FOR THE EKSESATH RAJYA
India nurtured Prabhakaran in the early stages and had to pay the supreme sacrifice in the form of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi.
Mr. Senanayaka thinks that it is not possible to have a unitary state in Sri Lanka. He blames the editors for not writing editorials "to point out how untenable the unitary state principle principle was and how unworkable the Sinhala Buddhist identity concept would be in a plural state where widely dispersed minorities had considerable economic clout". Either Mr. Senanayaka lives in a different world altogether or he is not satisfied with the amount of editorials written in favour of a federal state in the government owned press which echoed the views of Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga, and the press owned by the relatives of Ranil Wickremesinghe. The electronic media except for ITN also campaigned for a federal state. It has to be realised that most of the main government media personnel were for a federal state. The so called liberal "intellectuals" also paraded in the national press as well as the weekend rag sheets published with the support of the NGOs. Mr. Senanayaka gives the impression that the JVP and the JHU were not challenged but on the contrary the Sinhala people did not listen to the proponents of federalism, as they did not have any convincing arguments supported by "facts".
Mr. Senanayaka should be reminded that Britain is a unitary state with the legislature for the entire country housed in Westminster. He would mention of the parliaments in Scotland, and Ireland but they do not have much power, and unlike in Sri Lanka Scots, Welsh and the Irish had their separate states for centuries independent of the kings and queens who ruled England. The first colonies of England were Wales, Scotland and Ireland and today in UK (Britain, though not identical) the culture is that of the English in which Catholics do not have much of a say. The Irish problem is nothing but a continuation of the struggle between the Catholics and the Protestants for dominance, and the Catholics are now confined to the southern part of Ireland. The IRA is basically a Catholic movement fighting "Her Majesty's" Protestant state with its parliament in London. Catholics are fighting a losing battle, with the unionists wining the support of the North. The South will remain a Catholic country like France but with Reformist Christian culture dominating. In England the Arabs and the others have a considerable economic clout but it would be wishful thinking for the Arabs to establish a federal state in Britain. Does Mr. Senanayaka think that just because the " have an economic clout they should be given a federal state? The irony of this argument is that those "minorities" who have an economic clout live in Colombo and its surroundings and not in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces. This is not different to the case in Britain where Arabs and others with an economic clout live in London. If the economical base is Colombo and if those with the economic clout live there, it is not practicable, to use Mr. Senanayaka's terminology, for them to have a federal state.
Mr. Senanayaka, a campaigner for federalism, thinks that a unitary state is not possible also due to the "fact" that not only the LTTE but the international community is against it. He says "President Mahinda seems to have genuinely believed that the unitary state concept was a workable solution to the ethnic problem. It was obvious to any thinking person that it would not be an acceptable basis not only to the LTTE but even to the international community including India." Are we to decide on matters connected to the country on the basis of what is acceptable to the so called international community and India? The so called international community consists of western Christian countries, and today for various reasons India is not prepared to antagonise the western countries. The Indian non aligned policy of yesteryear was due to the presence of the Soviet Union, and with the dissolution of the Eastern European socialist system India is following western Christian modernity, and has to depend on the Western European countries. Let India follow what it wants, but we do not necessarily have to become a western Christian modernist country. We do not have to be dictated by the western Christian countries, though there may be some Catholics who do not seem to understand the difference between the Catholic Chinthanaya and the Greek Judaic Christian (GJC) Chinthanaya, and support the latter perhaps in order to teach a lesson to the Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya. Mr. Senanayaka, of course, could say that it is the reality that we have to follow the western Christian countries. As we have pointed out earlier there is no reality as such, reality itself being a creation of men (not women) is a concept that is relative to particular cultures dominated by men. In any event if people were to believe that colonialism is a reality that neither we can oppose nor do anything against it, then we could live as slaves of a particular Chinthanaya. There are many people, both men and women living in this country who do not want to be slaves of the GJC Chinthanaya. Mr. Senanayaka could say that many people would not know anything about Chinthanaya, but what should be understood is that even though people may not grasp the concept of Chinthanaya, people by instinct know that they are not with GJC Chinthanaya. In any event people of this country have had the freedom of thinking for themselves for more than two thousand years, and they are not a herd of sheep that could be directed by shepherds good or bad. The western Political Scientists and others come out with concepts such as dissolution of sovereignty for the "third world", to make sure that those countries are under the noose of the western Christian countries, but we would request them to show how the sovereignty of USA has been even slightly diluted over the last fifty years or so. The concepts in western Social Sciences have to be always treated with suspicion as they are created by their intellectuals mainly to maintain the hegemony of the western Christian countries.
