The Politics of Diaspora Dissidence: A response to Dayapala Thiranagama
“Rajani… would have found the recent war completely abhorrent.”
- UTHR (J), 18th Sept, 2009
I did not expect the Rajani commemoration to be a posthumous Nuremburg Trial for Velupillai Prabhakaran, as Dayapala Thiranagama seems to suggest (Sunday Island Oct 4, 2009, p 15). I did expect a single mention– a moral indictment strong and clear — of Prabhakaran, for Rajani’s murder, but obviously I expected too much. I thought it especially necessary as an antidote to ambiguity and ambivalence because the evening’s mentions of the LTTE were scattered among a welter of references to the violence of the State, Sinhala chauvinism and (perhaps mostly) the Indian army. Crucially admitting, albeit in a gross understatement, that “there was no Tiger bashing at the event” and thereby proving the validity of my basic observation, Dayapala says it was all in the context, “the preparation prior to the event and the aftermath”. That’s irrelevant: I attended and reviewed the event itself. He accuses me of a “damning” lack of “understanding” of “language …and politics”. I trust he doesn’t mean the English language. As for politics, that is amusing, coming as it does from an autodidact in that subject, to another whose product in political theory has been critically bracketed with those of Zizek and Badiou (in the International Journal of Zizek Studies) and positively reviewed by a Professor Emeritus at the LSE, and whose successful recent political practice in the international arena registered wryly in The Economist (London).
Though Dayapala now says, in his response to me, that he “supports the historic victory over the Tigers and their neo-fascistic project”, he did not say so in his BMICH speech on Sept 25, surely the appropriate occasion. Nor did any other speaker, from first to last. He had also failed to say so in the Sept 16 article he wrote as part of the all-important ‘preparation’ for the Rajani commemoration. Instead, in a remark utterly revelatory of its attitude, the UTHR-J statement (Sept 18) for the Rajani anniversary which Dayapala approvingly adverts to, said this: “If the Government believes that the war was a great military achievement, let the Sinhalese people know the truth and understand the consequences”.
Dayapala explains his politics: “If there was no Tiger bashing at the event … [it was because of] the political urgency at the current moment and the strategy that would be most suitable and effective in fighting the twin problem: achieving democratic rights and challenging Sinhala triumphalism. The democratic rights in all three communities…are being eroded under the cover of patriotism and it is being used to frustrate and postpone the devolution of power to the Tamil community”. Curiously Dayapala thinks it necessary not to “bash the Tigers” at an event commemorating his wife who was murdered by them, in order to achieve democratic rights, challenge Sinhala triumphalism and expedite devolution. While it is true that Sinhala triumphalism is imprudent, he does not draw a necessary distinction and recognize that the Sinhalese have a legitimate right and reason to feel triumphant. The victorious Final War against the Tigers approximated a people’s war of national liberation in which the vanguard was the Sri Lankan (overwhelmingly Sinhala) armed forces and the main motive force the Sinhala people/nation, with the Tamil resistance (TMVP, EPDP) playing a significant catalytic and auxiliary role. It is a spirited and historic achievement of this generation which those to come can take pride in and inspiration from. While patriotism is “being used to postpone devolution”, the remedy resides in the re-opened electoral space in the Tamil areas and the reactivation of the Tamil polity and political process, none of which would have been possible except for the Sri Lankan armed forces and President Rajapakse. Dayapala assumes that one can successfully expedite devolution while scorning legitimate Sinhala sentiment, abandoning patriotism, making no recourse to it, regarding it as if it were wholly negative and illegitimate—and all this from London! Such is his superior understanding of politics!
According to Dayapala’s politics “if you want to talk about the titanic struggles for decades against the Tigers, you also need to talk about the historical injustices meted out against the Tamil community with equal passion and conviction…In order to fight fascism it is necessary to resolve the genuine grievances of the Tamils” (My emphases- DJ). Wrong. It was perfectly possible to talk of the titanic struggles against Hitler fascism or Japanese militarism without talking “with equal passion and conviction” about the injustices done to Germany under the Treaty of Versailles or to pre-war Japan by the USA. It was perfectly possible (unless one was a Trotskyite) to speak of the titanic struggle against Hitler while not talking “with equal passion and conviction” about the wrongs committed in the colonies by British and French imperialism– suffice to recall the  line of the Popular Front. Though “the resolution of genuine grievances of the Tamils” is a desirable and urgent objective (the public advocacy and pursuit of which is reportedly a factor that cost me my last job), the actual movement of history was that Dayapala’s “necessity” proved unnecessary as a precondition (“in order to fight”) and Tiger fascism was fought and defeated in its main dimension and expression, the military dimension, without resolving the genuine grievances of the Tamils. Historical reality has stood the Dayapala dogma it on its head. It is the military crushing of the Tigers that was the necessary though insufficient condition for the political resolution of genuine grievances of the Tamils. That necessary condition was achieved without and before the required resolution of Tamil grievances, which reality has turned into a task of a second stage we are in transition to or have already transitioned to.
Dayapala implicitly posits a homology between the situation that prevailed under the barbaric rule of the Tigers and that which prevails in the South today. He writes that “The right to dissent is taken away with speed in the South and the methods applied here at times are reminiscent of what the Tamil Tigers inflicted on their political adversaries in the suppression of the right to dissent in the areas of their control”. This is wrong in its conceptual fundaments. In his reminiscences Dayapala might recall that the methods applied by the State in the late 1980s could not be placed on a continuum with what the Pol Potist JVP inflicted on their political adversaries. I have publicly criticized the Lasantha killing, the Tissainayagam verdict and the IDP situation, but these require denunciation independently, devoid of absurd analogies with Tiger totalitarianism. If Tiger rule and rule in the South can be placed on the same plane in the matter of the right of dissent, the Rajani commemoration could not have been held at the BMICH. It is the Tigers’ recidivist aggression that was chiefly responsible for the backlash of hard-line Sinhala militarism and its ascendancy. Whatever its distortions and brutalities the Sri Lankan state is one in which there are multiparty democratic elections and a minimum of democratic space. When this article appears, a multiparty election would have just been held in the Southern province, and I can’t recall one in Prabhakaran’s proto-state.  Dayapala and the Diaspora dissidents implicitly conflate the authoritarian yet quintessentially democratic –and therefore redeemable — Sri Lankan state (albeit with an increasingly Caesarist/Bonapartist regime), with irredeemable totalitarian, fascist movements and barbaric systems of rule necessitating military destruction. Far from a similarity or parallel with totalitarian Tiger rule, negative trends of political closure in the South can be reversed if the Opposition were simply to switch to a nationally more mainstream leadership, thereby rendering itself more competitive and restoring a basic equilibrium to the polity. The most critical variable of the Sri Lankan crisis today is the crisis of Opposition leadership.
