NON NATIONAL FORCES AND BANDARANAIKE PUTHRA
The forthcoming Presidential election will be a battle between the national forces and the non national forces. While Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse leads the national forces Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe is the representative and not the leader of the non national forces. The leader of the non national forces cannot be seen as he or she may be leading the battle from London, Washington, Oslo or some other place. It has to be emphasised that Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga is also one of the more "important" members of the non national forces. The first obstacle on the path to Presidency of Mr. Rajapakse is none other than Ms. Kumaratunnga. Both Ms. Kumaratunga and Mr. Anura Bandaranaike had to agree to nominate Mr. Rajapakse as the Presidential candidate of the SLFP reluctantly as they had no other choice at that time. Given half a chance they would have nominated Mr. Anuran Bandaranaike as the Presidential candidate.
Before we proceed further, the term non national has to be explained. We have used this term hundreds of time, occasionally defining it, but an explanation is called for, at this juncture in the history of the country. The non national forces include not only the foreigners who still control our affairs in politics, economics and culture but those "locals" who serve their masters and mistresses in the west. The UNP is the political party that acts as the direct agent of the non national forces, but parties and organisations such as the LTTE also come under this category. The SLFP which was the party of the Sinhalathva or Jathikathva after about 1954 became a party of non national forces under the leadership of Ms. Kumaratunga. She hijacked the party and turned it into Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP). Of course she who was forming and leaving parties those days was last found in what is known as Bahu Jana Nidahas Party (BJNP). Both SLMP and BJNP were, and continue to be political agents of the non national forces, assuming that the latter party still exists.
However, it is not only the political parties we are concerned with. The non national forces in Sri Lanka include various NGOs which are financed by the western Christian countries. There are some "intellectuals", including a third rate Professorial imitator in Political Science from the University of Colombo who writes on NGOs as part of the so called civil society. The civil society whether in the Gramscian sense or otherwise consists of individuals and organisations which are different from and not included in the institutions connected with state. The Mahila Samithis, Grama Sanvardhana Samithis of yesteryear are examples of such organisations and we did not want a Gramsci to introduce the concept of civil society, though not in the same words. If an imitator in the form of an "intellectual" wants to mention that the civil society has a political content not found in the Mahila Samithis, then al that can be said is that these organisations had a politics, if the imitator insists a micro politics in Foucaltian sense, and also that in the Sinhala society for thousand years the Bhikkus had played the role of the so called civil society with a political content. It is this civil society of the Sinhala Bhikkus that the third rate western sociologists who write about the role of the monks fail to understand. The "intellectuals" must be happy that Gramsci was not born two thousand years ago, as otherwise they could not have published their "scholarly" work on "Sinhala Buddhism". At least now they could try to understand the Sinhala Bhikkus as part of the "civil society".
However, one cannot compare the present day NGOs with the Mahila Samithis at least in one aspect. The "intellectual" mentioned above would want to forget that the present NGOs are financed by the western Christian countries. He writes as if the present day NGOs are self financed like the Mahila Samithis. It is hardly the case and the NGOs are part of the Governmental or state sector of those countries. Thus the so called NGOs are Governmental Organisations of the western Christian countries. They could be named WGOs or western governmental organisation that are maintained by the western countries. The WGOs have a political content which is nothing but that is dictated by the politics of the western Christian modernity of Michelangelo, Luther and Copernicus. We do not have to go into the budgets and files of CEDEC, NORAD and other such organisations to know that they are all western Christian in culture, if not in religion as well, and that their agenda is nothing but the propagation of the western Christian culture, weakening if not destroying all the other cultures. The "nodath dosthara" (dentist who does not know) of the UNP is not expected to know what a Chinthanaya is, as he do not know even the concept of "paradigm" due to Kuhn. Chinthanaya is a deeper concept than paradigm, and not merely the "thought" which was originally meant when "chinthanaya" was used as its translation by Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera. The concept of Chinthanaya itself has evolved over the last twenty years and the "nodath dosthara" would not be aware of these developments.
