The ‘National Question’ in a lumpenized nation

Ideological battles are often marked by a deliberate misnaming of things. One could argue that perspective prompts different kinds of definitions, labels and elaboration, of course, but these choices are not always innocent. Some are used so often that they become entities which allow anyone to read them any which way they like. Sometimes, over-use and even the affirmation through word and deed of the polar opposite, not only robs meaning from words, names, terms and such but turn them into grotesque, humorous and ridiculous descriptives. Yahapalanaya, for instance.  

We are talking here about an older term which has been dormant for a while for reasons we shall come to presently: the national question.  

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe used it a couple of days ago while addressing the 125th anniversary celebrations of the Kandarodai Vidyalaya in Chunnakam, Jaffna. He pledged that he would do his utmost to find a political solution to the national question within the next two years.  Where he will be, politically, come July 2021, is of course a question in and of itself, but then again, attempt at anything, political solution or otherwise, to any question national, international or non-national, is not necessarily dependent on location. What’s interesting is the use of the term and the term itself. 

‘The National Question’ has been a proxy for the so-called ‘Ethnic Conflict’ (also definable as ‘The Separatist Problem’ or ‘The Eelam Project’). In ideological battles, such term-choices are a given, one observes. ‘The National Question’ could also be something that speaks to issues of identity and belonging, especially after Independence. 

Wickremesinghe, for example, observing in the same speech that the English cricket team included players of different national origins, opined that ‘the time has come for everyone to think of Sri Lankans as [citizens of] a single nation.’  One assumes he’s implying that people should stop thinking of themselves as Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers etc., or as belonging to different religious communities or, even as they do so they ought to see ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Sri Lankan.’ One need not be one (e.g. Tamil or Sinhala) or the other (Sri Lankan), this too needs to be said. Also, the entire ‘question’ should not be (as it is) reduced to something that derives from a simple and simplistic description on lines such as ‘one ethnicity one vote’ or ‘one religion one vote’. That’s essentially deploying the principle of equality to erase percentages, history and heritage. One observes that many such ‘One Sri Lanka’ advocates are conspicuously silent on such important matters. 

That said, we do have a problem of ‘belonging’. Wickremesinghe implies that the likes of Eoin Morgan and Jofra Archer feel they are truly ‘English’. He may be correct. The question for us is, do Tamils and Muslims, Christians and Burghers feel similarly ‘belonged’? For that matter, do Sinhalese feel ‘belonged’? Do the majority feel they are ‘belonged’ in some form or the other that matters to them, individually and/or collectively? Do we feel properly represented? Who really owns this country? 

If ‘national’ relates to or is characteristic of ‘nation’ or something common to a whole nation, what then is ‘nation’ for people living on this island? You could get many responses here, many of them valid in terms of substantive-weight and indeed, for reasons of political efficacy, appearing even more valid by selectivity, i.e. the play of exaggeration and understatement. 

This is not an exercise is defining to any degree of ‘finality’. However, Wickremesinghe has opened the doors to debate. In the very least, we can use the common sense definitions of ‘nation’ and ‘national’ to raise some questions. Here goes. 

How ‘national’ was Resolution 30/1 of the UNHRC co-sponsored by the Yahapalana Government, considering that it essentially crippled the security apparatus (long, longed for by the movers and shakers of the regime and in particular the then Minister of Foreign Affairs)? How ‘national’ indeed when it includes clauses that make for non-nationals to decide how things are done or not done in Sri Lanka? What’s ‘national’ about policies that clearly compromise sovereignty, wrecks food security and causes ecological destruction? What’s ‘national’ about processes that impoverish vast sections of the citizenry? What kind of ‘nation’ do we have when in the name of religious freedom, certain religious communities teach, affirm and execute tenets that are not only intolerant but make for terrorism? 

What is this ‘nation’ where politics is reduced to a consideration of which party/coalition or candidate gets to sell bits and pieces or entire swathes on account of idiocy, lack of faith in the people, kickbacks or any combination of these plus a lot of other things that make ‘belonging’ and ‘ownership’ meaningless? For the record, let’s mention the following: the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, the Ceasefire Agreement, various deals related to ports and airports, the SOFA and ACSA, Millennium Corporation deal. 

What’s this nation where corrupt, incompetent and clearly traitorous ministers, with the tacit support of their respective bosses, sign agreements that are detrimental to the national interest, whichever way one wants to defined ‘national’ here? What kind of nation is this where we have agreements with other countries that the cabinet, parliament and the general public don’t get to see?  Does ‘nation’ make sense when the state subsidizes capital interests while insulting, humiliating and dispossessing the majority of the people? What kind of ‘nation’ is this where poisoning the soil and the people are cornerstones of agricultural policy? What is this nation which has paid representatives who keep their mouth shut in other countries and in multilateral forums where resolutions are proposed to vilify the nation and her people and/or seek to legitimate narratives that are patently false? Where’s the ‘national’ in that kind of sloth, incompetence and idiocy? 

