On Civil Society's Dayan-angst

When news broke out that Dr Dayan Jayatilleke was nominated by President Maithripala Sirisena to be Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Russia, the immediate reaction for those (still) loyal to the President and/or the Prime Minister were thrilled. This is because Dayan was widely seen as a staunch backer of the former President and more crucially his brother Gotabhaya. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has not announced that he would contest the next presidential election but the Yahapalana regime or rather some of its key spokespersons are certainly treating him as the man to beat. 

So when Dayan ‘switched camps’ as the nomination indicates, it was probably seen as a move that weakens the principal opponent. Dayan himself has been critical of Gotabhaya after the last ‘Viyath Maga’ show, arguing that his economic policies were no different to those of the United National Party (UNP). So thrill, as such there is, can be justified. 

Now it seems that other sections of the yahapanala camp are upset by the nomination. A group of so-called civil society representatives have written to the Secretary to the High Post Committee of the Parliament, urging him to reject the nomination (click here for petition).  

Two things need to be clarified before we proceed. First, the above contention that this letter was authored by Yahapalanists needs to the substantiated. The contents of the letter not only hurrahs the Yahapalana ‘change’ but is absolutely uncritical of the present regime, its incompetence, corruption and even subversion of the ‘yahapalana’ doctrine. Secondly, this is not a defense of Dayan, because a) Dayan can defend himself and does not need any help from anyone, and b) this is less about Dayan than about the intellectual poverty of the signatories (many of whom are actually academics!), their undisguised malice and utter ignorance about international relations.

A possible third note would be that Dayan and I have had lengthy debates in the print media on two occasions. We disagree vehemently on several issues although at times our views have coincided.  

With respect to this nomination, only the following questions need to be asked: Are all other ambassadors more competent than Dayan? Did these signatories object to other such appointments, for example the appointment to London of the Prime Minister’s aunt, considering the cardinal principles of good governance that they seem to espouse? If Dayan’s track record as per political loyalty is an issue did these signatories howl in horror when the President brought into Parliament through the National List people with similar loyalties (and this after they had been rejected by the people in an election!)? 

Now, to the letter.  The signatories claim, ‘under the Rajapaksa regime (when we) experienced unprecedented levels of violence targeting civilians, civil society, media and other dissenting voices.’  There was violence, certainly, but ‘unprecedented’? Surely, these ladies and gentlemen are old enough and/or literate enough to know of the brutality that engulfed the country in the eighties? 

They say that Dayan took a ‘hostile position and deliberately targeted those who held a different vie to his own at the Special Session of the UNHRC in 2009. Now hostility can be read into any kind of disagreement. Sri Lanka took up a certain position, some stood with Sri Lanka and others did not. So were those against Sri Lanka’s position ‘hostile’? Of course they were. So what’s the beef here? They talk of ‘divisive lines’. Surely they know that it is rarely that any UN agency comes up with a unanimous position on anything? They are upset about the ‘unity’ of the UNHRC. Do they expect the UNHRC to always come up with 100% agreement on all matters?  

Then they say that the line Sri Lanka took at the session, ‘ultimately ran counter to Sri Lanka’s national interests.’ What these ‘national interests’ are they have not said.  They say professional diplomats have ‘argued convincingly that the line espoused by Dayan and triumphalism about his ability to “win” a resolution congratulatory of Sri Lanka’s execution of the war galvanized Geneva actors whose concerns had been cast aside by the Sri Lankan delegation.’  

Interesting. As far as I can remember, Dr Jayantha Dhanapala was the only professional diplomat who took issue with Dayan in public. Dayan responded with cogent objections. There was no outright winner in that debate as far as I can tell.  Yes, Dayan was ‘triumphal,’ and that’s not very ‘diplomatic’ one can argue. However, what would these people have preferred him to do? Endorse the position taken by those who voted against Sri Lanka? Power comes, as some of the academics who signed this petition would know, from making others inhabit your version of their reality. So, for example, the USA says ‘This is what Sri Lanka is, and you Sri Lankans better believe it,’ and Dayan, then, had he said ‘Yes, sir/madam’ would be a hero? 

The assumption here is that those who went against Dayan were always on our side. The USA? The EU countries? India?  Friends? Really?  Yes, there were several resolutions that were adopted by the UNHRC against Sri Lanka. The USA was clearly the principal mover in these efforts. The USA has now called the UNHRC a cesspool of hypocrites. That was BEFORE this ‘civil’ society actors wrote this petition. So much for the lovelies whose ire Dayan earned!  

They conclude that the 2009 session ‘had a negative impact on the unity of the UNHRC and its impact on human rights globally.’ Wow! Dayan must have been quite a character if he could single-handedly divide the UNHRC and thereby negatively impact human rights the world over. Don’t these people have a sense of proportion, one has to wonder!

Dayan failed to get the French Government from voting against Sri Lanka in these resolutions when he was Ambassador to France. That’s incompetence in their book.  Now France was not the only country that voted in these resolutions. Sri Lanka has missions in most of the countries that voted. Did these petitioners, as individuals and/or as a collective call for the recall of those in office at that point on grounds of incompetence? Have they checked if some of these diplomats are still in the foreign service and if so have they called for their sacking?  

The petitioners say they were relieved ‘to see President Sirisena and the coalition government reverting to a more conciliatory tone where there was recognition of past abuses and the need for genuine reforms towards reconciliation.’  This was based, they say, ‘on human rights being fundamentally a domestic issue, in recognition of the rights of all of Sri Lanka’s citizens rather than a game played with the international community.’ 

