In any event, it is difficult for me to see in what sense his reflections are a contribution to the understanding of the principle of balance and proportion as it relates to the use of violence in what he has called “the non-state and anti-systemic space.”

I understand even less his claim that as a non-state actor using violence, I am “more likely to respect the notion of ethics than the notion of law.” I wish he had thought fit to demonstrate how this would be so, if as he has claimed the conception of the law was built on “power relations,” which I took to mean the the notion that might is right. In the absence of an analysis I know not how the laws of my society, built as they were on “power relations,” could possibly have perfected my habits of living and thinking in the direction of the idea of proportion, or at least in the direction of the idea of proportionate justice. I only know that without a moral disposition matured by the principle of balance and proportion I will not have the habit of using violence proportionately.

The idea of incontinence has been invoked by others to illustrate the principle that knowledge is not virtue, that the knowledge of the good does not necessarily prevent us from doing wrong, that natural behaviour is transformed into ethical conduct through controlled habit formation. Character as much as knowledge is at the back of the good life. In that sense it is not difficult to understand Aristotle when he says, “we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. This truth is attested by the experience of states: lawgivers make the citizens good by training them in the habits of right action – this is the aim of all legislation, and if it fails to do this it is a failure; this is what distinguishes a good form of constitution from a bad one.”

Or consider the passage which includes the Che remark on “insurrectional violence.” Neither there nor elsewhere could an analytical basis be found by which to judge the soundness of the practice that Che had suggested. It is a practice which in effect tells us “to venerate any form of [democratic] society in itself apart from the safety, breadth, or sweetness which it lent to individual happiness,” to use a borrowed phrase. Perhaps Che was invoked merely to remind us of the fact of “structural pre-conditions” for rebellion or revolution, rather than to be taken seriously in itself as an actual pre-condition.

Regardless, the citing of Che’s remark is apt to be controversial because in the absence of an analysis the remark sounds more ridiculous than sublime. For What would be be the function even of a democratic society or social organisation if it must be venerated apart from the conditions and fields it furnishes for the individual to seek the achievement of the good life? Should “insurrectional violence” be discouraged in an ill-governed, corrupt and opportunity-less society fit only for the dull, the degenerate, or the apathetic to find satisfaction, just because it has a modicum of moral legitimacy due to its observance of democratic forms?

All we know is that it makes no difference to the dregs of humanity whether they have a proper society to function in or not. They are not devoted seeking the fulfilment of their rationality in both thinking and practice. Instead their attention is riveted on the enterprise of life at its animal or non-rational level, and for the robust among them no society could be better suited than a corrupt one to seek a feeling of satisfaction for their blind impulses and ambitions, or to dissipate their time in intrigue, commercial speculation and entertainment.

The citing of Che’s remark was also ridiculous because it had the effect of undermining Dr. Jayatilleka’s own insistence on privileging the notion of ethics over against the notion of the law to define “a way of being” for the actors in” the ant-systemic space.” For he went on to point out that “many so called Guevarists, such as FARC of Columbia and the JVP of Sri Lanka disregarded” their prophet’s very own words.

Yet nowhere was the want of analysis more evident than in the confusion which had confronted at least this commenter by Dr. Jayatilleka’s use of such terms as those of “humanism,” “the hero,” “ethics,” and “universality.”

More on that presently. However, it has to be first said that it does not serve the interest in things intellectual to charge him with sophisticating the truth as some commenters here have done. Psychologising is no substitute for analysis. But I wish he had taken the trouble to explain clearly some of the terms he had used. They might have been obvious to a learned audience. But their usage without adequate signification at a common forum was bound to be confounding for the naive like me who need all the assistance with those powers of linguistic systems consisting of cognitive signs and symbols as well as of non-cognitive symbols and myths with which we struggle to generate ideas out experience which are adequately representative of the structure of the experienced world.