Marxists talk of a bourgeoisie and a proletariat that does not comprehend their respective class interests. They talk of a lumpen proletariat and could also talk of a lumpen bourgeoisie. We do have, one might add, lumpen nationalism/nationalists, lumpen ‘intellectuals’, lumpen ‘civil society,’ and lumpen ‘professionals’. Put together, a lumpen citizenry and a lumpen nation, one might conclude.

‘Lumpen,’ ladies and gentlemen, refers to that which relates to dispossession and uprooting, i..e cut off (typically) from the economic and social class with which a particular collective might normally be identified. We do not have a sense of ‘nation’ and ‘national’ or rather our ‘leaders’ and ‘representatives’ do not. There’s dispossession. There’s uprooting. If we are a nation, we are a lumpen articulation of one. If there’s dispossession, then re-possession is the order of the day. If there’s uprooting, then re-rooting or a search for rootedness is called for. Such an exercise cannot be expected from the major political parties or their allies. We cannot expect it from the mainstream contenders for the prize (yes!) of the presidency. We might as well look elsewhere.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

[First published in the Daily Mirror on July 18, 2019]

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Foreign policy and the doctrine of ‘conceding walkovers’

Sri Lanka has a severe human resources problem. That’s stating the obvious. Forget bad planning, the absence of an occupational classification, assessment of needs and charting of future requirements in terms of a reasonable view of how things economic and social would unfold; we lost several hundred thousand people over the last 30 years and even if just 1% of the number warranted the tag ‘talented’ it is a massive loss. Had ‘they’ been around, in a country of 22 million, it might have made the difference.

Ok, that’s preamble. Let’s get to specifics. In a country where there’s a severe human resource issue, it is natural that this be reflected in most if not all sectors. The foreign service is no exception. That said, it must be recognized that much of the good work done by our diplomats and indeed the various missions abroad go unrecognized. They don’t brag. They hardly issue media statements. And, anyway, that which has to be done ‘quietly’ does not make for noise. 

Unfortunately, there’s a tendency to berate the diplomats for not getting this or that done or for causing irreparable (harsh word, that) harm by what they do. The larger picture, the constraints, the contexts etc., are ignored. These include political buffoonery, let us not forget. 

There are, however, inexplicable tendencies which need to be flagged. Consider the 41st Sessions of the UNHRC underway in Geneva as I write. Sri Lanka is not on the hot seat, for now, having obtained an extension on delivery with respect to Resolution 30/1. Sri Lanka, however, and like most other nations, is not ‘excused’ from proceedings. 

As a member state, there are issues that we need to address, even if they don’t directly involve Sri Lanka. Representatives of many member states do engage, perhaps in the spirit of the collective endeavor to create conditions for a better human family and also because any determination anywhere can be cited in moves to obtain similar determinations elsewhere. What wrecks the Philippines in 2019 could very well bring down Sierra Leone in 2021. No one can take on all issues and indeed that could amount to spreading oneself thin. Limited resources mean that one has to pick the battles. Showing solidarity can cost, we know this. In a world of multiple inequities, a case can be made for sober pragmatism. 

On the other hand, it would be strange indeed if the representatives of Sierra Leone opted to remain silent when that country is vilified. Well, that holds true for Sri Lanka too. 

One cannot fault the Sri Lanka mission in Geneva for not attending all events organized to level unfair and highly tendentious charges. Side events of such sessions are vent-outlets for the most part. So too are ‘interventions’ by NGOs sandwiched between debates on important matters. The UNHRC probably place little value on 90 second rant-rave presentations. Still, we cannot ignore the fact that such invective does get heard by representatives of member states. This is why, there is a response-opportunity. Representatives typically respond to charges leveled at their countries and in some instances defend friendly nations. Not Sri Lanka, or at least, not Sri Lanka at this particular session of the UNHRC.  

In time slots allocated to various pro-Eelam and/or anti Sri Lankan groups, speaker after speaker uttered absolute falsehoods about Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan mission had nothing to say by way of response. In fact, in at least two of these sessions the mission was not represented by a diplomat. Perhaps they were busy with off-the-limelight work, but any random person listening to the anti Sri Lankan submissions cannot be faulted if he/she went away thinking Sri Lanka is one hell of a country. Literally. 

When a Sri Lankan took issue with the Ambassador of a European country for the position taken, the Ambassador was taken aback and had responded ‘I didn’t know all this’. He had heard one side of the story and didn’t know there were other and more compelling narratives with much better substantiation. 

The only attempt to put the record straight came from a Sri Lankans who used the time slots given to NGOs. J Tenny Fernando, Senaka Rajapakse and Hiru Makewitage representing the Executive Committee of the Global Sri Lanka Forum and several speakers from another organization based in Zurich  made pertinent points which included clarification on absurd claims made by the separatist lobby and also urged the Council to consider the fact that its ill-advised interventions in Sri Lanka with the happy and wide-eyed support of the current regime created conditions for the Easter Sunday attack. A drop in the ocean, no doubt, but a drop sadly made significant by the absolute silence of those who get paid to represent the country’s interests in such forums. 