That’s great. However, are they so blind that they do not understand that human rights IS IN FACT a game played BY the international community or rather who play it in the NAME of the international community? If it was indeed a domestic issue they should have objected to Dayan tabling the resolution and to the USA-led group for tabling censuring resolutions thereafter.  They are not pushing the ‘domestic argument’ to its logical conclusion.  Strange!  

Towards the end they talk about ideology. They claim that ideologically Dayan and that which shaped the ‘change’ (of January 8, 2015) ‘are poles apart’. Have they been sleeping since January 8, 2015. This government, today, as a coalition and its constituents is quite at odds with the January 8, 2015 ideological moment, if you will.  

They talk of allies.  They say that Dayan had a personal agenda and it had detrimental consequences to Sri Lanka among its most important allies. Dayan does talk a lot about himself and his deeds, but that’s not the issue here. The key word here is ‘ally’.  Allies are those who support you, especially when others are against you. The USA was trying the give the LTTE another lease of life, do these people know? India was never an ally. The UK, another ally? Surely, at least some of the signatories to this petition knows something of colonial history, the plunder of resources, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide and such? Surely they know what the USA has done and is doing all over the globe in the name of human right and democracy?  

Of course there was ‘detrimental consequences’.  On the other hand, they were never our friends, were they?  

Finally they warn that Dayan might damage the current administration. Are they saying that this current regime should be protected? If so, why?  If so, they are in fact saying that they are worried about the political fortunes of a corrupt, confused and incompetent regime. 

Perhaps they should challenge Dayan to a debate on international relations, those resolutions, the supposedly fragile nature of the UNHRC or about the true meaning of words and terms such as good governance, allies, competence, domestic issues, international community and so on.  

Better still, they should re-read their statement with the help of those among them who teach English in our universities.  They might be embarrassed but then again the learning will help in the long run. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com

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The management of insecurities

Dayan Jayatilleka has made some pertinent points regarding conflict resolution and the seemingly vexed issue of Tamil grievances/aspirations and relief sought in an article titled ‘Constitution-making and the North-South political cycle’.  

I have an issue withe the term ‘North-South’ so let me first get it out of the way.  It is a ‘break’ that has been used frequently enough to give it legitimate political currency.  Erroneous, however.  It has come to the point of ‘goes without saying’ which automatically assumes ‘came without saying’ and therefore pushed deliberately.  What does ‘North’ taken for and what is ‘South’?  They have acquired proxy status for Tamil and Sinhala respectively and imply, following the geographical reference, a land that is divided by a line moving from West to East where the ‘North’ is of (and a legitimate claim of) Tamils and the South of the Sinhalese.  

A geographical '50-50’ by way of the easy fracture 'North-South' is a gross distortion of historical and demographic realities.  Language, needless to say, is not innocent.  

With that out of the way, let’s consider the implications of Dayan’s more serious and more legitimate contentions.    

“Even today, there is no Tamil progressive or moderate tendency in or outside Sri Lanka that is willing to denounce the LTTE, Prabhakaran and Tamil Eelam openly.   Tamil politics has remained self-referential and pan-Tamil in character. Tamil nationalism is psychologically separatist even when it isn’t politically separatist.”

The above claim is followed by an expression of disappointment regarding the lack of interest on the part of Tamil politicians to forge a bloc with ‘Southern’ progressives.

Theoretically, a Tamil chauvinist or even nationalist retort could take the following form: ‘Sinhala politics has remained self-referential in character. Sinhala nationalism is psychologically unitary-fixated even when it talks devolution.”  It follows that a Tamil version of Dayan’s lament regarding ‘Progressives’ is also possible, although that would still leave us without an answer to the question ‘What is progressive?’  

Even if we were to put aside the strong objections based on history, geography, demography and doability to the Tamil separatist project and all devolution proposals that do not take issue with current political boundaries for their arbitrariness, their implicit subversion of separatist claims, the very existence of positions as detailed above gives credence to Dayan’s claims about things intractable and therefore the necessity of ‘management’.  

This is why I am in agreement with the first part of Dayan’s vision expressed as follows: ‘Sri Lanka could (should?) draw up a New Social Contract in which national minorities are integrated on the basis of equal citizenship and non-discrimination while assured of a reasonable sufficiency of autonomy through the devolution of power within a Unitary State.’  The reservations about the second part (regarding devolution) is principally on the issue of boundaries and economic logic of the same.  As mentioned above and as stated by President Maithripala Sirisena the current boundaries upon which the separatist map has been crafted, with quite some stretching on the Western coast were arbitrarily drawn by the British.  Secondly, given the reality that close to half the Tamil population live outside the so-called ‘Traditional Homelands’, devolution cannot assume to resolve any ‘Tamil issue’ in and of itself.  

Power-devolution is theoretically a democratizing proposition, but in Sri Lanka’s context, given the intractabilities mentioned above, it is a non-starter or, as the 13th Amendment proved, guaranteed to trigger bloodbaths and generate further complications, primarily because the foundational logic is flawed and therefore the edifice is necessarily weak.  

A different kind of devolution might make sense, for example one where the entire provincial boundaries are re-drawn in a way that makes sense in terms of geographical realities and takes into account current resource anomalies among the existing provinces, but again that’s not even an element that anyone is willing to entertain, leave alone discuss.  

This brings us back to ‘integration on the basis of equal citizenship and non-discrimination’.  That is a tough cat-belling, so to speak, but right now it’s the only logical starting point.  It would be about guarantees.  It would have to take into account the issue of religion and the ‘special place for Buddhism’.  Not easy since histories count, historicities count and these things have eminent toy-value for extremists and real, on-the-ground relevance.  

