Election results can be skinned any which way you like

A warm but flawed reading of the 2015 result,

People from the same camp, in terms of who they voted for, can and do come up with different reasons for victory, or if that's the case, defeat. 

For example, some who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa could put his victory down to one or more of the following: a) ineptitude of the Yahapalana regime and failure to deliver on promises, b) the need for a strong and tested leader in the face of new threats to national security, c) perceptions that he was a doer as opposed to a talker (that’s Sajith), d) a strong, determined and well-coordinated campaign as opposed to Sajith Premadasa’s wayward, disorganized effort further marred by in-fighting. 

Others could point to the overwhelming surge in the anti-UNP vote from areas dominated by Sinhala Buddhists and claim that it was a response to unnecessary and endless needling of the majority community by various UNP spokespersons. They could add that lack of clarity on the part of Sajith Premadasa on his arrangement with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) given that party’s Eelamist posturing through conditions offered to and rejected by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was key. 

So it is about strengths of the winner and weaknesses of the loser and/or their respective parties. Strengths and weaknesses can be understood in different ways. How would some one who voted for Sajith explain the outcome?

Some might say ‘he didn’t have enough time to campaign since his party was slow in offering him nomination.’ Others would add, ‘and Ranil Wickremesinghe didn’t put his heart and soul into the campaign,’ even though the party leader has refuted this claim by pointing out that he was asked to campaign in the North and East, which districts he delivered. Whether he was key in this ‘deliverance,’ of course is another matter. Anyway, some inclined to be self-critical rather than looking for scapegoats have argued that there was very little campaigning at the grassroots, that the UNP’s party machinery was rusty, that UNPers were demoralized after the debacle at the local government elections in February 2018, and that Sajith’s ‘I-ME-and-Myself’ did not excite the floating voter, that Sajith had a tough brief to defend considering the (non) performance of the government in which he was a cabinet minister.  

Finger-pointers who are not willing to acknowledge error or blemish, have simply said ‘it’s all because Gota appealed to Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists.’  Some say ‘It’s the BBS’. That’s the Bodu Bala Sena. The BBS and it’s political twin, Ravana Balakaya, following the election stated that the organizations would be dissolved following the parliamentary elections.

‘There you go!’ did someone exclaim? It’s easy to join dots (any which way you like) to prove you point. Still, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya ‘decisions’ are worth commenting on. Now these outfits are considered extremists by some who, interestingly, extrapolate the ‘extremism to the entire Sinhala Buddhist population. Interestingly too, they don’t apply the same logic to the National Thawheed Jamath (NTJ) and the Muslim community. Neither do they pause to compare and contrast the extremisms — the involvement of the BBS in Aluthgama and Digana versus the Easter Sunday attacks carried out by the NTJ.  Cost of damage to property and lives lost could be but are not compared. 

Back to the BBS and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. So is it that the BBS and the Ravana Balakaya, having ‘delivered’ the presidency to Gota, have concluded ‘mission accomplished, we got our man in and our work is done?’ Is Gotabaya a BBS man or Ravana Balakaya man? That would be utterly simplistic. First of all, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya are essentially fringe elements of the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourse. More visible, of course, just like the NTJ, but that’s just one part of the story. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, when he was Secretary, Ministry of Defence, did accept an invitation extended to him by the BBS to be chief guest at the opening of an office somewhere in the Southern Province. That was out of order for a government servant. Does that make Gota a member of the BBS high command? Did the BBS deliver the presidency to Gota?  

The BBS contested the last parliamentary elections as the ‘Buddhist People’s Front’. The total votes polls by that party was 20,377 or just 0.19%. Nation-wide. And that’s ‘push’ enough to decide who would be president? Sobering, ain’t it?

Forget the BBS; was Sinhala Buddhist nationalism the most significant element at the election? Ameer Ali, in an analysis titled ‘Sibling wins, patriarch celebrates and minorities stunned,’ in the Colombo Telegraph, certainly thinks so. 

Ali believes that Ethno-religious nationalism decided the winner. He claims that ethno-religious Buddhist nationalists created and presented an image to the Sinhala public that the two minorities are a clear and imminent danger to national security. He claims, ‘an uncompromising but ultra-nationalist section of the institutionalised Buddhist clergy spearheaded a campaign to deprive the minorities of that privilege and rallied Sinhala Buddhist voters behind Gotabaya, who in their view will be the man to save Buddhist Sri Lanka.’ And, pointing to the fact that Sajith won handsomely in the North and East, but was trounced elsewhere, Ali concludes that it was indeed a battle between the Buddhist majority and the minorities. He says, in the process, that the minorities ‘hoped for a 2015 repeat scenario when their votes decided the winner in a tightly fought presidential contest and threw their support behind Sajith Premadasa.’

On the hand, why doesn’t Ali see that the Sinhalese and Buddhists could perceive an existentialist threat given statements issued by the likes of Sumanthiran and Hizbullah and of course the fact that terrorists from both the Tamil and Muslim communities unabashedly vented against Sinhala Buddhists? He doesn’t play that part of the game, but picks the reverse. It can’t cut just one way, though.

Anyway, Ali’s reading reminded me of an elegant meme created by Shanuki De Alwis just after the January 2015 election. It was a warm interpretation of the result, depicting the North and East embracing/protecting the rest of the country. Indeed, it seemed apt at the time. However, if you looked at the numbers, the story is very different. What the anti-Rajapaksa candidates gained between 2010 and 2015 from these two provinces are dwarfed by what Mahinda lost in just the Southern and Western Provinces. It was not just the minorities that defeated Mahinda in 2015. 

Less than five years later, Mahinda’s brother swept these very same provinces by massive margins. Were people in the relevant districts suddenly converted to the political stance of the BBS (if we believe that claim)? Obviously there are other explanations. Yes, national security was an issue. So was incompetence. Incoherence. Utter confusion. You name it!  That’s all Yahapalana attributes. 

So why say ‘Buddhist’ or ‘Sinhala’ just because of the 6.9 million who voted for Gotabaya happened to be identified in such terms? Sure, they were Sinhalese and Buddhists, but on what basis can anyone say that it is only their ethnic identity and religious faith that determined choice? It’s a bit like saying all those in the North and East who voted against Gotabaya are Eelamists or Islamic Fundamentalists. They voted for Sajith, a Sinhalese, who was in rhetoric far more nationalistic than Gotabaya was, if anyone followed their respective speeches. So Sinhala Buddhist anxieties may have been part of the story, but it cannot be concluded that it was THE story of the election result.

It’s about how you want to skin it, in the end. Minority angst can of course privilege perceptions and hence persuade people like Ali to say ‘we are shocked’. Shocked because you didn’t expect it or shocked because you fear the consequences? Perceptions are real, even if they are not based on facts. You paint a monster and then ‘the monster’ haunts you. You believe your own propaganda. You have a set frame and cannot fathom that that’s not the only one available. You see certain things, choose not to see others and are absolutely ignorant of still other factors. So you go with what you know, throw in anxieties and political preferences/disappointments and get to ‘THIS IS WHAT IT WAS!’  

It’s good to feel good or, as the case may be, to feed one’s anxieties in a masochistic kind of way. That’s however simplistic political analysis, nothing more.  

malindasenevi@gmail.com

This article was first published in the Sunday Morning newspaper [December 8, 2019]

Read more

Sajith, the TNA and the Eelamist Compact

It is simple now. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is reported to have submitted a set of 13 conditions to be agreed upon as the price for supporting a presidential candidate. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has refused to bite. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is reported to be willing to agree to a couple. The United National Party (UNP) has maintain a solid silence. 

The UNP candidate has a steep hill to climb as it is and does not need distractions and kakul-maattu of this kind. First of all, the collectives that voted against Mahinda Rajapaksa (and for Maithripala Sirisena) in 2015 are scattered. The JVP offered tacit support but is going it alone this time. The UNP-backed Sirisena rode on hope. Premadasa has to run against disappointment, disillusionment and even anger and resentment. 