That’s Geneva. Let’s take Canada.  Now it is no secret that Canada has been almost like the headquarters for the LTTE and its proxy outfits.  For reasons of justifying immigration and as a means of continuing covert criminal activity, such groups have continued to be vociferous. They engage in relentless lobbying of politicians, leveraging a significant vote-bank. 

And so we have politicians such as Patrick Brown, the Mayor of Brampton, talking about ‘the horror of the Tamil genocide. He has pledged to pass a municipal motion declaring ‘crimes against the Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka constitute a genocide’ and declare May 18th as ‘Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day.  The good Mr Brown probably doesn’t known the meaning of the word ‘genocide’. He obviously doesn’t know anything about Sri Lanka, the terrorism of the LTTE and how they held several hundred thousand Tamil civilians hostage.  

He is not alone. Toronto Mayor John Tory issued a proclamation declaring May 18 ‘Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day’. Scarborough-Rouge Park MPP Vijay Thanigasalam recently introduced Bill 104, an Act to Proclaim Tamil Genocide Education Week during the seven days each year ending on May 18. 

We could go on. We could cross the Atlantic and talk about similar happenings in the UK. We cannot fault ignorant politicians in such countries for idiocy. We cannot fault criminal groups in these countries for the uttering of falsehoods and tossing around of wild claims and exaggeration. The issue here can be captured in a single question: ‘What have our diplomatic missions done?’

The truth is, sadly, ‘very little’. Well, THAT could be an exaggeration. In Toronto, they’ve done nothing to counter moves such as the ones mentioned above. What is stopping them? Is it lack of resources? Well, one is required to do one’s best, and if ‘nothing’ amounts to ‘best’ there’s something seriously wrong. Is it that their hands have been tied and their mouths gagged by the Foreign Ministry? That’s possible or even probable, given that this government has on many occasions acted in ways diametrically opposed to the national interest, showing incompetence, servility and sloth of unprecedented proportions.  

When claims go uncontested they become things that can be said in the ‘goes without saying’ manner. That’s not slippage, it’s conceding a fabricated narrative. 

When those paid to do their job are sleeping on things, indignant and patriotic Sri Lankans living in these countries have had to counter the lies. The missions probably do other work that’s useful, so we should not call for their closure.  We should not forget, however, that there have been very proactive missions and diplomats who worked tirelessly to set the record straight.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, anyway, cannot be left off the hook. The regime too.  In the absence of counterpoint the Eelamist narrative is becoming the default story in international forums and in countries like Canada and the UK. Not only is this a travesty of justice, it is an insult on all peace-loving Sri Lankans. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com

[First published in the Daily Mirror on July 13, 2019]

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Dr Shafi Sahabdeen and the proportionality of communalism

I want Dr. Seigu Shihabdeen Mohamed Shafi cleared of all charges leveled against him with respect to unethical and unwarranted sterilization. I want him cleared because I want to believe that our medical profession made of impeccably honorable and competent people. I want to believe that those who graduate from state universities in Sri Lanka learn the relevant skills and show absolute fidelity to professional ethics. I want him cleared because it would help dial down the lunacy among a certain section of the population to see a terrorist in every Muslim.  

Here’s the caveat: IF HE IS INNOCENT.  Here’s another caveat: HE HAS TO BE PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.  Over and above all this, I concur with Prof Hemantha Senanayake, Head, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, who insists that the absence of impartial, speedy and transparent investigation could have a negative impact not only on Sri Lanka’s achievements in maternal care and health but create a situation where people would be afraid to have babies delivered in hospital. 

Let me flag the key words here: impartial, speedy and transparent. I would assume that ‘comprehensive’ is a given.  

The lengthy submissions by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) have been taken as proof positive, irrefutable, absolute and final that Dr Shafi had not blocked the fallopian tubes of mothers on whom he had performed Caesarian surgery, amassed wealth in an illegal manner or maintained links with a terrorist organization.  Having thus concluded, those who are convinced of his innocence have turned their fire on the accusers.  Some have raised the bogey of a massive conspiracy involving women who lodged complaints, even claiming that they have been paid by some ‘somebody’. 

They are forgetting some important facts. First, the investigation is not yet concluded. Secondly, there is nothing to say that CID investigations are always comprehensive and above board. Indeed, in this case, certain salient matters seem to have been ignored. 

On the issue of investigating complaints, CID claims that 468 women (of the 615 who had complained regarding Dr Shafi) had developed complications, but of the 147 complaints investigated, only 13 women were produced before ‘an experts committee’. Two cases, apparently, need to be further investigated while 11 have been deemed ‘false’. In other words, there are 321 cases yet to be investigated and there are questions about two that have already been investigated.  