For example, would the removal of the tokenist privileging of Buddhism in the Constitution accompany an erasure of customary laws that are relevant to Islam and those relevant to Tamils who can cite the Thesawalami Laws?  Would we discuss the pruning of customary ‘Buddhist holidays’ from four to three (the sathara poya to pun-poya) and the privileging of Christian holidays (Sundays — 52 of them)?  

It is not easy, but it is a discussion that has to take place simply because resolution is for the most part about managing and balancing insecurities, whether or not they are legitimate.  That’s where the audit must begin and not with rhetoric.  And that’s exactly what has not happened.  This is why solutions (like the 13th) fail(ed).  The true dimensions, in other words, of all the relevant issues have been ignored.  There are no mechanisms proposed to ascertain these.  Small wonder that the entire reconciliation exercise is floundering.  In the absence or rather the improbability of magnanimity by all (and not some) the players in the story. 

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

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Co-sponsorship means outright capitulation

John Kerry playing Governor?

‘It could have been worse’ is not a victory claim. It is but the whimper of someone who believes he got a consolation prize. President Maithripala Sirisena says ‘it could have been hundreds of thousands of times worse had Mahinda Rajapaksa won on January 8.’ He was referring to the US-sponsored resolution on Sri Lanka. This was a week ago. 

He is correct. The final draft is not as odious as the one circulated a few days ago and even that one would appear to be less ‘serious’ that what one might have expected following UN Report on rights violations and other matters during the last stages of Sri Lanka’s struggle against terrorism. 

The hurrahs, of course, have to wait the measurement of the content against implications for sovereignty. Sure, in the 21st Century we can only speak of ‘degrees of sovereignty’, but then again there is a bottom line to everything. Take the people out of the equation of decision-making and it amounts to capitulation to the country that poses the greatest threat to world peace, the USA. There are no ‘degrees’ there. 

The watered down version, so-called, raises several questions. First of all the fact of watering-down implies that these exercises are fraught with integrity deficits. The entire process was flawed and this has been well established. However, if one assumes that politics and outcome-preferences did not color report-writing then watering-down implies ‘deals’. In other words terms such as truth, justice, retribution and such are but sanitizers for what is essentially a game about control. It’s about interest and those who are willing to play along. Ask Noam Chomsky — he will tell you what US foreign policy is all about. 

Secondly, in both preamble and operative articles that compromise the whole notion of a ‘domestic inquiry’. Sure, as Ranil Wickremesinghe says, judges have to be appointed by the President or the Constitutional Council, but let us not be fooled into believing that his role would be anything more than rubber-stamping US nominees from the Commonwealth and other countries. The resolution would have Sri Lanka pass retroactive legislation notwithstanding the fact that the US constitution specifically prohibits ex post facto legislation. The point will not be made, we can rest assured. We have, after all, a Foreign Minister who called the UN Report ‘fair and balanced’ and as such can be sure which side he’s batting for!

Thirdly, as Dayan Jayatilleka points out, ‘we are asked to try and punish those who saved us from terror and reunified our country in Special Court with foreign judges; those who gave weapons and equipment to the Tigers will decide the fate of those who fought them and gave political leadership to that fight.’

Fourth, if what Dayan envisages does materialize a dangerous precedence is created that makes human shields a far more potent instrument for terrorist all over the world.

Fifth, it will do nothing to concretize inter-communal harmony and national reconciliation. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) is saluting this resolution. The TNA speaks of victims. The TNA doesn’t seem to understand that every citizen of this country was a victim and even those unborn at that time are victims; terrorists not only engaged in mass murder but also wrecked the country’s economy. The TNA, as mouthpiece and the legal voice of the LTTE, is listed in the perpetrators’ column, as are the 11,000 plus LTTE cadres released without trial in the previous regime’s ‘general amnesty’ in all but name.

Finally, and most worrying, is the decision by the Government (if we go by US State Secretary John Kerry’s assertion) to co-sponsor the resolution. Co-sponsorship in effect amounts to an affirmation of the preamble and an undertaking to operationalize these.

The President is correct in saying that things could have been worse. The previous regime erred and it’s President Sirisena’s unfortunate lot to make the best out of a bad situation. He should learn, then, from the errors. Co-sponsorship would be an error because it promises what is patently impossible to deliver. In the end operationalizing has to happen within the framework that is made of the constitution, the Parliament and the sentiments of the people. The last of course can be ‘obtained’ by presumption, but not the first two. 

So let the Resolution come. Let us not panic. Let us engage, by all means. But let us not agree to rule out meaningful engagement by the very fact of co-sponsorship.

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Options for the Opposition

Dayan Jayatilleka in an article published in the Colombo Telegraph (How a weak opposition could still play it smart) offers that the Opposition is actually helping President Mahinda Rajapaksa secure a third term. 

He claims that the Opposition has picked the wrong slogan, that of ‘constitutional change’ when ‘it has little prospect of acting as a rallying cry among millions of rural voters’.  But even if the Opposition got the slogan right, it has got the candidate wrong, Dayan argues.  As things stand of course, the stand out figure among the pretenders is Ranil Wickremesinghe who, according to Dayan and many others is the weakest of all candidates against the President.  Furthermore, Dayan argues that the President will win against any candidate that the Opposition puts forward, so in and of itself Wickremesinghe contesting is not an issue.  

