NORWEGIAN HUMBUG
Is there anybody other than the Bishops, the Bhikkus of the Palli Nikaya, the peace vendors, the neo, ex and retired Marxists, some Liberals and the Tamil racists who still think that Norway is only a facilitator? If we leave out the Tamil racists there cannot be more than five thousand (a very generous upper limit) in the whole country that belong to the former categories. However these people are in very high positions and they are virtually in control of both electronic and print media in the country and the Norwegian ambassador and the others could be excused if they think that they have been able to deceive the public and that they have been successful in their diplomacy, not in the "diplomatic" meaning of the word diplomacy.
Of course, according to the official view, it is the Sri Lankan government that officially invited Norway to be the facilitator and it was only last week that the ministry of foreign affairs was thanking the resident ambassador for Norway in Sri Lanka and Solheim the expert in shuttle diplomacy. We have heard these official stories before and when the Norwegian ambassador was the head of the Red Barna organisation sometime ago it was again the Sri Lankan government that had officially invited the Red Barna head to settle Tamil estate workers in Vanniya. It is said that the British gave us cricket and parliament but the western civilisation has given us much more. One of the most important things that we have got from the west is the concept of the official version. Max Weber, to my mind, the most articulate defender of the western civilisation, in his writings has very often mentioned the word "rational" in connection with most of the aspects of the western Judaic Christian civilisation. In fact he has boasted "very rationally" about these "rational" methods and institutions, which according to him are found only in the western civilisations. The westerners are so "rational" in their ways that they could even "rationalise" the most irrational things, of course sweeping all the "irrationalities" under a "rational" carpet. Only the western politicians and journalists would "rationally" talk of allowing the "foreign" and other journalists to go to Vanniya while taking down notes on the "Iraqi war" from the spokespersons of the USA government or the army. Going from the fields of Field Marshalls to more abstract fields, who else, other than the westerners could have produced a "rational" western Mathematics based on undefined concepts? How "rational" is to have a system of knowledge based on undefined concepts. Only westerners and their impotent imitators in Asia and Africa would admire Kant's "rationalism" with it's "a-priory" concepts like space and time. How "rational" is to have a "rationalism" with "a-priory" concepts? How did Descartes come to the conclusion "I exist" from the premise "I think". He said something like "I think therefore I exist". From where did he smuggle "therefore" into his argument? Does argument/reasoning exist independent of Descartes? Is the thinking "I" the same as the existing "I". What is "I"? Could Descartes or somebody else have distinguished between the epistemology of "I" and the ontology of "I"? Is the thinking "I" (i)existing (ii)not existing, (iii) both existing and not existing, (iv) neither existing nor non existing? Who constructed reasoning? Is not reasoning like anything else is a construction of the mind?
There is no "rational" linear system of knowledge and how much one tries one cannot escape from the circular (or sansaric-cyclic) aspect of knowledge. The westerners whose civilisation is based on creations with or without God, as in the case of big bang, draw tangents to circles and try to tell us that there are no circles. They are not used to systems without a beginning and they always fall back to linear systems. In this connection I always gain inspiration from two relevant questions my fourth form (year nine) Chemistry teacher asked. Explain definition and define explanation.
Coming back to Weber and Solheim, it was Weber who mentioned that the western civilisation has produced this "rational" organisation of officials and undoubtedly Solheim in his capacity as a "shuttle diplomat" is part of it. Solheim, the Norwegian ambassador and the west in general know how to "rationalise" even terrorism. I think it was Mr. Premadasa who gave them a dose of their own medicine not only by declaring very rationally the British High Commissioner Mr. Gladstone a persona non grata but also by rationally getting himself invited for the wedding of Mr. Charles Windsor and Miss Diana Spenser. Though Mr. Premadasa had not attended an elite school established by the British he had learnt from them how to play "their" game, whereas the leaders who attended those schools have been taught to be prepared for ever to be manipulated and fooled by the west, the way their fathers (and mothers) learnt before them.