There are allegations regarding Dr Shafi’s behavior when operating on Sinhala women. There is very personal and emotional elements associated with issues of childbirth and related medical examination. Do these indicate guilt? Not necessarily. 

Dr Shafi’s wife, M.N.F. Imara, herself a physician has pointed out that her husband worked under the supervision of a Consultant. She has, echoing expert views, said that other medical professionals are present in operating theaters. In other words, if he did wrong, then the relevant consultant(s) and others were complicit. However, those who work in such hospitals claim that situations for wrongdoing do arise. It is alleged that consultants often delegate authority to house officers such as Dr Shafi, who, by the way, is not an obstetrician or gynecologist. There is talk of consultants doing so because they engage in private practice elsewhere and therefore could only implicate themselves by revealing all. That, however, needs to be investigated. It does not imply guilt.  

It is certainly disturbing, though, that the CID thought fit not to take into account all relevant statements by the hospital authorities. It is strange also that the CID has not thought fit to do a simple exercise in statistics. The following questions could very well elicit answers that either exonerate Dr Shafi or indicate very strange happenings, short of course of unwarranted, unethical and perverse sterilization: a) How many Caesarean Sections did Dr Shafi perform? b) How many such operations did doctors in similar positions perform during the same period of time? c) What is the ‘ethnic’ breakdown of the patients? d) What is the ‘ethnic’ breakdown of women whose first child was thus delivered and who did not conceive thereafter, in the case of Dr Shafi and in the case of other such doctors? 

It cannot be impossible to find out how many of the 3,479 Sinhalese mothers, 860 Muslim mothers and 33 Tamil mothers did not have children after Dr Shafi operated on them. Of course it could be ‘choice’ but numbers will tell a story, one way or another. We need to know.

I want to know these things. Dr Imara has said that her children are undergoing mental trauma, ‘as they are unable to attend school, due to the threatening situation.” They should not suffer such trauma, but they will until this case is closed and Dr Shafi’s innocent is established.  

Given the circumstances, which of course we need not elaborate but which include the fear, anxiety, doubt and suspicion generated by the Easter Sunday attacks by a group affirming the Islam faith as per their reading of the same, any glaring omissions in the investigation can only make matters worse. The political affiliations of Dr Shafi, the alleged intervention of Rishard Bathiudeen in Dr Shafi’s appointments following electoral defeat, the Health Minister’s tendentious statements with respect to the need for investigation etc., clearly describe a cloud. This cloud needs to be cleared. One way or another. 

There’s another reason that I need to know such things and it is not directly related to the controversy regarding Dr Shafi. Disturbing as it is to extrapolate the actions of a single individual (regardless of overall context) to paint negatively an entire community, even more troubling is the fact that it is not the preserve of a single community. 

A Facebook post claimed the following: 457 houses, 198 business establishments and 70 vehicles belonging to Muslims were destroyed in 36 hours in Kuliyapitiya, Nikaweratiya, Bingiriya, Panduwasnuwara, Wariyapola, Chilaw and Minuwangoda. That’s a large number. The unknown author may have been liberal in the use of the word ‘destroyed’ and in the numbers tossed out, but let us assume he was not. My contention is that even if it was one house or business premises or vehicle that was damaged (not destroyed) on account of the religious identity of owner, it is disturbing. There is, despite all this, the problem of selectivity. Yes, we have to talk ‘comprehensive’ now. 

It’s as though the Easter Sunday attacks did not take place, that some 300 people weren’t killed and 500 were not wounded, churches and hotels weren’t damaged, and yes, extremism so violent that the ‘faith’ factor overrides any ‘provocation’ did not, does not and will not exist on this island! Instead we have ‘gullible or vindictive racist Sinhala women’ enacting an anti-Muslim drama. We have Sinhala Buddhist hordes creating a bogey of unethical sterilization. We have other such ‘extremist’ elements in paintings that have no room for, for example, the almost 200 children who lost a parent on Easter Sunday. 

Well, we do get the large-print disclaimer ‘terrorism/terrorists have no religion’. True, in a sense, but who’s actually buying that and why should anyone buy that, simply because in another sense, it is rank silly and a disavowal of a serious problem that has created an existentialist anxiety among people belonging to communities that the terrorists were clearly at odds with. This is the other problem: there’s lunacy among a certain section of the population to see all Sinhala Buddhists as intolerant extremists and the one and only villainous collective of the sad, tragic and terrible piece that Sri Lanka has become.  