Dayapala accusatorily says that in late ’89 I told him I had information that Rajani was killed by the EPRLF. On Sept 21st this year, DBS Jeyaraj writing on the Rajani anniversary confirms that “When Rajini was killed there was some confusion initially about who her killers were. Some university students staged a protest demonstration blaming Tamil armed groups functioning as lackeys of the Indian army. This was so because Rajini had very often clashed with the Indian officials on issues of human rights violations. Subsequently it became clear that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was responsible…” Within days of her murder I had made a beeline to Sri Lankan Military Intelligence HQ at Flower Road and requested information. My interlocutor, who may have been Gen (at the time Brig or Col.) Chula Seneviratne, now retired, told me that according to reports they had at that moment, which were hazy due to the fog of low intensity war with multiple players, it was an EPRLF hit because Rajani’s polemical guns at the time had been trained on the IPKF. It is this that I shared in good faith with Dayapala.
In the matter of Premadasa, the LTTE and the EPRLF, Dayapala distorts facts, saying that I “had joined the UNP government”, which I had not. In a few months I quit the North East Provincial Council of which I was a Minister, and supported Premadasa, socially the most progressive reformist leader this country has seen, against a kaleidoscope of foes—the xenophobic ultra-left JVP, the old Establishment elite (bipartisan, as seen in the impeachment conspiracy), the putschist NEPC and the terrorist LTTE. Dayapala, the UTHR-J and the Diaspora dissidents did not support or sympathize with him even critically, and to date the UTHR-J slanders him, depicting his tenure as a dark age. So much for Dayapala’s concern for “our social and economic development for generations”, set back far more by Prabhakaran’s assassination of Premadasa than by any delay in or dilution of devolution. By contrast, Devananda and the EPDP stood by Premadasa.
Premadasa commenced his election campaign and his early presidency with the support of, and supporting, the EPRLF led North East Provincial Council. That changed, because of the latter. The main challenge at that time was from the JVP which was shutting down Colombo and exploding IEDs (in which they had been trained, not by the LTTE but by the PLOTE, with Sivaram’s facilitation) in Narahenpita and Thimbirigasyaya. The JVP insurgency drew legitimacy from the claim of a patriotic war against the IPKF presence which was becoming counter-productively protracted. State power in the South was hanging by a thread and it was Premadasa’s primary duty to prevent its fall at all costs. He requested an IPKF withdrawal, while the NEPC leadership strove to entrench and leverage it. The EPRLF led conscript Tamil National Army attacked Sri Lankan police stations with Carl Gustav recoilless rifles. Faced with the prospect of re-deploying the Sri Lankan armed forces which would have risked a firefight with the IPKF and a two front war – precisely the trap that the NEPC leadership and its handlers were laying — Premadasa and Ranjan Wijeratne tactically played the LTTE card, a proxy move that states all over the world have made when faced with similar “prisoners’ dilemma” crises. Though I had absolutely no knowledge of the material form of this “tilt” and was certainly not privy to the policy itself, it clearly belonged to the tradition of ‘balance of power’ Realpolitik and was no reason to alter my support for Premadasa’s project of rapid growth with social equity, a precursor of current experiments in Latin America.
Rajani’s political life was defined by the relationship with the Tigers and by extension, Prabhakaran. Rajani joined the Tigers. Rajani broke with the Tigers. Rajani critiqued the Tigers. Rajani was killed by the Tigers. Rajani joining the Tigers is not as much of an indictment as it may seem today, because this was before the Tigers killed innocent Sinhala civilians, and she left when or by the time they did. The LTTE had not yet degenerated into a fascist militia. Yet, this “New Revolutionary” had a choice, and there were explicitly revolutionary Marxist or Marxist oriented ones like the EPRLF, PLOTE and EROS. She chose not to join any of them and opted instead to obtain membership of the LTTE, which even if it did parade a trace of ideological rouge in its makeup at the time (Nithyanandan, Balasingham), was the least revolutionary or leftwing of all these organizations. Rajani chose to join the Tigers even after the Tigers had murdered, in 1982, the political ideologue of the PLOT, Sundaram, arguably the most politically promising and progressive ideological mind of the Eelam movement!
Out of courtesy I will not dispute Dayapala’s dismissal of my recollection that Rajani wrongly assumed Mahattaya’s presence would deter an assassination attempt on her by the Tigers (or disclose my source). Rather like Camus, Rajani strove to transcend the political and take a moral stand, stemming from her deep feelings for people, especially those suffering. Personally testifying that [in 1984] “Rajani had become a seemingly unwavering member of the Tamil Tigers’ military project” (The Island Sept 16th, ’09), Dayapala goes on to liken her to Che Guevara! (The Island, Oct 4, 09). Having my essay on Che’s 40th death anniversary featured in the Cuban CP Central Committee’s Granma and praised for “having seen deeply into the mind of Che” by two who knew him up close (Prof Emeritus Miguel Alfonso Martinez who was at Che’s side during his historic New York trip and interviewed by Benecio de Toro for the Soderbergh movie, and Prof Jean Ziegler, Che’s designated companion during his 12 day Geneva visit to address UNCTAD), I find this an unconvincing canonization. “In relation to the choice between life and death”, any Sri Lankan Commando storming a bunker or Special Forces officer on long range patrol in Tigerland was as close, if not closer, a fit in spirit. Can anyone imagine Ernesto Che Guevara as “a seemingly unwavering member” (however episodically) of a “military project” under the leadership of Velupillai Prabhakaran?
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“He accuses me of a “damning” lack of “understanding” of “language …and politics”. I trust he doesn’t mean the English language. As for politics, that is amusing, coming as it does from an autodidact in that subject, to another whose product in political theory has been critically bracketed with those of Zizek and Badiou (in the International Journal of Zizek Studies) and positively reviewed by a Professor Emeritus at the LSE, and whose successful recent political practice in the international arena registered wryly in The Economist (London).”
The Economist review of your book
dayan your arrogance is as astounding as the doll-like amazement writ large across the face of your trophy third wife, when placed mute in front of a camera.
your political ability at obfuscation, misdirection, and mischievous manipulation leave people who are argue with you (from whatever spectrum) with no option other than to opt for the politics of the ‘club’, that is by resorting to brutal caveman methods and smashing in your head in with a club.
It is significant that you never mention (or repeatedly downplay) the multiple, continuing state sponsored pogroms of Tamils. Or the horrendous non-stop disproportionate violence, through war times and non-war times, inflicted by the Sri Lankan state on INNOCENT Tamils.
