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Sri Lanka lifts unofficial ban on Tamil anthem
A Tamil-language version of Sri Lanka\'s national anthem was performed at the country\'s Independence ceremony on Thursday, lifting an unofficial ban in another step toward post-civil war ethnic reconciliation.
Namo Namo Taye reverberates in the air along with Namo Namo Matha on 68th Independence Day of the country
Colombo: A Tamil-language version of Sri Lanka's national anthem was performed at the country's Independence ceremony on Thursday, lifting an unofficial ban in another step toward post-civil war ethnic reconciliation.
Like the sing-song Sinhalese language, the captivating anthem went up and down and was punctuated by this refrain — Namo Namo Matha—in mellifluous voice and that the lyrics were inseparable from the music. Like any national anthem, it was about national glory, pride, gratitude, commitment and a salutation to the mother nation.
After a long gap, the Namo Namo Matha also ended like this — Namo Namo Taye. Both meant the same — saluting the nation. Matha was Sinhalese and Taye, Tamil. The move, despite opposition from Sinhalese nationalists, is an effort to reach out to Tamils after rebels from the ethnic minority fought a nearly 26-year war for a separate homeland until their crushing defeat in 2009.
President Maithripala Sirisena says he will unite the nation, a process which has not been given prominence since independence. Sirisena's hard-line predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa was accused of further alienating the Tamil community by his post-war triumphalism.
He had imposed an unofficial ban on the Tamil version of the national anthem. In his speech Thursday, Sirisena said his political opponents were trying to create fear among the armed forces that fought the war that they will be penalised for rights abuses.
He pledged to promote ethnic reconciliation while safeguarding the country's sovereignty and respect of the military. "Our aim is to turn the armed forces into a world recognised one," he said. The government was accused of indiscriminate shelling, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and sexual violence, while Tamil Tiger rebels were accused of child recruitment and killing civilians.
At last year’s Independence Day celebrations a ‘Declaration of Peace’ was read out paying respects to all ethnic groups killed in the civil war with a pledge not to allow violence to recur. The Peace statement was delivered in all three languages by school children.