Perhaps the want of adequate signification and analysis is an indication of Dr. Jayatilleka’s belief that ideas are wholly fiction made, that we are free to make what we will of reality guided by our felt needs and longings and aspirations, since the scientific method involves among other things the imaginative manipulation of those signs and symbols of linguistic systems. Knowledge as a free choice of the will is a belief which has been held by serious men of the mind, and believing in it does not make Dr. Jayatilleka any less serious than the seriousness with which he deserves to be taken.

Still it is well to remember that only a Protagorean sophist or rhetor, for whom the man is the measure of all things, would view ideas as tools for those who are masters of the spoken word to gain power over others. For the naive, however, intellectual wisdom is science integrated and fulfilled, and for them there is no greater power which humans can exercise over the world than the power to understand it.
However, no amount of criticism could take away from the effect which Dr. Jayatilleka’s reflections have had on his compatriots. More thoughtful of them are having to revisit a problem that remains one of life’s most vexed problems, the value of the proportionate use of violence as a non-rational method of cooperation.

For there is no question that the use of non-rational methods of cooperation, which includes the use of lies and brute force and the practice of the art of manipulation, becomes necessary in the face of despotism or evil, to forestall the fear of evil and of losing all that we hold dear, to secure the necessary conditions which society is expected to provide for the individual to achieve the good life. Yet the observance of the principle of balance and proportion is demanded of those in the fulness of spiritual maturity, even when they are under some such compulsion to use non-rational methods to gain cooperation. For disproportion is the root of all evil, and civilization reverts to barbarism in proportion as men fail to understand and live by the idea of proportion.

That is all very elementary. They are rehearsed here in the interest of clarity. Dr. Jayatilleka had spoken of “a theoretical absence” in “the anti-systemic space” with regard to both jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Practice does not await theory, nor does the sharing in a sense of good and evil, just and unjust. It is a little curious why he had thought fit to leave unmentioned and unexamined the idea of proportion, save for the cursory remark about containing violence to maintain a moral bond between the ruler and his subject and between the rebel and his cause.

The idea of proportion demanded mentioning, first because he claimed humanism to be one of the cornerstones of his “theoretical intervention,” and second because the annihilation of the LTTE must have been on his mind when he chose to speak on the ethics of violence.

The spiritual atmosphere of the LTTE was such that there could never have been any room for the observance of the principle of balance and proportion. The observance of it, if it fell on any one, fell on the effort to annihilate the LTTE. This commenter at least found an echo of the LTTE’s spiritual atmosphere (as well as one might add of Islamism’s) in the atmosphere of the first century of our era (the first century AD) which was described in Sir Gilbert Murray’s Five Stages of Greek Religion:

“Any one who turns from the great writers of classical Athens, say Sophocles or Aristotle, to those of Christian era must be conscious of a great difference in tone. There is a change in the whole relation of the writer to the world about him. The new quality is not specifically Christian: it is just as marked in the Gnostics and Mithras-worshippers as in the Gospels and the Apocalypse, in Julian and Plotinus as in Gregory and Jerome. It is hard to describe. It is a rise of asceticism, of mysticism, in a sense, of pessimism; a loss of self-confidence, of hope in this life and of faith in normal human effort; a despair of patient inquiry, a cry for infallible revelation; an indifference to the welfare of the state, a conversion of the soul to God. It is an atmosphere in which the aim of the good man is not so much to live justly, to help the society to which he belongs and enjoy the esteem of his fellow creatures; but rather, by means of a burning faith, by contempt for the world and its standards, by ecstasy, suffering, and martyrdom, to be granted pardon for his unspeakable unworthiness, his immeasurable sins. There is an intensifying of certain spiritual emotions;an increase of sensitiveness, a failure of nerve.”