The floating vote that helped Sirisena in 2015 may not back Gotabaya Rajapaksa but if ‘change’ is what prompted them then, it is not something they can expect from Premadasa since he is after all the UNP candidate. To be more precise he was and is a minister in the government that gave us broken promises, the Central Bank heist, a compromised national security regime, nepotism, political patronage, corruption, treachery in Geneva etc., etc.  And ruined the economy to boot.  

The much bragged about ‘Business Forum’ organized to drum up support for Premadasa had a full-house audience, but ‘business’ was sadly not their business. The campaign itself has declined to the point where pictures of the Galle Face rally are cropped and issued as ‘massive crowds attending Sajith’s rally in X, Y or Z’.  

He is struggling to capture the non-UNP sections of the Sinhala vote. The results of the February 2018 local government elections indicate that it is more or less the preserve of the SLPP. Groups fielding people like Mahesh Senanayake and Rohan Pallewatte are more likely to win over anti-Rajapaksa voters who are disgusted with the Yahapalana experiment. 

Sajith needs the Muslim and Tamil vote. It won’t be enough to win, but saving-face is victory enough in diminished circumstances. This is where the TNA’s ‘Eelamist Proposal’ (as we should call it) comes into play.  This is where the support of people like Rauff Hakeem and Rishard Bathiudeen and the parties and community they lead come into play.

Hakeem is in hot water. Rishard always was with his bullish ways. Hakeem’s association with the mastermind of the Easter Sunday attacks, the Islamic cleric Zahran Hashim is scandalous on several counts. First the association itself. Secondly, the fact that Hakeem did not disclose all this. Thirdly, having chosen to keep mum Hakeem sits on a Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to look into the attacks, the worst by any self-defined religious group on ‘non-believers’ in this country since bible-toting colonial rulers destroyed temples and kovils. 

And Hakeem, ladies and gentlemen, along with the SLMC has backed Sajith Premadasa. And Sajith for his part, for all his egotistic chest-beating pronouncements and pledges about national security, has not called Hakeem out on this issue. Sajith is cosy sharing the political stage with Zahran’s buddies. It has been noted. It might not be forgotten. 

The TNA’s Eelamist proposals, however, poses the most vexed of the questions for Sajith.  He has said he is not willing to submit to any conditions, but that was a general statement, applicable to anyone and everyone and therefore no one at all simply because the devil is in the details. One has to be specific about such things. If one is to be taken seriously, that is. That’s hard enough as it is in Sajith’s case. His theatrics may tickle the diehard UNP loyalists, but if that’s what it is all about then he achieves nothing more than getting them to the polling booth, something they would probably have done anyway.  

The conditions put forward by the TNA does much more than tickle, though.  Two options: a) accept them and face the ire of every voter who is against separatism and especially those who are well aware of the multiple calamities spawned by such Eelamist posturing for thirty years, or b) reject them and risk losing the Tamil vote.

The North and East, taken as a proxy for the ‘Tamil Vote’ is not a bloc as such. In 2010, Sarath Fonseka obtained 67% of the vote from these two provinces whereas Maithripala Sirisena upped the anti-Rajapaksa numbers (if you can call that) to the tune of 75%. The TNA suffered quite a slide at the last local government election. This time there is a Tamil candidate and a Muslim candidate as well. Whatever votes they get are votes that are most likely to have been cast for Sirisena in 2015. That’s a number that is going to feature as a negative in the Sajith-Register.  The general disappointments of the Tamil voter (promised so much in gay abandon by the Yahapalanists and largely neglected thereafter) should also be factored in.  

Regardless of these elements of the electoral equation, Sajith Premadasa needs to respond to the TNA. M.A. Sumanthiran, after all, has said that the party’s conditions would be presented to all the candidates. Sajith has to have a chit-chat with the TNA. The transcripts of that conversation have to be made public. 

At some point, someone will ask Sumanthiran or some other TNA spokesperson what the party’s position is on Sajith Premadasa. At some point someone will ask Sajith if he has agreed to the TNA’s conditions. If there’s no clarity, people will draw their own conclusions. Sajith Premadasa cannot be opaque on this. He just can’t afford it.  

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

Read more

Oxymoronic Sumanthiran

This (third) version of ‘Yahapalanism’ appears to be Sumanthiran’s baby. That’s Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran. One might have even said that it’s the TNA’s baby, if one went by a news story where  TNA Parliamentarian and Leader of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) Mavai Senathirajah was reported to have said ‘at present, there is a joint mechanism in place where discussions are held with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) prior to Cabinet of Ministers decisions being by the Government.’  

Sumanthiran has since taken to task the relevant media institution. He clarified thus:  ‘The TNA asked that the Government consult with MPs of the area before taking cabinet decisions regarding those areas, and the Government agreed to do so. This is what the Hon. Mavai Senathiraja said. The news report states that he says there is an agreement between the TNA and Government and that no cabinet decisions can be taken without consulting with the TNA! I said that the Tamil areas in the East should also be included in this mechanism of consultation, but the news item says that I said there will be a North East merger!’ We shall return to that claim, shortly. 

In any event, it’s good that he clarified for otherwise, it would mean that the TNA is an authority that sits higher than the cabinet when it comes to decision-making, which among other things would make senior TNA parliamentarian R Sampanthan’s claims to the Opposition Leader’s post rather silly.  

And yet, he was clearly spearheading the moves to reinstate Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister after he was unceremoniously ousted by President Maithripala Sirisena on October 26, 2018. He called the shots and the calling as well as the shots are captured on camera.  Does that make him de-factor Prime Minister? Close, but we cannot make that claim.

One claim that can be made is that Sumanthran is a crafty operator when it comes to constitutional affairs, if one were to paraphrase a laudatory observation by Prof S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole (see ‘Sumanthiran on wise verbal concessions in the art of negotiations’ published in the Colombo Telegraph in September 2018). The admiration is understandable; Hoole was the TNA’s nominee to the Election Commission. They are misplaced because sleight of hand is pernicious and not a mark of wisdom. 

The article is a comment on Sumanthiran’s ‘C.W. Thamotharampillai Memorial Lecture on September 18, 2018 but Hoole offers an aside: ‘Privately, Sumanthiran once told me that these problems of negotiation should be approached judiciously without being hung up on words that can be inflammatory. He gave the example of the brilliance in Article 18 of the Constitution. While 18(1) says Sinhalese shall be the official language of Sri Lanka, Article 18(2) brilliantly goes on to subvert it saying that Tamil shall also be an official language. If we had been stuck on objecting to 18(1), Tamils could never have been liberated through 18(2). It is an oxymoron like 18(2) that can make Tamils get powers to take decision on those matters that concern our well-being through participatory governance.’

Hoole reports that someone asked Sumanthiran the following questions: ‘Why do you say that federalism is not required? Why are you taking the party against what the people wanted and voted for?’  He then claims that Sumanthiran’s lecture on ‘The extent of federalism today’ was essentially a denial of the the allegations couched in the questions. Hoole makes the argument that Sumanthiran was being smart (or rather, devious) about it the federalist posturing. 

In his response to the fake news item referred to above, Sumanthiran observes the following: ‘[it was] falsely reported that I had stated that with the new Constitution, a separate state would be a possibility. That is completely false, and directly contradictory to what I said! One of the main things I said in that speech was that we should give up the Eelam dream.’

However, Hoole believes that Sumanthiran is ‘hoping for an oxymoron [(like 18(2)]’. He believes that ‘Sumanthiran is gambling on further oxymorons on federalism and the foremost status for Buddhism’ which according to him are necessary ‘to make minorities fell less oppressed and this country more democratic.’ In other words, Hoole is asking the Tamils to understand that Sumanthiran is playing a game, that he’s batting for federalism without using the F-word.  