In this scenario, Dayan advises the Opposition to use the Presidential Election as a springboard to target ‘the weak link in the chain of regime hegemony, which is lodged in its real base: the parliament and the two thirds majority’.  Ideally, the ruling party would be defeated and this would stop ‘an oligarchic-securocratic or oligarchic-militaristic Iron Curtain (descending) upon post-election Sri Lanka, behind which a garrison state will grow and a dark age will settle’.  That’s Dayan with his usual doom’s day conclusion-flourish.

In an earlier piece titled ‘The Uva effect and the Presidency,’ written just two weeks ago, Dayan made a case for the UNP putting forward someone other than Wickremesinghe. He tossed out two names, Sajith Premadasa and Karu Jayasuriya, and argued the former’s case.  He didn’t claim that Sajith could win, but that he would help secure moral points in a loss that narrows the gap between regime and Opposition.  He seems to have shelved Project Sajith (for the moment), but can’t be blamed for arguing that any momentum gained even in a losing cause at the Presidential Election could help the Opposition in the Parliamentary Election that is most likely to be held immediately afterwards.

There are lots of ‘ifs’ in Dayan’s analysis of post-election scenarios.  There are lots of ‘wants’ too.  He would ideally have ‘the main Opposition goes into the parliamentary election under a new, populist-patriotic leadership which can achieve two things at the same time: (a) re-profile the Opposition so it looks newer and younger than the UPFA and (b) neutralize the regime’s monopoly of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism.’

That re-profiling, according to Dayan, would see the Opposition using the Presidential Election to raise consciousness and employing ‘Sajith Premadasa, Sujeeva Senasinghe, Harsha de Silva, Eran Wickremaratne, Rosie Senanayake, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sunil Handunetti, Vijitha Herath, Wasantha Samarasinghe, Lal Kantha and Tilvin Silva in a pincer move’.  Ranil Wickremesinghe and Karu Jayasuriya are left out of the picture.  Ravi Karunanayake and much of the UNP’s ‘Leadership Council’ are out too.  So re-profiling would essentially be a Sajith-led affair. 

Now ‘newer and younger’ doesn’t guarantee anything.  J.R. Jayewardene was not young in 1977, for example.  As for ‘pincer moves,’ it’s not names that count but the numbers behind the names.  It is not that each JVP leader mentioned here comes with all the JVP supporters. Together they bring all -- separately they don’t bring additional numbers. Harsha, Eran and Sujeeva are intelligent and eloquent but they are all voice-cut politicians.  Sajith has great appeal but not only is he not his father’s son in this respect he is divisive, arrogant, fixated with his political future and is a puppet of two prominent media moguls. 

In a post-Presidential situation, whatever momentum gained loses to election-fatigue, demoralization, additional electoral swing towards the winner and the scrambling of coalition. Going by history, the UNP would be distracted by yet another Unseat-Ranil effort which, given that the man is far more shrew than people make him out to be and is backed by a For-Ranil party constitution, would give nothing but take much from ‘re-profiling’.  It would be optimistic to stake it all on an unlikely reversal. 

    

The solution (a tough one of course) would be to look for an alternative candidate who doesn’t look like Sarath Fonseka (a sure ‘loser’ that saves face).  Alternatively the Opposition should dig in for the long(er) haul associated with regime-change.  Such a choice would not see anyone getting too excited about the Presidential or Parliamentary Elections.  To the extent that these elections can be used, it would be about enlarging the Opposition by winning over all disgruntled elements in the ruling coalition.  Only a right candidate with a right program that addresses all the antipathies that the majority of Sinhala Buddhist voters have regarding the UNP’s political positions could do this.  

This doesn’t seem to be happening.  Dayan is right in this sense: taken as a collective (and with a few individual exceptions) Sri Lankan politics today has the dumbest opposition this country has ever seen.

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What is ‘Bodu (Buddhist)’ in the ‘Bodu Bala Sena’?

Way back in the year 2004, when the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) was formed to contest the April elections, I objected on grounds that the political/historical role of the Bikkhu was advisory. The mayor, I wrote to the Sunday Island (February 15, 2004) has to get the drains cleaned, but is not required to cover himself in muck.  For all this, the key figures of the JHU conducted themselves with decorum; they made their points lucidly and treated critic with respect, opting to deploy word to counter word.  That the JHU became something else later on is a different matter. The point here is that the JHU of April 2004 is a stark contrast to the BBS of April 2013. 

Let’s consider the BBS.  Their statements, at media conferences and public gatherings, as well as their actions describe them well.  It is apparent in tone and facial expression, in word and deed.  It is also apparent in the organization’s silence on or responses to actions done in its name.  If there is one thing absent in all of this it is equanimity.  Emotion has ruled reason.  Attachment overrides all else.  There is clear inciting to violence.  There is fear-mongering and playing to the baser instincts of a community, a tickling of human frailty. 

‘Buddhist’ is an identity tag as much as it denotes preference for a particular teaching.  But if teaching is important (and it certainly is), then any organization containing the word or a derivative must be guided by that doctrine, in both word and deed.  The BBS is at odds with the fundamental tenets of the Dhamma. 

The most recent example is how BBS representatives behaved in Thunmulla when confronting a set of individuals who had organized an event tagged ‘Buddhists Question Bodu Bala Sena’.  That particular event was either organized or hijacked by people whose political agendas are anything but innocent.  On the other hand, they were not violent.  They came to light a candle, recite some lines in Pali (printed for the benefit of those unfamiliar, Buddhists and non-Buddhists) and take a stand.  The BBS representatives present were abusive.  In word, gesture and tone, they were in clear violation of ways of conduct prescribed by the Buddha.  They could have, for example, spoken to those present cordially, even while recognizing pernicious intent and mischief-maker, and invited them to chant the thun-sutra together. 

