Rajpal's Column

23rd May 1999

One flew over the Northampton groundstle

By Rajpal Abeynayake

An Englishman celebrating his country's partiality towards cricket wrote recently that he would like nothing more than to be at Lord's "with some halfway decent claret, a punnet of ice cream and some Scotch . " A run ," he said, "will be scored once in a way, but that will not disturb the matter in hand."

Northampton is no different from Lords, and once in a way a run was being scored last week, when something did happen to disturb the ice cream, the claret, the Scotch and the matter in hand.

A light aircraft was seen flying over Northampton, and this one which had a particularly irritating drone like some lone mosquito cavorting around in a room, was not photographing the much hyped scenery around the grounds either.

It had been commissioned and chartered by LTTE sympathisers, and the banner tailing from the craft blabbered something about "South Africans killing Tamils, and Tamils supporting South Africans." The Lankan cricket board which at last had something to get excited about, had complained to the Northampton police after the sighting. (Now, the Board has no guarantee against two sixes being scored against the Sri Lankan side per over. But , the Board does have a guarantee that there will be no projectiles except balls overhead when Sri Lanka plays.)

But the purpose here is neither cricket nor claret. It's about Tiger sympathisers and their ability to do things that make a statement. Some years ago Tiger sympathisers dug up the pitch and poured engine oil or some lubricant over a cricketing turf in a particularly outlandish way of getting across a message.

All these sporadic messages are the work of the Tamil Diaspora, and it is rarely that the Tamil Diaspora resorts to this type of thing within Sri Lankan geographic confines. The Diaspora is away from Sri Lanka, it can be argued, but anyway, its now becoming a diasporic trait to reserve these frenzied antics for foreign climates and strictly for international PR purposes. (In Sri Lanka, statements are made of course through other more vociferous means such as bombs shoot outs and spectacular assignations.)

The diaspora is kicking therefore, and that there is steady empathy for the Tamil cause over the years.

The Tamil diaspora has no doubt about the cause of the LTTE, and the planes that fly every now and then when the Sri Lankan cricket team plays is testimony to that.

But, is this diasporic empathy universal. How, for instance is the is the feeling in Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan cricketers come from? "Most Tamils have doubts about his (Prabhakaran's) cause", says the latest newsletter of the UTHR, the University Teachers for Human Rights . The letter originates from the Wanni, far and miles away from Northampton, all that cricket and claret.

The newsletter adds:

"Those directly affected are often angry, such as the victims of the Jaffna exodus, and one day the survivors of the Wanni ordeal too will be angry. Yet the Tamils historical experience of the Sri Lankan state and the regular humiliation they face, constantly reinforce the gut feeling of sympathy for his (Prabhakaran's) cause. It is of course most often the self indulgent feeling of those at a safe distance from his organisation.

So those who fly planes while a run or two is being scored in Lords or Northampton must capture that indulgent spirit. The UTHR newsletter continues that

"a very perilous situation now confronts us in the Wanni, and could carry the tide of events in several unexpected directions. Like every fascist movement the LTTE will run the course of destroying itself. It is also characteristic of them that in the final inferno, they try to take large numbers of their own people down with them."

If this is the ground situation and the imminent danger in the Wanni, then those who fly planes over Northampton have to be more than a little out of step and self - indulgent.

Their historical experience of the Sri Lankan state and the constant humiliation they face, cannot possibly be such a deep seated prejudice that it supersedes empathy for others closer to reality?

If it is easy to fly a plane over Northampton even if one gets arrested for the effort, it must be difficult to live and be Tamil in the Wanni and be close to the final immolation that the LTTE is planning.

So then why this disparity? It may be simplistic and cricket-like to ask whether the plane flyers don't have any empathy for those on whose behalf they ostensibly fly the planes.

But there is a spiraling nature about this conflict that seems to keep out simple reality and logic.

Even the UTHR allows that the historical experience of the Sri Lankan state often reinforces sympathy for Prabhakaran's cause, even though the UTHR labels this a "indulgent feeling of those far away form the reality … "Even the UTHR doesn't seem to be clear about the fact that there is no room for ambivalence, when a fascist movement is running amok. And who is calling the LTTE fascist? The UTHR itself.

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