NEW NATIONAL MOVEMENT TO DEFEAT "TWO NATIONS"
Akashi, the Japanese involved directly in the peace business, has been promised by the LTTE that the so called counter proposals would be submitted before the end of the month, after Prabhakaran goes through the document prepared by the Pasupathys and Soronarajas. After all, at the moment, it is not law that the country is concerned with but politics. Pasupathys and Soronarajas have to follow Prabhakaran who is not a lawyer by any stretch of imagination though the former may be identified as some kind of politicians. Incidentally a little bird whispers that Soronaraja left the University of Colombo not because of any injustices to Tamils by the Sinhalas, though a student of him who happened to be a Sinhala and a senior lecturer in the faculty of law at that time and junior to him, and scheming to occupy the chair, undercut him and other teachers some of whom happened to be Tamils. It was pure ambition, and not any " Sinhala Chauvinism" that made the junior to indulge in all those non academic activities, a trait that has become very prominent throughout his academic as well as non academic careers.
Akashi, according to the newspaper reports is very much interested in developing the country, especially the northern and the eastern provinces, and was concerned with the delay in the LTTE response to the "government" proposals. Apparently he is very much disappointed that he cannot get rid of all those trillions of yens promised in Tokyo as quickly as possible as Prabhakaran is not much interested in receiving this money. Prabhakaran is more interested in his share of "peace" which is the so-called interim administration over the northern and the eastern provinces that would pave the way for Eelam. However Akashi does not seem to be much concerned with that camp in Kinniya or Wan Ela and the release of the yens is not tied to the evacuation of the camp. Akashi, of course, would claim that his business is money and not camps as the Japanese are debarred by the Americans and the British and perhaps the Norwegians, from keeping an army of some strength in the so called modern or the postmodern world.
Though Akashi may not be interested in the business of camps the Sinhalas in general, except those editorial writers and others who think that the LTTE should be given its share of "peace" but there should not be any alliances with the JVP, are concerned not only of the camps but of those Monitors whose business we were told in February 2002, was to monitor the treacherous MoU that spoke of "occupations and camps" as well. We do not hear much about the monitors as Akashi has taken the centre stage and we may have to appoint some monitors to monitor the Scandinavian monitors. We do not know whether they are in Sri Lanka as the newspapers are silent on their "activities". We do not know what happened to Solheim either who had discussions with Thamilselvan over the Kinniya camp, in Vanni. The Sinhalas would be given time (not much time needed as Prabhakaran himself knows) to forget the camp issue and Solheim would make his next trip very soon to Vanni to discuss other matters with the LTTE. In the meantime the so called political scientists and others would continue to educate us with the latest theories on the "two nations, one country" concept.
It is reported that in the much awaited response by the LTTE to the "government" proposals Pasupathys and Soronarajas have recommended "internal self administration" for the LTTE with respect to the northern and the eastern provinces. This is nothing but a confederation and is not different from the asymmetric devolution of power that Ranil Wickremesinghe has been talking for some time. G. L. Peiris who has a habit of repeating the ideas of other people after a gap of several months (years sometimes) has spoken in favour of asymmetrical devolution of power. Ranil Wickremesinghe and G L Peiris who are politicians and lawyers know that politics takes precedence over law at this critical juncture of the history of the country that would soon become the history of the countries unless the JVP and the national forces come out with a poetical programme to defeat Tamil racism and its patron western colonialism.
As mentioned above politics takes precedence over law and I am not interested in legal arguments over the nations and countries. However, when people create bogus histories to defend a separate state for Tamils then the historians, lawyers etc., could have their say. If Prabhakaran and the LTTE depend only on the strength of the arms then it is futile to write on these matters. However, the Tamil racists fight on two different fronts simultaneously. They have taken up arms against the state to deprive Sinhalathva its rightful place in the country, especially in the northern and the eastern provinces, and at the same time are getting the services of the western as well as Tamil historians, lawyers, sociologists, political scientists to justify the claim for an Eelam. One such notorious character is Peter Schalk who is a well known Tamil racist (It is not necessary for a Tamil racist to be a Tamil) in Sweden who is paid by the Upsala University to do "research" against the Sinhalathva. The man was not issued a visa to India as the Indians were aware of his LTTE connections.
