BISHOPS, GENERALS AND AMBASSADORS
The Rupavahini in its "News Station" telecast in Sinhala, (The Professor in Sinhala who heads the media probably does not know his Sinhala and calls this programme "News Station" unashamedly) on Saturday announced that the Bishops of Mannar and Jaffna had declared that the Major General Sarath Fonseka was not acting in the interests of peace. Having read so many statements by the Bishops Rayappu Joseph and Saundranayagam over the years, the Rupavahini announcement did not come as a surprise. Apparently the Bishops are of the opinion that the Major General has gone against the wish of the government to bring peace. They want us to believe that the Major General does not want the Tamils to be resettled in the high security zones. How humanitarian these Bishops are could be found out from the Sinhala Catholics who went on pilgrimage to Madhu last year. It is not clear whether the two Bishops, following the LTTE and the minister Maheswaran want the Major General out of Jaffna. Incidently it is not only the Major General Fonseka who is not in the list of the favorites of the minister Maheswaran. He does not want his cabinet colleague, minister Jayalath Jayawardhane as the minster in charge of rehabilitation. Minister Jayawardhane who is a good friend of the Bishop of Mannar, unlike some other lesser ministers, has the support of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church and the minister Maheswaran is not playing in his home ground in this match against the minster Jayawardhane though he (minister Maheswaran) is much concerned about the so-called homelands. However, with respect to the Major General Fonseka the minister Maheswaran and the Bishops are in the same team and they are all playing in their home grounds against the Generals.
As we are on "home grounds" I would like to digress from military "war" to another form of war that takes in the sports fields. These wars continue to dominate our lives in every field including the academic field, where the hegemony of the western Christian culture prevails. I am particularly interested in the case of Muttaiah Muralitharan who was recently named as the best bowler in test cricket since its inception, by Wisden. Having decided on a marking scheme, Wisden, after analysing the performances of those who have played test cricket, had to come to the conclusion that Muralitharan was the best of the test bowlers. Now it is not a secret that Muralitharan is not white, not playing for an Anglo Saxon country and is Tamil Hindu. Though he is Tamil Hindu none of the Sinhala Buddhist "Chauvinists" had asked the authorities to drop him from the national cricket team. He had been supported by all the Sri Lankans including the Sinhala Buddhist "Chauvinists" and the "Chauvinist" Sinhala press was right behind him when he was called a chukker by the whites. Though the Sinhala Buddhist "Chauvinists" supported the Tamil Hindu from the very beginning of his career, there is section in the cricket world or world cricket that wants to see the non white bowler only in the pavilion. It is also not a secret that the section that wants Muralitharan to be "dropped", comes from the western Christian culture. The western Christian world and their henchmen (would the women liberators come out with a neutral form for the word henchman - shall we use the word henchperson so as not to exclude the females in this category) especially in the seminar circuit and the NGOs, may support the Tamils against the Sinhala Buddhist "Chauvinists" at present, but if and when they succeed in their endeavor they would turn against the Tamil Hindus just as much they want to discredit and drop Muralitharan.
Coming back to Major General Sarath Fonseka the Tamil racists have closed ranks to agitate for the transfer of the General out of Jaffna. I do not know whether the Major General Fonseka is considered to be a Sinhala Chauvinist by the Tamil racists who want to deprive Sinhalathva its rightful place in the country. Incidentally Prof. Peter Schalk speaking recently at the so called Bath conference organised by Mahinda Deegalle alias ven. Deegalle Mahinda thero, has said that I identify Jathika Chinthanaya as Sinhalathva. It is clear that the Professor of comparative religions at the Uppsala University in Sweden has no adequate knowledge of Sinhala or English to understand anything philosophical written in those languages. In none of the articles in Sinhala or English, I have identified Jathika Chinthanaya with Sinhalathva. I have used Sinhalathva as a shorten form for Sinhala Nation, Sinhala language, Sinhala history, Sinhala culture and finally the Sinhala life style. Jathika Chinthanaya on the other hand is our Chinthanaya. It is the Chinthanaya of not only most of the Sinhala people, but the vast majority of the people of this country. Of course, the henchpersons I have referred to earlier, the hierarchy of the Christian churches and few others have a different Chinthanaya that happens to be the dominating Chinthanaya in the world as well as the country. If our Jathika Chinthanaya is mainly Sinhala Buddhist it is not my fault. It so happens that the culture of this country has been built over more than two thousand years around the Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya. For the information of people such as Dr. Schalk, who are the theoreticians of Tamil racism (Anton Balasingham may be the theoretician of the LTTE, but he is not capable of being the theoretician of Tamil racism) chinthanaya is deeper than a paradigm, and is the base for the creation of different paradigms that in turn act as the basis in constructing theories and concepts.
