishes between a language being influenced by another vs. descending from another.
For example, English is descended from Old English (a Germanic language), but was very heavily influenced by French (a Romance language, i.e. descended from Latin). The grammatical structure and origin of basic words are still more Germanic than Romance.
Languages are classified based on relatedness, not geography. Just as you have an Indo-Aryan language, Sinhala, that made it down to Sri Lanka, you also have a Dravidian language, Brahui, that stuck around up in Pakistan.
Not OP, but Sinhala is classified as Indo-Aryan having developed when Buddhism spread to Srilanka and separate from Dravidian family of languages which is mostly limited to Southern part of India
Immigrants are a punishment? They pay taxes, respect the laws of the land and come here with proper documentation. Not even a shred of this decency was afforded to them in the colonial days.
As usual, racism and stupidity comes together. Immigration is not charity. It is a way for host countries to maintain global power and living standards for their citizens. In a way immigrants are saving the former colonial powers from collapse.
What you're arguing is basically whataboutism. One can still be proud while recognizing the faults of e.g. Rajapaksha. Besides, is the parent poster Sinhalese or ethnic Tamil? Doesn't really matter but there is more than one type of Sri Lankan
you should look up the definition of the whataboutism, because my comment doesn't have anything to do with that. also, I didn't mention anything about nationality or ethnicity. maybe you should go back and reply to the correct comment.
How the British and other colonizers go unpunished for all what they have done not just to my country, but to so many other countries in the past is just unbelievable.
But on a more positive side, more and more Sri Lankans are starting to realize what's missing and are actively trying to bring back some of the knowledge and wisdom that was lost all those many years back.