What Hoole seems to have missed is that Sumanthiran has not balked at using the F-word. Here’s what he said at the Parliament debate on the interim report of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly (as reported in the Daily Mirror on November 2, 2017: We have very clearly stated that Sri Lanka shall be a secular state, and that Sri Lanka must be federation.’

Let’s observe that the Prime Minister has stated that the status of Buddhism (Article 9) will not be amended in any constitutional amendment.  Let’s note also that Articles 10 and 14(1)(e) effectively negate Article 9, very much like 18(2) making 18(1) meaningless.

What’s important here is that even as he denies federalism, Sumanthiran affirms it. Why? Well, Hoole gives us the explanation: Sumanthiran has a penchant to be oxymoronic and it is deliberate, not an accident. Hoole is stretching the meaning of the word, but we’ll let that pass — the intention is clear. 

In that same speech, Sumanthiran argues for the merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces — so much for his self-righteous posturing on people being mislead with false news!  In that speech, following what has become customary in Tamil nationalist rhetoric, insisted on being for ‘a united, undivided country’. Indeed, he said ‘we have gone one step further and said, an indivisible country even in the future.’

So what? Hoole ends his article with the following key observation on which rests the subterfuge of Sumanthiran and his ilk: ‘Words do not matter so long as we get what we need.’

Hoole knows, as Sumanthiran obviously does, that you can throw in words that negate previous wording. Yes, like 18(1) and 18(2). We saw that in the 19th Amendment with respect to the dissolution of Parliament as well and Sumanthiran, interestingly, had a lot to say in the drafting of the 9th, it is reported.

He knows what’s what, Sumanthiran does. He knows he can say one thing and do something else. He knows that it is substance that will count at the end of the day, not rhetoric and not misleading, grey, vague and weak articles in the constitution. 

He does het his knickers in a twist, though. He got them twisted when he said that Buddhists, as per the doctrine, cannot support Article 9, forgetting that as a Christian, following Matthew 5:39, he should not be in politics, arguing for the redressing of perceived grievances through federalism. Maybe he’s actually read the Gospel According Matthew closer than we think, noting perhaps that 10:34 contradicts 5:39 and ‘wise’ about the fact that there’s a lot in the Old Testament to justify horror and the horrific, even terrorism and terrorists (as the TNA did for decades).  

In this instance, though, we must take cognizance only of one fact: Sumanthiran is a master at subterfuge, a man absolutely lacking in integrity. He’s a good politician in this sense. He knows what he wants. He has the Prime Minister’s ear or indeed, he is in a position to manipulate the Prime Minister or twist his arm. He is counting on a play with oxymorons delivering federalism in a way that sets the stage for separation later as per the Chelvanayakam Doctrine (‘A little now, more later’), for federalism in essence refers to disparate entities coming together, implying that they can, if so desired, come apart.  

Hoole is correct, ‘words do not matter’ if desired outcome is obtained. It is clear what Sumanthiran wants. All the more reason to be wary of his words.

Related articles:

The Mangala-Sumanthiran bluff on secularism

Bombs in Parliament need to be diffused 

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawordsblogspot.com

Read more

ඊළමේ කයිවාරු රේඛා සහ බලය බෙදීමේ කෝලම

දුක්ගැනවිලි ඇත.  හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන්ද ඇත. හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන් නිර්මාණය කිරීම ධනවාදයේ අනිවාර්යයකි.  අභිලාෂයන් වැළඳගත් අය සටනට කැඳවීම දේශපාලනිකය.  සුලබය.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කිරීමද, ප්‍රසාරණය කරන ලද දුක්ගැනවිලි වලට අභිලාෂයන් හා කිරීමද දේශපාලනික ය. සුලබය.  මෙසේ දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කල නිසා හෝ ඒවා අභිලාෂයන්ට හා කිරීම දුක්ගැනවිලි වල සැබෑ දිග පළල ගැඹුර නොසෙවීමට හේතුවක් නොවේ.  ඒවා නොවිසඳීම ට ද හේතුවක් නොවේ.  කණගාටුවට කාරණය වන්නේ ආලේප සැරසිලි හේතුවෙන් ප්‍රශ්ණය වෙන අතකට අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම හැරීම යි.  දෙමළ නිජබිම් කතාව ආලේපයකි, සැරසිල්ලකි, සැබෑ ප්‍රශ්නය නොවිසඳෙන තැන ට ඇද දමන.  එබැවින්ම ඒ ආලේප සහ සැරසිලි වලින් සැබෑ දුක්ගලවිල්ල මුදවා ගැනීම අනිවාර්යයක් වේ.  ඉතින් අපි ආලේප සහ සැරසිලි ගැන කතා කරමු.

ඓතිහාසික/සම්ප්‍රදායික නිජබිම් ගැන ඊලාම්වාදීන් මෙන්ම ෆෙඩරල් වාදීන් ඇතුළු විවිධාකාර (බලය) බෙදුම්වාදීන් අඩි හප්පද්දී ඔවුන් හිතා මතා කතිකාවෙන් ඉවත් කරන කරුණු කිහිපයක් සඳහන් කිරීමේ පුරුද්දක් මට ඇත.  දෙමළ ජාතිවාදීන් ගේ ඊළාම් සිතියම පදනම් වන්නේ වත්මන් පළාත් සිතියම මත ය.  එම පළාත් එකිනෙකින් වෙන් කරන රේඛා ඇන්දේ බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය අධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන්.  සුද්දෝ.  ඊළම වේවා, 13 වන සංශෝධනයට එහා ගිය බලය බෙදීමක් වේවා (ෆෙඩරල් සිට ඊළම දක්වා), කතන්දරයට අදාළ ඉරි ඇන්දේ සුද්දෝ මිස දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදීන් නොවේ.  දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදයට එවන් ඉරි ඇඳීමට පාදක කර ගත හැකි කිසිඳු ඓතිහාසික මූලාශ්‍රයක් නැත. අඩුම තරමේ දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදයේ දුප්පත්කම කියාපාන සහ එය එදා සිට පෝෂණය හිඟා කෑ දමිළ බසින් ලියවුන ප්‍රබන්ධ සාහිත්‍යයේ වත් එවන් සාධක නැත.  සිංහලයාට නැති දමිලයාට ඇති 'වඩා පැරණි' ඉතිහාසයක් ගැන විග්නේශ්වරන් වැන්නන් පුරසාරම් දෙඩුවත් ඔවුන්ගේ සිහින දේශයේ 'දේශ සීමා' ඇඳ ඇත්තේ සුද්දෝ.  ඒ 1890 වර්ෂයේ.  [සැ.යු:  ඊලාම්වාදීන් වයඹින් ද කොටසක් තම 'සිතියමට' එකතු කල බව සැබෑය, එහෙත් 'උතුරු-නැගෙනහිර' කතාවට එය අවශේෂ වේ.]

සුද්දෝ එම රේඛා ඇඳීමට ඓතිහාසික මූලාශ්‍රයන් භාවිතා කර ඇති බවට කිසිඳු සාක්ෂියක් නැත.  පරිපාලන පහසුව සඳහා හිතුමතේට කොළ කෑල්ලක ඉරි ඇඳ නැති ප්‍රශ්ණ ඇති කිරීමේ කලාව ප්‍රගුණ කර තිබු සුද්දෝ කියන්නේ මේ රටේ සම්පත් මංකොල්ල කෑ, වෙහෙර විහාර දාගැබ් මෙන්ම හින්දු කෝවිල් කඩා බිඳ දැමූ, ගම් නියම් ගම් වලට ගිනි තැබූ, සිංහල ජනතාව සමූලඝාතනය කල (දැන් කාලේ එවැනි ක්‍රියාවන්ට කියන්නේ 'වාර්ගික ශුද්ධය' කියා ය), මේ රටේ සංස්කෘතිය විනාශ කිරීමට අසීමිත (මුත් අසාර්ථක) ප්‍රයත්නයක යෙදුනු ම්ලේච්ච්ඡ ජන වර්ගයකි.  (මේවා  අමතක වී ඇති හීනමානකාරයින් බොහෝ සිටින බැවින් කිව යුතු දෙයකි මෙය).   අඩුම තරමින් භූගෝලීය හෝ වෙනත් විද්‍යාත්මක සාධකයන් සලකමින් පළාත් වෙන් කිරීමටවත් ඔවුනට විනයක්, දැනුමක් හෝ උවමනාවක් තිබුනේ නැත.   ඉතිහාසයකට නෑකම් කිව හැකි රේඛා නැති බැවින් ඇත්තේ 'තක්කඩි ඉරි' පමණි.  බෙදුම්වාදීන්ට වැරදුනේ මෙතැනයි.  අබවින් 1890 ට පෙර දේශසීමා සහිත රටක ඉතිහාසයක් ගැන ඔවුනට කතා කල නොහැක.

දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදීන් ප්‍රධාන වශයෙන් කාරනා දෙකක් මතු කරති.  එක, දුක්ගැනවිලි.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කලද බලය බෙදා විසඳීමට තරම් ප්‍රශ්නයක් නගන්න නොහැකි නිසාදෝ දමළ ජාතිකවාදීන් 'අභිලාෂයන්' ගැනද කතා කරති.   තේරුම් ගැනීමට අපහසු නැති, සාමාන්‍ය දේශපාලන කරුණකි මෙය.  බොරුව, වංචාව සහ තර්ජනය ඇතුළු තමන් සතු සම්පත් තමන් ගේ (එනම් සමූහයේ නොව, මෙවැනි කෛකතන්දර ගොතා දේශපාලනිකව ගොඩ යෑමට උත්සහා කරන පුද්ගලයින් ගේ) අරමුණු සාක්ෂාත් කිරීම උදෙසා යෙදවීම දෙමළ ප්‍රජාවට සුවිශේෂ වූ ක්‍රමවේදයක් ම නොවේ.  අවුල ඇත්තේ මෙවන් සැලසුම් වලට සුජාත භාවයක් ලබා ගැනීමට උත්සහා කිරීම යි.

මෙහෙම හිතමු.  නිජබිම් යැයි කියාගන්න ප්‍රදේශවල වෙසෙන දමිළ ජනගහනය (සමස්ත ජනගහනයෙන් ප්‍රතිශතයක් ලෙස ගත කල) ට සමාන ජනගනයක් ඇති ජනවර්ගයක් ගැන සිතමු.  එම ජනවර්ගය නියෝජනය කරනවා යැයි කියන ජාතිකවාදීන්ටද කයිවාරුව ඔප්පු කරගන්නට නොහැකි යැයි සිතමු.  ඔවුන්ද දුක්ගැනවිල්ල ට අභිලාෂයන් පටලවා, දෙකම ප්‍රසාරණය කර, ඉල්ලීම් තර්ජන දක්වාද තර්ජන ත්‍රස්තවාදය දක්වාද තල්ලු කලේ යැයි සිතමු.  මේ සියලු තත්ත්වයන් සමග 'වෙනම රටක්' ඉල්ලන තවත් ජනවර්ගයක් මේ ලොව තිබේද?  නැත.  උරුමකම් නැතිව ඉඩම් අල්ලන එකම එක කණ්ඩායමක් ඇත.  ඒඅධිරාජ්‍යවාදීන්.  'දෙමළාගේ ප්‍රශ්ණය' මේ අනුව ඉතා සරල වේ:  ඉල්ලීම සාධාරණය කිරීමේ දුෂ්කර කමේ ප්‍රශ්ණයයි .

ඊළඟ කාරණය 'දේශ සීමා' වේ.  ඊළාම් සිතියම ඇන්දේ කවුරුන් දැයි නොදනිමි එහෙත් එවන් සිතියමක් ඇත.  ඒ සඳහා පාදක වූ ඉතිහාසය කුමක් ද?  දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදී බේගල් වල දේශසීමා ගැන ඓතිහාසික කරුණු නැත්තේ ඇයි?

සී.වී.විග්නේශ්වරන් නම් කියන්නේ දෙමළ ඉතිහාසය (මේ දිවයින තුල) සිංහලයාගේ ඉතිහාසයට වඩා පැරණි බවයි.  පුදුම හිතෙනවා මට නම් මේ 'ඉතා පැරණි' ඉතිහාසය තුල දෙමළ සලකුණු අල්ප වීම ගැන.  කෝ ඒ ඉතිහාසය කියාපාන ඉතිහාස ග්‍රන්ථ?  කෝ නටඹුන්?  උතුරේ සහ නැගෙනහිර ඇති බෞද්ධ නටඹුන් 'දෙමළ බුද්ධාගම' කට සාක්ෂි දරනවා යැයි තර්ක කරන අය ට 'එහෙනම් කෝ දෙමළ බසින් ලියවුන බෞද්ධ ග්‍රන්ථ?' ප්‍රශ්නයට උත්තර දෙන්න බැරි ඇයි?  මේ සියල්ල ට වඩා වැදගත් වන්නේ 'කෝ ඉරි කෑලි?' යන ප්‍රශ්නයයි, මන්ද ඉරි කෑලි නොමැති නම්, 'දේශයකට' සීමා තිබිය නොහැකි නිසා.

මේ රටේ පළාත් නවයක් ඇත.  මේ 'බෙදීම' ප්‍රධාන වශයෙන් පරිපාලන පහසුව සඳහා විය.  වික්ටෝරිය රැජිණ ගේ පාලන සමයේ සිදු කර එකකි එය.  එනම් 1890 දී. එතෙක් රට පළාත් පහකට බෙදී තිබිණ.  ඒ 1833 සිට (සිව් වන විලියම් රජ සමයේ).  ඊටත් පෙර බෙදී තිබුනේ රුහුණු, මායා සහ පිහිටි යනුවෙනි.  'තුන් සිංහලේ' වුයේ මෙයයි (සැ.යු. මෙහිදී 'සිංහලේ' යනු සිව්+හෙළ හි බිඳීමකි, එනම් යක්ෂ, රාක්ෂ, නාග සහ දේව යන හෙළයට අයත් කණ්ඩායම් සතරෙහි එකතුවකි එය).  ඉතින් අර විග්නේශ්වරන් කියන ඉතා දීර්ඝ වූ ඉතිහාසයට අදාළ සිතියම් ඇත්තේ කොහෙද?  දේශපාලන වාසි සඳහා ඉඳ හිට වනන ඊළාම් ධජයේ ඇඳ ඇති සිතියමේ ඉරි කෑලි මොන මූලාශ්‍රයන් පදනම් ව නිර්මාණය කල ඒවාද?  විග්නේශ්වරන් මෙන්ම දෙමළ ජාතිකවාදය දෙසා බාන මිත්‍යාවන් මිත්‍යාවන් බව දැන දැනත් ආසාවෙන් ගිල දමා නැවත නැවත වමාරන බලය-බෙදීමේ ප්‍රේමවන්තයින් ද සාමාන්‍යයෙන් මෙවැනි ප්‍රශ්ණ වලට පිළිතුරු සපයන්නේ නැත.

