Comments on: Chandrika’s discourse

By: Walter

Walter — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 12:44:26 +0000

Thanga
You are perfectly right.
Raising a sword to defend ones birth right, ones language ones tradition cannot be construed as “Terrorism”
This so called “Tamil Terrorist” terminology was fished out from obscurity by the Sinhala Buddhist Politicians to impose their hegemony.
When the LTTE killed 13 soldiers in Jaffna why did the Government go on a rampage all over the Island.
They should have gone to Jaffna and dealt with the problem there.
They could have kept the rest of the Tamil speaking population out of this equation and this would have contained the outbursts of the world.
The answer is simple
Not all, but many of the Buddhist Sinhala folk were wanting to bring the Tamil man to his knees. They wanted the Tamil man obscured.
JR and Premadasa implied that the Tamil man must be taught a lesson of his life. He must stop agitating and just live as their told.
Even recently Gota said what do you want, you have shops you have houses you have money so what the hell do you want.
Why did they bundle the Tamils out of Colombo in buses?
Why did they burn the Jaffna Library?, merely and purely to destroy the “Pride” the Jaffna Tamils had about their library.
So Thanga
To the average man in this Country killing is simple, the Public outcry is insufficient. Therefore killing a Tamil man a man who has robbed them of the North and East, robbed them by being successful in their Education and business and now demanding equality in the legislature cannot be tolerated and must be totally subjucated or eliminated.
TAMIL MAN IS ALSO BORN FREE BUT IN FETTERS IN SRI LANKA

By: Matupala Silva

Matupala Silva — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 08:57:15 +0000

CBK has not leran many lessons form past,she is still sandstiil of prtaice and knowledge of politics.CBK is poltically economially and socially wavering between pre-capitalsm and remmants of semi-fedulaism system.
No doubt she toe line of neo-colonial policy of US & UK re-orinted NEW POLICIES.She is working on Foreign base AGENDA.

By: Bedrock Barney

Bedrock Barney — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:50:40 +0000

My Dear Heathens, village persons, citizens and retired roman generals! lend me your ears!! The reason to read Dayan is the fact that he writes very well. The form, the structure and the delivery of his prose is of a high standard. He is guilty, occasionally, of ostentatious erudition but that is a common problem among political scientists. The content of his articles are in sync with the (govt)position he holds. It cannot be any other way. CBK said what was required to be said, during the course of the interview with Sanjana. However, there is a huge difference between her “talk” and her “walk”. By that same token Dr DJ can only say something within the overall script. I don’t know, but I highly doubt, given his level of education, that these are his personal views. He has the wherewithal to counter all points raised so far in the comments sections. So if you don’t like the programme, just use the clicker!

By: A Concerned Citizen

A Concerned Citizen — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:39:07 +0000

I do not think Chandrika is right in her statement as re-iterated by Thanga, that “they have eliminated the external manifestation of
the continuing unresolved Tamil people’s problem of this country …” Mahinda Rajapakse has only been able to defeat the LTTE which was the most virulent external symptom of the problems of the Tamils. This defeat has in no way wiped away the sympton of the Tamils of Sri Lanka living in a state of despair in which they lived then and continue to be in now. The terrorism of the LTTE has been replaced with the terrorism of the State. The defeat of the LTTE has only led to the marked increase in the activism of the Tamils in the diaspora. That is going to be the bane of the country and that is bound to proliferate to a frightening degree and make the government of Sri Lanka eventually regret the manner in which it has been treating the Tamils then and now.
As for the Mahavamsa mindset, enough has been said on that matter, and even many Sinhala historians and researchers have decried this tendency. Let us hope that sanity will prevail before Sri Lanka gets deeper into the abyss.

By: Thanga

Thanga — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:36:41 +0000

Dayan Jayatilleka is the cheer leader of
Rajapaksa and Co. To him the armed uprising by the Tamils is terrorism per
se and nothing else. The former President Chandrika Kumaratunga is dead
right when she states “They have eliminated the external manifestation of
the continuing unresolved Tamil people’s problem of this country which was
terrorism but they have not eliminated in any way the deep rooted causes of
the Tamil problem which gave rise to terrorism.” Unsurprisingly, this
statement is not to the taste of (edited out) like Dayan Jayatilleka. He
foolishly thinks that the defeat of the LTTE has solved the Tamil problem.
Since May 2009, LTTE leader Prabhakaran has been proved 100% right when in
one of his Heroes Day Speeches he claimed that “The Sinhala nation continues
to be entrapped in the Mahavamsa mindset, in that mythical ideology. The
Sinhalese people are still caught up in the
legendary fiction that the island of Sri Lanka is a divine gift to Theravada
Buddhism, a holy land entitled to the Sinhala race. The Sinhala nation has
not redeemed itself from this mythological idea that is buried deep and has
become fossilised in their collective unconscious.” (Veluppillai
Prabhakaran, Heroes Day speech 2005) Dayan Jayatilleka is addicted to this
fiction.

