In dealing with issues that are claimed to have affected the Tamil community, the articles presented here draw on the experiences and practices that exist in other countries and the opinions of the international community. A review of these practices reveals that the Tamil community's claims of discrimination has NO basis or validity in relation to practices in other countries. Behind all the stated rhetoric is the unspoken refusal to accept the inevitability of change, and a stubborn attempt to retain past advantages and circumstances that had granted privileges to the Tamil community. Events and circumstances have changed in Sri Lanka and the world around us. What may have been appropriate fifty years ago is irrelevant today.
New circumstances call for new strategies.
In the meantime the country will have to learn to endure the continuing trauma of violence, a strategy chosen and nurtured by the Tamil community, for which the Tamil community as a whole must take full responsibility. The general theme of these articles is that the interests of the Tamil community would best be served by being part of the Sri Lankan polity, rather than by seeking exclusion as a means for their salvation. Such a community can best be created together and not separately.