That particular incident was rather mild, compared to the foul and violence-inciting language and rhetoric indulged in by the BBS leadership.  The BBS can claim they had no hand in the attack on Fashion Bug, for example, but they are certainly guilty of whipping anti-Muslim sentiment and ‘Muslimphobia’ among Buddhists.  The stone-thrower is guilty, so too are those who planted ‘stone-throwing’ in his mind, directly or otherwise.  The BBS has deliberately distorted statistics gathered by the Department of Census and Statistics to buttress arguments about ‘Muslim Expansion’.  If, as the BBS claims, Muslims are in ‘expansion-mode’ and if whatever they find objectionable is illegal, then the BBS must take to the courts. 

If there’s nothing illegal but it still offends, hurts and threatens, then the BBS (or anyone else) must seek answers in the Dhamma, which prescribes as fundamental engagement factors, pragna (wisdom) and maithree (compassion).  There’s a palpable absence of intelligence and absolutely no compassion in the way the BBS has conducted itself.  They could find answers in the Kalama Sutra (the Buddhist Charter on Free Inquiry), use the Sapta Aparihani Dharma (Seven principles of indestructability) etc.  They could find in the notion of sanvaraya (decorum) associated with the figure of the bikkhu a useful ally in conduct.  They have not. 

Buddhists are not Arahats and there is political dishonesty in demanding that kind of enlightenment from Buddhists in the face of aggression (real or perceived), but an organization that purports to uphold Buddhist doctrine, culture and values must consciously and actively strive to adhere to basic doctrinal tenets.  The BBS is so far away from that point to justify using ‘Bodu’ in its name.  If Buddhists find the BBS to be a slur on their identity and belief system, then they too should respond with the compassion, wisdom, moderation and other concepts that guide action embedded in the Buddha Vacana.  This would include circumspect in who to stand with of course. 

What non-BBS Buddhists and other non-Buddhists of whatever political persuasion do is their business. The BBS cannot play mirror-politics if they hope to achieve anything close to moral high ground.  As of now (and perhaps for all time, given the arrogance and invective that they’ve adorned themselves with), ‘Buddhist’ is not a tag they can wear without insulting all Buddhists and Buddhism.    

 

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On Dayan’s ‘logic’, mildly

This refers to Dayan Jayatilleka’s response (Anti-BBS Vigil: A critique of the critique) to something I wrote on the subject of a candle light vigil organized by a group that named the event ‘Buddhists Question Bodu Bala Sena’.   I called my comment ‘The “Vigil” I saw’. Colombo Telegraph re-posted with what I consider to be a mischievous re-titling, “The BBS ‘Buddhists’, ‘Nightclub Buddhists’ and The ‘Vigil’ that I saw”.  Dayan, sadly, seems to have let that title guide his rant and has missed out all the caveats inserted.  That’s an old trick.  You deliberately take a black-white picture and then rant and rave.  That’s something I would expect from a high school debater, not from a man who has a doctorate, and one in political science to boot! 

Dayan, true to form, throws his CV at the readers.  That’s fine if only he was not so selective.  His description of MIRJE is eye-wash, but that again is Dayan.  I will let that pass and get to his ‘critique’.

Dayan wants to know ‘how on earth’ I determined the following: ‘But there were non-Buddhists in proportions that were a fair distance away from national ratios’. 

Dayan, by his own admission is not one to attend such vigils.  He will only stand with ‘The Left’ (he thinks the JVP and FSP are ‘Left’, but that’s another story for another laugh).  In my case, I have made it a point to keep myself informed about who does what and why, especially I/NGO operatives and their cheering squad, in the media, at Lipton’s Circus, I/NGO forums and the workshop rounds.  That’s how I know. The only people not speaking in English were those who were talking with the Police.  This was no cross-section, as I pointed out.  Not that it had to be, but I was only making an observation. 

What I found most hilarious about this man who charges me of jumping to conclusions about composition, is that he sees fit to indulge in caricature of a magnitude that would make my error seem utterly trivial.  He calls the BBS Bay-Badu Bala Sena, picking on a drunk-drive-without-license transgression of its main political figure 13 years ago.  So based on that incident each and everyone in the BBS is a drunkard.  Wonderful logic! Dayan asks me how I made a call on ‘cross-section’.  I live in this country.  I move around.  I keep my eyes and ears open.  Can tell.  Dayan can’t, but that’s his problem.  I challenge anyone who took part in the vigil to say that the group was a cross-section of Buddhists in this country.

No, demonstrations need not necessarily ‘accord with national, ethnic and religious ratios’, but it is strange to me that one which claimed it was a by-Buddhists event ended up having such a non-Buddhist preponderance.   Add the other rider, there being a significant number of people with definite political agenda, and the picture is not as rosy as Dayan might think it is.  The implication is that it was either not organized by ‘innocents’ or else some with suspect agenda had hijacked it or else were piggybacking on the innocents.  Dismissing issues of class and category in politics by alluding to the Dhamma, as Dayan has done, is once again silly.  One cannot be innocent in politics and Dayan certainly has not been.  He has not subjected himself to the rigor he seems to demand from others.   

Typical of Dayan, he took my ‘facebooking’ comment out of context.  It is linked to my observation regarding composition.  Dayan, true to form, deliberately misses the point and goes off at a tangent about who is on facebook and what being-on-facebook means and does not mean. 