A swift, comprehensive, independent and transparent investigation would go a long way in sorting out these issue because the truth does that, sooner or later.  Anything less than that will not help. What we have though is cherry-picking by those who want to find Dr Shafi innocent and by those who want to find him guilty.  In the case of the first, we have too much ‘politician’ in the investigation and in relation to the latter, a marked reluctance to assume innocence until guilt is proven. We need a Presidential Commission at this point to keep communalism and extremism at bay and of course to ensure that things are not blown out of proportion.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

[First published in the Daily Mirror on July 4, 2019]

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Sri Lanka is POSI+TIVE, I am positive

Avishka Fernando was POSI+TIVE and this made a difference

My friend, the oft philosophical Zalmi Fazeel, has a habit of posting wisdom-drops in social media. Some of it is not all that new, but he puts it in new ways. Makes me think. Makes my day(s).  This morning’s dish came thus: ‘Tip your server. Return your shopping cart. Pick up a piece of trash. Hold the door for the person behind you. Let someone into your lane. Small acts can have a ripple effect. That’s how we change the world.’

It’s but a version of the old North American song with the line about little drops of water, little grains of sand making the mighty ocean and the pleasant land, respectively. Think global, act local, is another way of putting it. Little things add up, sure, and working on that premise can move mountains, so to speak. All true.  

In Sri Lanka, regardless of a long history of ‘doing the little thing’ such as simple acts of thrift and sharing, we have happily and uncritically accepted the Big Project Mentality. We are dazzled (and eventually bamboozled) by grand ideas such as gross national product, per capital income, growth etc., absolutely ignorant of how these terms persuade us to skip/miss the details, the pernicious designs and relevant impoverishment (and not just in economic terms). 

And yet, we survive. We are resilient. I’ve pointed out on many occasions that we are a nation that suffered incompetent, corrupt, slothful governments ever ready to bend before the dictates of oppressor-nations, that we suffered two bloody insurrections put down with brutality that outmatched that of the insurgents, that we suffered a war for close to three decades, and that we suffered numerous calamities natural and human-made including the tsunami. We suffered, but emerged smiling. We know how to resist and when. We know how to obtain the best out of a bad situation. We are a positive nation, in many ways. 

This is why the message currently being circulated by a collective calling itself ‘The Positive Sri Lanka Alliance’ resonates with me. They believe, as I do, that ‘Sri Lanka wins when you think, lead, act, buy and share “positive”.’ Their purpose is simple: challenge the negativity that is crippling the nation by creating a national movement that writes a different narrative and also jumpstarts the economy.

The economists would tell you that the domestic economy would benefit enormously is US$ 500 million was to be spent. This could help businesses improve their cashflow, reduce inventory and maintain employment levels. Money of course does not fall from the sky, and that which comes across the seas come with caveats and chains. There’s a price. It is sometimes called the debt trap. It is by and large a formula or enslavement of one kind of another that’s served in glitter-splashed wrapping paper. 

Submitting to all that would be called the positive thing to do. ‘The only way’ they call it, at times, never mind that the advocates are quickly shifting to paradigms we had for centuries but were vilified as archaic, dysfunctional and retrograde. Now they are swearing by a ‘happiness index’ which boils down to something that’s best captured in a wish expressed in Sinhala, paaduwe innava. Something like ‘minding my own business’ but celebrating a decent if minimalistic way of being.  Doing the must-do things, which are of course those that do not include goodies that need the advertising stamp.  

Recently there was a citizens’ initiative to purchase pumpkins which would have otherwise gone waste due to a sharp drop in prices. People didn’t need to buy an extra pumpkin, but buying one helped keep the pumpkin farmer afloat. That’s doing a small thing and caring for someone else at the same time. One doesn’t have to be stinking rich to do that. In fact, in our country, still, people do help each other in times of crisis, be it a simple matter such as a funeral or responding to a devastating calamity such as the tsunami. We don’t wallow in the negative.  

It’s the same thing with this initiative. We can do the little-drops-of-water number in a million different ways to add that extra rupee into the economy. One thing leading to another taken individually but actually a million things leading to a 500 billion things, each of which is worth a dollar (let’s say).  

This is not rocket science and it is not necessarily new, not as a single initiative nor in terms of scale. We all got together to defeat the terrorism menace. We all got together to help those communities affected by the tsunami. It was not the case that every part of each of these exercises was planned and executed by some overarching central authority. Not everyone had to be told. Then again, we also have the thrift and credit cooperative movement counting over 8000 societies and over 1.5 million members in all parts of the country, where people do plan and execute, help one and all, raise quality of life and add meaning to lives. 

It’s about self-belief. It is about recognizing resources we have been taught to believe do not exist. It is about community and solidarity. It is about seizing the moment, the day, and the future. It is about being positive.

If you want a larger positive-negative story there's perhaps nothing more compelling than the one about Sri Lanka defeating terrorism. For decades (yes!) the entire engagement was marked by negativity. 

The LTTE cannot be defeated militarily. We have to negotiate a settlement. There have to be concessions. Ceasefires. Negotiations. Moderators. The works. That was the noise we heard throughout the eighties and nineties. There came a point when the vast majority of the citizens decided 'enough is enough!' That was the beginning of the end of the LTTE. We were positive. We prevailed. 