The Tamils never carpet bombed Sinhalese, raped Singhalese women, or starved them or pogromed them. – LTTE terror was always the terror of the weak as compared with that from the State (though this does not justify SOME of what they did)
Sivaram was always a far more acute analyst than you will ever be. and for those who cant (see here your amusing and shortlived at attempts at militancy), there is always the comforting retreat of mostly irrelevant political theory.
In the meantime, coming directly to your errant (or more probable, purposely confused) analysis of the present and future situation in Sri Lanka, we await a new civil war amongst the stupid sinhalese and another pogrom against Tamils in the upcountry, east or Colombo. in the meantime that Tamils will continue to be held in various forms of imprisonment. one hopes that when the sinhalese embark upon their next (habitual) round of rubber necklacing or ‘stray’ acts of communal violence, they chance upon your devolution’esque neck. at that point you can perforce provide us a new speedy assessment of asymmetric violence and chauvinism. or maybe perhaps not.
good luck with the politicking
dear groundviews, im sure you will be inclined to delete completely my post but perhaps you maybe gracious enough to actually post it as it is, or at least leave, unaltered, some pertinent points for out arrogant friend Dayan.
although for sri lankans, the tamil diaspora is a big bogey, please note that they live under no fear of anyone, sinhalese or tamil (if you choose to believe accounts of LTTE extortion of the diaspora, that is your choice). that said, it may be wise to listen to what they have to say about how they feel about sri lanka which may well be that which is not said by Tamils in Sri Lanka for obvious reasons.
Tamils left Sri Lanka under fear of unemployment, discrimination and death the vast bulk ended up as poor refugees in countries, often with no knowledge of the local languages. yet they strived and worked extremely to better themselves, their children and to try and protect their brethren in sri lanka. Yet according to the deranged singhalese, this diasporic group that struggled for everything it has got is living a cushy life in the west. yes we are, because we have worked for it.
the tamil diaspora are not the source of sri lanka’s problems. at one point the singhalese will run out of external enemies (mostly imagined) and will realise they have only themselves left to blame.…at what point will this momentous event arrive? because it is at that point with self-realisation that change for the better will truly arrive. if you keep blaming the Tigers for all of your problems you are only postponing the necessary proper, mature reckoning of the issues confronting the island. this problem was in full swing 30/40 years before the Tigers existed (or more if taking into account the Singhalese-Muslim riots in 1915).
After all the pogroms against Tamils (for which there has been not one single prosecution), after all the violence inflicted against Tamil civilians over the last 3 decades, after the 30-40,000 Tamil civilians blown up in the most recent stage of the war – the onus is now completely on the singhalese to stop blaming their government (if they even consider there to be anything wrong) and to attempt the redeem whatever moral virtues are left in your people and society if not for the sake of the poor Tamils cursed to have been born in ‘your’ island, than at least for your posterity’s sake.
with regard to the tamils in the camps…not a great start…
btw in the West (US and UK) the Singhalese are quickly becoming infamous as the not-so kitsch, cool and non-violent face of Buddhism – this is a most ignominious position to be in. Maybe the Singhalese can change?
Whoah! That was some out pouring. I’m sure Dayan will come out with some nauseatingly pompous and retch-provokingly arrogant response. Has he responded Yay or Nay yet on his admirable support for soviet-style repression that Basil mentioned?
I can’t imagine Che spending much time smoking a cigar with MR either, or Dayan given his fantastic and inspiring victory at the human rights council.
Yes Che, so get this, I basically rigged it so that my government could carpet bomb a civilian population with impunity, oh and then there was this really funny story about the survivors spending months and months in internment camps, which was, like, totally illegal (that makes me cool and anti-establishment, right?) and you should see all the verbose articles I wrote deflecting everyone from the issue. Fancy a cuba libre later and I can tell you all about it?
Spinning in his grave – oh yes.
Ranjan seems a little miffed that we beat the Tigers. In a suggestion that I didn’t expect to see on Groundviews, he recommends or endorses the option of beating my head in with a club (as distinct from beating me in argument). This from a guy who complains of Sinhala propensity to violence. His is doubtless the attitude that led the Tigers to murder Kethesh, Rajani, Neelan et al. It also explains the violent gangsterish behaviour so prevalent in the Tamil Diaspora.
Clubman that he is, I’d just like to make three quick points:
1. A mob tried beating my head in at Kanatte in 1992 for my support of Premadasa. They used pieces of gravestone, bricks, stones, fists and feet. Didn’t work. Didn’t silence me or alter my views either.
2. Sivaram wrote pre-war, that ” Asymmetric Deterrence” as evolved by the Tigers guaranteed the failure of a Sri Lankan military offensive even if foreign supported. I wrote pre-war (Oct 2004) in the Sunday Island “WHY PRABHAKARAN WILL LOSE”.
3. I cannot return Clubman Ranjan’s compliment about my wife as I haven’t yet seen his. Then again, I don’t know the guy at all either.
How deeply impressive this article is. Dayan Jayatilaka is very impressed with his own great political mind. He has told us what other great people have said about him. I, Mahadanumutta, also declare that he is as great as me. See his capacity for using deductive logic.
Prabahakaran he sees as the absolute evil. No one else is responsible for the birth and actions of his evil thoughts and deeds. The foolish people in Germany for many decades have thought that they are responsible for the birth of the politics of Hitler. They even said that if not for the limitations of Weimar Constitution, Hitler may not have been able to do what he did. They changed that constitution and did many other things to improve their democratic system to prevent future occurrence of the circumstances that created Hitler. Our DJ is a greater Genius and see that all VP did was due his own evil nature. He rightly says that we all are saints and VP is the only evil Sri Lanka ever had (except for Wijeweera).
This kind of political knowledge is very rare. I am afraid that I Mahadanumutta now have a rival.
It’s pretty sad that Groundviews allows personal attacks like the ones targetting Dayan. Isn’t this breaking the forum rules?
Dear Nimesh,
The interview with Dayan in Geneva featured on Groundviews and viewed close to one hundred thousand times tellingly generated more discussion on his wife than on the substantive nature of what Dayan said, which prefigured his critical statements on and appearances in domestic media since his return to Sri Lanka.
Ranjan’s inane comments on Dayan’s wife in this respect present nothing new, and were published to give Dayan an opportunity to address and end this useless leitmotif in commentary addressed to him. We do not condone Ranjan’s expression, and in publishing it, flag how difficult it is for some Sri Lankan’s to address an issue without resorting to personal attacks, sexism and nonsensical rants that gloss over critical points of debate.