Poor (economically) countries in Asia and Africa with poorer (though not economically) leaders are being pushed around by the west, using their "rational" methods. Norway which got officially invited by the Sri Lankan government to be a so-called facilitator has promoted itself to be the "peace giver" having being a mediator for some time. Who is imposing conditions on whom? Could the ambassador for Norway in Sri Lanka or Mr. Eric Solheim when he arrives in Sri Lanka or even Dr. Peter Schalk from neighboring Sweden, define what is meant by a facilitator and then explain how Norway has acted within the definition? Surely the rational minds of the west should be able to take up this challenge? If they are not prepared to do so for some reason or other let us educate ourselves and the Norwegians briefly on the Tamil racist problem and so-called peace talks.
As we have said in these columns there is no one peace but different "peaces". As in the other cases the west has decided on one particular peace and are projecting it using their "rational" methods to be "The Peace". This is not at all different from projecting their knowledge to be "The Objective Knowledge". All these projections follow from the western Judaic Christian tradition of imposing the God of Jews as "The God" of all people. (I know that a person of the "calibre" of Dr. Schalk would "deduce" anti Semitic leanings of Jathika Chinthanaya from this statement.) The Sinhalas have three hundred and thirty million (this thun kotiyak) gods and I presume that they have the highest per capita god number (indigenesing a western concept) in the whole world. Those who are against "The Peace" are called war mongers, Sinhala extremists etc. The majority of Sinhalas are also for peace, though not for "The Peace" of Solheim and the rest of the west. In fact unlike the Tamil racists who under the influence of the west has only "The Peace" the Sinhalas have many versions of peace (or "peaces") as revealed by the discussions, especially in the Sinhala print and electronic media.
Why is the government engaged in military operations against the LTTE? It is simple. The LTTE has taken up arms against the state in order to set up a separate state in two of the provinces and the government whose foremost duty is to protect the state has to defeat the LTTE. If anybody says that the government should not defeat the terrorists militarily, and engage in talks with the LTTE, then one has to question as to the purpose of the talks? Is it to hand over the northern and eastern provinces to the LTTE and the Tamil racists, so that they could establish a Tamil (Karaivar) Catholic/Christian Eelam? How did the Bishops become the defenders of the LTTE? Percentage wise are there more Christians/Catholics among the Karaivars than among the Vellalas? Is there any justification for taking up arms against the state? As some others have asked could the Bishops justify the actions of Prabhakaran and the LTTE? Why don't they and the Norwegians and the west who were concerned about Milosevic, speak of the inhuman war criminal Prabhakaran? Do all these people think that Prabhakaran and his gang are justified in their fascist acts, simply because the Tamils are "treated as second class citizens" by the Sri Lankan government, as the Tamil racists claim?
We all, may be other than the Norwegians and the west and their agents here, know that the armed Tamil groups came into existence not after July 1983. In fact they were there even before the 1972 constitution came into existence. The violence of Tamil racism is only a continuation of the so-called non-violent Tamil racist politics of the Tamil Christian Chelvanayakam, who took up from the Tamil racism of the three Ponnambalams. The Tamil racist leaders started talking of a Tamil nation from the beginning of the twentieth century long before Prabhakaran was born. Tamil racism was created and baptised by the British in 1833 (please see "An introduction to Tamil racism in Sri Lanka" for details). Over the years Tamil racism has constructed concepts such as Tamil nation, grievances of Tamils, and distorted history to suit their political and cultural ambitions. The British (and the west in general) then and now are interested only in propagating their civilisation and making their God and knowledge ours as well. In order to achieve this in Sri lanka they are hell bent in weakening the Sinhalathva using Tamil racism they have created.
"The Peace" of Solheim and the others, that will make the Sinhalas a non entity and not a minority in the Northern and the Eastern provinces demarcated by the British, is designed as another step in this direction and the Sinhalas would never agree with that. As we have said many times in these columns there are no grievances of the Tamils and there are only Tamil aspirations cultivated by the British and the west. The Sri Lankan government that has had no courage to stand up to the west, should at least now realise the "rational humbug" of the west and turn towards the friendly countries that belong to the other civilisations. We have no future with the west and our leaders should not be sentimentally attached to what they learnt at the schools established by the British. It is time for renunciation of the "humbug values" cultivated by the west in our minds. In this regard the visit of the Chinese Prime Minister is a three hundred and thirty million gods ( I understand that this concept is not alien to the Chinese culture though their per capita god number is much less than ours) given opportunity and the government could think in terms of a bilateral agreement between China and Sri Lanka to destroy terrorism that has been rationalised and is being used by the west to force the Sri Lankan government to have talks with a war criminal.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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