Today, however, an obviously clueless government fixated on exacting revenge from political opponents and bowing low before neocolonial masters and mistresses, have allowed the enemies of Sri Lanka to prey on the overall negativity. Rest assured, this will not last forever, and not because they would be replaced by a better lot; the people will find a way out. 

So yes, we can overcome the setbacks generated by the Easter Sunday attacks and sort out the anxieties, fears and suspicions that followed. We can overthrow this corrupt government that has sold the country and the people down the river and ensure also that their ideological twins wearing different colors will not replace them. We can even rethink ‘development’ and design a model that makes sense not just for us but for generations to come. While we do all that, we can uplift the economy too, a project this government is clueless about managing, leave aside improving it.  Just by doing that little extra spending, just by the slight slash in prices, just by being positive. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com.  www.malindawords.blogspot.com

[a shorter version of this article was published in the Daily Mirror on July 25, 2019]

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Blame-shifting will not eliminate threat

The 'blameless' (apparently!)

Politics is about inflating the useful and deflating, ignoring, wishing away or denying the uncomfortable. Some of these things are deliberate and some just issue from that powerful impetus giver, political and ideological preference. Alright, let this be the frame of this article. 

Easter Sunday Attacks. They happened two months ago. It was not about a dozen or so people getting together one evening, chit-chatting for a couple of hours, buying a few bombs from a supermarket, deciding on some random locations and proceeding to execute the explosions the following morning.  

No, it didn’t happen like that. This is why people have to deal with the question, ‘how did all this come about?’  Then there is the additional question, ‘how can we prevent such things happening again?’ The questions are inextricably linked. If we unravel that other overused term ‘root causes’ we can get somewhere because it stands to reason that if root causes are eliminated or the soil is removed or is robbed of fertility, that which is objectionable cannot grow.  

We have the Jihaadists and no, they are not limited to the National Thawheed Jamaath. Jihaadism is an ideology and such are not in organizations contained. So what gives rise to Jihaadism? We have elaborate theses on various Western powers creating such groups, but then again the growth has to be accounted for at some level by a particular religio-ideological soil. The fertilization of such soils can take place in opposition to persecution, real or perceived, and that too is a thesis doing the rounds. 

We could say that things complement one another. We also cannot dismiss the fact that operatives rarely know anything about ontology; they don’t always know who set things up, who funded and trained. Regardless, those who blow themselves up do not do so on account of financial benefits or agreement with the interests of the assumed ‘hidden hand’. The hand they know or believe in is the hand of ‘god’. Their calculation is about afterlife benefits as derived, in this case, by their understanding of a religious faith, namely Islam. 

A comprehensive analysis would have take in all relevant factors, global and local; focusing on one to the exclusion of the other can yield erroneous conclusions. Error-prone too is the predilection for single-reasons explanations. On the other hand, the ‘combating’ while it has to be at multiple levels (again global and local) there is a natural tendency to do what is possible within the limitations imposed by geographical and legal realities.  

Ultimately, locally, the response has to be two-pronged broadly, eliminating a threat and removal of conditions that could give rise to similar threats. The blame game is inevitable. Shifting blame is also a game. It has its uses because it allows the spectators to read the politics and outcome preferences of the players. In any case, blaming is a convenient tool because it implies that the fault is elsewhere, not with oneself.  Even if one is not at fault, pinning blame can have political uses.  It can be used to justify theories one has constructed for oneself. It can be used to obfuscate and distract. 

And so we have conspiracy theories. We have blame-shifting. Perhaps the question should be, ‘shifting from what/who?’ But first let’s tick off the what/who of ‘shifting to what/who?’ 

There are some prominent ‘culprits’ or rather those narratives that seem to be doing the rounds. It’s the Muslims, as an entire community or a majority, some claim.  ‘Radicalization’ is the operative term and all those who have knowingly or unknowingly facilitated are faulted. First, ‘radicalization’ is putrid word-usage. Using it on processes that produce Zaharans and Prabhakarans makes it easy to vilify radicalism and radicals. More seriously, to use a broad brush and the crimes of association and shared culture, attire and faith as reason enough to assume guilt is plain silly. It is a caricature. It feeds fears and pushes people to seek in ‘likeness’ (cultural or religious) comforts that outweigh the risks of ideological association. 

Then we have the usual (and tired) broad-brush-strokes against Sinhala Buddhists. Such theses are buttressed by those who take the position described above, but they have their own steam. They would pounce on Rev Gnanasara’s last-minute piggybacking on Rev Rathana’s upavasaya (which by the way did not target the Muslims) and go to town with it, forgetting the objectives of the upavasaya. ‘Aluthgama’ and ‘Teldeniya/Digana’ are dragged into the story in ways in which the history of Islamic extremism (global and local)  are not. 

There are sophisticated pushers of such theories. Take for example Harini Amarasuriya’s ‘Shifting the blame’ in www.himalmag.com. This is an important and useful intervention which should spark lengthy discussion. For now, in this piece, I focus on the matter of blame-shifting. 

