Prof. Hudson McLean
First may I congratulate LankaWeb for creating an interactive forum where the readers may respond with their opinion and comment on the published articles.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Prof. Hudson McLean
The above article has indeed created a lively dialogue.
Which brings to the subject of the age old question, “Who is a Good Samaritan?”
According to Christian history or the Bible, A Good Samaritan is someone who helps the needy, helps someone whom he does not even know.
History was re-written once again when during the month of May 2009, when the Sri Lankan Defence Forces, which constitutes almost 100% Sinhalese, “the dreaded enemy(?) of the Tamils” , risked their lives to save the Tamils from their own “Sun God”, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the inventor of the human suicide bombs, who used his very own people as a human shield to protect himself.If the Tamil Diaspora have no shame or a conscience to carry on the same track to destabilise the Sri Lanka government, they do so at their own risk as well as placing lives of the innocent Sri Lankan Tamil citizens, directly in-the-line-of-fire.Did those Sinhalese young men give any thought to the dreaded acts of annihilation perpetrated by the LTTE, when they massacred innocent Sinhala villagers, cracked the skulls of infants or burnt the men & women, during midnight terror assaults?
These poor innocent Tamil citizens have no where to go.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ They have lost their roof, and are down to their last sarong.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Tamil Diaspora should now consider seriously ways and means, how can they help their brethren in camps, in dire need of being wanted.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ They do not have the luxury and the comfort,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ of Los Angelese or Canadian accommodation
where the expat Tamil doctors and businessmen sip their Chivas Regal and bag millions in professional fees.
Without trying to dig into the past, dig into your pockets, as you did for the LTTE, now do for the Tamil humanity.
Be a Good Samaritan to those you know!
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The fact of the matter was that, these young Sinhalese soldiers were the Real Samaritans!
The President Mahinda Rajapaksa and General Sarath Fonseka could have ordered his SLDF to wipe out the entire North East, with the Good, Bad and the Ugly.
They DID NOT!
The SLDF was ordered to use a slow, selective tactic, at a cost,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ to safeguard the lives of the innocent Tamil citizens, but target only the LTTE leadership.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Express Your Opinion – Read What Others Say!
The Independent Interactive Voice of Sri Lanka on the Internet.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Sri Lankan soldiers have sacrificed everything to liberate the Tamil civilians from the LTTE terrorism. There were 25000 plus soldiers sacrificed their lives and a similar number of other forms of casualties caused in this war on LTTE terrorism. I am sure that there are many democratically minded Tamils within the Tamil Diaspora who didn’t speak against LTTE due to fear in the past. They will come to assist rebuilding the nation. However, the government politicians must show their honest effort first in this regard.
Just see what these politicians have done? There are more than 105 cabinet and non-cabinet ministers in the government. On average, they earn more than 1.3 million rupees per month including their privileges; excluding other ‘side businesses’ they run behind the scene. Can’t they take just a MP’s official salary for their living and donate the rest to rebuild the shattered lives of those innocent Tamil civilians and the families of dead soldiers? If we can stop the excess money paid to these ministers, we can give a reasonable head start to rebuild the shattered nation. President must act and show an example to the rest. If not we also have to agree with the critics that blame the government for using the military victory gained by the enormous sacrifices of soldiers for their personal benefits.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Mr/Ms Alahakoon
Thank you for contributing in a positive and a constructive manner.
You are certainly correct in your assumption that some of the Tamil Diaspora will come and join in the reconstruction efforts.
Said that, you have made a valid point regarding the politician excesses. The President should take immediate action to address this point.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Since there is so much confusion and misunderstanding about this, it would be helpful to first deal with the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan in the Gospel story is one who recognises EVERYONE as a neighbour – not merely someone who is physically close to us.
The armed services certainly did perform their duties in the spirit of the Good Samaritan in the manner in which they helped the trapped civilians. The armed services have also not sought to repay the Tigers in the same coin, for all the brutality they visited on innocent civilians in the course of their campaign of terror. This is something for which the armed services have not received enough credit and for which we can all be thankful and proud. It is indeed a pity that the western countries, who tried so hard to throw even an eleventh hour life line to the Tigers, have not seen fit to give credit where credit is due.
The Tamils in the Diaspora, instead of throwing good money after bad and continuing to support the Tigers, should now use their money to help the Tamils in the North and the East and especially the IDPs to improve their lot, they can help improve the infrastructure in those provinces, update schools and other institutions there and so ‘invest’ in their future well being of these people.
The Tamils like other Sri Lankans are sensible people, and I have no doubt they will have the good sense to act sensibly in this matter.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:20 am
If everybody in this equation thought like you Cassandra, the problems could be solved in one chorus.