If this be true of the LTTE (or of Islamism), that its violence were borne of a feeling of unspeakable unworthiness and impotence, a failure of nerve, no ethic could ever have prevented its conduct from undergoing extreme deviations from the states of virtue. Whether such such a spiritual atmosphere is something that is read out of or into the life of the LTTE, it is absurd to think that the LTTE had lost the right to its struggle just because it had deliberately targeted “lethal violence against the innocent, the uninvolved and the non-combatant.” A recent headline that ran read: “Kim Jong-il and the Horror that Survives.” Regardless, whatever justification there might have been in the struggle against the LTTE, there is no question that in trying to defend oneself against barbarism one runs the risk of becoming barbaric oneself. This is why the insistence on a sense of proportion in so far as state actors are concerned cannot easily be gainsaid.

There can never be a true coincidence between revolutionary aims and the principle of balance and proportion. This is not to say that there is no role for revolutionaries in the world, save a barbaric one. If history were any guide to what is possible, the study of it would afford revolutionaries how to bring about revolutionary change as much as possible rationally in the light of what is possible. One of the most important “structural pre-conditions” which the American revolution teaches us is that revolutions could succeed without the French-style mob violence and in severing in a novel way the free institutions and methods of liberty that the western civilization has developed, provided the revolutions were led and controlled by men of gentlemanly or aristocratic ethic in fullness of spiritual maturity.

Lesser men are by definition those in whom the principle of proportion has not been adequately realised and integrated, and for them the world is an opportunity for wild adventure and undisciplined experimentation and romantic irrationalism. They are vulgarly celebrated as mavericks or romantics. History is consequently well-stocked with examples of revolutionary struggles from the Caucasus to the Andes led by lesser men for disproportionate ends that have added to the catalogue of human misery, mitigated only by mass migration.

The fact that this comment itself is growing out of all proportion is proof positive that lesser men have no sense of proportion. Yet saying a word about humanism cannot be avoided. For it was in relation to humanism that the idea of proportion demanded to be mentioned in Dr. Jayatilleka’s reflections.

It is said to be a common enough mistake to take humanism to be synonymous with humane behaviour. But Dr. Jaytilleka is no commoner. We must suspect some social nicety or an attempt at rhetorical neatness behind his unusual recourse to a vulgarity. Still there is no question that from Castro to the Cuban revolution’s continued survival; from the political comeback of Tupamaros in Uruguay to some guerrilla movements observance of conventions relating to prisoners of war; from Che’s compassion for the child soldier to the agonies of nausea which attend in sensitive souls the contemplation of the tendency to permanentise violence in the regimes which revolutions establish – in fact everything he held up as “a radical humanism” writ large cannot be construed as anything more than mere humane or compassionate or philanthropic behaviour. Fascism with an Islamic face we are told is not Islam, neither is revolution with a human face necessarily humanism.

It needs but mere common sense to realise that humane behaviour does not presuppose the heritage of humanism. We do not have to make the heritage of humanism our own, before we can act humanely. On the contrary,to have a feeling of sympathy for others, and so far forth be benevolent, compassionate and philanthropic, all we need is an awareness of how chance interferes with aims, events and processes for good or ill. Or, considering life at a more symbolic level, humane behaviour might said to spring from a sense of that humility which is essential to any religion, a feeling that “there is a divinity that shape our ends rough-hew them how we will,” that “man proposes God disposes,” that “many are called but few are chosen.” The phrase “there but for the grace of God go I” which is wont to be uttered in the face of misfortunes and unfortunate suffering of others encapsulates the wellspring of humane behaviour to a nicety. (The notion of “karma” too might have been cited as a cultural reference and a symbolism essential to a feeling of humility, were it not for the fact that the belief in karma have tended to stir an extreme humility of wanting to take refuge in either fatalistic or quietistic apathy among the unfortunate, and an attitude of charity towards none among the fortunate.)