While decrying ‘narratives[that] are replete with broad generalisations and inaccuracies,’ Amarasuriya herself is not far away from wild claims, generalization and inaccuracy.  She speaks of ‘deep rooted racism and elitism within the Sri Lankan polity’. There is elitism and racism, but ‘deep rooted’?  She claims, ‘Without a serious analysis of how the nation-building project in Sri Lanka consistently failed to accommodate minority communities as equals, we will not be able to understand how institutionalised forms of racism in the Sri Lankan polity have produced and maintained ethnic tensions between communities in Sri Lanka.’  So the minorities are blameless and the majority community is the villain of the piece, it follows. Saying it without saying it at its pernicious best. 

Then she says it direct: ‘What exists in Sri Lanka is a clear pattern where the political establishment regularly resorts to the appeasement of the majority, upholding populist nationalist sentiment as a means of deflecting any accountability towards itself.’  That’s rank simplification. A compelling argument can be made about how the ‘political establishment’ has appeased minorities particularly the bourgeoisie but also the formal Muslim political establishment (flagged here simply because the nimiththa here is the Easter Sunday attacks).   

She is correct — we should hold accountable those responsible for the wellbeing and security of the population. But that can also be a blame-shifting exercise. Incompetence, the rift between President and Prime Minister and other related matters, matter. Existentialist angst, extremism and notions of what makes and/or unmakes the nation, matter. However, it is not as though the Sinhala Buddhists or even the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist fringe, as she puts it, put the fear of god into a coterie of Muslims, giving rise to Jihaadism, local and global.  We do, collectively, as she puts it ‘turn to the easier target of blaming’. She believes we turn to the easier target of blaming yet another minority community for just not trying hard enough to be good enough second-class citizens.  

This is happening, she is correct, and it is not something to be applauded. In fact it should be condemned. It is silly to talk about ‘an idyllic past when Muslims were ‘good’ and there were no problems’. It is silly to treat any community as homogeneous. A lot of it falls into the business of blame-shifting, a ridiculous expression of which is the notion that India was behind the Easter Sunday attack.

We need to discuss who we are and who we ought to be. We need to talk about identity and identities. We need to unpack what’s taken to be homogeneous. We need also, at this point, to address the threat. The Jihaadists. The security apparatus. The breeding grounds. Who funded whom. All the factors that produced Zaharan and the NTJ. The entire process and apparatus of ‘education’, training, suicide-readiness and execution. We can and should talk about all the issues and categories that are being flagged, but not at the expense of ignoring the Jihaadists and Jihaadists as though they are entirely a product of something external.  That’s ‘displacement’ is happening and is being orchestrated by blame-shifting of all kinds, including the easy targeting of Sinhala Buddhists whose homogeneity, interestingly, is not talked about at all.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com 

[First published in the Daily Mirror on June 27, 2019]

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The enemy at the gate could be a blessing

Ranjan Ramanayake is an outspoken UNP parliamentarian. He’s so outspoken that sometimes he gets into hot water. Occasionally, though, he is spot on. Just the other day, he was at his blunt best when he took on Mahamood Hizbullah and other Muslim politicians who are all of a sudden playing ‘Representatives of the Victimized Community’ and worse, issuing threats to one and all non-Muslims. Here’s a gist (in translation): “They say they are in fear…aren’t we scared? The attackers didn’t say ‘Buduhaamuduruwane’ or ‘Jesune’…they said ‘Allahu Akbar.’” That’s ‘God (as per the Islamic faith) is greater (or ‘the greatest’).  The Muslim politicians have not shown any remorse or humility about what was done in the name of Muslims by a tiny minority of that community.’'

Make no mistake, the terrorism unleashed on Easter Sunday was planned and executed by those who were (in their minds and in their convictions) of the Islamic faith.  They deliberately targeted churches. They also targeted hotels. The majority of the dead and wounded were of the Christian faith and in the Batticaloa blasts, the victims were mostly Tamils. Sinhalese died. Buddhists died. Muslims also died. Given the rhetoric of the terrorists, given the well-planned and executed nature of the attacks, given the fact that successive governments have turned a blind eye to their operations for well over a decade and that they’ve indoctrinated and recruited hundreds to their cause, it would be folly indeed to assume that they are done and dusted. They, first and foremost, were instrumental in regenerating a nation-wide fear psychosis.  

Ironically and tragically but not necessarily surprisingly, their operations particularly instilled fear among the very community they belong to and in whose name they act(ed), never mind the fact that, arguably, a significant section would not identify with them. Indeed, many Muslims have openly condemned the attack and have named the attackers as the primary source of the anxieties that the Muslims suffered and continue to suffer on account of their actions. I said ‘not surprising’ because following the example of the LTTE, any fear that is generated could, theoretically, facilitate recruitment. Also, given that the ISIS is a global operation, even the decimation of a community could be seen as a worthy sacrifice in terms of the possible broader objective of enhanced recruitment elsewhere.  