He does the same with the word ‘violent’.  It’s easy.  Pick a word and spit at it.  Maybe it gives a thrill, but that’s not intelligent, engaging debate, but sophomoric word-play.  I don’t have to answer for those Sinhalese and Buddhists who have been violent in one way or another against Tamils, Muslims or anyone else. Never been part of any of that.  But Dayan does have a violent past and I find it strange that he didn’t pick some stuff from his own story to buttress his argument.    

At no point have I condoned the Bodu Bala Sena.  This does not mean that I have to agree with everything that those opposed to the Bodu Bala Sena say and do.  Only someone who cannot extricate himself from flawed Cartesian logic would expect me to do so.  In this instance, I went to oppose the BBS.  In retrospect, I found that I was ill-informed.  But I informed myself quickly enough.  I did not stand with the BBS but I went to stand with people opposed to the BBS and the way I do politics, criticism and self-criticism are part of the story.   

I said the policeman cannot be faulted for wondering how a ‘Buddhists against BBS event’ could have so many non-Buddhists.  It’s enough for Dayan to go off at another tangent.  If you mark an event as organized by X, Y or Z and realize that there’s more of P, Q and R in it, you can’t blame anyone for wondering what is what!  That comes from bad organizing or too many people being taken for a ride. 

This is what I wrote: ‘The Police Officer can’t be faulted if he wondered how a ‘Buddhists against BBS’ event had so many non-Buddhists.  It was a sweeping generalization nevertheless and the ethno-religious composition is anyway not relevant to the matter of peaceful, democratic action, even if there was nothing innocent in intent and design.’  Dayan has either not read the second sentence or has deliberately kept it out of his rant.  That’s cheap.  Sophomoric. Typical.   

Dayan ends his piece with a confession: ‘This hardly seems a fair or rational critique’. I agree, wholeheartedly; he has neither been fair or rational.   Why he pressed ‘send’ after writing it for the Colombo Telegraph, I really cannot fathom. 

NOTE 1:  Dayan’s article in Colombo Telegraph has prompted a lot of comments.  Many have saluted Dayan and showered me with invective.  There is very little reason and very little sobriety in these comments.  If they were at the vigil or supported the vigil then I can safely say that they are totally unsuited to question the BBS from a Buddhist perspective.

NOTE 2:  I learned that spokespersons for the BBS have quoted my article.  They, like my detractors, have misquoted me, leaving out important caveats.  In my next article I will explain why I am opposed to the BBS.

NOTE 3:  Most of those who cheered Dayan and most of those whove cheered the BBS, I noticed, did so during the nonagathaya and on Aluth Avurudda (April 14th) and into the festivities.  Made me smile. 

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What of Obama now that he lost his word-suit?

[This was written more than a year ago.  Dayan Jayatilleka (quoted here) himself has since lost some of his wide-eyedness about the West, happily.  Unhappily, however, the world has not changed much and hence this re-post]

About a year ago, Dayan Jayatilleka, in an interview with the tv station DERANA, waxed eloquent about Barack Obama.  He insisted that Obama was not George W Bush. He said that Obama was respected the world over and had established friendly relations with China, Russia and India. He said (and this is not surprising) that even Fidel Castro said nice things about the US President.

If there was optimism about Obama being a different kind of US President during his election campaign and in his first days in office, it all evaporated during the sessions of the UN General Assembly in New York last week.  Barack Obama demonstrated that there is only one difference between himself and his predecessor when it comes to US foreign policy: words.  Obama has words, Bush did not; Obama is articulate, Bush was incoherent; Obama could cover his nudity with word-cloth, Bush didn’t have a thread to hang himself with. 

Obama chided Iran about being obstinately secretive about its nuclear programme.  The very next moment, the USA team was lobbying nations to stymie an Arab initiative censuring Israel’s continued secrecy about her nuclear programme.  Obama said he was open to discussions but the moment Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the Iranian President uttered some home truths, called for a zero tolerance of nuclear energy for military purposes, Obama’s team turned heel and left the building. 

When Obama appeared on the US political firmament, he seemed fresh and quite un-Washington like.  This is perhaps why Castro said nice things about him (which sentiments Dayan has to echo, naturally).  Time has passed.  The man was given a Man of the Match before coin-toss and he quickly proved that the people who administer the Nobel were indeed in an indecent hurry when they gave him the Peace Prize. Some people make a lot about his ‘withdrawal’ from Iraq, but say nothing of the fact that he’s run out of options and anyway has essentially endorsed his predecessor’s policy of securing access to oil resources and effected control over that country’s economic and political affairs. You can’t make a virtue out of necessity anyway.

Obama’s policy regarding the excesses of US troops, incidence of torture and covering up of evidence not to mention complete and scandalous silence about the court decision effectively sanctioning the ‘off-shoring’ of torture, has seriously compromised his image as a different face of the USA. 

Dayan paints himself as a ‘realist’ and advocates tip-toe language when criticizing powerful nations and personalities.  He thinks that if India is cautious we ought to be too.  I guess he has the right to define his brand of radicalism in ways he thinks are appropriate. I think it is a bit much to look the other way when a thug wants to be seen as benefactor of victim even as he bludgeons the poor unarmed sot with a club.  Then again, Dayan is a person with some experience in diplomatic circles (beginning with his well-known flirtation with the Indians before, during and after the Indo-Lanka Accord fiasco) and I am not.  Dayan is a kiss-the-hand-you-can’t-bite type and so Obama is hook-off as far as he’s concerned.  Let me for a moment shut up and let someone else speak, someone who has more than Obamaesque credentials (meaning, the Nobel Prize – after the toss and after the match!): Harold Pinter. 