If this be true about humane behaviour, what then is humanism? In thinking about what humanism actually is and is implied by it, this commenter had hitherto been informed by a reliance on the scholarly endeavours of the classical historian and philologist, Werner Jaeger, rather than on primary sources. The most concise statement of Jaeger’s scholarship on humanism is found in his Aquinas lecture on Humanism and Theology delivered in the spring of 1943. Without dwelling on it at length here, it might just be mentioned that the common mistake of taking humanism to mean humane behaviour or philanthropy is distinguished from humanism as paideia, the ideal of culture and the educational effort of the Greeks to perfect the life of instinct, emotion and social passion into the life of reason: an ideal of human perfection which envisages full humanity in the fulfilment of man’s rationality in both thinking and practice.
Humanism as paideia is usually taken to be representative of, among other basic attitudes, values, ideals, or principles, the following:

1. First we have the naturalistic thinking of Greek science and philosophy. This is essentially the insistence that world can be known and understood, and that science or the scientific method is the only means of reliable knowledge of behaviour of things both inanimate and animate, including human. This rational approach to reality which extended to theology (word reportedly invented by Plato), together with man as a thinking or rational animal were the pillars of the Greek culture. Accordingly, the activity of philosophic thought, being the distinctive mark of humanity, was the struggle to see science integrated and fulfilled, its method, as in science, was the never-ending process of going from “what is” to “reasons why” and back to facts – the never-ending confrontation of reason and experience. The history of wisdom was viewed as the cumulative effect of the community of minds to grasp the rationality of the universe.

When Dr. Jaytilleka, invoking modern philosophy, observed that “the crucial question of philosophy is to find a place to dwell,” and mentioned the notion that “philosophy gives the courage to go on,” he essentially indicated the modern life’s point of departure and its break with the heritage of classical humanism. Dr. Jayatilleka does not need someone like me to remind him that the point of departure for philosophy as personal salvation, as “the courage to go on,” as a way of being,” goes as far back as the 4th century BC, although he seemed to have vaguely attributed it to the Christian era, which might have been just to bait the Vatican representatives with an allusion to a Nietzschean mockery of Christianity.

With the exception of some, the better known being, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, historians remind us that that the 4th century BC was era of sophists, of teachers and rhetors, whose humanism was narrowly anthropocentric, where the Protgorean remark that “man is the measure of all things” is the archetype of modern relativism, subjectivism and extreme phenomeanlism, the last being the divorce of being and becoming, of reality and appearance.

This passage in Guthrie’s A History of Greek Philosophy defines the sophistic movement to a nicety: “Nowadays the words ‘success or ‘a successful man’ suggest most immediately the world of business, and only secondly that of politics. In Greece the success that counted was first political and secondly forensic, and its weapon was rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Following the analogy, one might assign to rhetoric the place now occupied by advertising. Certainly the art of persuasion, often by dubious means, was no less powerful then, and, as we have our business schools and schools of advertising, so the Greeks had their teachers of politics and rhetoric: the Sophists.”

The rise of this sophistic movement is considered a symptom of Greek civilisation’s decline. The humanism of older poets were at once anthropocentric and theocentric, but their theology was mythical. Plato is credited with trying to revive classical humanism with a rational theology. As Jaeger points out: when the Greeks discovered man, they emphasised not the subjective self but the universal laws of human nature, with reason as the supreme force of human natter. With them, reason was the divine element in human life. Their intellectual principle was not individualism but humanism. (Dr. Jayatilleka also left unexamined his use of the term “universal values.”)

Philosophy, having culminated in Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De Anima as the scientific quest for intellectual wisdom, began to decline into religious sects. Epicureans, Stoics, Cynics and Skeptics were philosophical in the sense in which Buddhists might said to be philosophical. They were all treading a path to a peace of mind, they were looking for personal salvation, “the courage to go on.” Philosophy as as patient enquiry, the scientific quest for intellectual wisdom, was, with Plato and Aristotle, meant, as the chief delight, for those who have achieved Olympic serenity, remoteness and dignity.