The WGOs which pretend to be NGOs in countries such as Sri Lanka, together with the "intellectuals" who sell their labour (Let all the mental and physical workers of the world unite to propagate the western Christian culture) are part and parcel of the non national forces. These WGOs together with the other organisations in the other parts of the world have a scheme where by the cinema and other works such as novels that ridicule the non Christian cultures (including Catholic culture, though many Catholics, especially the priests, may not understand this) are rewarded. Thus in the recent past Sri Lanka has produced a few "world class" cinema directors overnight, who have been rewarded. There is no art per se, (neither nor science per se) and all so called neutral arts and theories are culture based and have a political content. Newton's Laws of motion with the inertial frames of reference in the mind of the Lutheran God, are not an exception and if one were to tell me that Thani Thatuwen Piyambanna, Sudu, Alu ha Kalu (in that order or some other order which I do not bother to find out), Sulanga Enu Pinisa etc. are mere works of arts, I can only laugh at the statement. Unlike Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera and the Island journalist Shamindra Ferdinando I do not watch these films, as I have a "theory" on such cinema and awards that they win, of course based on Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya. Even without going to a cinema hall I could tell that these cinema have only one objective, one of western Christian modernity, and I would whole heartedly agree with the criticisms of both mentioned above that these films only ridicule the Sinhala Buddhist culture and blame the Sinhala people for everything that happen in this country. These so called film directors together with many others are mere paid servants of western Christian modernity, who work according to its agenda. They have to be rewarded by their masters and mistresses for their work, and all that we have to do is to make an awareness among the people on what these so called artistes are up to. The criticism by Rear Admiral Weerasekera in particular has to be appreciated as he is one of the few officers who have spoken in defense of the character of the armed forces. What we have to understand is that any culture would reward those who serve that culture and western Christian culture is no exception. There is no absolute talent as such that is appreciated, and whether I am talented or not relative to my culture, I do not expect any appreciations or even a favourable acknowledgement of what I am doing from this society dominated by western Christian modernity. The third rate film directors have been called upon to come up with films that demoralize the armed forces, and in this society dominated by "intellectuals" (third raters), "rana gee" and "deshapremi gee" (patriotic songs) are tabooed. This is only one aspect of cultural domination by the western Christian culture. In general the western Christian modernity does not want any other culture in the world, and in Sri Lanka it means that they are all out to destroy Sinhala Buddhist culture, and in this context they make use of Tamil racism that they have created and nurtured.
Rear Admiral Weerasekera has raised the important point that in India one cannot find this type of third raters. It is true that India is much more patriotic than Sri Lanka, perhaps due to the very stringent conditions imposed by Hindu culture on the people. Sinhala Buddhist culture is one of the most tolerant and free cultures in the world and the western Christian modernity has exploited this quality of our culture to produce all these third raters who parade as intellectuals and artistes. In spite of the claims to be secular, India is still Hindu to a large extent, and all attempts by people such as Mahatma Gandhi to make India a modern nation, meaning of course Christian, have failed in the recent past. When Mahatma was shot the attempts to make India secular (Christian) by preaching came to an end. However, the economic component of western Christian modernity and more importantly the western education that has expanded has created a large Indian middle class that could change the character of India in years to come. Even today, one must not forget that India is not without its third raters who are rewarded in the western Christian culture as exemplified by people like Salmon Rushdie. More Rushdies will be produced by the Indian middle class in the future. We should understand that in the present era western Christian modernity dominates the world more through knowledge than by anything else. The so called third world is under the yoke of knowledge produced by the western Christian culture.