In Sri Lanka there has been only one nation from the time of Pandukabhaya. When Magha who was not a Dravidian established the Arya Chakravarthi kingdom in Jaffna, (it is not feasible even for a Peter Schalk to argue that a Dravidian established an Arya Chakravarthi kingdom) he had Sinhalas who had been living in the Jaffna peninsula for centuries and the "Malayalis" (Kerala soldiers) who were his mercenaries as his "subjects". This kingdom that was subordinate to the Sinhala kings did not last long and was captured by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. After the Dutch took over the control of the maritime provinces in the seventeenth century they "imported" Tamil speaking people from South India for their tobacco cultivation. The present population in Jaffna are the descendants of these three categories who have been Tamilised in the process. They have never been a nation in this country and for that matter there has never been a Tamil nation anywhere anytime in the history. No definition of nation, eastern or western would allow one to identify the Tamils anywhere in the world as a nation. It is humbug to talk of a Tamil nation that has existed even for two decades let alone centuries. In Sri Lanka they have been an ethnic group at most but as even Chelvanayakam had admitted even as late as the fifties there had been at least three different ethnic Tamil groups. They could be identified as the Jaffna Tamils, Batticloa Tamils and the Tamils of more recent Indian origin. None of these groups had a history of more than three hundred years in the country and it was only in the seventies these groups made an attempt to amalgamate into a single ethnic group. If the Tamils are a nation in this country then so are the Muslims, the Malays, the Veddas.
On the other hand if the Tamils in Sri Lanka form a nation then the Tamils in India who have a longer history and who have built a unique culture in that country unlike the Tamils in Sri Lanka who have only transplanted the South Indian Tamil culture here after they were brought by the Dutch, should be considered as a nation. Solheim who should know more about the Tamils in India should campaign in India, the country of his wife, for the recognition of Tamils in India as a nation. Otherwise he is failing in his duties by his wife. Indian Tamils could at least show the unique culture that includes classics written in Tamil during a period of more than thousand years. Could the Tamils in Sri lanka show anything new that they have created (not imitations of South Indian culture) or a book they have written except for the Yalpana Vaipava Malai that was commissioned by the Dutch, before the eighteenth century?
The English speaking Tamils who dominated the Sri Lankan politics with the explicit and implicit support given by the British did not want to give up their privileges. After Chelvanayakam they wanted to have their own nation and state in the northern and the eastern provinces. From the time of Ramanathan they did not want to recognise the unique position that the Sinhalas held in this country and worked with the British to deny Sinhalathva its rightful place in the country.
It would be interesting to find out the position of the nation state "theorists" regarding the two nation one country concept. Just two years ago these "theorists" were telling us that the nation states were formed in Europe only after the seventeenth century and therefore there would not have been a Sinhala nation before that. Only they could have known how the first proposition implied the second proposition defying various forms of logic. Anyhow they told us that the ethnicity did not matter in the definition of a nation and for all purposes whether one belonged to a nation depended on one's citizenship in a country. Now all of a sudden they have started talking of two nations in one country. If all the people living in a country belong to one nation according to the concept of a nation state then how is it possible to have two nations in one country?
The fact that Tamil racism has had to change its position regarding nation and state over the years amply demonstrate the hollowness of their arguments. They are trying to create concepts though inconsistent with other concepts and "facts" to suit the political situation. The Tamil racists having realised that "self determination" cannot be defended in a single state have now turned to "internal self determination" to deceive the Sinhalas. In order to justify "internal self determination" they (meaning the western political scientists and others who are behind Tamil racism) have constructed the concept of two nations one country concept. Once the "government" agrees with the LTTE and the western colonialists on "internal self determination" it is easy for them to justify a confederation with separate "police" that is not different from an army, land ownership and even foreign trade and representations. Akashis are already on their way to have pacts with the LTTE and we could expect Pasupathys and Soronarajas to recommend an "interim administration" along those lines.
The Tamil racists who have got everything except a state in Sri Lanka want to achieve that too. It has been made clear by the minister Maheswaran who was in a Scandinavian country to canvass for a LTTE member who contested at an election of members to a local council. Maheswaran has said that there would not be a Tamil language and a Tamil nation in fifty years unless the Tamils establish a state. It is not any grievances that drive the Tamils to establish a separate state but this "aspiration". The Tamil racists know that they could establish this dream state only in Sri lanka and not in any other country including India as only the English speaking Sinhalas who have lost their roots would betray the motherland to satisfy their western masters. It is in this context that the launching of the patriotic national alliance on Saturday in Kandy would be a significant step in the history of the country.
With or without Norway there is no way that the Sinhalas could agree with this treacherous concept of "two nations one country". This is only one step away from the Colvin R. de Silva concept of two languages one country. However the two languages have not stopped the Tamil racists who follow the "little now more later" path. "The two nations one country" is only a bogus concept that has been created to justify the interim administration that would lead to a confederation and finally an Eelam. It is not "two nations one country" but "two nations two countries". The new national alliance should try to attract the SLFP rank and file as well, as that party despite an imported leadership from England that is more loyal to the Mahajana Party, is still the party of the Sinhalathva. The patriotic national movement could defeat the "Two nations one country" with the assistance of the SLFP, and the leaders of the movement should be careful not to criticise the SLFP. On the other hand they should not worry about those "local" political scientists who talk about the so-called international situation. This international situation is only a creation of the western political scientists especially those who study international relations, and the imitators in Sri Lanka who have "crammed up" these "theories" just vomit them. If there is a strong national leadership there is nothing that the "international community" could do. The "international community" takes the upper hand only in the absence of such leadership, as evident from the present situation in the country.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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