As is well known the era following the death of Aristotle is termed by historians as the Hellenistic period in contrast to the Hellenic period. However, the Hellenistic ways of deliverance had this difference with the moderns: there was no search for “a place to dwell.” The phrase has come to mean that moderns have no place for the mind in the world. To cite the philosopher and the historian of philosophy John Herman Randall, Jr.: “Modern philosophy, since the coming of the science of mechanics in the seventeenth century, has not been able to find any intelligible place for the mind, for science itself, in the world that science describes. It has presented us with a host of impossible theories of ‘mind,’ of ‘consciousness” and knowledge.”

• To return to what actually humanism is. Having first identified the naturalism of the Greeks, second is the humanistic sense of the dignity and the greatness of the human soul. This was embodied in the yearning of man to take possession of the beautiful, and the suffering and the tragic greatness which the process of taking possession of the beautiful involved. The moral heroism, the willingness to sacrifice possessions and honour or social approbation in seeking the achievement of full humanity. The hero of classical humanism was man, in his search for the perfect balance of the human and divine aspects of life.

On the notion of hero too, Dr. Jayatilleka has left the matter for conjecture. It is not clear whether the importance he attached to the notion based on the sense in which the vulgar are said to be prone to admiration and hero worshiping of actual men. The discipleship is said to have been looked upon with distaste and disfavour by the more aristocratic Greeks of classical humanism. The felt need for acolytes was assumed to be a mark of mediocrity with grandiose dreams.

• Third is the humanistic sense of balance and proportion. This Dr. Jayatilleka failed to mention at all. Some are apt to say that the highest imaginative expression of the law of balance and proportion is found in the poetry of Sophocles and the sculpture of Phidias. To cite Jaeger: “It meant an abandonment of the exaggerated violence of emotion and expression that characterised Aeschylus, for the natural poise and proportion which we feel and enjoy in the sculptured frieze of the Parthenon as well as in the language of the men and women in Sophocles… The pre-established harmony of Sophocles’ poetry and Phidias’ sculpture ultimately based on the quasi-religious acceptance of this law of harmony. In fact the universal recognition of the law is ultimately in the fifth century Greece is such a natural expression of the characteristically Greek quality of sophrosyné – a quality whose metaphysical basis was the Greek view of the meaning of all life – that when Sophocles himself glorifies harmony and proportion, we seem to hear manifold echo of his words in every region of the Hellenic world. It was not a new idea; but the historical influence and the absolute significance of an diea do not depend on its novelty, but on the depth and power with which men understand it and live it. Sophocles’ tragedies are the cimax of the development of the Greek idea that proportion is one of the highest values in human life.”

These and more are said to be representative of humanism based on context of the coinage of that word. For the word “humanism” itself is said to be a coinage of the historians of the 19th century whose interest was the learned efforts of the 15th and 16th centuries to revitalise the heritage of Medieval culture in terms of the concepts and ideals found in the classic traditions of Greece and Rome.

All this might be said in pointing to the controversial character of Dr. Jayatilleka’s reflections. Yet he served well the interests of his country when pleaded the country’s case on the grounds of uneven development. For there is no doubt the failure of the traditions of this country to produce leaders of spiritual maturity has been the calamity and ruin of this nation. Others have said pretty much the same thing but in more indirect and subtle ways. A serious and thoughtful man of deep learning like Tissa Jayatilaka (no relation of Dr. Jayatilleka) has intimated in his review of The Sri Lankan Reader elsewhere in GV that even so called educated leaders of this country have been willing to let the genie out of the bottle to gain power, hoping to put the genie back in the bottle once they have reached the heaven’s gate. (It is no accident that Tissa Jaytilaka’s beautiful and angelic wife, Lilani Jayatilaka’s essay in The Reader is on moderation, perhaps not dissimilar in principle to classical humanism’s law of harmony and proportion.) In reading both Dr. Jayatilleka and Tissa Jayatilaka, it was difficult to resist thinking of these words:

“So if the decline of the state is due to lack of culture, lack of harmony between desire and reason in the ruler’s soul (be he one or many), uneducated people must be prevented from influencing government. But in this deeper sense those whom the public thinks of as cultured may well be uneducated: for instance, the clever calculating fellow, the man of quick intellectual reflexes, the witty talker. In fact, Plato seems to think that the latter quality is a symptom of the preponderance of desires in a man.”