This was in 2005 and it is still very valid and if Obama objects he could at least, in the name of decency acknowledge (or refute) Pinter’s claims.  Pinter, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature said a lot about the USA.  Here are some choice words.

“As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.”

What does Barack Obama have to say to this and what Patricia Butenis?

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don’t quite know how they got there but they are there all right. The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.

What does Barack Obama have to say to this and what Patricia Butenis?

Pinter states that in countries the USA has ‘helped’ out of the alleged goodness of heart, hundreds of thousands died (this is excluding Iraq and Afghanistan by the way).  Pinter has some questions:

“Did they (the deaths) take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.  It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Pinter was right.  The US was word-smart.  That was in 2005. This is 2010.  We are post-‘Wikileaks’ and finger-doing in Afghanistan, flip-flopping on Guantanamo Bay, shielding tortures and sanctioning torture not mention bailing out crooks back home in the USA. 

Obama wears a word-suit.  Wore.  Past tense.  Not a pretty sight. 

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The karawala-mallun of addressing citizenship anomalies

There is a number that scrambles the number 13. That number is 54, and, worse, it is a number that references an increasing trend, leading to further scrambling. Yes, I am talking about the 13th Amendment to the constitution, with ‘54’ referring to the percentage of Tamils living outside the so-called traditional homelands of the Tamils.

Thus, quite apart from the untenable nature of posturing in terms of history that can be substantiated, the territorial fixations regarding resolving for citizenship anomalies seem utterly silly for demographic reasons. I am yet to see a compelling answer from the ardent champions of the 13th Amendment (as per addressing Tamil grievances/aspirations) to what I call ‘The Number 54 Dilemma’.

Lacking a cogent response, they cannot be faulted for taking the ‘koheda yanne malle pol’ road out of the debate. Dayan Jayatilleka, in a recent video interview with Sanjana Hattotuwa (available at www.groundviews.org), dismisses as ‘karawala and mallun’ (to him, a Sinhala equivalent of ‘apples and oranges’) my contention that minority grievances are not addressable by the 13th or by any devolutionary mechanism but have a better chance of being resolved through a formulation that takes the 17th Amendment as a starting point.

[Karawala, by the way, is dried fish and mallun refers to sliced greens sometimes mixed with coconut, with salt and lime in quantities as preferred by maker. ]

He offers that a citizens’ rights approach, as such I have argued for, works only in a secular state.
This is interesting because it is mischievous, obscurantist and nothing more than setting up an ‘ideal’ as a straw man in opposition to a formulation that is not only ideal (in this case a minority community contained 100% in a given territory with an indisputable and exclusive historical claim).

Secularism, broadly, refers to the view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs; and in general parlance speaks to the ‘ideal’ of separating church and state. It remains an unfleshed term in political practice and as pertain to real (and not imagined) political formations describable as ‘states’. For example, it can be argued that there is no such thing as ‘a purely secular state’. The USA for example has ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ printed on all paper currency. Barack Obama as well as every President before him and almost all senators, congressmen and candidates for such office typically end speeches with ‘God bless you and God bless the United States of America’. Should atheists then be rounded up and given a special territory where they can exercise some degree of self-determination as per devolved powers?

Switzerland, the UK and a number of other countries with secular pretensions have the cross (as in ‘Christian’) on their national flags. National Anthems in most European nations have clearly non-secular wordings. Constitutions too. Article 2 (Religion, State Religion) of the Kingdom of Norway puts it this way: (1) All inhabitants of the Realm shall have the right to free exercise of their religion, but adds the caveat (2) The Evangelical-Lutheran religion shall remain the official religion of the State. The inhabitants professing it are bound to bring up their children in the same.

According to Dayan’s argument, religious minority communities (and atheists) in such countries cannot be equal citizens in the full sense of the word unless they are corralled into a province or district (as per their numbers) and given self-determination by way of devolution. This is nonsense.

What’s ‘not secular’ about Sri Lanka, I wonder. The reference to Buddhism in the constitution? That is nothing more than a frill, a decoration, and there is nothing in the constitution or in subsequent determination by court that gives Buddhists any extra privileges.

Sri Lanka, in other words, is not a bad political formulation in the secularist spectrum. There are worse cases. Dayan’s ‘secular’ interjection, therefore, is mischievous and an exaggerated reference employed to push his preferred formulation; that of a Sri Lanka with power devolved to provinces.

Let us assume that Sri Lanka was the worst non-secularist political entity in the world. Sadly, for Dayan, even this doesn’t unscramble ‘54’ to a degree that makes the 13th logical as a ‘solution’ to minority grievances. If indeed Sri Lanka was a grotesque example of the constitutional intertwining of church and state (as was typical in societies in which the Vatican exercised considerable power) then of course an unraveling as per political realities may be warranted, but this is simply not the case.

Champions of the 13th must come up with a more robust argument with respect to ‘54’ and more importantly, if they are to be taken seriously, must not toss around political terms and idioms carelessly. Until such time, the 13th remains an aberration, the only logic for whose existence is that it was forced into the constitution. It remains not because it is good or resolves what it sought to resolve but because of political realities that have nothing to do with democracy, the will of the people etc. If it remains, it is only because its removal depends on politicians, and because its removal would be against their self-interest. It was and is a basket of goodies for politicians. It did precious little for the people and if the 13th is seen as somehow eliminating citizenship anomalies pertaining to minorities, then the minorities, in my view, are settling for crumbs.

