SOVEREIGNTY AND DEMOCRACY
Who is ruling whom in this country called Sri Lanka? On paper Sandhanaya government is in power having polled the most number of votes as a single political entity. It is also clear the majority of the Sinhala people, especially of the Sinhala Buddhists have voted for the Sandhanaya. The Sinhala Buddhists voted against the participation of Norwegians as the so called facilitators. In fact Sandhanaya campaigned against the Norwegians, and also the agreement that was drafted by the Norwegians and signed by Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prabhakaran, though not sitting together.
However after coming to power Ms. Kumaratunga has followed a different policy and now she is all out to betray the voters who rallied round the Sandhanaya to defeat the foreign influence over the affairs of the country. The ISGA by any other name is not acceptable not only to the majority of the Sinhalas but even to the Tamils in the eastern province as the Karuna faction of the eastern Tamils amply demonstrates. The peace secretariat issued a statement last week to the effect that the government would agree to set up what is called an interim body.
The English language is basically a language of business and administration and the words can be given meanings and interpretations that the rulers or those who have the upper hand want. The English work according to the rule that a rose by any other name is a rose and also that shit by any other name is shit, though they do not mention the latter. The Sinhala tradition which has no "reality" except in the vocabulary of the Olcott Buddhists who are Buddhists by religion but Christian by culture would likely to think that an interim body is different from the ISGA. Sambandhan a member of the TNA the proxy party of the terrorists has said that they would agree with the government though what is proposed is somewhat less than what the LTTE wants. That is true as what the LTTE wants is an Eelam and nothing but Eelam. However ISGA or interim body is only the stepping stone to an Eelam.
Though the UNP was defeated at the general elections held in April last year, it is the policy of the UNP that is being carried out by Ms. Kumaratunga. If not for the JVP by now a so called interim body would have been set up and the peace secretariat headed by a person who wants to be the next secretary general of the united nations would have done everything to please the westerners. Who would say that one could become the secretary general of the united nations by going against the wish of the western Christian countries.
The harm that the western Christian education done to this country has still not been studied properly. When I refer to Christian education I do not mean only the education given in the Christian schools. The so called national schools and the national universities including the faculties of arts and humanities and post graduate institutes dealing with Buddhist studies are established mainly within a Christian framework.
I have been interested in finding out how many JVP members and how many LTTE members have been produced by the schools that cater to the Sinhalas, Tamils and the Muslims under "one roof". I do not know of any study but I am interested in obtaining these figures as ratios of the number of students in each group. Even the JVP with its "Marxist" leanings is still working within the broad Christian framework as Marxism was only an alternative that was formulated in the Christian west. India escaped the fate of Sri Lanka because the western Christian education did not spread as in the case of Sri Lanka, but with the present expansion of the Indian middle class they are bound to be subservient to the Christian west. Last week's "New Scientist" that carried a special supplement on the development of Science and Technology in India, had given de-ropes to the Indian middle class and the so called scientists. The science that the New Scientist encourages in India is that based on Greek Judaic christian Chinthanaya and not on Vedic Chinthanaya or Hindu Chinthanaya and unless the BJP or some other nationalist party could do something about it within a century India would become a cultural colony of the west, instead of becoming a "superpower of knowledge".
To go back to the interim body or the ISGA how is that the views of the majority are always defeated in this so called democratic set up. The "government" has also agreed to establish a joint body with the LTTE to engage in "relief and rehabilitation" work in connection with tsunami affected people in the northern and the eastern provinces. All these steps would be used to give recognition to the LTTE as a "government" and Ms. Kumaratunga with her team of "experts" who cannot be said to have any loyalty to the SLFP is step by step surrendering to the pressure applied by a minority. The pundits (the word pundit is used here to mean "pandithaya" in Sinhala) in the NGOs would say that democracy does not mean steamrollering of the majority view and that the views of the minority have to be respected. Nobody would say that the views of the minority should not be respected but what is happening in Sri Lanka is the steamrollering of the views of a certain minority on the rest.