The most effective weapon used by the Tamil racists is not the bomb or the gun. They thrive on confusing issues and Gobelsian "propaganda". The Tamil racists try to confuse the issue of the high security zones with that of settling of people. The issue of high security zones comes under the so-called MOU which is in effect a capitulation agreement. The capitulation agreement includes a ceasefire agreement and it is expected to find a "solution" betraying the Sinhala people through negotiations during the ceasefire. The capitulation is carried out in places such as Sattahip, Nakorn Pathom, Oslo and even Tokyo. Through the so called negotiations it is expected to hand over to the LTTE what they could not win by "war". As Mr. Bradman Weerakoon has admitted the LTTE is being equated with the Sri Lankan "government". Even the ceasefire agrement in the capitulation agreement is not a strict ceasefire agreement with respect to the Sri Lankan "government" and the LTTE. A ceasefire agreement should not disturb the existing forward defense lines etc. However as far as the LTTE is concerned the ceasefire agreement has to be used to expel the Sri Lankan army from the camps in the Jaffna peninsula meaning that the whole area would come under the LTTE without firing a shot.
However knowing that they cannot make use of the ceasefire agreement "legally" to throw the army out they confuse the issue by dragging the settlement of Tamils. The leaders of the LTTE that is still killing Tamils who are openly against them, that abducts young Tamils from their parents, are pretending to be very humanitarian. Knowing that they can get testimonials from Bishops for their humaneness they try to capitalise on the settlement issue. Those who have been displaced, not only the Tamils but the Sinhalas and the Muslims as well have to be settled in the Jaffna peninsula. The Sinhalas and the Muslims were displaced as a result of the "humanitarian" ethnic cleansing by the LTTE. However, they are secondary, how important the lives of these people may be. The issue at present is not the lives of the individuals but the life of the country and the nation. The nation and the country have to live even after the individuals have passed away and it is a basic fact that some of the so-called leaders have forgotten. We do not have so called national policies simply because the "leaders" do not believe that the nation and the country come first before them. It is not necessary to spell out so called national policies in each sphere. There is a cry for national policies since we do not have the most basic national policy or say the meta national policy. It is essential to have a meta national policy. (I do not subscribe to the so-called post modern position of having no meta narratives. This absence of meta narratives is another "de rope" that the westerners are trying to impose on us while they have their meta narratives and meta national policy.) The meta national policy is that the country and the nation come first.
As far as the country is concerned the forward defense lines cannot be altered when there is a "ceasefire agrement." Major General Sarath Fonseka has stuck to this policy while the Bishops for whom the separate country comes first are trying to confuse the issue. Without telling the world that as far as they are concerned the separate country comes first and therefore the army has to be chased out from the Jaffna peninsula they take the issue of the settling of people. As far as the country, not the separate country that the Bishops are interested in (they will say that they are for "con" federation etc., but we al know the "little now more later policy" of Chelvanayakam and his followers.), is concerned the Major General has to be backed by all the patriots, against the Bishops. The LTTE has been campaigning to get the army out of the Jaffna peninsula and the Prime Minister's ambiguous statement on behalf of the LTTE on the acceptance by the latter of the right of the army to stay in Jaffna has to be considered as heresay evidence at most. In any event should a Prime Minister come out with a statement on behalf of a terrorist gang and say that the latter has accepted the right of the army to stay in a particular area of the country? If there is a government, from the very beginning, it should have said that nobody has the right to question the right of the army to stay in any particular region of the country.
The Prime Minister's statement on the Norwegian ambassador with respect to his involvement in importing radio transmission equipment for the LTTE, makes the confusion confounded. I understand that Norwegian ambassador at a meeting with representatives of some Buddhist organisations has said that he was involved with the transmission equipment, as the facilitator of the so-called peace process, on the invitation of the government. Now, in what capacity the Norwegian Ambassador was acting is very important. If he claims that he was acting as the "facilitator" then he should not have used his privileges he is entitled to as an ambassador. It is true that Norway has got herself (should I say herself/himself) invited as the "facilitator". Theoretically Sri Lanka could have invited even a country with she (/he) does not have diplomatic relations, to function as the "facilitator". Under such circumstances the facilitator would not have had diplomatic privileges. Westborg is both Mr. Ambassador (Hyde) and Dr. Facilitator (Jekyll).
The west tries to tell us that in their world everything has a place and things are nicely separated. They would tell us that the state is separated from religion, the history is separated from politics, the knowledge in general is separated from culture and in general the observer is separated from the observed. However as easterners we know that it is not the case and that all these are connected via a chinthanaya. The stories such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the west unconsciously portrait this unity that they are consciously trying to separate. Westborg cannot fool the Sinhala Buddhists who have a Jathika Chinthanaya that is capable of formulating theories to see through the so called separations. Westborg when he is acting as the facilitator (though self invited in a way) should not use the privileges of the ambassador. It is said that he is to leave the shores of Sri Lanka shortly. However, we know that with the departure of Westborg the saga of the Bishops, Generals and Ambassadors would not come to an end.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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