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Accountability, reconciliation and community

There are two words that certain people are fascinated with: accountability and reconciliation.  They are so fixated - possible out of a bad dose of ‘Sour Grapes’, exacerbated with undisguised hatred – that they conflate the two or, in the very least, consider the former as part of latter.  Interestingly their venomous discharges are marked by a conspicuous reluctance to indulge in self-reflection.  Neither do they take issue with many crimes of omission and commission on the part of the LTTE, their backers and themselves. 

Kumar David, a man who unabashedly wished for a terrorist victory over the Government Security Forces, for example, feels duty-bound to treat Tiger-claim as fact.  As a result he has to treat any objection to exaggerated claims and unsubstantiated allegation as ‘defence of the indefensible’.  He was referring to my objections to wild claims made by Channel 4 and a motley bunch of intellectually dishonest operators calling themselves ‘International Crisis Group’ in a recent article in the Sunday Island.  I always knew that Kumar doesn’t have a leg to stand on; this piece demonstrated that he is visually handicapped too. He was commenting on a panel discussion in New York (which I participated in via Skype) and proved that he hadn’t been watching or listening.  Poor man. 

Kumar David is one of those eternally displaced Marxists, searching for relevance-straw to cling to, so desperate that he sees saviour in terrorists of all hue and tag, so rabidly anti Sinhala and anti-Buddhist that he will break bread with anyone and everyone who is wont to cast similar slur.  And he will say that it is the ‘correct position for a Marxist to take’.  I pity him. 

What is more important in this business (yes, bucks are involved) of calling for reconciliation and accountability is the deliberate ‘absenting’ of the Tamil offender, i.e. those who killed, maimed, abducted, destroyed, exploded bombs and offered moral and material support to these acts by glorifying, providing money, safe-houses and character-laundry services etc., and remaining silent. 

Dayan Jayatilleka (‘TNA and LLRC’ in ‘The Island’ of December 28, 2011) provides an excellent analysis of this strange footnoting or indeed non-noting.  It’s worth a long quote: ‘The call for an international investigation into the last stages of the war by anyone —such the bulk of the Tamil Diaspora, Tamil civil society and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)—who did not and still does not condemn the LTTE’s crimes and atrocities, internal executions and secret prisons, child soldiers and fratricidal murders, terrorism and totalitarianism, is as if most of German society did not criticise the Nazis and Auschwitz even after WW 2 ended, and called instead for an international inquiry into the fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allies!’

The TNA, hampered by internal quarrels, appears to be seeking unifying gel in doing what their former task-master, Velupillai Prabhakaran did: play the spoiler.  They are threatening to scuttle discussions if ‘land’ and ‘police’ are not tabled, so to speak.  First of all, a non-territorial problem cannot have a territory-based solution and asking for control over a third of the island and half the coast for less than 6% of the population borders on the insane.  Good for third-rate politicking, nothing else.  More importantly, as Dayan points out, boo-hooing about the inadequacies of the LLRC won’t bring tears to many eyes because the TNA has consistently refused to engage in a self-audit of its own.   

Dayan has a proposal: ‘I strongly urge that the best educated, credentialed and knowledgeable members of Tamil civil society be asked to undertake such an audit. I would think that Prof Ratnajeevan Hoole would be the best to head such an exercise. Others could include P Rajanayagam, S Chandrahasan, Ahilan Kadirgamar, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Nirmala Rajasingham, DBS Jeyaraj and Mutukrishna Sarvanandan among others.’ If the likes of Saravanamuttu are considered ‘educated, credentialed and knowledgeable’, then the Tamil community is poor indeed, given that man’s penchant for number-fudging, issue-dodging and hobnobbing with men and women with questionable integrity, especially with respect to what the LTTE did and did not do.  I do not share Dayan Jayatilleke’s admiration for Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and the Catholic Church (his religious/ecclesiastical preferences are clearly implied in a reference to both in the same article), but he does have a point.  We are not going anywhere with the kinds of reconciliation that the West wants us to have if ANY OF THE MANY PARTIES are not ready to engage in self-reflection of the kind Dayan proposes, at least on the lines of the LLRC.  Except for nauseating tokenism about the LTTE having been guilty of violence, the Tamil community has been largely mum about its own culpability. Many cheered, many looked the other way and many were direct or indirect lackeys.  The TNA is yet to come clean on its reprehensible mouth-piece role when the Tigers were riding high.  This is where the TNA’s democracy-need falls flat.  If the TNA cannot reconcile with itself and its crimes of omission and commission, it does not have the moral right to demand anything from anyone, least of all accountability and reconciliation.

The TNA has called for ‘peaceful protests’ demanding devolution along with land and police rights.  I suppose this would boost its political fortunes among certain sections of the Tamil community, but it would make more difficult any reconciliation for the simple reason that it would be silly for anyone to ‘reconcile’ with communalists, especially those whose arguments are not supported by history, geography and demography.  Worse still is that it postpones and distracts from the larger and more important exercise of discussing and reaching agreement on constitutional amendments to correct citizenship anomalies and strengthen democracy. 

A key word left out of the discussion has been pointed out by ‘Gara Yaka’ who writes the YAKHANDA column: community.  You can’t have accountability and reconciliation without community.  This constitution and this economic system rebel against the collective.  Talking rot, like David does, celebrating that which is hardly worthy of celebration (like Dayan does) and wearing pout to further personal political agenda cannot help either. 

[Published in 'The Nation', January 1, 2012]

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