WHITHER THE UNP WITH RANIL
Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has spoken against the journalists. It is not my intention to defend unconditionally the journalists as they too being human beings make mistakes and sometimes blunders. The journalists like anybody else are subject to criticism especially since they are not only in public light but also have the privilege of directing the public opinion to a certain extent. In my opinion after the politicians the journalists should come under public scrutiny more than any other group.
However, if a journalist is of the view that a politician is incompetent and if the former can justify his/her opinion then he/she should be able to say so without fear or favour. I am not a fulltime journalist, though I contribute three articles weekly and my passport indicated that I was a journalist when I was without a fulltime job for ten years. In any event as a person involved with news media, though I do not know about the competency or otherwise of the leader of the opposition to lead, I think that Mr. Wickremesinghe has problems in understanding the sentiments of the Sinhala people.
In particular, Mr. Wickremesinghe has implied that the "Divaina" and its editor Mr. Gamini Sumanasekera are "jathivadi" or racist. As a person who has contributed to "Divaina" from its inception I know that it is not a racist paper and its present editor Mr. Sumanasekera is not a racist. In the early days all sorts of opinion appeared in the "Divaina" both the daily paper and the Sunday magazine and there were lively debates on various matters including the so called ethnic problem. I myself participated in these discussions and the debates were very much focussed. Nobody tried to evade the issues and, they addressed the points raised by the others.
However, after a few years the debate came to an end because those who opposed the so called Sinhala Buddhist supremacy had no fresh arguments to present and all their points including the so called injustices to the Tamils were shown to be invalid. Since then the anti Sinhala Buddhist lobby has been silent in the pages of Diviana and it may appear to a person who does not know the history of the paper that it carries only the opinion of the Sinhala people, especially of the Sinhala Buddhists.
One should give credit to the anti Sinhala Buddhist participants at these debates, as they did not go on repeating their arguments after they were shown to be fallacious. For example they did not feel it proper to go on telling that the so called ethnic problem was a result of Sinhala Only Act when they were shown that evidence from eighteenth century to 1956 were to the contrary. The racist policies of the Tamil leaders in the Legislative Assembly and the State Council could not be denied, and at least the contributors against the Sinhala Buddhists left the scene unlike those others who write turning a blind eye to these facts. I would like to point out just one fact in this regard. Long before 1956 SJV Chelvanayakam established the Illankai Thamil Arsu Kadchi or the Lanka Tamil State Party and named it the Federal Party in English to mislead the non Tamil speaking people in the country. Those who write lengthy articles on the post Sinhala Only Act politics ignoring these racist policies of the Tamil leaders do not have even the intellectual honesty.
The problem with the present UNP leadership finally boils down to its incapacity to understand the Sinhala sentiments. People such as SB Dissanayake and Tissa Attanayake who could understand these sentiments are prevented from doing so by their liberal ideology based on western Christian modernity. This ideology is liberal only in name and is heavily biased towards the western Judaic Christian culture. Ranil Wickremesinghe is culturally a western Judaic Christian and is totally incapable of understanding the feelings of the Sinhala Buddhists. The UNP leadership in general had not spoken on behalf of the Sinhala Buddhists from the inception of the party. Ranil Wickremesinghe not only does not speak and stand for the Sinhala Buddhists but he speaks for the other communities against the Sinhala Buddhists.
The people had been voting for the UNP on the mistaken belief that the UNP leadership of the yesteryear had fought for independence. The fact that until about 1954 the SLFP did not speak for the Sinhala people as it was interested in proving that it was another so called liberal party like the UNP, and the fact that the Marxist parties were not national but international if not non national, made the people to gravitate towards the UNP as it was the only party with a semblance of nationalism as it had "won" independence from the British. As people in Sri Lanka still in general vote the way their parents did UNP has continued to have a vote base that surpasses that of the SLFP that was established in 1951 and became the party of the Sinhalathva only in about 1954. If not for this advantage the UNP could have been confined to the party of those who belong to the western Judaic Christian culture and the two party system would have collapsed.
The fact that the UNP is not in touch with the sentiments of the Sinhalas was shown when it said that it would give notice of a no confidence motion against the government. The government may be corrupt (which government was not corrupt) and wasting public money (again which government did not waste public money and it was not for nothing the UNP was called then the Uncle Nephew Party or Unge Nedeyange Pakshaya) and the cost of living may be high. However, which opposition would bring a motion of no confidence in a government that has almost defeated a terrorist outfit after three decades of fighting. Imaging the Labour Party bringing a vote of no confidence in the government of Churchill towards the end of the so called second world war.
The vote of no confidence speaks volumes for the incapacity of the UNP leadership to understand the sentiments of the people in general and the Sinhala people in particular. It will boomerang on the leadership of the UNP as a vote of no confidence in the UNP by the Sinhala people. When there is a talk of ceasefire agreement forced by the Indian government under pressure from Karunanidhi the supporter of Prabhakaran the murderer of Rajiv Gandhi what the UNP should do is to support the government not to yield under Indian pressure. In this connection it has to be mentioned that the report of the Jain commission appointed to inquire into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was somewhat harsh on the role of Karunanidhi.
Karu Jayasuriya may or may not go back to the UNP. However, that is not a very crucial issue that is going to change the politics of the country. He has played a very insignificant role and he will continue to play the same role in Sri Lankan politics. However, unless the UNP changes its policies and become a national party instead of an international or non national party its future will be very bleak. The Liberal Party which was a party of considerable strength in UK has become a small party. A similar fate awaits the UNP unless it changes its policies. The trouble is with the policy as well as with the leadership.
Professor Nalin de Silva
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