Dear Burning_Issue, sorry I did not see your earlier post:

“What is your view on the subject of Wanni and last stand; consider the geography and close proximity to the theater of war and mass civilians. Please tell me that how could GOSL not know about possible heavy casualties of the civilians.”

My stand is based on the answer to the question: what was GOSL supposed to do?

“It is another question all together that how many casualties can be deemed justifiable for task of eliminating the LTTE. Only way you and I can form an opinion on this if we were to know of the true number of the masses perished. How can we know this? Should there be an investigation to establish this once and for all?”

But we come back to the same problem: who will conduct this investigation? The Darusman Panel proved to be incredibly incompetent, making glaring errors that damaged the credibility of the entire Report. If the “Experts” cannot be trusted, then who can?

“Whether you choose to believe it or not, I am an anglicized western-value holding Sinhalese living in the West.”

The “anglicised” part makes sense, it explains your utter ignorance of both Sinhala and Tamil culture and history.

”You’re admitting that you’re ignorant??”
I was.

You still are, you just don’t know it.

“Jaffna out of LTTE control boycotted the 2005 election on the request of the LTTE.”

Kindly desist from making up information when you don’t know the facts. Jaffna in 2005 most certainly was dominated by the LTTE. I was there when SSP Charles Wijewardena was brutally murdered in broad daylight (although I wasn’t there in 2003 when they shot dead T. Subathiran). After MR won the election, the LTTE killed dozens of soldiers in Jaffna through ambush and landmine attacks:

http://www.tamilweek.com/Sixteen_Soldiers_killed_Jaffna_1204.html

”The problem is that now with the LTTE gone, very few of the Tamils are singing its praises the way you are doing, which casts aspersions on your claim that they are your audience.”
Then why would I be Tamil?

Sigh.. because you are one of those “very few” (who happen to be also very loud)??? But you’re right, I have no hard evidence that you are Tamil, and it doesn’t matter. Your knowledge is extremely limited and you are unable to substantiate your claims.

Human,

Apology accepted.
Respect begets respect and vice versa.

You wrote “Historical lands refer to population distribution not political authority “

As stated before, the Kandyan Kingdom reached up to Elephant Pass during Dutch Rule. I placed that fact before you as the source is independent of the Mahavansa, though it is one of the oldest records of history in the world. There is nothing in what I stated that excludes a Sinhalese population in the Wanni. Hence your inference about a non existent Sinhala population in the Wanni is wrong.

This talk of Historical Lands is one of the main issues that stifles ethnic integration. Whose historical lands are occupied by the Indian Tamils in the upcountry? So where does this Historical Land argument leads to? Would you advocate relocating the Indian origin Tamils elsewhere? I would not.

You wrote “(regardless as you say Jaffna was never part of the Sinhala kingdom; why make it now?). “

You are misinformed. Jaffna has been ruled by Sinhalese Kings.

You wrote “Don’t try to teach me about Sinhalese culture. I’m an expert on Sinhalese film and music and easily know more than you. “

Your old habit is hard to control.
Please keep it in check if you want a dignified discussion.

You wrote “Unlike in Sri Lanka, the US, Europe, etc. have independent bodies capable of investigating crimes. Over the last 30 years egregious crimes such as rape and murder of civilian by soldiers has led to prosecution — see Abu Ghraib, etc. It’s not perfect (there may be some cases of neglect) but it’s certainly more reliable than the SL army. “

Criticising Lanka while turning a Nelsonian Eye to the Faults of the West is neither balanced nor objective. This is what the Tamil Diaspora do. This is what people like Burning Issue do. Unfortunately this is what you are also doing.

