Comments on: Horror of a pogrom: Remembering “Black July” 1983

By: Sinhalaya

Sinhalaya — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:34:46 +0000

This is a response to all the Tamils who criticise Sinhalese. Those who are familiar with the situation in Sri Lanka know very well that you are a small minority. As many who wrote comments have pointed out, a large proportion of the Tamils live outside the so called ‘Traditional Homeland’ with Sinhalese, What I would like to say to the Tamils who are attempting to tarnish the image of the Sinhalese is that ‘please stop harrasing Sinhalese. Sinhalese have no other place in the world to go. Sinhalese have only Sri Lanka. You have Tamil Nadu. Please get the hell out of Sri Lanka if you are not happy and go back to your traditional homeland in India and leave the Tamils who like to live in harmony with Sinhalese. Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, and Vaiko will be very happy to give you a safe haven. There you can live happily ever after without grumbling’.

By: john

john — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:05:47 +0000

Most of tamils in Sri Lanka are watching systematic genocide of our people and culture.

We in Sri Lanka are afraid to speak out and voice our concerns. Its too easy to disappear and never be seen here again. The Sinhalese community here dont care two hoots about what is happening to us. Too often they will accuse us of lying and exaggerating, on the rare occassion we decide to voice our concerns to some of them. They much prefer to talk about how the LTTE did this and that and pretend that our concerns are all imaginary.
I often feel, they are happy about what is happening. Our future is not safe at all at the hands of the Sinhalese.

The GOSL is going about its business of genocide one way or another. The varying threats from the international community will only perhaps make the GOSL change their tactics slightly.
Our temples are being desecrated, people still kidnapped, army and their families have permanently settled along with their Chinese friends. The injustices are continuing. Sinhala writing, road names, buddha statues and Viharas are springing up everywhere. The Sinhalese are an extremely insecure community. Why do they feel the need to keep building Buddha statues everywhere? Do we run around planting statues of Lord Shiva in every street corner and human habitation? This is blatant act to aggravate us.
In the same area they are putting up Vihara, they damaged a siva lingam in one of our kovils. To Saiva people like us, this is a most upsetting thing.
I know many who complain that non-sinhalese are deliberately being ripped off to import shipments into the Island. Many Sinhalese are getting stuff duty free or with many times less tax than us. All of this is being done in an underhanded way.

By: Wickes

Wickes — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:58:06 +0000

Lot of people talk about atrocities commited by Sinhalese against Tamils. I would like to point out that ethnic violence was started by Tamils in 1956 by attacking Sinhalese lived in Jaffna. My father-in-law had a boatyard in Jaffna that produced fibreglass boats. In 1956 his family was attacked by Tamils and they had to fled Jaffna just with what they were wearing. Later they found out that their boatyard had been burned down by Tamils. Backlash by Sinhalese starterd after these events. Sansoni Commision report had documented atrocities commited by Tamils against Sinhalese and how Tamils discriminated Sinhalese. So, both parties have blood in their hands. Now Sri Lanka has an opportunity to start a new chapter. It is time that all ethnic groups forget the past and move forward. In my view what we had in Sri Lanka was an economic problem, not an ethnic problem. If the economy was capable of generating employment opportunities we would not have had insurrections by Sinhalese or seperatist movement by Tamils. I hope the economic policies of the present government will be able to create employment opportunities for all the job seekers to avoid uprisings by Tamils, Sinhalese, Moors, Malays, burghers or even Veddhas.

DBSJ RESPONDS:

You have written about your father in law’s fibre glass boatyard being burnt down and his family fleeing Jaffna with what they were wearing because they were attacked by Tamils. You also say backlash by Sinhalese started after these incidents

I have never heard or read of such an incident occurring in Jaffna in 1956 .

I would be grateful for more information about this incident you refer to. Could you kindly send me the details to my e-mail address given below

Thank You

dbsjeyaraj@yahoo.com

By: Deshapria

Deshapria — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:52:43 +0000

One day a little Tamil girl died burnt alive with her mother. She was only 5 years old an dthe only “crime” she committed to be burnt alive was accepting a present from her grandfather.

Her grandfather, who was working as a servant for a rich Tamil, bought a pair of sandals for his granddaughter, and she wanted “walk” in them home, but never reached home…

One cowardly LTTEr pushed a button from some hiding place and a car bomb went off, killing the Tamil child and her Tamil mother burning them to death.

This cowardly LTTEr was trying to kill another Tamil, who was a Minister at that time. If this coward succeeded, he would have killed few grown up Tamils, but he or she succeeded in burning to death one little 5 year old Tamil girl with her Tamil mother, the only 2 victims of this car bomb.

Was there a Tamil liberation movement?

By: Streetlamp

Streetlamp — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:17:37 +0000

Late poster, apologies DBS.
Just wanted to say that I pray there is never a repeat or anything remotely like it again. I will stand up and be counted if the unthinkable is to happen.

BTW DBS, your blog is an inspiration to many. I cannot express how dark a day it will be should you decide to give up. Just know that the silent majority (lazy buggers that we are) truly appreciate your work but rarely write in to express our appreciation so you mostly wind up with the extremists who seem to have all the time in world to write in repeatedly to criticise your work. As my dad used to say “idle mind devil’s workshop”.

By: Ashamed

Ashamed — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:50:25 +0000

if anybody knows or has informaion about sinhalese damaging hindu temples in the N & E pls send me some info about it.
n_perra89@yahoo.com

By: Ashamed

Ashamed — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:47:32 +0000

i as a sinhalese is shocked and ashamed of what those thugs did to the tamil ppl. i knw we cant simply say sorry. i suggest any of the sinhala bloggers who read this to translate it to sinhala and publish in their blogs.(if dbsj allows.) the sinhala ppl should knw more abt this.

By: bravado

bravado — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:42:07 +0000

Well written article!!! I want to share my black july experience in here. Im a Sinhalese from Matara and at that period I was only 4 years old. There were 2 Tamil families seeking protection in our house and my father bravely defended them. He bravely turned away thugs and stood strong instead of their death threat. So I would say a vast majority of Sinhalese were against this carnage.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:36:24 +0000

260 Shanker,

But I never took tips from them on how to ” Trading in Stock Markets”

By: shankar

shankar — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:03:12 +0000

#258-God zilla
As a child I was fascinated by the people
——————————————-
In my case i was fascinated by the monkeys.
I was also fascinated by performing snakes.
I was also fascinated by people suddenly stopping in their tracks and looking all around and cursing when small stones land on them.

By: Surane

Surane — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:52:26 +0000

There are many allegations made against JR ( I am not attempting to defend him but only striving to get at the truth). In Bradman Weerakoon’s autobiography he talks of the July riots and more specifically JR’s anger as to what happened in July 1983.

By: Godzilla

Godzilla — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:29:07 +0000

Comment 250 — Shanker,

As a child I was fascinated by the people who went from door to door with their performing monkeys.- the light brown variety.

In fact even on a visit to my hometown a few years ago I had the opportunity to show this to my kids.

Are these the ones your are talking about Shanker?