David Miliband's gift to Sri Lanka

The focus on Sri Lanka may have had a selfish motive, but it nevertheless brought the world's gaze back on to that tiny island

• 
• • Roma Tearne
  • guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 December 2010 13.00 GMT
  • Article history



 

A photograph released by the Sri Lankan military on May 18, 2009 shows government troops inside the war zone. Photograph: Ho/Reuters On Thursday morning I opened the newspaper to a photograph I have seen before. One lone, damaged coconut palm and a handsome Singhalese soldier against an explosive-blackened sky. Beneath was the story of a diplomatic scandal. Nothing unusual, only this time it was, to my surprise, about a country that I love. So, thank you David Miliband for bringing Sri Lanka back into the news. While some may be outraged at your seemingly artful ploy to win Tamil votes, I, as a Sri Lankan, am delighted. Incredible though it may seem, any mention of my island home (no matter what British political scandal it may involves), is most welcome. For here is a chance for the world to stop its hurried turning, pause a moment, and remember that savage kingdom in the Indian Ocean. To read once more of the 100,000 Tamils thought to have died in a few balmy days last May. So David Miliband, maybe you did see a window of an opportunity and try, by focusing on the humanitarian plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, to affect the marginal seats in the last British election. I am quite prepared to believe that maybe your motives were less than saintly. But one thing is clear, you have brought the place I still call home back into the public eye. Sri Lanka is a country that plays games with itself. Now there is a war, now there isn't. Look, here are honeymoon resorts, boutique hotels, marvellous beaches. In the midst of the economic gloom in Britain, who can resist taking the simple view and forgetting what lies beneath such affluence? As for the 300,000 Tamils in Britain, trying and failing to have a voice, weren't they all terrorists, anyway? So David Miliband, in this harsh and unforgiving world of leaks and scandal, I am not shocked. Your weakness, if that was what it was, has nevertheless given Sri Lanka a much needed moment of visibility. I say this, not as a politician, nor as someone, either for, or against the government of Sri Lanka. I am half Singhalese and half Tamil. My parents disobeyed the unwritten laws of that country and married. So I have no truck with either militant Tamils or hardline government officials chasing power. I write simply in defence of the thing that desperately needs defending. According to Des Browne, "the conflict in Sri Lanka at the time was a world issue". Not was, but is. The 100,000 dead mean there are more than 100,000 memories floating freely across the world. Memory, that dignified defender of all human life, will not simply disappear. It is the archaeological remains of our collective existence. Those who bear witness can never forget until closure is achieved. If no good was done last year by the then British foreign secretary, perhaps the scandal he caused can now be turned to good use, bringing the world's gaze back on to that tiny island. In Sri Lanka, plans are underway to create a wildlife sanctuary among the land mines of the north, but even as the animals are offered sanctuary, surely the time has come for human sanctuary, too? By bringing Sri Lanka up to the world's consciousness again, this possibility increases. So David Miliband, thank you for your inadvertent gift, to memory.