The Old Guard should give way to the New Young
The Tamil community in Sri Lanka is in a dilemma today because of several factors chief among them is the old-fashioned politics among the leadership, particularly of the so-called Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which has sober people and extreme radicals, who refuse to see realities. Understandably the able Northern leaders decided the fate of the Thamilians in the North and East in the past. But they cannot do that anymore because there are emerging young people taking a realistic stance to ameliorate the problems of the people in that part of Lanka. Even in the heartland of the Northern peninsula signs are that educated young women and men are thinking differently. What had happened to the old guard was that they lacked farsightedness and reigning in an assumption that they are a superior lot compared with the people in the Northern Islands, East and the Hill Country based on caste and education they were blessed with. They openly downgraded others and wanted to reign supreme. But to be fair by the late SJV Chelvanayagam, a Christian, was an exception.