We believe Dayan’s response to Ranjan is adequate in this regard and addresses “some pertinent points” Ranjan claims were included in his comment. We encourage Ranjan and others to take note of, as you point out, our site guidelines in the future, recognising the plethora of other sites on the web open for unmoderated discussion.
“Rajani chose to join the Tigers even after the Tigers had murdered, in 1982, the political ideologue of the PLOT”, writes Dayan Jayathilaka. However Jayathilaka himself is a lifelong admirer of Joseph Stalin. I am a little confused. Who was the worst of the two, Parabakaran or Joseph Stalin? As the matter involves a need to rewrite world history, Jayathilaka should explain this?
Oh, “Confused Historian”, what an apt name you have chosen for yourself!
dayan’s wife is irrelevant to the discussion, my bad.
i am not miffed that the LTTE was defeated (with US, UK, EU, Israeli, Iranian, Pakistani Indian, Chinese, Japanese assistance and Mr Karuna and of course the well over 200,000 strong SLA), the LTTE did not wake upto geopolitical realities in time and they were destroyed.
what i am miffed about, is that between 30,000 to 40,000 Tamils were blown up through artillery shelling, SLAF bombing and naval shelling; starvation and denial of medicines. [meanwhile the executive of your country states there has been a zero casualty policy - perhaps in his mind those dead Tamils never existed in the first place]
for DJ this is a necessary evil which he will shroud in political theory bullshit. for me it is and was not and could never be – simple.
DJ a singhala mob attacked you with pieces of gravestone? that is almost amusing.
Sivaram incidentally was killed because he actually had something to say, your professional career high was defending mahinda rajapaksa and his brother gothabaya and their government at the UNHRC – i mean are you serious? PATHETIC? joke or joker? perhaps you can still redeem yourself like that fellow gareth evans, who once toasted champagne to the genocide of the east timorese as australia’s foreign minister, and now rushes about the world pushing his R2P.
this was told to me by an Iraqi friend, “we all know the US is bombing the hell out of our people but it is the British we hate the most – who do the same but with a smile on their hands and hand offered in friendship”, i.e. perfidious albion. dayan you are not too far removed from the latter – and i often suspect that you harp on about the 13th amendment so much because you are one of the few singhalese who actually realises how much of an administrative joke it is, and how little power will actually be devolved to the Tamil/Muslim people.
burma/myanmar
a country with a majority population of bamar (burmese), who possessed (maybe still do) a hyper nationalist and hyper buddhist complex. a militarised country that has been at constant war with its non-conforming anti-assimilationist ethnic minorities all along its periphery and has also been at war with itself through political repression and suppression of dissent via a police state administration. – this looks to me like the direction sri lanka is heading or already at…
…the tamils and muslims in the north and east will continue to be abused, massacred. meanwhile in the south more and more the institutions of ‘democracy’ disappear and the singhalese will come to suffer [meanwhile DJ can enjoy his black label and continue to write articles which tell 'him' that he told (us all) so, and as such be satisfied with himself, his morals and twilight years of a "full" life (ha!)]
groundviews,
please don’t insult me or my family by calling us sri lankans – after all the suffering inflicted on Tamils on behalf of the lion race by the sri lankan state, it is rubbing salt in wounds that will never heal.
my uncle was burnt alive (yes by rubber necklace) in colombo by a group of lovely singhalese men in 83′. many of my family on my mothers side just disappeared in batti during the 90′s assumed tortured and dead.
two members of my family are of ‘dubious’ origins, that is these girls were born without fathers. who their father was no one knows – except that every knows, their fathers were SLA soldiers who raped their mothers (taboo till this day)
several of my cousins joined the LTTE because that was the only way they believed they could protect the Tamil people – some escaped sri lanka a while back, the rest are dead.
Tamils have since day one tried to reject the domineering assimilationist project of the singhalese sri lankan state. if they rolled over, adopted de jure buddhism, singhalese language and names and identity – there would never have been any problems. the point is they did not and continue not to.
btw the 300,000 people trapped in the camps are not sri lankans (singhalese), they are Tamils to say otherwise is to lie about reality.
also why does the sri lankan Medical Association believe that mortality rate in the camps is lower than the rest of island, is this some sri lankan public health miracle of the C21st?
Or is it the case that even humane professions such as medicine in sri lanka are riven through with racism? Or maybe it is plain incompetence/stupidity on the part of the sri lankan/singhalese medical fraternity? – which is it?
this document does not detail atrocities against singhalese or muslims but to dismiss the data contained in this or other reports as mere Tiger propaganda is to be not merely political but perverse. and the attempt to conflate the loss of life suffered by the singhalese at the hands of the LTTE with the destruction suffered by the Tamil community at the hands of the sri lankan state – is to exist in an upside down world.
http://www.nesohr.org/files/Lest_We_Forget.pdf
groundviews, it is the opinion of some Tamils (you know those loony ones who go on about sri lankan government ‘genocide’ of Tamils), that the internment of the entire population of the vanni at menik farm under such horrific conditions is part and parcel of an attempt by the SL gov. to re-create conditions of resistance, insurgency, violence by Tamil inmates such that the army/gov can crush again with devastating force the remainder of the Tamils in the camps (in order that they become and exist like the dogs they are supposed to be). this recreation of ‘terrorism’ brings on to the scene a much missed adversary for the singhalese to berate and also serves to expedite the process of destroying the Tamil people in their traditional homelands.
…far fetched inane rantings of a crazed diaspora Tamil?
When will Dayan learn to address issues at hand with civic honesty without dragging his cross-dressing arrogance which billboards his LES +
And when will the Thamil defenders be able to see the Sinhala voice that is NOT represented by Dayan like?
Pl., Sanjana and Sara are running this forum even amidst of threats to their lives.
Can we get the maximum by engaging with the real issues without looking for what is flashed out in each other’s bed room toilets?
Ranjan:
Singing Taraki’s praises will only open a can of worms. Why go there?
I think it is silly to say the Tamil Diaspora is leading a “cushy” life. A cushy life is not one that entails heavy mortgages, car loans and funding the costly university education of children. The Diaspora in North America and the UK, in most cases, has to do a second job, and, in some cases, a third job, to pay the bills. Certainly, one can understand why the poor are glad now that they don’t have to give in to extortion. As for the grandparents stuck in suburban towers and dank basements, a cushy life is far from their reality. Their isolated existence is made still more unbearable in having to attend to a multitude of tasks, including cooking, looking after grand children and having to babysit neighbourhood children just to earn a few dollars. There are many instances where Tamil seniors, exploited by their own kids, are reluctant to seek outside help in the fear that this may bring shame upon their families. Another reason these seniors do not go to the authorities, has to do with the threat of family deportation – a false claim made by their kids to keep them in line. Sadly, not only the Tamil seniors, but most people belonging to the Tamil Diaspora are not in tune with the happenings of their host country.