How many High ranking officers and Civilian administrators have been held responsible in the West for War Crimes and HR Crimes? Face saving inquiries and slap in the wrist punishments given to small fry can hardly be classified as Justice.

Are you aware that a US soldier committing a crime in a foreign land cannot be held accountable under the law of the Land? Are you aware that US soldiers have committed rape on minors in the presence of their parents and then massacred the whole family and burned the bodies in order to obliterate all evidence? Are you aware that the US prevented the prosecution of these criminals under the law of the land where the crimes were committed? In comparison, Abu Ghraib pales in to insignificance. In spite of Obama, Guantanamo still exists. There have been reports of prisoners in Diego Garcia, do we know anything about the goings on in either place?

You have admitted that it is not perfect. Did you stop to think why it is not perfect? Did you stop to think why the standards of Domestic Justice are higher than that of investigations that relate to these gross Human rights abuses committed in foreign lands?

I was in London when a few bombs went off in Public Transport there. The reaction of the UK Govt was very intense and the Police went on a shooting spree killing anyone they suspected of carrying a bomb. No proof was needed, suspicion was sufficient to shoot to kill.

Did you find a comparable reaction in Lanka where bombs in Public Transport was a frequent occurrence?

You wrote “The data of who ordered what in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and who drove the planes that dropped the bombs. The names of the pilots, etc. are known and part of public record. “

And what did those “Independent bodies that you say operated over the last 30 years investigating egregious crimes” do about it?

What is more egregious than incinerating whole cities full of Civilians, the new born, the yet to be born, the children, the women in the many theatres of war that the West was active in?

You wrote “People involved 66 years ago are now dead. Understand? “

Haven’t you forgotten something?

66 minus 30 is 36 years.
Iraq and Libya are current.
The Culprits of World War 2 were living then (even if we assume that they are all dead now)
Your Independent bodies that had the capacity to investigate were operating then.

But Zilch Happened.

So how effective have those Independent investigative bodies been, in taking to account War Criminals and Human Rights abusers and delivering JUSTICE?

Is it your contention that Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden etc are insignificant in comparison to Nanthikadal?

Justice requires Impartiality and Balance.
The Blindfolded Justitia, Holding a Balanced Scale signifies that.

Dear Burning Issue,

I did not claim that the Former CJ Sarath N Silva is a Buddhist Monk and write several posts to try an establish that Canard.

I did not try to spread hateful propaganda by writing LIES to inflame Religious sentiments as you did, when you tried to establish that the Trinco Statue was protected using the constitutional primacy clause for Buddhism when in actuality the Equal Rights Clause that had nothing to do with Religion, was used. You have been trying to fan Religious hatred by resorting to LIES for over two years on GV.

Just 5 days ago you wrote “Please Wijayapala; there is a big, big difference between bombings with the knowledge that there were civilians to bombing with no knowledge of civilians present.”
http://groundviews.org/2011/12/03/reflections-on-the-ethics-of-violence-just-wars-and-morality/#comment-39601

Shamefully, you have taken the position that the Western States BOMBED Cities etc (all civilian centres) without any knowledge that Civilians were present and that Lankan Forces did so with the full knowledge of civilian presence.

My reply to your two faced, double standards on Humanity, stopped you in your tracks, from proceeding further, with your two faced comments.
http://groundviews.org/2011/12/03/reflections-on-the-ethics-of-violence-just-wars-and-morality/#comment-39628

Any time you try to spread hate by writing Untruths, half truths and twisted truths you can be sure that I will challenge you if that comes to my notice.

You further write “I have seen him advocating power devolution but he cleverly obscures his devious plans that it should be on the basis that, the country has altered its demography on the basis of national ethnicity ratio. This means that the Sinhala become majority within the N&E. In my view he is a dangerous chauvinist“

Cleverly Obscures?
Does that mean that you are not clever enough to break my arguments?

