Tribal Identity

22/06/1987

"I come from a people who see themselves as victims of history, as a community being unjustly punished. I try not to share that sense of persecution, but I am finding it increasingly impossible. They are certainly a people against whom hundreds, if not thousands, of atrocities are committed everyday. It is hard to ignore it, despite how good I am at turning away.

People criticise me, but I pretend not to care. I try to hide the pain and masquerade as someone oblivious to their plight, whose pursuits offer him richer rewards than political freedom and the right to cherish tradition. I hide it because I am afraid of what I might be asked to do if I join the cause, afraid of what might happen to me. But it is still hard to ignore it, despite how good I am at turning away.

If it were not for my sense of global history, for my sense of multiculturalism, for my sense of the bigger picture, I would no doubt revert to my tribal identity – that of a Jaffna Tamil. My love for cinema, my love for literature, my love for knowledge; they have revealed themselves to me as a means of escape from this narrow society I live in. They are my way of slipping through the shackles my ethnicity places on me. My “passion for anything Un-Tamil”, as is said by my tormentors, is my getaway from the woes of my people.”

- Diary of Nilanthan, deceased Sri Lankan journalist (1957-2007)