AN AGENDA FOR THE DHJV
The new nationalist movement under the banner of Desha Hithaishie Jathika Vyaparaya (DHJV) was launched on last Saturday in Kandy, only a few yards away from the Dalada Maligawa attacked by the Tamil racist fascist tigers five years ago. The barbarous attack finally led the Sri Lankan "government" (PA was in "power" then) to ban the LTTE though the so called international community forgot it after issuing a few customary press statements telling each other how sad they were about the incident. The response either from the "government" or the "international community" was nothing much when compared to the way they reacted to the September 11 attack on the world trade centre in New York. Of course by that time a different "government" had been elected by the Sri Lankans and it may not be correct to compare the responses of the two "governments" to the incidents.
The DHJV was launched on the 27th of September, only a day after the Bandaranaike commemoration was held in Horogolla. It is remarkable that none of the speakers at the launching ceremony in Kandy, facing Dalada Maligawa, referred to any of these in their speeches. Mr. Anura Bandaranaike was not present at the ceremony, probably participating in a SLFP district members' meeting in Kegalle. Almost all those who gathered at the launching of the DHJV were children of fifty six and a reference to fifty six would have been appropriate to say the least. While listening to the speeches one could not refrain from peeping into the recent history of the national movements of the country that began under the leadership of Anagarika Dharmapala who is hated by the third rate political scientists and the sociologists produced by Peradeniya and Colombo. It has to be kept on repeating that these third raters though some of them would have got their first classes have not contributed anything significant to their so called sciences. They are mere imitators who perhaps imitating their fathers who themselves were third raters could only give poor ratings to original ideas of the others. These third raters having not produced a single original idea cannot see the world except through the bankrupt theories of western political scientists and sociologists who limp behind the western physicists. The third raters very often talk of logic and reasoning without understanding what logic and reasoning is. They do not know that the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya is not capable of creating consistent theories in social sciences though it has been successful in creating a consistent corpus of knowledge in physics and mathematics. The western Judaic Christian culture knows only of one consistency, defined with respect to two valued formal logic and only Newtonian bodies and mathematical structures respect this logic. Even quantum particles and bodies have no respect for two valued formal logic, not to mention the thinking processes of human beings that should be taken into consideration in creating knowledge in the so called social sciences.
DHJV has the potential to give leadership to the struggle against western Christian colonialism in this country that began almost five hundred years ago. Since the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka, Dutch, English, Americans and Norwegians have been our rulers and all of them except the Portuguese have used Tamil racism against the Sinhalathva, a concept that makes all the apologists for western Christian colonialism from Peter Schalk in Upsala in Sweden to the Boru ( I have no objection if Boru is replaced by Booru) Schalks in Colombo and Peradeniya furious. It was reported in the newspapers that the prime minister intends to go to Portugal to have discussions in connection with the commemoration of the arrival of Portuguese in Sri Lanka. The DHJV could address their minds to this development as well. The so called aborigines in the USA and the other parts of America objected to have celebrations to commemorate the arrival of a murderer and a rapist called Christopher Colombus in that part of the world. We in Sri Lanka have nothing to celebrate and all that we could do is to ask the Portuguese government to give compensations for the destruction of temples (pansals, kovils and devales), murders, rapes and other crimes against the Sinhala Buddhists as well as the Tamil Hindus. We shall never forget the Asavedus and the priests who came with them and it is the time to remember not only Mayadunne, Rjasinghe and Wimaladharmasuriya but Sankili for their heroic struggles against the Portuguese colonialists.
The Tamil racists who have been going behind the Dutch, British, Americans and the Norwegians could take a lesson from Sankili who fought the Portuguese, very often with the help of the Sinhala kings. It is unfortunate that since the Dutch period the demography in the Jaffna peninsula has been changed with the importation of labour for the tobacco cultivation from South India, and since then the western Christian colonialists have been successful in driving a wedge between the Sinhala Buddhists and the imported Tamil Hindus and creating and using a Tamil racism against Sinhalathva in this country. The present day Tamils in Sri Lanka have no history going beyond the Dutch period (the Sinhalas and the descendants of the Kerala soldiers who lived under the Arya Chakravarthins have been absorbed into the Tamil race after the Dutch) and historically they have been dependent on the western colonialists for their existence from the very beginning. The western Christian colonialists on their part have created a Tamil racism and used it against the Sinhala people in the country. Though third rate imitators who call themselves social scientists may not understand it (they can get first classes from imitative universities but that does not mean that they can understand any phenomenon outside the text books written by the western social scientists - ape batahira pothe ohoma nethe), the so called devolution of power, though a concept found in the western text books and journals, is not relevant at all in the historical and geographical contexts of Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran is no Sankili though he may be appealing to the image of the latter, and is only a political grand nephew of Ramanathan, a political nephew of Chelvanayakam and a political cousin of Thiruchelvam, who were essentially creations of the west.
