A Potential Future of Eelam
Ruben Nagesparan Chandrakumar, BS
Eelam can be a place where, through the sacred right to freedom of religion, diverse philosophies, perforce bounded by a shared ethical culture and just law, can thrive. This does not mean that all beliefs are equal nor that all behaviors will be allowed. As best defined by Karl Popper’s “Paradox of Tolerance”, a tolerant and moral society needs to be intolerant and unaccepting of individuals, groups, and ideas favoring hatred and intolerance. Thus, there are clearly limits to the freedoms endowed upon individuals. Eelam cannot be a place that is tolerant of philosophies, nor political behavior, of totalitarianism, fascism, authoritarianism, communism, nor cronyism, to name a few. The ways in which the nation must protect itself against philosophies of intolerance, which inevitably end in horrible conditions for civil society, is not to protect itself merely with laws.
The society of Eelam must be mature, educated, and wise enough to outwit the philosophies of intolerance with minimal amounts of government intervention. Although there is a place for government to protect itself and its citizens against philosophies and behaviors of intolerance, the overextending of government into “over-protectionism” can turn the government itself into one of the political ills it was trying to prevent. Thus, the primary combatants against philosophies of intolerance are individuals who are firm believers in a free, open society. If the entire nation was comprised of individuals who held this common belief in a free society as sacred, philosophies of intolerance would never be able to take root. They would be immediately exposed and the cultural backlash, not with violence unless in measures of self-defense, would weed out dangerous ideas quickly. This is what all decent individuals would dream of their ideal nation to be.