Enough said about the “cushy” life of the Tamil Diaspora for now. I would, however, like to add a little more about the mistreatment of Tamil seniors at the hands of the organizers of the notorious Tamil protest in New York, which turned these hapless seniors into a laughing stock. These seniors, who didn’t know a word of English, were only taught to repeat two words at a time when the slogans “we want Tamil Elam!” and “no more genocide!” were shouted out by the younger protesters. The two sets of words the seniors were expected to sound were “right now” and “stop now”; however, the seniors got the word order mixed up so that “no more genocide” was answered with “right now” and “we want Tamil Elam” was followed by “stop now”. We must also remember that most of these older protesters happen to be women – made to stand for hours in the cold clad in their saris.
Dear readers, I hope you don’t take this lightly, as it is not intended as a comic piece. This is the plight of people without any agency. Hope those who long to return to Sri-Lanka will be able to do so soon.
It is my understanding that many Tamil intellectuals, including university students, joined the LTTE in its early days (most eventually became disillusioned and left). Seen in this context, Rajani’s motivations for joining become largely irrelevent. It neither justifies nor nullifies any argument for the existence of the LTTE. Rajani was essentially a scientist; no scientist has ever become the head of any facist state. On the other, scientists have lent their support, voluntary and otherwise, to fascist projects. Werner Heisenberg and Werner Von Braun come to mind here. On the other hand, let it be said that nationalism (usually) does not captivate the minds of scientists the way it does ordinary people. So in the final analysis, perhaps it was Rajani’s background, if only partially, that entitled her to see the folly of the LTTE…
Another great thing that I learned from DJ is about barbarism. According to him what former presidents and some leading politicians, like Rajan Wijeratne have done are acts of heroism against barbaric rebel activities. Earlier I heard from western people that allowing the state forces or police to kill persons after arrest is a barbaric act. It is said that in Sri Lanka in fighting against the JVP about 30,000 people suffered forced disappearances. According to reports such killing were done after unofficial arrest through abductions followed by interrogation, killing and making the body disappear. Now it appears from what DJ writes this kind of description of barbarism is all wrong. What saints do against villains or angels do against devils can never be wrong.
Further to what I said before I have learned from DJ many new things. For example, that the greatest war ever fought in the world was fought in Sri Lanka with the worst enemy ever seen, the LTTE lead by Prabakaran. This, it appears, from what he writes, was no lesser war than World War II and he cites many other wars also. His sense of proportionality is beyond belief. How you can be as rational as that is even difficult to fathom. In my day I have tried to be like this but as I said before now I have been outdone.
Dayan Jayathilake writes about the authoritarian yet quintessentially democratic” Sri Lankan state. These use of words is what A.J.Ayer school of thought would call nonsensical. If something is essentially authoritarian, it means that consist of element which is anti-thesis of elements of democracy. Democracy is a governance based on checks and balances. This has been so ever since Sir Edward Coke(1552-1634). CharlesI lost his head over it. Therefore to talk about Sri Lankan state being “authoritarian yet quintessentially democratic” is an absurdity. It is like saying insane yet quintessentially sane. This article full lf such expressions.
Dear Ranjan,
Your personal experiences would make anyone in this forum sad. And every incident in the document you refer us to is probably true. But what we Tamils established over the years is that we can be equally cruel. In our names were committed massacres of extreme cruelty. And in our names were committed massacres of “our own” people. We lost any sense of moral high ground in this conflict right from the day Alfred Thuraiappa was shot. From then onwards it was just a question of power hungry war lords in a killing spree — on both sides.
Clearly, post-LTTE (and the way it was put down), there are many concerns: pathetically slow progress in IDP re-settlement, high degree of corruption and sharp centralization of power in the hands of just a few are all areas in which improvement is badly needed. But what is the way to achieve progress? I don’t think it is going to be by forcing the government into a corner by agitating against trade deals, boycotting the airline, threatening with HR abuse trials and telling them that “if you don’t do X, then several VP’s will rise up” (like Vikramabahu Karunaratna is reported to have said recently — I may be wrong about attributing this to VK, it was on a Sinhala radio channel). These will simply make them box in and drive them more towards the juntas of Burma. I really think constructive dialogue and engagement in the development and reconstruction of Sri Lanka is the ONLY way forward. One should, of course, take a clear stance on specific issues (e.g See Dr Nesiah’s writings elsewhere in this forum). But we are not going to achieve anything by repeatedly parroting: “Sinhalese are all evil, Tamils are always the poor victims”; this oppari politics won’t achieve anything (as we already know — we have tried it and it has failed, so it cannot be the way forward!), and evidence for it is unconvincing (hence there is nobody in the world with any sympathy for us Tamils — except perhaps some jokers in Tamil Nadu politics).
I stress again, I am saddened by the personal experience you quote. It is really tragic. What we need to do now, however hard it is to do, is to move forward and help achieve an equilibrium in which such attrocities do not happen again. And that is only going to be achieved by working WITH the Sinhalese. Many countries have come out of brutal wars, moved on, and became peaceful and prosperous nations. It is possible.
Achala Karunarathna…its more like Doublespeak.
A hilarious example is our very own ‘Humanitarian Operation,’ which was an euphemism for ‘bomb the Tamils…innocent and not so innocent into the stone age.’
‘NO FIRE ZONE’ was where they herded Tamil men, women, children and old people and bombed the daylights out of them.
‘Welfare Camps’ is an euphemism for concentration camps…and the list goes on and on…
“my uncle was burnt alive (yes by rubber necklace) in colombo by a group of lovely singhalese men in 83′. many of my family on my mothers side just disappeared in batti during the 90′s assumed tortured and dead.
two members of my family are of ‘dubious’ origins, that is these girls were born without fathers. who their father was no one knows – except that every knows, their fathers were SLA soldiers who raped their mothers (taboo till this day)
several of my cousins joined the LTTE because that was the only way they believed they could protect the Tamil people – some escaped sri lanka a while back, the rest are dead.”
With that kind of history (if true), it is no wonder that you sound so bitter and angry. I can only imagine how you must be feeling, but I don’t think your attitude is helpful in anyway – to yourself, other Tamils and to Sri Lanka as well. I don’t know how you see it, but from my point of view, hatred, bigotry and racism has not got the Tamil people anywhere. Instead, it has brought them much pain and suffering. Continuing to hold to hatred and bigotry will only hurt the Tamil people further, alienating them from other Sri Lankans. Whether one likes it or not, the Sinhalese and the Tamils are going to have to learn to live with each other on the island. Perhaps you might benefit from talking to Sinhalese and Muslim families who have had their members killed by the self proclaimed “sole representatives of the Tamils” – the LTTE.
