We were delighted to host a meeting on Wednesday 4th August for our local Tamil friends and contacts to meet an important peace worker from Sri Lanka– Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe. The meeting was set up by Noeline Sanders who is attached to St Ethelburgas Peace and Reconciliation Centre.
This was an opportunity for the Bishop to meet people from the diaspora who are committed to bridge building work and for them to meet a very well respected Singalese peace worker who is dedicated to national unity and peaceful co-existence in Sri Lanka. The meeting therefore included people from two sides of a horrific conflict and oppression of the Tamil people.
Everyone in the meeting recognised that Tamil people cannot speak out in Sri Lanka so they were the ones who had to speak. The diaspora were pleased that the church was speaking out but wanted it to have a stronger voice. The Bishop said that the Christian vocabulary doesn’t work and he needs to use Buddhist vocabulary and concepts to speak to Singalese.
The diaspora here felt that their role can be in giving resources of time, money, contacts and particularly to help make connections and networks that would be useful, such as linking up schools here with schools in Sri Lanka. Jayabalam, as a journalist, and everyone else too, felt that there needed to be positive stories in the press of the role and contribution of the Tamil diaspora and of the examples of peace building that are taking place within the country, such as the work of the Bishop.
We hosted the meeting as a Community Conversation but adapted the style to fit in with the occasion:
- Welcome and introduction by Noeline from St Ethelburgas and then Ruth from Conflict and Change
- Go round introductions – Name and a hope for Sri Lanka.
- Bishop’s talk followed by a few short responses/questions
- Pairs/small groups: (a) what your responses are to what you have heard (b) ideas for how the Diaspora community can help build a positive future.
- Hear back from the groups
- Lighting of the candle and a minute’s silence – led by Bishop
- Photo, chat and exchange of details.
Ideas from the meeting about how the diaspora could help build a positive future: To hear about the good news stories; that the Sri Lankans will need to be accepting of Singalese, like this country has been accepting of Tamils; recognition of the time this would take; that Tamils here need to make sacrifices for Tamils over there and our kids should not have everything they need; to remember those caught up in the troubles; getting schools here to link up with schools in Sri Lankan to encourage social networking and relationships.