The minority concerned here is not the Tamils as such but the LTTE. Does the LTTE respect the views of the Karuna faction in the eastern province?. Perhaps the LTTE has no regard for the views of the Karuna faction as the latter is the majority in the eastern province. The LTTE is a terrorist organisation that does not respect the views of the majority whether in the country as a whole or in any one of the provinces, and has a habit of steamrollering the views of a minority on the rest. Would those NGO pundits who preach from their pulpits that the views of the minority should be respected in a so-called democracy tell their favourite terrorist organisation that at least once in a way the views of the majority have to be respected.
It is unlikely that the NGO pundits would utter such words to the LTTE. In fact it is they who want only the views of the LTTE respected. The NGOs are nothing but organisations that have ben established mainly with money coming from the Christian western countries non Catholic as well as Catholic, to manipulate the public opinion in the non western countries. The western countries not only try to control the governments through "aid" which is in effect loans on interest, but also the "alternative" views as purported to be expressed by the "public". The so called alternative voice or the public opinion is also thus manufactured in the west as could be seen from what is happening in Sri Lanka. The NGOs were and are being used as economic agents as well. The economic programmes initiated by the NGO s are supported by the west simply because the former do what the latter expects them to do. In a sense the west is in a position to control the government and manipulate the opposition. If the western countries do not get hundred percent support from the government they would get the NGOs directly or indirectly to organise "protests" against the government or if the government is going along the "correct path" then the NGOs would come out in support with paper advertisements, posters, banners, pickets etc. Thus the west controls the lives of the people in three different ways. They have a control of the governments, then of the NGOs and finally of the information and knowledge. The network of universities and schools with scholarships, fellowships, "aid" programmes, loans, grants and the media that depend on the west for news and information would unconsciously control the minds of the people.
In Sri Lanka the LTTE has been able to impose its will on the government through not only direct control of the latter by the western Christian countries, but also through the various NGO including those that have been specifically established for "peace", that manipulate the public opinion. During the last three decades or so the west has learnt to use the so called left of centre "intellectuals" to their advantage against the main component of the culture in a country. These lefties who have been left out of the mainstream politics have been given more than a breathing space by the west. There is nothing that these "intellectuals" can do against colonialism, (neo colonialism as they have defined the phenomenon) except organising a press conference or a seminar against some action by the west. What have these heroes in the NGO circuit done against the attack on Iraq. Simply nothing. What have Arundathi Roys done against the USA policy in Iraq. The left of centre "intellectuals" may even occasionally complain about the "Eurocentric" knowledge, but have they come with any knowledge that is "Asiacentric" or "Afrocentric". Have they analysed the base that gives rise to "Eurocentric" knowledge? They should realise that even the term Eurocentric was created in the west and the knowledge on Eurocentric knowledge is also Eurocentric.
The western powers are applying pressure on the government to give an Eelam to an organisation that has no support among the ordinary Tamil Hindus. Tamil racism is an essentially a Tamil Christian phenomenon created baptised and nurtured by the Christian west. Ms. Kumaratunga who takes pride in the fact that her ancestors built churches in Veyangoda, and who does not waste an opportunity to talk against Sinhala Buddhists, even in a speech made at the Buddhist and Pali University she attacked the Sinhala Buddhists, is at best an Olcott Buddhist. She follows the policies of the Mahajana Party that was founded by her late Catholic husband, and does not have to be pressurised by the west to work against the interests of the Sinhala Buddhists. The only good that she has done for the Sinhala Buddhists is the prevention of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe becoming the president of the country.
Incidentally, Eric Solheim who is the visible representative of the Christian west in the country is engaged an exercise of winning the goodwill of the Sinhala Buddhists. The man who is responsible for day to day work in connection with the betrayal of the Sinhala Buddhist interests is seen these days behaving like a "Sinhala Buddhist" politician. He is so much part of the political establishment of the country, and probably has his media unit like a cabinet minister of the government. He could be seen in the media running round the country. especially in the Southern province playing "pandu" with tsunami affected children, giving money to rebuild the temples that were destroyed by tsunami and even worshipping the Mahanayake Theros with "atapirikara" in the true "Sinhala Buddhist" political tradition. Solheim has learnt a lot during the last three or four years and he has not forgotten to come to the country with his son. The best service that Solheim and the west could render to the country is to leave our affairs to us. However, it is unlikely that the Mahanayake Theros conveyed that message after he offered "atapirikara".
Professor Nalin de Silva
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