එහෙත් දැන් නම් මග හරින්නට අසීරු වී ඇත, මන්ද ප්‍රශ්නය අසන්නේ ජනාධිපති තුමා බැවින්.  ජනාධිපති තුමා අදාල පාලකයාගේ නම වැරැද්ද ගත් බව සත්‍යයකි (ඔහු පැවසුවේ රට පළාත් නවයකට බෙදුවේ ජෝර්ජ් රජුගේ සමයේ බවයි).  ඒත් වැදගත්වන්නේ වර්ෂයයි.  1890.  විග්නේශ්වරන් ගේ 'ඈත අතීතයේ' නොවේ 1890 පිහිටා ඇත්තේ.  එකයි අවුල.  විග්නේශ්වරන් තවත් එක බලකාමියෙකි.  ඔහුව අමතක කරමු.  වැදගත් වන්නේ වසර සහ ඉරි කෑලි ය.  වැදගත් වන්නේ ඉරි කෑලි ප්‍රශ්නය මතු කරන්නේ යහපාලන ජනපති බවයි.  ප්‍රධාන පක්ෂ දෙකෙහිම නායකයින් මෙන්ම ජනතා විමුක්ති පෙරමුණ ප්‍රධාන වාමාංශික යැයි කියාගන්න පක්ෂයන්හිද නායකයින් මග හැර ඇති කාරණය සිරිසේන ජනපති තුමා මතු කර ඇත.  මේ ගැන බලය-බෙදීමට ලොල් ඊනියා බුද්ධිමතුන්, වාමාංශිකයින් සහ එන්ජීයෝ කාරයින් කිසිවක් නොකියන්නේ ඇයි?  ඉන්දියාවට කියන්න දෙයක් තියේද? එතකොට එරික් සෝල්හයිම් ලා මොනවා කියයිද?  බ්‍රිතාන්‍ය මහා කොමසාරිස් කාර්යාලයෙන් නිවේදනයක් නිකුත් වේ ද?

ඉරි කෑලි කතාවෙන් ඊලාම් වාදය මෙන් ම "ජනවාර්ගික පදනම්" මත බලය බෙදීමේ බලවේගයන් ද කුජීත වී ඇත.  ඉතිරි ව ඇත්තේ ප්‍රබන්ධ පමණි.  ඒවා ඔස්සේ බලය බෙදීම යනු තක්කඩි කමකි.  එසේ නොමැති නම් ඉඩම් මංකොල්ලයකට පිඹුරුපත් සැකසීමකි.

ඉතින් අප නැවත මෙසේ කියා සිටිමු.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ඇත.  හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන්ද ඇත. හැමෝටම.  අභිලාෂයන් නිර්මාණය කිරීම ධනවාදයේ අනිවාර්යයකි.  අභිලාෂයන් වැළඳගත් අය සටනට කැඳවීම දේශපාලනිකය.  සුලබය.  දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කිරීමද, ප්‍රසාරණය කරන ලද දුක්ගැනවිලි වලට අභිලාෂයන් හා කිරීමද දේශපාලනික ය. සුලබය.  මෙසේ දුක්ගැනවිලි ප්‍රසාරණය කල නිසා හෝ ඒවා අභිලාෂයන්ට හා කිරීම දුක්ගැනවිලි වල සැබෑ දිග පළල ගැඹුර නොසෙවීමට හේතුවක් නොවේ.  ඒවා නොවිසන්දීමට ද හේතුවක් නොවේ.  කණගාටුවට කාරණය වන්නේ ආලේප සැරසිලි හේතුවෙන් ප්‍රශ්ණය වෙන අතකට අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම හැරීම යි.  එබැවින්ම ඒ ආලේප සහ සැරසිලි වලින් සැබෑ දුක්ගලවිල්ල මුදවා ගැනීම අනිවාර්යයක් වේ.  දෙමළ නිජබිම් කතාව ආලේපයකි, සැරසිල්ලකි, සැබෑ ප්‍රශ්නය නොවිසඳෙන තැන ට ඇද දමන.  

Read more

The ‘National Question’ and the vague-speak of Tamil ‘moderates

There are some fundamental difference between moderates and extremists that go beyond the obvious degree of flexibility.  Extremists are upfront, moderates are cagey.  Extremists may believe (even if they don’t say it) that the fact of extremism gives moderates maneuverability and therefore increases the chances for moderates to secure ground.  Moderates tend to believe that the non-negotiability that is inherent to extremism hardens the other side to a point that makes such extraction difficult if not impossible.  

When extremists have the upper hand, moderates are rendered into docile yes-men and yes-women.  When moderates are stronger, extremism goes underground, surfacing only now and then to mark presence.  Extremists use language that is intransigent, moderates keep things vague.  

There is then a symbiotic relationship between the two groups.  The history of Tamil Nationalism (or Tamil Racism/Chauvinism if you will), for example, demonstrates all of the above.  Indeed, if you take the history of Sinhala Nationalism (or Sinhala Racism/Chauvinism, if you will), a similar case can be made.   In this essay I focus on the former, simply because there seem to be some tension between the Tamil ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’ which can give the false impression that they are essentially at odds with each other when in fact they are not. 

The ‘tension’ came into the open with the racist posturing of the Chief Minister, Northern Province, C.V. Wigneswaran.  The ‘moderates’ who have some voice in the Tamil Nationalist discourse were quick to censure.  It was as though they were in damage-control mode.  Some even observed that Wigneswaran’s antics could only strengthen Sinhala hardliners and argued that this would compromise the Tamil project which they probably believed was on the verge of securing some real estate (political and otherwise) from a Yahapalana Government they believe owe them something for winning the Presidential Election, 2015.  They’ve argued that Wigneswaran and other extremists are essentially an unnecessary distraction that robs something from the more important discussion of ‘The National Question’.

‘The National Question’ indeed!  Now that is the Grandmaster (Grandmonster?) of moderate-speak, i.e the Vagueness Device.  Let’s consider a few terms by way of illustration before we proceed.  The unrepentant and unabashed Eelamists (extremists) will say ‘Separate State’, the shy-making Eelamists (moderates) will say ‘Self-Determination’; the extremists use the Eelam-Sri Lanka distinction, the moderates say ‘North and South’; extremists will talk about ‘our/my people’ and moderates will say ‘multi-ethnic’ and ‘multi-religious’ taking care not to mention numbers and proportions; the extremists will say ‘border’, the moderates say ‘border villages’; the extremists will the inalienable rights of Tamil people to Eelam (contoured by lines arbitrarily drawn by the British and indefensible in terms of history, demography and geographic realities), the moderates say ‘The National Question’.  The extremists are upfront about Eelam-need, the moderates blur, tease and deceive — when they say ‘national’ is could imply a reference to Sri Lanka when in fact they are thinking ‘Tamil Eelam’.

The truth is that there are grievances that are enumerable and their resolution do not necessarily require division or even devolution of power.  Indeed, devolution cannot resolve the kinds of grievances that have been articulated and whose articulation is buttressed by substantiation given the demographic spread of the Tamil community.  

Devolving to British-drawn lines is no resolution but in fact could lead to the creation of a truly ‘national’ question in that it could rip the country along ethnic lines that could be much worse than what the partition which created India and Pakistan did.  

But that’s the bread and butter of the moderates.  They have to keep it vague.  Ask them to break down this ‘national question’ and the Tamil nationalism that’s hovering at tongue-tip will pop out, legitimate grievance  will be exaggerated and coupled to unreasonable aspiration, fact will be inflated with fiction-air, history will be obliterated in myth, and history supplanted with source-poor heroic epics, and selectivity will underline the entire narrative. The other option is to distract.  They’ll talk about secularism, the removal of certain articles that privilege Buddhism, the celebration and affirming of diversity by allowing for multiple systems of law (thesavalamai, sharia) and will essentially keep the ‘national question’ afloat when in fact it should be buried if not for anything for it’s affront to intelligence.  

Wigneswaran is a distraction, yes.  He feeds and feeds on the worst sentiments of ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’, both among Tamils and Sinhalese.  He essentially contributes to the postponement of a sober, logical and fact-backed consideration of grievances.  His ‘detractors’ among the ‘moderates’ (or the necessary adjunct of the ‘Tamil Project’ as opposed to fellow articulators of real and unresolved grievances) are worse because they are the frill-makers; frills distract, camouflage and lulls into a sense of false security all peoples of all communities.  