The Tamils in Sri Lanka have to get rid of their "colonial mentality" that has been instilled into them successively by the Dutch, British, Americans (missionaries as well as diplomats recently) and the Norwegians and other Scandinavians. The essential difference between the DHJV and the Tamil racist movements is found in this mentality. DHJV or any nationalist movement is primarily anti colonialist in attitude, whereas the so called Tamil national movements are racist movements supported by western Christian colonialism, and are against Sinhala people. However, the western political scientists and sociologists who have a hegemonic power in the academia as well as in the media have been able to twist it and project anti colonialist Sinhala movements as racist movements and Tamil racism that is being sponsored by the west as a liberation movement. Tamil racism is not against western colonialism and right throughout from its inception has been basically anti Sinhala. As many Hindus know very well the LTTE has been responsible for propagating western cultural attitudes in the Hindu society.
The DHJV has already been identified as an ultra nationalist movement. Very soon it will be called a Sinhala Chauvinist movement. The BBC and the English media and the so called experts in the English universities will give the lead in this regard. The LTTE on the other hand will continue to be projected as a liberation movement struggling to win freedom from Sinhala "imperialism". DHJV will be projected as an anti peace movement. The so called foreign correspondent who wrote a piece on Arjuna Ranatunga supporting the DHJV said the latter had decided to join anti peace march or words to that effect. DHJV is not anti peace but anti piece. Peace cannot be achieved through so called devolution of power and anti devolution cannot be equated with anti peace. This type of reporting goes as objective and impartial due to the hegemony of the western media. Anything that supports or reinforces the western view is objective and any other view is Chauvinist, fundamental, racist, subjective etc. DHJV would be identified as consisting of extremists while the LTTE is said to comprise of freedom fighters. Even the so called postmodernists fail to "deconstruct" this humbug. They would write volumes on human behaviour determined by language but would never analyse the words such as freedom fighter, extremist etc., when it comes to politics in the so called third world. As far as our part of the world is concerned, postmodernism is only another instrument in the baggage of the colonialist. Said, the post colonialist who died recently could not have gained recognition in the west unless he served western colonialism in spite of all his rhetoric on orientalism.
The DHJV has an uphill task. It is clear that the non national forces do not want the DHJV. Even those who are against the LTTE for various reasons but not against Tamil racism as such, are against the DHJV. They assume that a western type solution like power sharing in one country but in two geographical areas, would solve the Tamil racist problem. They are only applying a solution valid in one part of the globe in a certain historical context to another part of the world where the historical context is entirely different. It is no better than applying gas laws to study expansion of solid bodies. These so called intellectuals who are good only at passing examinations and quoting from some obscure chapters in books that have been read by relatively a few persons think that finding a quotation very few people have come across is the ultimate test of scholarship. The DHJV is against devolution of power. It does not matter if the "international community" advocates devolution. There are so many prescriptions of the "international community" that are not good for the health of the country.
As the non national forces do not want a strong DHJV to emerge, they will do their best to weaken and sabotage it. They will try to inflate the differences between the JVP and the SLFP hoping that the SLFP would not officially enter the DHJV. However, already a number of SLFP MPs including the former prime minister Mr. Rathnasiri Wickramanayake together with the MEP leader have taken part in the march from Kandy to Colombo and it is expected that many more SLFP MPs would join it in Nittambuwa and later in Colombo. The SLFP, the party of Sinhalathva since 1955, has no choice but to join the DHJV. Both the SLFP and the JVP comprise children of fifty six and the two parties need each other in their fight against western colonialism. They should learn from their past experience. In the latter part of the eighties the two parties with other parties like the MEP and national organisations formed the Mavubima Surakeeme Vyaparaya (MSV). The movement grew from strength to strength as long as the JVP and the SLFP were together. However after a very successful meeting in Kandy the two parties decided to go on their different ways and very soon the MSV was disintegrated and the country went through the terror or bheeshana period. The strength of the SLFP is in the JVP and vice versa. If the SLFP is the elder brother of the children of fifty six then the JVP is the younger brother. They cannot afford to be separated for long. However, the SLFP that has a Mahajana Party member as its leader is handicapped against western colonialism and its page boy Tamil racism. If the leader of the SLFP is not willing to give up Mahajana party politics in favour of the Sinhalathva policies of the party then the party members would have a difficult time in the not so distant future.
The non national forces would try to isolate the JVP and then massacre its members as was done in 1988 -1989 bheeshana period. The JVP should not go after the bait of the non nationalists and instead they should try to concentrate on winning the SLFP to the DHJV. The SLFP on the other hand will be protected by the JVP and it is in the interests of both parties that they come together. It is futile to win over a few TNA MPs and form a government that includes the LSSP, CP and other non national parties. Such a government would be dictated by the "international community". What is needed at the hour is a government formed by national forces, that would not be dictated by the so called international community, and the SLFP and the JVP should see to it that they work towards forming a such government.
Professor Nalin de Silva
>
>
>