Those who talk about the wife of someone instead discussing instant issues are nothing but empty heads. Can’t you people have a more dignified stand instead of someone’s wife who is not the subject of this discussion at all. I feel ashamed. Just points to a moral bankruptcy and the editor is perfectly right in chiding those concerned.
Dayan:
I have heard (Daily Mirror interview) that you abhor politics but you are certainly not immune to selective memory, usually a trait among politicians. What you say in Jan 2009 and June the same year in the UN are marked by such characteristics.
“Though Dayapala now says, in his response to me, that he “supports the historic victory over the Tigers and their neo-fascistic project”, he did not say so in his BMICH speech on Sept 25, surely the appropriate occasion”
This coming from someone who double-speaks can hardly be rejuvenating or entertaining.
“in a remark utterly revelatory of its attitude, the UTHR-J statement (Sept 18) for the Rajani anniversary which Dayapala approvingly adverts to, said this: “If the Government believes that the war was a great military achievement, let the Sinhalese people know the truth and understand the consequences”
You had maintained a stand that this war was justified, even with a large number of civilian casualties in what has been dubbed as a war without witnesses. There cannot be any qualms in you representing a very brutal and repressive regime, very revelatory of an attitude of preaching others what is not for you. Quite frankly, I wanted to clap my hands for your concern in the “moving on” story but a cursory look at what you said and meant underlines the deceit that unmasks a frightening attitude of empathy.
Ok, maybe Dayapala had sort of slip of the memory in not “bashing” the LTTE. Enough said that even Rajani foretold at whose hands her demise would be, in a similar fashion Lasantha prophesised his own death but only that we did not hear loudly of your bashing. What is more concerning is the way you went about explaining the “context” of this war, never mind about the innocent civilians caught in between devil and the deep blue sea. Any sane person would acknowledge the murderous intent of the LTTE. Its lack of concern and accountability has always been an issue but for a democratically elected govt to enact the same attitude, and some cases even worse, can be hardly acceptable, what more with your penchant attitude of categorising it within a “context” and that, too, from someone who had just in january talked so benevolently of what it means of human lives.
“While patriotism is “being used to postpone devolution”, the remedy resides in the re-opened electoral space in the Tamil areas and the reactivation of the Tamil polity and political process, none of which would have been possible except for the Sri Lankan armed forces and President Rajapakse. Dayapala assumes that one can successfully expedite devolution while scorning legitimate Sinhala sentiment, abandoning patriotism, making no recourse to it, regarding it as if it were wholly negative and illegitimate—and all this from London! Such is his superior understanding of politics”
Surely you can’t be serious. May I even gesture as hilarious. Let me amplify. Locking up more than 250,000 war ravaged civilians in internment camps with guns pointed at them your claim of “re-opened electoral space” not only appears ludicrous but also seriously undermines the meaning and application of democracy. What kind of electoral space would be this?
Talking of legitimate Sinhala sentiment, everyone has been wondering what happens to be this “legitimate” Sinhala sentiment which, incidently have been shifting the posts since independence. Even the 13th Amendment that you so feverishly argued for during your interview has been has become a victim to this Sinhala sentiment. Mind you, this is part of the law of the land. Never mind that there was never a chance to implement it fully in the Wanni because of the war, but the Eastern region’s CM has been complaining that even to employ a clerk, he has to get the permission of the Governor, who happens to be a Sinhalese. Is it not that the dispersed Sinhala sentiment that riled the Tamils who believed that there would never come a time when legitimacy of such a sentiment can be ever achieved and the Tamils become the political punch-bags for the Sinhala politicians. Calling it a people’s war is a very hollow contention – bombing the citizens to shreds and locking them up in internment camps. As you say, the Sinhalese have a legitimate right and reason to feel triumphant, and which literally is understood at the exclusion of the other minorities (including Tamils) then calling this a people’s war shows the streak of mastery a someone who revels in disclaiming being a Sinhala politician but nonetheless does so through a transparent mask. The charades of the APRC and those before it would have driven home the point – that it will be wishful thinking to even assume a consensus is ever possible.
@ Bean:
Speaking of absurd analogies, the war was essentially a “humanitarian operation” which yielded “zero civilian casualties.” One must wonder why it took 2 years to get at the LTTE, if civilians were not in the way.
Heshan:
Hilarious it may sound, these angels have now locked-up the IDPs in internment camps and are watched over at gun-point. I am honestly baffled how supposedly one of the largest hostage release exercise deceitfully ended up as keeping the very people supposedly saved locked-up in internment camps.
Of course, the indiscriminate bombing/shelling never killed any civilian, so god be damned. Your word is taken as gospel truth, so does the commandment that independent journalists and other UN staffs may be allowed into the former war zone and the camps still hold?
While the SL regime has left everyone guessing, what we are hearing is the IDPs are not being released not because of the two reasons it has cited. It does not want the IDPs to return to their original homeland as that would open a pandora box of the atrocities committed by both the LTTE and the SL regime. So the idea is to keep them as long as possible or the possibility of their being settled in their original habitat is remote or make sure the cleaning-up exercise is complete before they can be allowed out.
It was common knowledge that the SL regime’s initial intention was to keep them in these camps for 2 to 3 years. It relented only after being pressure from other countries, particularly US and Europe. Let us be clear on one thing. The truth will come out one day, somehow it will emerge as the bits and pieces are making their way out. These are innocent civilians who were herded into safety zones designated by the govt and mercilessly bombed. It was as if both the warring parties were competing with each other to see how many targets they got right – civilian targets.
Jansee,
1. So, if I get you right, Dayapala had a sort of “slip of the memory”…about who killed his wife?
2. If you don’t know what I wrote under my name and on the record (while ambassador) about Lasantha, you haven’t been reading groundviews or transcurrents or the Island. Lasantha’s brother Lal, whom I have known for decades, certainly does.
If you folk had stuck to the Lasantha issue, the Trinco Five and the ACF instead of self-immolating under the Tiger flag while trying to stop the final offensive and save Prabhakaran, you would have done much better at the UNHCR. No wonder your lot is down to 25+ percent in the Southern poll.
3. I support the war but criticise the policy on the IDPs. What’s the contradiction in that? So does India! 98 percent of casualties of drone strikes under Obama are civilians, but that doesn’t mean either he or the Afghan War are wrong and should not be supported. Iraq was wrong. Still confused and can’t see the point?
