THE AMERICAN WAY - III
Americans meaning of course the USAites have finally attacked Afghanistan, and now we would be able to watch the "war" in Afghanistan, thanks to CNN and other television channels from our homes in Sri Lanka. They have attacked Afghanistan on the assumption that bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks on the world trade centre and the pentagon and that Talibans are harboring him? They want to defeat terrorism, meaning terrorism against the protestant culture, and a necessary condition for that is to capture bin Laden dead or alive. On the other hand Talibans had wanted proof of involvement of bin Laden in the recent terrorist attacks. Talibans now admit that bin Laden is in Afghanistan and from the statement issued by them one could have even concluded that they are prepared to hand over bin Laden, provided the USAites establish that the latter is responsible for the recent terrorist attacks. USA officials have rejected a request by the Talibans to try bin Laden under the Islamic law Sharya, saying that bin Laden must be handed over to USA. They could have argued that the terrorist attack took place in Washington and New York and therefore bin Laden has to be tried under the law of USA meaning of course a law based on Christian Protestant culture. Anyway this a tricky question, though not of any practical value now but something that the "international lawyers" could address their minds to. The Afghans could claim that whatever bin Laden has done (planning and masterminding the alleged "attack", on the assumption that bin Laden did it), was done in Afghanistan and therefore he should be tried in Afghanistan under Islamic Law. According to Sinhala Buddhism as well as many other Buddhisms a crime becomes a crime (an act) only after it has been thought about (planned) and carried out (implemented). If the planning is done in one country and the implementation takes place in a different country under which law he or she should be tried? Sinhala Buddhists or any other Buddhists to my knowledge have not answered this question as they would not have been interested in these "international situations". Of course, he or she would be "punished" according to the "karmic law" but that is a different matter altogether. Though it may be a good theoretical question to ponder, in practice questions of this type are resolved by the power of arms and as it is the Christian protestant culture that dominates the world today the word of USA is the "law" at present in these matters as well as many others.
Whether the USAites come out with all the "facts" (facts are not sacred and they are theory laden, something that some philosophers as well as some aspiring philosophers in Sri Lanka do not seem to understand.- Why is that the Sinhala Theravada Buddhist culture has not produced inspiring philosophers during the last one thousand five hundred years or so? - The sky is blue, there is a rainbow in the sky - are they facts, assuming of course, in the former case that the sky is, in fact, blue and not cloudy? Though I have used the words in fact, what do they mean. When somebody says the sky is blue one could easily ask the question what is meant by the sky? Is it an object like a mountain, a cloud or some such thing? If there is no object that can be called the sky then what does it mean by the statement that the sky is blue? Is rainbow an object and what are objects in general? Are objects only those we can touch? Is an atom an object? The statement that the sky is blue could mean various thing to various people. A physicist will talk about scattering, refraction, reflection of light, atmosphere, wavelengths etc., but not of sky, while a poet will see the beauty of the blue sky. The poets could think of gods or angels or anybody else who paint rainbows in the sky but even here a physicist would talk of a rainbow without using the word sky. A physicist needs only concepts like wavelengths and clouds with "droplets" of water to think about a rainbow. It is said that in Sinhala there is no word for fact. Probably the Sinhalas knew that there are nothing called facts sacred or otherwise.) or not it will be very difficult to convince the Talibans that bin Laden is the man behind the terrorist attacks. I do not think that USA will ever think of "convincing" the Talibans that bin Laden is responsible for the attacks. Mr. Bush is not the man who would waste time to establish that bin Laden is behind all these. If he is convinced then that is more than sufficient. It is for us to "convince" the Tamil terrorists and the other Tamil racists that the Tamil homeland is a myth. ( My friend Dr. Carlo Fonseka has given a "definition" of a Tamil home, though not of a Tamil homeland in a recent article. His or rather Mr. Frost's definition of home could be challenged on grounds that it is not a consistent general definition of a home. Can a person be chased out from a home? If it is so then either the definition or the above statement appears to be self contradictory. Perhaps one could save the definition by claiming that a house is a home at one moment but could not be so a moment later. However, whether all the sons and daughters, parents, wives and husbands who have been chased out from their homes would agree with that interpretation is very doubtful. In any event all that can be established, as far as the Tamil Sri Lankans are concerned, is that some Tamil families or some members of Tamil families have been accepted most probably on a temporary basis by relatives in some parts of the northern and eastern provinces. If a Sinhala family or some members of a Sinhala family are accepted on a temporary basis by some relatives in England after some incident does it establish that the home of that family is that particular part of England? If these members of families, Tamil or Sinhala, decided to live on a "permanent" basis with their relatives what would the relatives do? We also know that some Tamil families including those of the TULF leaders went to India and settled down there for sometime, while some of them have apparently decided to stay there "permanently". Why did not they go to the north or the east? Is it because that their home is in India and not in the north and east of Sri Lanka? Finally what about the Tamils who have come back to their "homes" in Colombo and other places and also of those coming to live with their relatives in Colombo in order to escape from Prabhakaran and his gang.)
