"The heart has been fed on fantasy; the heart has grown brutal from its fare" W.B. Yeats

It took me a long time to understand this quote; written in the great fervour of Irish nationalism.

As Ahilan said, there is a great tradition of progressive leftism in Tamil politics; that dealt with the important issues of exclusion, class discrimination and tackled the great problems of caste within the Tamil community. One important outcome of the current political situation is that the Jaffna Tamil hegemony over Sri Lankan Tamil (and indeed Sri Lankan) politics is forever destroyed. And perhaps, it was for the best. The Jaffna Tamils (of the Vellalar caste) systematically propagated their narrow, insular vision of Tamil nationalism. It was a nationalism that saw no space for other minorities (within the Tamil community; such as the Up-Country Tamils or the Muslims), and one that was riven by deep contradictions (see the discrimination against the Eastern Tamils which led to the Karuna revolt and was the beginning of the end for the LTTE) and tragic absolutism.

Well now there is nowhere left to go, and no one left to go to. The heartland is lost, and will be under heavily armed rule for a long time to come. This repressiveness will either be tolerated by default by the Jaffna Tamils in Sri Lanka, sapped as they are from 30 years of suffering; or it will breed new strains of nationalism that will be channeled through democratic processes or through militant movements. But the dream of freedom and self-rule is forever gone.

One asks whether that dream was ever legitimate. It was certainly not expedient. But was it legitimate? Was it legitimate to have also expressed it through violent means after expressing it through democratic means was systematically repelled and thwarted by a Sinhala government in thrall to populist necessities? Was it ever possible that any other way could have worked?

I don't know. The more I know, the less I understand. Even if one can go back in time to unravel the complexities of the 70s that led to the birth of the LTTE; I don't know that it matters. Nobody can forget the things that happened to them; not for as long as they live. And their children can't forget it either. So the sins of the father are revisited again and again. And then the question is should they forget? Or forgive but never forget? Or neither?

I am not sure that one can ever forgive, let alone forget.