4. For God’s sake stop whining and get off the backs of the Sinhalese. If you have a problem with the 13th amendment, its sufficiency or non-implementation, wait until the parliamentary elections are done and get the Tamil MPs get their act together for once, and do their job of uniting and negotiating for something implementable. Too many of the most progressive Sinhala leaders like Vijaya Kumaratunga have already died on that cross. The army has cleared the way for elections, so let the Tamils do the heavy lifting on this one. As for the East, Tamils should put pressure on Karuna and Pillayan to unite so their rivalry is no longer manipulable.
The above points were not directed at me, but I feel they are *provocative* and hence worthy of response:
“2. If you don’t know what I wrote under my name and on the record (while ambassador) about Lasantha”
The same regime that oversaw the murder of Lasantha in cold blood, the same regime that forced his wife to flee, that murdered 11 journalists in a year and put Tissa away on bogus charges – this is the same regime that conducted the war, and whose outcome you unashamedly vouched for. Yet you unabashedly defended this regime tooth and nail in Geneva… lets face the facts: that hollow defense you put up in Switzerland did not merely prevent the name of Sri Lanka from being tarnished. It prevented the Rajapakse Bro’s and Sarath Fonseka from going straight to the Hague. In the simplest terms: you defended the killers of Lasantha.
“If you folk had stuck to the Lasantha issue, the Trinco Five and the ACF instead of self-immolating under the Tiger flag”
The Trinco Five case and the ACF case were swept under the carpet. The witnesses who could testify were threatened into silence. In fact, Dr. Manoharan was forced to flee the country – it was a travesty of justice, yet it had the blessings of a regime which you wholeheartedly supported and continue to support. All the details of the above are available on the UTHR website.
“I support the war but criticise the policy on the IDPs.”
The war and the IDP policy are not mutually exclusive. You and I both know that war without peace is insustainable… on the other hand, instead of offering pro-active solutions which might lead to such a peace, you have rather meekly espoused the 13th Amendment, which has a proven track record of failure.
On another note, I think the above comment of Mr. Dayan J is rather significant. By trying to distance himself from the regime, albeit rather hapharzadly, Dayan shows the gulf between the intellectuals and the ruling elite… the war was merely confirmation of a long-held suspicion that the minorities (read: Tamils) have been sidelined from the affairs of the nation – now it seems that the intellectuals are next in line.
Dear Dr. Jayatilaka,
“It was perfectly possible (unless one was a Trotskyite) to speak of the titanic struggle against Hitler while not talking “with equal passion and conviction” about the wrongs committed in the colonies by British and French imperialism…”.
Likewise – correct me if I am wrong – you think it is perfectly possible to talk about Rajani’s decision to join the fascist LTTE (despite having later rejected them, becoming a vocal critic and finally succumbing to them) while not talking “with equal passion and conviction” against the nascent rise of the Sri Lankan fascist state.
As is evident, many commenter’s share the view, as I do, that a latent (or some may argue not so latent) fascist tendency is beginning to rear its ugly face in Sri Lanka once again (one of the previous times during my life time being when your Dear Leader of the People came into power after handing out cash to the fascist LTTE to fight the IPKF).
You may wish to see otherwise and argue that the convening of elections in the South and holding of a memorial for Rajani as evidence of “political space” and a reflection of democracy in action in Sri Lanka while continuing to ignore all the harbingers of an erosion of political space in other forms such as through mass incarceration of Sri Lankans (who happen to be of ethnic Tamil descent) media repression, etc. (As an aside, it eludes me as to why you condemn the incarceration of IDPs given that in a just war akin to that being waged in Afghanistan by the Bush/Obama administration, these things are unavoidable and mere “collateral”) After all we can love them while we condemn them in the cause of higher justice can’t we? We can after all be fascist in the fight against fascism can’t we? The ends justify the means in’it?
I don’t know whether it is wilful ignorance or deliberate obtuseness but it is clear that you are missing the point – democracy in Sri Lanka is limping along DESPITE the Sri Lankan state. If the current Sri Lankan state has its way, all democratic space will be rescinded, and if we in fact subscribe to your arguments, that reality will only be hastened.
Thanks for the heads up on the science fiction journal Zizek, and would appreciate if you could let me know who the Professor Emeritus at LSE is so that I may ensure that he never gets on my son’s thesis committee.
Also, thanks for all your efforts at trying to create a discussion, though I must admit I am more than a little tired of wading through excessive verbiage to end up with little analytical substance and trite conclusions. Also, the self aggrandizement and vacuous argumentation is getting rather tedious. I just wish Mangala Samaraweera would start contributing to groundviews, he has at least shown a whole lot more spine.
Venceremos o Mojito!
Dayan:
I don’t have to speak for Dayapala, as I am sure he has his own reasons for whatever he said, save that it is amply clear that he is not in the business of scoring points, so as not to please his political masters. How convenient then is your “slip” or shall I call it selective or convenient resurgence of memory that springs to life whenever it politically suits the situation. Ah, hoping the great Dayan as a humanitarian may be a dream but what a fool I have been?
You are right, you wrote about Lasantha and I am sorry that I overlooked it but sadly you failed the same scrutiny you insisted on Dayapala on yourself. The scorn levelled at him for not saying it aloud of the LTTE’s complicity in his wife’s murder seems to awoken your deep senses but as plain as Lasantha may have written on who he thought would be his killers but Dayan, true to your spirit such a gesture was not forthcoming from you in the case of Lasantha or did I forget of this selective memory?
“If you folk had stuck to the Lasantha issue, the Trinco Five and the ACF instead of self-immolating under the Tiger flag while trying to stop the final offensive and save Prabhakaran, you would have done much better at the UNHCR. No wonder your lot is down to 25+ percent in the Southern poll.”
So, anyone talking about the war and the IDPs must be a Tamil or bearers of the LTTE flag? A nice try for this kind of warped logic but not hard enough because such labels are not going to stick anymore. We all know that the moment anyone talks about the war and the IDPs, the brush has been programmed to paint the LTTE label. Never mind to even make a wild guess that the writer need not be a Tamil or even if he is a Tamil that he has not cooled to the LTTE. Anyway, I am not such a strange fellow to bed myself with the likes of Karuna and the gang, who had murdered several policemen with impunity. Well, what a time that such incidents seemed to escape your mired thoughts. Strange bed-fellows indeed.
“98 percent of casualties of drone strikes under Obama are civilians, but that doesn’t mean either he or the Afghan War are wrong and should not be supported. Iraq was wrong. Still confused and can’t see the point?”