Some of the comments by USA officials as reported in "The Island" of 8th October are interesting to say the least. One of them has said: "The first step is that they hand over bin Laden and his lieutenants. It is time for action, not words." White House spokesman Mr. Scott McClellan has said: President George W. Bush had not changed his original four demands - that the Talibans surrender bin Laden and lieutenants in his al Quaeda network, close bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, allow US inspections, and release detained aid workers. The President's demands are clear and they are not negotiable." While the demands of President Bush are not negotiable as far as USA and Afghanistan are concerned when it comes to Tamil racism and Tamil terrorism in Sri Lanka it is the demands of Tamil terrorism that are non negotiable. Ironically Tamil racism and Tamil terrorism from Thimpu days have four non negotiable demands, the so called Thimpu conditions and the spokespersons in the USA embassy in Sri Lanka would want the government of Sri Lanka to commence negotiations with the LTTE. Any negotiations as far as the LTTE is concerned have to go beyond the so-called unnegotiable demands of Tamil racism and its offshoot Tamil terrorism. While the spokespersons for white house talk of action against the terrorists the spokespersons for the USA embassy in Sri Lanka, holding hands with the sama mudalalis, are engaged in action for talks with the terrorists.
In this whole business of war on the terrorists against the protestant culture it is pathetic to see Mr. Tony Blair, the British prime minister playing the role of house boy of the white house. He is busy taking errands from white house to various capitols in Asia and I wonder what Mr. Churchill would have done in a similar situation. However, we have to be fair by Mr. Blair, as the centre of world imperialism has shifted from London to Washington during the last fifty years or so. Is Mr. Blair playing the role of the house boy of white house or with the shift of the centre has it become his job? A post modernist would say that it is virtual reality and we would not know whether a person is acting or doing his job. We should not forget that the job of some people is acting and simulation is bound with their lives.
USA and the coalition against terrorism on the protestant culture have apparently bombed Kabul. I was expecting some NGO lads and lasses to take the next plane to Washington or to Piccadilly circus in London to picket against indiscriminate bombing of innocent Afghans. Neither have they taken the next bus to the Lipton circus with their placards and megaphones. It may be due to the "fact" that the USA had warned all those people living close to camps in Afghanistan to move away from those places. If somebody is bombed surely the USA is not to be blamed.
It is the "objective" reporting of the British press that has come to limelight in the process. It appears that it is necessary to refer to the leader of the Talibans Mullah Omar as the one eyed cleric. It may be a "fact" that Mullah Omar has only one eye and that there is nothing wrong according to the protestant culture to refer to this "objective fact". After all it is not something that the journalist has invented nor relative to the relevant journalist. One eyed cleric is an one eyed cleric. Mr. Joe Murphy reporting from London says: "The one-eyed cleric reportedly also offered to free eight foreign Christian aid workers held since August..." As the examiners ask the candidates at examinations, compare and contrast the reference to the leader of the Talibans and the Christian aid workers. I think it was a British who had said that facts are sacrosanct and comment is free or words to that effect. Where does one draw the line between the facts and comments? Ms. Christina Lamb was referring to a mentally unstable Mullah, quoting an unnamed physician. " Mullah Omar, the one-eyed leader of the Talibans currently defying the west is mentally unstable and suffers fits during which he babbles incomprehensibly, according to one of his personal physicians. He locks himself away for two or three days at a time and the official line is that he is having visions, but in fact he is suffering from brain seizures said the doctor ...... Such a mythical status has grown around the man who holds the fate of Afghanistan in his hands, that he is able to pass off his fits as visions during which he receives instructions for creating a pure Islamic state. It is after such seizures that he has issued edicts prohibiting kite-flying, football and music, in addition to banning women from working and wearing high heels or shoes that click under their burkhas, the tent like garments that all Afghan women must wear." It would be interesting to find what Ms. Christina Lamb has to say about the prophets in the Old Testament and their revelations. More than that why refer to burkhas as tent like garments. She and the editor could have easily displayed a photograph of an Afghan lady wearing a burkha without trying to describe it. Thank God that Ms. Lamb is not a Sinhala Buddhist, otherwise our NGO lads and lasses would have made a big noise about the comments of Chauvinist Sinhala Buddhists. In any event what do the garments worn by western ladies look like? However the most interesting part of the "report" is the conclusion. Ms. Lamb says : "The disclosure suggests that there is little prospect of the American led coalition against terrorism being able to enter into any rational negotiations with the man who holds the fate of Afghanistan in his hands." There you are Mr. George W. Bush a "rational" and not an emotional or "war monger" explanation for not having any talks with the Talibans. There is a saying in Sinhala which loosely translated into English goes on something like the following. "When the teacher urinates standing the pupils urinate running."
Professor Nalin de Silva
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