There is a ‘National Question’ (if you want to use the term).  It is the fudging of ‘nation’ and ‘question’ by all Eelamists of all hues and all degrees of flexibility, the extremists as well as the moderates.  It is high time that they are called upon to make list, shake it as many times as they want and submit it to public scrutiny.  

See also: President Sirisena has spoken (on Eelamist myth-mongering)

Read more

Truth and reconciliation must begin with truth, not myth

This article was published in 'The Nation' on May 18, 2010, one year after the LTTE was militarily defeated.  The end of terrorism did not coincide with the end of separatist moves of course.  That project whose military articulation was defeated is alive.  What the end of the war did was to create a space for the necessary conversation about claims and substantiation.  That's an important part of reconciliation.  Today, 6 years later, the key spokespersons for the politics that the LTTE buttressed with terrorism, still prefer myth to truth.  [Read 'The NPC Resolution: both a threat and an opportunity' ]

Pic courtesy irinnews.org

Last week marked a year after the war ended.  There’s been some dispute regarding the exact date and it is quite unbecoming of the claimants to be quibbling about whether it happened on the 18^th or 19^th of May.  What is important is that it happened, it ended, that our children are safe from suicide bombs and explosions, from forced conscription, dismemberment, displacement and death in a war that achieved precious little.  Yes, the celebrations were put off due to inclement weather, but that’s nothing to be sad about.  There are a million reasons to be thankful and a million ways to show gratitude. 

We are talking about a war that dragged on for 30 years.  We are talking about a situation where academics (sic!) argued even as recently as a little more than a year ago that it is wrong to talk of a post-LTTE Sri Lanka.  Some columnists were so ostrich-like (like Kumar David) that they refused to entertain the thought that the LTTE could be defeated. 

Denial is a sign, a symptom of a malady.  It’s about what one wants so badly or is so used to that its absence or non-arrival will not be talked about, thought of or heard.  Eelamists of the ‘Eelam Now’ mode of thinking and operating suffered from this ailment for some time.  They’re slowly getting cured.  Indeed they are more likely to drop Eelam and go for something more realistic and rewarding such as better governance and enhanced citizenship rights for all, irrespective of ethnic identity that that other and more pernicious set in the lunatic fringe of political discourse: those of the ‘Litte-Now, More-Later’ persuasion among the Eelamists. 

I count among these latter set everyone who argues for an ethnic-based and/or language-based system of power-devolution without referring to relevant history, on-the-ground realities (including the fact that some 53% of Tamils live outside the North and East, 64% of allocations for the Provincial Councils go for their upkeep and the salaries of politicians and staff, and claims of historical habitation that are full of holes) and indeed the fact that ‘devolution’ was essentially the TNA manifesto and not that of the UPFA or Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Today, one year later, the focus should be on realities and not myths.  The Tamil community in the North and East have suffered enough without having to become footballs in political soccer games played by their so-called representatives and political scientists (so-called) who would be hard pressed to differentiate between ‘unitary’ and ‘federal’ and would hee-haw if asked which type the Sri Lankan state is, with examples to buttress claim.

The question that remains unanswered with reasonable substantiation is the following: ‘what are the root causes of the conflict?’  A lot of books have been written on this issue.  Discrimination, non-addressing of grievance/aspiration etc have been cited. Left out has been the exploitation of the ‘ethnic card’ by communalists on all sides, the manufacturing of grievance, the exaggeration of claim, the holding to ransom at gun-point and the articulation of aspiration in dimensions that preclude resolution. 

A second important consideration that is fudged by devolution-wallahs is this: what is the connection between grievance(s) that can be established to be real and devolution?  If the territorial claims cannot be backed by history, if the demographic data shows that self-determination issues have spilled over the boundaries of the North and East (or indeed were never contained therein), then shouldn’t reason dictate that resolution must take a form that is non-territorial, and therefore non-devolutionary?

Conflict-End is a good place to soul-search, so to speak.  It is a good place to ask how we got to where we were and how come close to 100,000 people had to die to get there.  It is the place to begin, paradoxically.  And the beginning, as always, is called ‘Root Cause’.  This is where you will encounter grievance and aspiration.  This is where the intellectually slow and politically lazy politician (and political analyst of course) comes to excavate matter that can be abused for petty political gain.  Today, after 30 years, we have to chip away the frills that have got stitched on to root-cause and recover the real article. 

Today there is talk of truth and reconciliation.  We have our own truth-and-reconciliation methods, but that’s ok.  Truth is the key word here.  We’ve had so much embellishment and extrapolation, myth-making and myth-modelling, that it is ridiculous to try and re-coexist on the unsteady foundation that all this has served to set up over the past thirty years.  We have to re-lay the foundation of co-existence. And this can be done only by being honest.  That honesty, given claims have been as much about discrimination as about traditional homeland claim, requires a historical audit as well as an audit about citizenship anomalies.  It is then that we can figure out what kind of measures need to be put in place to correct flaws and prevent extrapolations that lead to the kind of tragedy that took us 30 years to bring to an end.

We must revisit all the pacts that were made, what held and what was fudged and by whom, all the underlying premises and their tenability in terms of historical, demographic and economic worth. In other words we have to find a way of divesting process of the most pernicious elements of politicking, which unfortunately seem to have dominated our post-Independence history.

Are we ready to face the truth, as individual, community and nation?  Are we ready to place contention on table along with substantiation and have a conversation? Or are we going to wobble along on that unsteady and eventually tragedy-facilitating thing called preferred ‘perception’?

If we cannot get past this, we cannot talk about devolution or any ‘lution’ and certainly not solution and revolution. 

The devolutionists must now put up and shut up.  Bring your history, bring the economic logic, bring the relevant demographic data and bring a comprehensive performance assessment of provincial councils.  Leave behind rhetoric, myth, fantasy and relevant models based on these things.  Bring grievance, not whine.  Let grievance wear its true clothes (i.e. skin) and not the disguises it has been decked with for purposes of political efficacy.  The nation is waiting. 

   

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malinsene@gmail.com

Read more

The NPC Resolution is both a threat and an opportunity

Canagasabapathy Visuvalingam Wigneswaran has a lot of opinions.  To him, Velupillai Prabhakaran is a hero.  He is entitled to that view – after all some people swear by god and some by the devil.  C.V. Wigneswaran is not thanking anyone for the fact that he can actually issue statements from Jaffna without getting them vetted by a hooligan.  That’s ok too. 

He is probably the architect of a resolution titled ‘Final proposals for finding a political solution to the Tamil National Question, and passed by the Northern Provincial Council, which he heads.   The resolution (title and content both) could be called presumptuous, tendentious and even hilarious (to some), but then again it is expected, given Wigneswaran’s track record as well as that of moderate (sic) Tamil politicians and political parties.  Moreover, it is a democratically expressed proposal and as such legitimate. 

No doubt the document will be ripped apart for falsehoods, exaggerations and absolute impractical nature of its proposals.  The very fact that the Northern provincial entity assumes the right to speak for the people of the East itself indicates the land-grabbing intent that runs through the document and which of course has framed Tamil chauvinistic discourse for decades and which, let us not forget, is the bread and butter of politicians such as Wigneswaran. 

Some might say (generously) that it is but a product of ‘Sinhala nationalism’, but the truth or otherwise of such claims notwithstanding it is in and of itself a boost for that very same ideology. Nationalisms feed off one another.  It remains to be seen if the ardent critics of Sinhala nationalism who say ‘it is the last refuge of scoundrels’ will call Wigneswaran a crook, rascal, good-for-nothing, blackguard, caitiff, reprobate, villain, mischiefmaker, bad egg, incorrigible, scamp or scalawag. Tribalist too, of course.  

I consider the Resolution both a threat and an opportunity.  It is a threat, because it appeals to the same kind of extremist sentiments that the Batakotte (aka Vadukkoddai) Resolution of May 14, 1976 targeted.  We know that the political processes it prompted ended in the Nandikadaal Lagoon 33 years later almost to the date and that probably 200,000 people had to die. For nothing.  The architects of that Resolution perished in the process, one notes. 