Dayan, I honestly thought you are a shade better than your political masters but so sorry to learn of such bankrupt and illogical ideologies coming from you. How many of his own citizens (Americans)/civilians of his own country did Obama strike using his drones? Where in California, or Los Angeles or any other part of US or US citizens or residents did he bomb? We are talking about the CITIZENS of SL being bombed to shreds and it must be tongue-in-cheek that you cite the Afghan episode as a comparable situation. What a gallantry. You still don’t understand or pretend not to understand that the American people would not allow Obama or any other President of that country for that matter to remain in office for even one day if any of their citizens are bombed. Who is getting confused here? You seemed to have got worked-up so much when the Israelis bombed the Palestinians but how on earth you are able to digest that citizens of your own country were mercilessly bombed is beyond me. Is it because you are a Sinhalese and the hapless victims are Tamils?
“For God’s sake stop whining and get off the backs of the Sinhalese. If you have a problem with the 13th amendment, its sufficiency or non-implementation, wait until the parliamentary elections are done and get the Tamil MPs get their act together for once, and do their job of uniting and negotiating for something implementable. Too many of the most progressive Sinhala leaders like Vijaya Kumaratunga have already died on that cross. The army has cleared the way for elections, so let the Tamils do the heavy lifting on this one. As for the East, Tamils should put pressure on Karuna and Pillayan to unite so their rivalry is no longer manipulable.”
Memories, memories. There was a time when the Tamils voted for a separate Eelam. In one voice they conveyed an unequivocal message. This was done after all peaceful gestures were thwarted by the govt, mostly through violent means. I, for one, do not subscribe to the division of a country. I think you should know better about Sinhalese politics. Even if all the Tamil parliamentarians got together to insist on the implementation of the 13A or any other devolution proposals, it is not going to work as the majority voice is still being held by the Sinhalese. The democratic spirit of protecting the minority interest in SL does not work. Even the courts have turned the other way in most circumstances It is not for want of trying that CBK failed in her bid to pass through this stage to get the Southern consensus and you professing to have the pulse of Sinhala politics, surely it could not have escaped your attention that it can never be a reality, at least thus far. Surprisingly, you seem to overlook that it is the division and non-consensual politics among the Sinhalese that even to this day the 13A has been consigned to the cold storage. It is the Sinhalese who should get their act together.
Pillayan is the Chief Minister and you know as much as I do that he is supposed to be in charge of the administration. My question was, he could not even employ a clerk without the permission of the Governor. This is what he said in plain language. What kind of a sham 13A implementation is that? The feud between Karuna and Pillayan is not the subject of my earlier discussion. Whether for political or personal reasons they want to shoot each other, who cares. After all, both are aligned to the govt. The govt doesn’t seem to care.
DJ says “the Sinhalese have a legitimate right and reason to feel triumphant.”He is referring to Sri Lanka army defeating LTTE. Sri Lankan Army, is the army of Sri Lankan state. It is not the army of Sinhalese. That army is paid and maintained by the Sri Lankan state. That state had the obligation to ensure security to ALL, by properly running a civil administration on the basis of law. It failed to do that. Failure created a chaotic situation,( which as it always happens in such situations,) was worsened by those who challenge its authority by violent means. The state in desperation used its armed forces, to physically destroy those who challenged it. What is there to celebrate in such a a tragedy, which was created by the Sri Lankan state itself, by failing to do its primary duty of creating a civil administration, which should have removed the need or possibility of a civil war.
In any case, how can a “victory” achieved through the use of resources of the state, be a victory for Sinhalese only. If DJ implies that Sri Lankan state belongs to Sinhalese, does he not deny the equality of status of all other citizens? Can he defend such a position legally, morally and politically?
Is the “victory” over JVP also a victory for Sinhalese? If not what are the conceptual differences between the two “victories”.
He further says, “The victorious Final War against the Tigers approximated a people’s war of national liberation”. Sri Lankan state having failed to develop a civil administration based on law to ensure security to ALL, saved itself by use of arm forces. If that is a liberation struggle , then it is a liberation struggle against itself.
Use of words “approximated”, has little as meaning as saying, any monkey approximates ones parents. As DJ claims that he has understood the mind of Che Guvara, perhaps, he may be hearing Che turning in his grave. Or is DJ claiming that his thoughts approximates those of Che.
It is the issue of a state that has failed to develop a civil administration to provide security to ALL, that has led to the creation of IDP camps, for such a large number of citizens. Sri Lankan state may leave their fates to the armed forces, instead of fulfilling its obligations. That may well be the fate, that awaits all others in the entire country.
Marisa has mentioned many incidents of discrimination. We know that all that and much more has happened, is happening and will continue to happen. The question is as to what to do about it. Now D.J. suggests that “we need strong anti-discriminatory legislation and an anti discrimination authority with teeth”. Though this sounds nice this is a very cynical way of avoiding the very factors that cause such discrimination. Which is the authority that is going to bring on ‘anti-discriminatory’ legislation? In fact, which is the authority that can bring any legislation in Sri Lanka? Within the authoritarian system (not at all quintessentially democratic), legislation depends on the wish of one single man called the Executive President. All the matters that are mentioned in Marisa’s article such as sheer neglect in providing proper translations, the way the police powers are abused at checkpoints and the like are the product of a system which has lost all internal checks and balances. Therefore the sheer neglect exercised by the authorities concerned intentionally or otherwise, is a product of a system about which nobody can do anything. Therefore to talk about having better legislation and to leave it in the hands of the same accursed system of absolute power as we have had for several decades is just senseless talk.
As for having an anti-discrimination authority with teeth there is no authority in Sri Lanka except for the Executive President who has teeth (and perhaps the military). All that we need to remind ourselves of for this absence is what happened to the 17th Amendment. The president has more teeth than he needs and they are used to bite all the authorities and deprive them of any will to have any kind of independence. So from where will this anti-discrimination authority come from? Again, this is just senseless talk.
Under a normally functioning system the types of discrimination mentioned in the article can be resolved by the officers in charge of various aspects of civil administration. Translations relating to registrations of births and deaths can be done by the registrar of that department. So also are other facilities for providing translations. However, for these things to happen in the normal course of business civil administration needs to be functioning with the required independence. Other authorities like the police and the Attorney General’s Department can do their roles only if there is that independence.
In a country where the state fails to carry out its duties to develop a civil administration on the basis of laws acceptable to ALL such acts of discrimination will continue despite that the internal civil war type condition has ceased. No significant improvement regarding these things can happen until the people themselves can gain the capacity for participation by interventions to replace this authoritarian system through a system of the rule of law and democracy.
Oh my goodness! Is Dayan Jayatilleke saying that Dayapala is a self-taught
political theorist and therefore *less sophisticated * than Jayatilleke, who
is some major European-class political scientist with LSE endorsement!??!
My god.