I see that you have a problem because Singapore has successfully eradicated Ethnic Strife by doing the exact same thing that I have advocated.
Singapore’s Ethnic Integration Policy is far more stringent than what I have proposed.
Singapore’s EIP has been in operation for over 20 years and is still a live Policy in Singapore.
Singapore also has a substantive Tamil population that has not objected to EIP, even within the protected environment of the Singapore Parliament.
Singapore is the Only country other than Sri Lanka that gives National status to Tamil Language.

Your interest is not living in Lanka without Ethnic Strife but SEEKING POWER over 50% of Lanka’s Land and 66% of her coast line for a minority of 10% and to hell with Ethnic harmony.

Your two faces are amply demonstrated by the above.
So who is a dangerous chauvinist?

Wijayapala,

Can we take India and its states as examples? Although there were many separatist insurgencies in the past so many years they were unable to muster the support of the majority, international community or diaspora. Independent Sri Lanka with a regional rule for the Tamils in 1948 would have made the majority of Tamils satisfied. One who is conscious of the geo-politics should understand that as long as India remains intact a separate country for the Tamils in Sri Lanka is only a dream. In that kind of situation Prabha’s voice would have been a lonely one without a mass support.

Rajapaksha brothers came to power by inciting the dormant nationalist feeling of the Sinhalese Buddhists majority by wining the war against LTTE. Now they can do whatever they wish saying that everythign is being done for the country. People would buy anything they sell suger-coated with patriotism for some more time. If there were no war to be won, Rajapaksha Borthers would not have any ‘unique’ agenda of theirs to present to the public. The whole of the Sri Lankan political scene would have been different if there was no war.

Dear Human,

Do yourself a huge favour by ignoring OTC. He has become very abusive these days; his ostensive attempts to portray him as a moderate Sinhala have been going through some testing times; he failed miserably!

I have seen him advocating power devolution but he cleverly obscures his devious plans that it should be on the basis that, the country has altered its demography on the basis of national ethnicity ratio. This means that the Sinhala become majority within the N&E. In my view he is a dangerous chauvinist.

Off_the_Cuff, please be courteous and avoid abusive language. I’m sorry if I offended you with some of my comments.

[i]Dutch have on record that the Sinhala Kandyan Kingdom extended up to Elephant Pass when they ruled Jaffna. The records are available in the Dutch Archives but then the 19 year old Pontiff says “I don’t have to waste time listening to deflections.” . So where are these “Historical Lands” ?[/i]

Historical lands refer to population distribution not political authority (regardless as you say Jaffna was never part of the Sinhala kingdom; why make it now?). I wouldn’t be against taking up parts of the Vanni that aren’t populated for Lankava but it’s fair to say that the areas with densely concentrated population of Tamils would be their historical lands.

[i]Koheda yanne? Malle Pol.[/i]

Don’t try to teach me about Sinhalese culture. I’m an expert on Sinhalese film and music and easily know more than you.

[c]it]By whom? The UN?
Is that another day dream?[/cit]

Unlike in Sri Lanka, the US, Europe, etc. have independent bodies capable of investigating crimes. Over the last 30 years egregious crimes such as rape and murder of civilian by soldiers has led to prosecution — see Abu Ghraib, etc. It’s not perfect (there may be some cases of neglect) but it’s certainly more reliable than the SL army.

[i]What Data is available?[/i]

The data of who ordered what in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and who drove the planes that dropped the bombs. The names of the pilots, etc. are known and part of public record.

[i]Why? It ended in 1945 just 66 years ago.[/i]

People involved 66 years ago are now dead. Understand?

The rest of your comments revolve around your fantasy that I’m Tamil and therefore support the LTTE. Well I’m not and do not support the LTTE so yeah..

I don’t support the LTTE. Can you comprehend that? I never gave them money or said that what they did was good. :@

And I am Sinhalese. I don’t care what you choose to believe though.