However, the tragedy cannot be blamed on the architects of the 1976 Resolution alone.  That moment constituted an opportunity, as my friend Pradeep Jeganathan mentioned a few years ago.  Anyone can promise a constituency the sun, the moon and the stars, but that alone does not constitute reason enough for casual dismissal.  Regardless of the tall stories, the exaggerations and the out-of-this-world nature of aspirations, democracy calls for a sober and rational engagement with anyone and everyone and especially a political entity that has the backing of any significant segment of the population.  This didn’t happen back then.  There’s no reason why it should not happen now.

One of the main reasons for continuing inter-communal mistrust and even hatred is the absence of dialogue or (in a sense) worse, the reduction of ‘dialogue’ to a shouting match where debating points (half truths) replace logical consideration and rebuttal of claims.  In my view, the NPC has done the Tamil community a massive disservice by a frilling that has all but obliterated legitimate grievances.  When the grievances and aspirations of a community are laid out in the quicksand of fiction, they get buried pretty fast.  But that is a problem that the particular political community has to deal with.  The question is, what is the Government going to do about it?

The easy response is to say ‘anyone can say anything’.  That’s being said, by the way, by way of alleviating the apprehensions of the Sinhalese and to mitigate possible political opposition.  On the other hand, that kind of dismissal, coupled with little or no serious engagement, gives legitimacy to the claim that ‘the Sinhalese (sic) ignored us’.  True, you can’t ask for the moon and in the event that the request is rubbished or ignored, there’s no logic in saying ‘we asked democratically and there was no response, so we are taking up arms’.  However, it is important that even those who consider all this a bluff (and I count myself among such people) respond less with emotion than with reason.  The Government, for its part, must engage as a matter of utmost urgency if not for any other reason than the violence which non-engagement with the 1976 Resolution helped precipitate.

Simply put, the NPC Resolution has to be considered line by line, from preamble to proposal with all the ‘recollections’, ‘notes’, ‘acknowledgments’ etc. therein. We need to separate fact from fiction, history from myth, evidence from conjecture, so that the preamble is shed of all rhetoric and frill and the true dimensions of the so-called ‘Tamil National Question’ can be obtained.  Thereafter, everything in the proposal predicated on frill and rhetoric, will have to be rewritten or abandoned. 

This is not and should not be a yes or no matter, it is not and should not be something to be either embraced or dumped in a waste paper basket.  It has to be accepted not as the ‘basis for negotiation’ but an articulation of a particular position.  For example, the Resolution refers to the Thimpu Principles as being ‘cardinal’.  There is nothing ‘cardinal’ in anything except those documents that seek the preemption of discussion.  This is, unfortunately, such a document, but given histories referred to above and most importantly the fact that the Government is mandated to ensure the security and wellbeing of all citizens, such careless wording has to be treated as ‘inevitable’ from the likes of Wigneswaran.  The Tamil people as well as the rest of the population cannot be made to pay for the violence that such carelessness can engender.  For this reason and this reason alone, Wigeneswaran must be indulged. 

Let the NPC Resolution, then, be taken as an opportunity to have the discussion that has not taken place, i.e. the exercise to determine the true dimensions of grievances and pave the way for the resolution that such determination alone can yield. 

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. www.malindawords.blogspot.com.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene.  

Read more

A tutorial for federalists

Three senior TNA politicians, R Sampanthan, M Sumanthiran and S Sridharan are reported to be on their way to Britian to study the power-sharing arrangements in that country.  This reminded me of an article I wrote for the Sunday Island more than 10 years ago when a team of Parliamentarians went to Brussels to study federalism.  Re-posting because I believe there are relevant lessons.
 

Ranil Wickremesinghe has realised one thing. He knows he can promise heaven and earth to Anton Balasingham in Oslo, Thailand and goodness knows where else, but at the end of the day he has to come to parliament and talk "co-habitation" because promises have got to be translated into constitutional enactment. And for this he needs the numbers.

There are two ways of obtaining the numbers. He could obtain public support for one’s proposal in 
overwhelming proportions so that the opposition will be politically forced to toe the line. This "option" is out as far as Ranil Wickremesinghe is concerned because the "peace" lie has lost its currency. This is why he has to go for the second option, that of buying/convincing the opposition. This is the secret of the everything-paid tours that have been arranged for PA parliamentarian so that they can benefit from the best lectures on federalism around.

There is nothing wrong in people studying federalism or anything else for that matter, not least of all because studying anything is something that parliamentarians never do. Getting idea-less people who know nothing of historical process and historicity lectured to about these things is a good strategy because the chances are that they will swallow the line whole, ill-equipped as they are to offer counter arguments.

There is another side to the political equation, however. If politicians make up one side, on the other side there are the people. Ranil has lost the people. This he knows. What he might not count on is that people are better students than politicians. They will listen to federal proposals, look at federal models and if there are holes to pick in these arguments they will pick them. They will do this objectively and empowered with an historical perspective, the things which politicians lack most.

Our politicians are touring Europe, "studying" federal models. There are four such "models"; Italy, Austria, Germany and Belgium. Apparently, our political worthies are going to design the political solution to our "ethnic" problem after considering these models. As the eventual "beneficiaries" of these deliberations, it would be useful for us to study these models and the historical contexts within which they were developed.

Let us start with Italy. In Italy, "the problem" was referred to as "The Roman Question". It arose in 1870 when the newly formed kingdom of Italy annexed the Papal States. The issue was resolved through the Lateran Treaty in 1929, signed for King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and for Pope Pius XI by Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, papal secretary of state. The agreements included a political treaty, which created the state of Vatican City and guaranteed to the Holy See full and independent sovereignty. Also agreed on were a concordat establishing Roman Catholicism as the religion of Italy and a financial arrangement awarding money to the Holy See in settlement of all its claims against Italy arising from the loss of temporal power in 1870.

At the end of the day, what does the Italian Constitution have to say? Article 5 says that "The Republic, one and indivisible, recognises and promotes local autonomy, it shall apply the fullest measures of administrative decentralisation in services dependent on the State and adjust the principles and methods of its legislation to the requirements of autonomy and decentralisation. Let’s talk about Italians now. Ninety eight per cent of them are Roman Catholic. Everyone speaks Italian. The people are 100% ethnic Italians. It is a homogenous country in this sense. The constitution reflects the socio-political-historical picture.

On to Austria. It is a federal state, made up of 9 autonomous states, all German-speaking in a country where 99% of the population is ethnic Austrian. Historically a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, when it became a republic, the states made up of ethnic Austrians came together to create present-day Austria. Article 8, pertaining to the official language says, "German is the official language of the Republic, without prejudice to the rights provided by federal law for linguistic minorities. In a nutshell, it is a mono-ethnic, mono-lingual state with an 80% population of Roman Catholics.

How about Germany? The Federal Republic of Germany is a federal union of 16 states. A region with a long and complex history, Germany did not become a unified nation until 1871. Before that time, Germany had been a confederacy (1815-1867) and, before 1806, a collection of separate and quite different principalities. Protestants live primarily in the North and the majority of the Protestants are Lutherans and they make up about 37 percent of the people. This is what is key: It is an almost 100% ethnic German state, and everyone, including the Turks (4% of the population) speak German and in fact have been naturalised to speak German. It is basically a mono-ethnic, mono-lingual and mono-religious (Christian) country.

Finally we have Belgium and there are good reasons why I left this for the last. In Belgium there are two distinct communities. In the North, there are the Flemish who speak Dutch and in the South the French speaking Walloons. Flemish outnumbered Walloons, but French was the language of the upper classes who controlled much of Belgium’s wealth. Thus, Walloon interests were disproportionately represented in the government, and only the small segment of the Flemish who were bilingual could participate equally. The expansion of suffrage began to redress this imbalance, forcing the government to accord equality to both languages when transacting official business.