Mr. Senanayaka also says: "This (agreeing to a unitary state) is one way to reach a consensus but it is unlikely to help in resolving the ethnic problem since the LTTE is committed only to a federal or even confederal solution. How then can the Sri Lankan government persuade the LTTE to accept the unitary state. Would they even come for talks on the basis of a unitary state. They are willing to talk about the CFA but only regarding its implementation and not any modification of its terms. The LTTE agreed to internal self determination only under pressure from the International Community for them to scale down their demand for Eelam." It is obvious that Mr. Senanayaka is concerned mainly with the interests of the LTTE and the so called international community. We repeat that the "international community" like many other "concepts" is an idea or belief which is a con, and is only a CONcept. (The English could spell some of their words not with just one capital but with several capital letters so as to convey the hidden meanings as well.) The so called international community is confined to the western countries and their subservient countries who would speak for the former. According to Mr. Senanayaka, if the LTTE is committed to something then the Sri Lankan government should agree to it, and that is the only way to achieve consensus. It is again a CONsensus and a capitulation. Why should the Sri Lankan Government surrender to the dictates of the LTTE and the "international community" that is behind them. If the Sri Lankan Government is committed to a unitary state why cannot the "international community" respect the sovereignty of Sri Lanka and support the unitary state without applying pressure on behalf of the LTTE. Mr. Senanayaka says that the LTTE agreed to internal self determination under pressure from the "international community". I cannot understand the difference between internal self determination and self determination. Is there an external self determination as well? These are again CONcepts and play of words to deceive us, and the Sinhalas have gone through enough of these to understand what is happening. Internal Self determination would lead to a federal state which would then lead to a confederation, ending up with an Eelam. Thanks to Dr. A. J. Wilson who wrote the autobiography of his father in law we know the "little now more later" policy of Chelvanayakam and the Tamil racists.
It is said that this week officials from the FBI and the state department of USA would be in Sri Lanka to probe the LTTE and to help the Sri Lankan government. The ambassador for USA in Colombo also had apparently warned the LTTE of grave consequences. I do not think that the officials of the USA are coming to help us. It may be that like India, USA is now coming into terms with a Prabhakaran who has outgrown the image that they had for him. It may be that Prabhakaran who killed Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, is now prepared to meet the western Christian countries on his own terms. India nurtured Prabhakaran in the early stages and had to pay the supreme sacrifice in the form of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. The western countries are now beginning to get the same treatment from Prabhakaran who is a ruthless murderer. Some western countries such as Lutheran Norway want to have the so called peace talks in Oslo. If that fails then what would happen?
Prabhakaran after nearly thirty years of killings is now desperate to win the Eelam that he had promised the Tamil racists. The ordinary Tamils, unlike the Tamil racists, some of whom could be found among the Sinhalas as well, are weary of Prabhakaran. The USA and the western Christian countries know that as well. Thus it is time for the west to drop Prabhakaran just like they dropped Marcos and Din Diems that they had supported.
It is very unlikely that the west would support the Sri Lankan government. The high ranked officials would be coming to Sri Lanka to explore the possibilities of replacing Prabhakaran, but with the idea of creating a federal state. With that in mind they might even send the United Nations Forces in order to achieve what they want.
Finally what is the basis for a federal state in Sri Lanka with the Northern and the Eastern Provinces becoming a state or a province or whatever they name it. Countries such as USA, Australia became federal states only to unite the different states that they had previously. India was never a single country in the history and it was the British who created that country. Formerly it included present Pakistan as well as Bangladesh. The country was kept as a single unit arbitrarily by the British.
It is now a pseudo federal state based on the languages spoken in different areas. In Sri Lanka the situation is entirely different. More than sixty percent of the Tamils live outside the Northern and the Eastern Provinces and in those provinces, especially in the Eastern Province the Tamils cannot claim to constitute more than fifty percent of the population. Though Anglophiles may repeat umpteen times that unitary state was borrowed from the west, what they ignore is that we had in Sri Lanka an Eksesath Rajya which had its legislature in Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa or Kotte or somewhere else as the case may be. There would have been Epas, Mapas who were really appointed by the king and who represented the king may be in Ruhuna or Maya, and occasionally some petty kings in the provinces, but these petty kings were defeated and the eksesath rajya had continued at least from the time of Dutugemunu to Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe. Even the Portuguese and the Dutch who ruled the maritime provinces were petty kings according to this scheme, and the Sinhala kings (meaning the kings who ruled Sinhale) always wanted to defeat those western powers and re establish the Eksesath Rajya. Thus the Eksesath Rajya has always been with the Sinhalas and the present cannot be considered to be something that has come into existence as the big bang in the western Christian Cosmology all of a sudden. (How "rational" is for the rationalist western scientists to give "rational" explanations for ordinary phenomena when they do not have a "rational" explanation for the creation of the biggest phenomenon of them all, namely the creation of the universe?) Present cannot be dissociated from the past and all Sri Lankans who have a sense of history will never give up the eksesath rajya even if it is not the reality in the minds of those with subservient minds.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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