By: CINCINATTUS

CINCINATTUS — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:56:54 +0000

In reply to Gamarala. It is somewhat reassuring to find that there are some intelletuals in the belaegured island who can challenge and refute the noxious propaganda disseminated in these blogs. More power to you Gamarala.May your tribe increase!

By: Gamarala

Gamarala — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 03:15:52 +0000

Dayan, might I ask, whether you and Off the Cuff are related? After all, an entire post which is predicated on nothing but nit-picking and pedantry, suggests some familial or intellectual connection 😉

1. CBK’s claim on the figures – The war has indeed taken in excess of a hundred thousand lives in its 30 year duration. Therefore, her claim depends on whether you look at recent history or its entire duration. Why this excessive pedantry in looking only at recent history? Is her meaning any less diminished – that eating Kiribath at a time like that – is inappropriate? Why raise this red-herring Dayan?

2. CBK’s claim that MR broke off the talks in a flippant way – did you miss the part where she said that MR had never offered a serious solution to the problem during said talk? Why is there no mention of that in your “critique”?

3. CBK’s use of an inappropriate analogy – so CBK was stuck for a good analogy – sue me! Why do you go on and on about that, when it should be reasonably evident that she couldn’t come up with the best analogy? Does it diminish anything from her point that no effort has been made to address the root causes of this problem?

4. CBK’s claim that a non-Rajapakase government post-war would have been better – Did she mention anything about the Rajapakses’s doing badly during the war? It was the post-war action that she criticized. Is that invalid? Good lord man, what’s with the sudden inability to grasp the point?

The only valid point in the whole of your post – is that Chandrika did not succeed in selling the “package” during her time, so the chances of being able to sell a “package” after the war might be just as poor. You do not mention however, that Rajapakase being the “darling of the nation”, post war, could very easily have sold whatever the heck he wanted – if he had the will to do it. Why didn’t he?

By: Happy Heathen

Happy Heathen — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 00:59:55 +0000

In reply to Sie.Kathieravealu.

Sie.Kathieravealu
July 29, 2012 • 5:13 pm

A fair comment.

However, ” Tamils are “citizens” of this country.”….not really, according to the list stated in
http://groundviews.org/2012/07/29/tamil-civil-society-memo-to-the-tna-regarding-the-eastern-provincial-council-elections/.

They are citizens of Tamil Ealam.

This is the crux of the problem, conflating of legitimate problems as you have eloquently alluded in the last paragraph with the Tamil Nationhood.

It is very unfortunate considering when majority of the Sinhalese (including Intelligentsia) are for equal rights for all minorities, the Tamil political leadership and the Intelligentsia concentrate their efforts on traditional homeland and nationhood.

I find concepts of homeland and ethnic enclaves are parochial and tribal. To call oneself a Tamil or a Sinhalese is to demonstrate such tribalism in a modern world which is very sad and unfortunate.
In fact it is a downright insult to the citizens of the world

By: CINCINATTUS

CINCINATTUS — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 21:21:09 +0000

How adroitly Jayatilleka avoids discussing the other issues raised by CBK and focuses exclusively on a defense of the cuurent regime.Defeating the LTTE apparently gives a license to do whatever a regime wants without regard to laws,customs and conventions and ordinary decencies of civic life.
I suppose that is the role of a propagandist — of course I mean an official spokesman

By: nathan

nathan — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 14:37:02 +0000

The only thing I find funnier than Dayan talking about pluralism and democracy is Chandrika talking about the same.

Isaipriya of today was but a sequel of Krishanty of yesterday.

(Am sure DJ would justify both with some irrelevant analogy)

As for the body count she accuses at MR’s war, we should also take into account the body count when Jaffna was ‘liberated’.