The Walloons have inhabited the region now known as Wallonia for thousands of years, descending from an ancient Celtic people known as the Wala. The historic Flanders region (the Flemish North) was an economic power during much of the Middle Ages, and included parts of what are now the Netherlands and France. When Belgium gained its independence in 1830, it retained from this historic region only the area that became the provinces of East and West Flanders.

Wallonia was not recognised as a region until the early 1960s, when Belgium was partitioned along historic language lines (with the exception of the city and suburbs of Brussels, which remained bilingual). Between 1970 and 1993 constitutional revisions transformed Belgium into a federal state, with most governmental authority devolving to Flanders and the other two administrative regions, Wallonia and Brussels.

Belgium’s history could have unfolded in other ways. For instance, the South could have joined France and the North, the Netherlands, based purely on linguistic considerations. Being neither Dutch nor French, ethnically, they chose to remain separate.

So, in summary, in Belgium we have a union of two states, made up of the Dutch speaking Flemish and the French speaking Walloons. However, they have one thing in common; the vast majority of them (80%) are Catholic. There will be no wars, no crusades. "Ethnic harmony" is guaranteed, because they are beholden to the spiritual leadership of John Paul II.

Let’s summarise these findings. In Italy, we have a mono-ethnic (Italian), mono-religious (Roman Catholic), mono-lingual (Italian) unitary republic. Then we have a set of mono-ethnic (Austrian), mono-religious (Roman Catholic), mono-lingual (German) independent states coming together to form Austria. Germany is a mono-ethnic (German), mono-lingual (German), mono-religious (Christians of various denominations) federation.

Now we come to the real focus of Ranil’s Federal Tuition Exercise: Belgium. In the end, it will be the Belgian model that will be considered. This is why we should compare the Belgian example with Sri Lanka. Belgium and Sri Lanka are roughly equal in size and both have (on the face of it) a North-South issue on linguistic and ethnic lines. This is where the comparisons stop.

Personally, I like the Belgian model. It is the product of historical geo-political realities expressed in the form of a constitutional document. Like in Austria, Germany and Italy, it is the representation of the true state of affairs, not a historical fabrication or an imposed "geo-political reality".

What of the Sri Lankan case? Just as the historic Flanders region (Flemish North) was an economic power during Middle Ages, the Sinhala Nation was during the same period (Anuradhapura-Polonnaruwa) a flourishing economic power. Like the Flemish in the North outnumbering the Walloons, the Sinhalese outnumbered the Tamils. We had a rich Tamil upper class dominating politics, the public service and the economy at the time of Independence. Like the Belgian Walloons. They controlled much of the country’s wealth. Tamil interests, like those of the Walloons were disproportionately represented in the government and the public service and only a small segment of the Sinhalese who were bilingual could participate equally (just like the Flemish). In Belgium this historical anomoly was corrected through federalism. After Independence, this skewed political culture began to correct itself. What federalism would do, is to reverse this and re-entrench the anomaly.

In Sri Lanka, furthermore, the "issue" does not "enjoy" a similar history or historical span. In Sri Lanka the geo-political-historical reality was one where the Sinhala Buddhist Nation flourished from Nagadeepa to Deegawapiya and from Mahatitta (Mannar) to Gokannatitta (Trincomalee). The evidence is irrefutable. The Sinhalese, however, made two historical mistakes. The first was when the Dutch and Portuguese traders were harassing the Muslim traders. When they ran to the Sinhala king, he granted them relief. Traders became "temporary inhabitants" then "permanent residents" and later "refugees". Now they are claiming a historical mono-ethnic/mono-religious enclave and are moving towards a separate state.

The second historical mistake was when the British decided to plant coffee. The Sinhalese could have worked in the coffee plantations (and later tea), poisoned or otherwise sabotaged the destructive enterprise. Instead, they refused, making room for the influx of indentured labour from Tamil Nadu. Today, the descendants of these Tamils who arrived after 1853 are also making "traditional-homelands" noises. These plantations were set up consequent to evicting the Sinhalese from their ancestral lands and destroying the forests that they had preserved for centuries.

In both cases, the Sinhalese cannot blame the Muslims, Tamils, the Dutch, the Portuguese or the British. They were/are merely pursuing their self interest. The Sinhalese ought to have pursued theirs. The Sinhala leaders and the clergy of that time, instead, colluded with these invaders and betrayed the Sinhala people.

Things could have been much worse. When coffee went into decline during the 1850’s and 1860’s, successive governors undertook an ambitious task of rehabilitating the complex tank systems that existed the North Central and Eastern Provinces. This began in 1855. Governors such as Hercules Robinson and William Gregory intensified this effort. The objective was to develop paddy cultivation in the Vanni, Ampara, Polonnaruwa, Ganthalawa (Kantale) and Mahatitta areas. These areas, by that time, were sparsely populated. There was a large land mass, countless acres of abandoned paddy fields and a dilapidated irrigation network. They used the Indian labour in these regions to begin the shift from coffee to paddy. Fortunately for the Sinhalese, a tiny insect called Anopheles struck a cohabitational arrangement with the malaria parasite to drive away the invaders. Had this not happened there would have been nothing for Balasingham to discuss in terms of "political realities". The Sinhalese would have been an almost extinct minority.

These are mere facets of how the "ethnic equation" came about. The historicity, however, is not easily obliterated. Unlike in Belgium, the Tamils don’t have any historical basis comparable with that of Walloons or the Flemish who have been living in those areas for thousands of years. In none of the four "federal cases" under study was an immigrant or transient population granted autonomy. In our case, the Tamils either came to grow tobacco (for the Dutch) or coffee and tea for the British. The Muslims came as traders. The Sinhalese built this civilisation and all the archaeological remains in every nook and cranny of the country (and especially in the North and East) and the irrigation works similarly scattered all over the island stand as incontestable evidence of continued Sinhala presence. That they are no longer the dominant community in some areas is due to systematic evictions due to invasions beginning from the Anuradhapura period right up to the recent exercises carried out by Prabhakaran.

The "Belgian Way" proposal can only be met with a two-word response: "NO WAY". There is nothing wrong with federalism per se. It works, but only when the political and historical realities and antecedents point to such arrangements. Sadly for Ranil and for Balasingham, our history and our political reality do not extrapolate towards federalism. In Sri Lanka, the indisputable historical fact is that of an unarmed peace loving peoples continuously subjected to the terrorism of successive invaders. Accepting the product of such violent processes amounts to one thing. Abandonment. Of the Sinhala people. It is possible that Ranil is too poor to do anything else, but we are not.
There is another "way". The solution to a political crisis is best obtained when a truly representative body engages in a frank discussion. All this time politicians have ruled the country. It is high time that they give way to human beings. I once again reiterate the need to establish a "Constitutional Commission" representing all segments of the citizenry. The result of deliberations engaged in by such a body will necessarily be representative of historical and political realities.

The monopoly enjoyed by the politician in constitutional reform has to be done away with. Constitutional reform has been a business for the politicians. We have had parliamentary select committees, all-party conferences, individual pacts between politicians, and now study tours in the name of familiarisation, all of which soak up large amounts of public funds. They have had serious political repercussions as well. This has to stop. Citizens have to put a stop to this.

Sarath Amunugama and others need not have gone all the way to Brussels to study federalism or the Belgian model. Someone could have breathed a simple word in their ears, "libraries". However, now that they have gone, I would like to ask them one question (and of course Ranil and G.L. Peiris and anyone else can also answer it if they like): "Where does history start for you?" Is the answer 1983? 1956? 1948? 1853? 1815? 1505? For me, it goes back at least until Pandukabhaya. Belgium, ladies and gentlemen, resolved its case based on a history that for them began in the Middle Ages. In any case, Sri Lanka’s history does not begin with the demarcation of High Security Zones or the mapping out of "traditional homelands" of Tamil separatist imagination.

Read more