It is precisely because of this that regardless of the shameless communalism of Muslim politicians, everyone in other religious and ethnic communities should do everything possible to a) ensure the safety of Muslims and b) to allay all fears they may harbor. It does not matter what their political affiliations are. It does not matter whether or not they were opposed to NTJ, vocally or otherwise. It does not matter whether or not they identify with the Wahhabism that gave rise to the Jihaadists. 

This is precisely why the statement of the Chief Prelate of the Asgiriya Chapter is unfortunate. Indeed, the call for attacking Muslims should be roundly condemned, even as we must treat with suspicion the chapter-verse quotes of the ICCPR by those who selectively do so.  Any statement that generalizes about any community can only aggravate anxieties. They can only agitate the worst DNA strains of the human being. They can only empower the extremists. They can only disempower the peaceful. Fear begets fear. Communalism feeds off communalism. Affirmation of identity does not necessarily mean you have to attack or say anything negative about any other identity based community. We an do without all that.  

And yet, we need to understand that we will have ‘all that’.  We have to work keeping in mind that ‘all that’ is and will be part of the story. Even a cursory read of human history will teach you this uncomfortable truth. This is why we have laws and they are amended from time to time. This is why the business of national security has to be handled by professionals and not politicians. This is why no one should a) take the law into his/her hands, and b) push others to do so.  

More seriously, it cuts a road for outsiders with dubious agenda to write themselves into the overall political narrative. Mangala Samaraweera, a man who does not have what it takes to note that he uses hate speech even when he berates those who do, is small fry in this regard. No, when we have a government that is ever ready to welcome with open arms such operators, the causes for concern are that much more serious and more dangerous than anything that Samaraweera can do; he is but cat’s paw. Cats, ladies and gentlemen, abound.  

For example, just the other day, the European Union mission in Colombo issued a statement of ‘concern’. They are concerned ‘by political and religious pressure being directed at Sri Lanka’s Muslim community which is undermining peace and reconciliation in the country’. They add, ‘prejudiced and unsubstantiated allegations repeatedly published by media serve only to fuel intolerance.’  These views, the EU claims, were shared at a meeting with the Prime Minister. They have urged the President, Prime Minister and all political leaders ‘to reassert the state’s commitment to mutual respect, tolerance, and equal treatment under the law for all, irrespective of faith or ethnicity.’ 

Now the last seems above board, even though the word ‘urge’ is distasteful. This comes, one notes, from a group of nations that are the mothers and fathers of intolerance, racism and religious fundamentalism in roughly equal standing to the worst in that category among any other nation. Interestingly, they’ve taken a leaf from the Hizbullah strategy: ‘everyone is to blame but all Musims are innocent!’ Nothing of the rank intolerance, brutality and savagery of those who started all this. Instead, the media is targeted!

Nevertheless, the EU is only ‘Malli’ in the business of ‘boradiye maalu baema’ (roughly, ‘striking while the iron is hot’). The ‘Aiya’ in all this is the Grand Mother of Meddling. The USA. In the midst of all this, made worse by the fact that this country is being run by most incompetent government in post-Independence history, there are matters that can wreck the nation in ways that the Jihaadists cannot even dream of.

Here are questions that perhaps Eran Wickramaratne and Harsha De Silva (I expect) would answer, since they are ‘the economists’ in this government.

Has the Government entered into one, and is in the process of finalizing two other agreements with the USA? If there has been or is any discussion in this regard, does Cabinet know of it? Is the Government planning to introduce several laws and is at least one of them already in place? What is the final version of the ‘Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)’? Does it or does it now award  diplomatic immunity to US armed forces and civilian employees of the U.S department of Defense and will they be permitted to wear uniforms and carry arms while performing official duties? 

Would the said personnel be permitted to import, export and use any personal property, equipment, supplies, material, technology, training or services in connection with their activities according to the agreement, without any inspection, license, other restrictions and or duties? Can vessels, air crafts and vehicles enter Sri Lanka without any restriction/inspection? Will the agreement become binding the moment “a minister” of the S.L. Government sings a letter of willingness.  What is the status of and the full text of the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA)? What is the status of the full text of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact (MCC Compact)?

These are grave matters. They are causes for serious concern. They ought to generate fear and would certainly do so if these agreements come into effect.  We can retire all our favorite definitions of ‘Sri Lanka’ and ‘Sri Lankans’ (Sinhala Buddhist, Part of the IS Caliphate, Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Religion with the Sinhala Buddhists ‘Rabble’ as Servants of the Kolombians or Colombots).  Vassals we would be. For a long time to come. And the pot shots that extreme elements of various communities take at each other would seem like pebble-throws compared to the multiple violations and depravations we would have to suffer. Remember the Chagos Island and the Chagossians. Haven’t heard of them? Well, that might be our fate too.  

malindasenevi@gmail.com

[First published in the Daily Mirror on June 20, 2019]

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