The above does not exhaust the list of non national forces and as the leader of the national forces Mr. Rajapakse has a big task ahead of him. Unfortunately for him the battle starts at home. He is opposed by Ms. Kumaratunga who is clearly not supporting him. Neither Mr. Anura Bandaranaike supports Mr. Rajapakse and both the sister and the brother are not in favour of Mr. Rajapakse's candidature. They had to select him as they were forced to do so. Given half a chance, their choice would have been Mr. Bandaranaike, and not Mr. Rajapakse. In the circumstances Ms. Kumaratunga tries to impose conditions on Mr. Rajapakse to see that not only he loses the Presidential election but the non national forces win over the national forces. After all, she is among the non national forces. The battle between the national forces and the non national forces has begun in the SLFP itself. The recent letter by Ms. Kumaratunga to Mr. Rajapakse shows that the battle lines have been drawn already.
Ms. Kumaratunga objects to the agreement between the JVP and Mr. Rajapakse on grounds that it is against the policies of the SLFP. She has the audacity to ask Mr. Rajapakse whether the policies given in the agreement have been adopted at the party meetings. Let us analyse the situation. The SLFP, we are not tired of repeating, is the party of the jathikathva or Sinhalathva, at least since 1955. The party had governed the country on number of occasions together with other parties, but naturally not to the satisfaction of western Christian modernity and the associated non national forces. From 1977 to 1994, for seventeen long years, the party was in opposition. However, by 1992, due to untiring efforts by people such as Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse, through the "pada yathras" and other such agitations the party was on the verge of coming to power. The non national forces in the country as well as abroad then decided to import Ms. Kumaratunga to be the leader of the SLFP. This they did through the PA, and Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was unceremoniously removed from the leadership of the SLFP, and Ms. Kumaratunga was installed as the leader. We must remember that unlike Mr. Rajapakse, both Ms. Kumaratunga and Mr. Anura Bandaranaike had deserted the party of their parents and come back to the party with ulterior motives. In the case of Ms. Kumaratunga it was to change the policies of the party. The SLFP always had the policy of a unitary state and it was Ms. Kumaratunga who changed that policy without getting it approved by a conference of the party. Later she may have got it rubberstamped by the party using her powers as the President of the country, and the leader of the party, but in the first instance she did so without consulting the party members. The SLFP position on PTOMS was decided by her and not by the party as such. Was Mr. Rajapakse or Mr. Kadirgamar consulted in connection with the PTOMS? The answer is no. The SLFP that did not question the leader accepted all these changes without making an uproar. Now Mr. Rajapakse has been nominated as the Presidential candidate of the party, but Ms. Kumaratunga wants to play the role of the non-playing captain.
The SLFP that was kept under her thumb, and was forced to change its policies in a dictatorial manner, wants to get back to the original policies. Ms. Kumaratunga who changed the policies of the party dictatorially, now does want the party to go back to the policies of her parents. If she was a democrat she should have resigned from the leadership of the party, and given Mr. Rajapakse the freedom to campaign without any restrictions. Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, has gone on record, that only Bandaranaikes would determine the policy of the party. The irony is that the two offspring of the Bandaranaikes, who deserted the party at one time or the other want to change the policies of the Bandaranaikes in the name of the Bandaranaikes. Ms. Kumaratunga had no right to change the policies of the party dictatorially to satisfy the non national forces, and at least now she should allow the party to become the real SLFP, rather than the SLMP of her husband. The Bandaranaike policies are followed by Rajapakse and others, and not by the Bandaranaikes. Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse is the heir to the Bandaranaike policies and not those who were born in Horagolla. In the Sinhala Buddhist tradition, which is unfamiliar to the Kumaratungas and the not so young Anura Bandaranaike, we would say that one is a Bandaranaike not by birth but by deeds. The SLFP is not the property of Horagolla born people, but belongs to the people who well and truly follow the policies of the Bandaranaikes. In that sense Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse is a Bandaranaike Puthra and a child of fifty six, while neither Ms. Kumaratunga nor Mr. Anura Bandaranaike is any one of those.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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