PLURALISM AND SUPREMACY - I
I would have loved to comment on the antics of David Miliband and his French counterpart in trying to extend humanitarian ceasefire so that the LTTE can take full advantage of it. They claim that not many Tamils have left the so called no fire zone during the new year (we refer to our new year and not to the Anglo French (and other western) new year that has been imposed on us by western supremacy that is ignored by the so called moderate scholars and commentators who are engaged in a back scratching exercise in the opinion page of "The Island") period. Some of the westerners also claim that forty eight hours was too short and want more time for the trapped Tamils to leave. However, the Anglo French duo should have addressed the LTTE and their proxy TNA to demand that the terrorists allow the Tamils to leave the so called no fire area from which the terrorists continue to fire at the armed forces. Instead they want to twist the arms of the Sri Lankan government, and to make the people of their countries believe that the government is killing unarmed innocent Tamils. It is reported that the west wants to withdraw or withhold the IMF loan until a ceasefire is declared by the Sri Lankan government, so that they could supply the LTTE with more arms. Links between the Tamil terrorists or their front organizations and the British authorities have been revealed during a nine week trial at Kingston Crown Court. It is very likely the Jury however would not take a decision against the accused as it will expose the British MI5. The British government is responsible for the situation in Sri Lanka having given supremacy to the Tamils from the beginning of the nineteenth century. If not for the publicity given by Britain to the so called grievances of the Tamils, and for the arms supplied to the terrorists through various means there would not have been a so called Tamil problem in Sri Lanka. The British government continues to support terrorism through their usual underhand diplomacy for which they are notorious. Even in Sri Lanka, Britain is not exposed as the British know how to get things done by others when it suits them. Also they have trained Anglophile elite that refuse to see what is shown.
The Sri Lankan press and the politicians protested over the attack on the Sri Lankan embassy in Oslo but were almost silent on the closing down of one of the bridges over Thames by the Tamil racists. Norway is only a stooge in the hands of Britain when it comes to Tamil racism, separatism and terrorism (RST) but the force behind Tamil RST is none other than the bad old Britain. Who would believe that the Tamils in Britain are capable of closing one of the bridges over Thames, though not the London Bridge, without the support of the London metropolitan police? The British government bans the LTTE on one hand but allows front organizations of the terrorists to operate claiming that the front organizations are not the LTTE. This is nothing but British hypocrisy but there are people in Sri Lanka who can be taken for a ride by Britain as these people are the products of the British education in Sri Lanka. The London bridge may not have fallen down yet, but the LTTE has fallen down in spite of the support given by the British and the other westerners. However, the Sinhala nationalists should not think that everything is over and that peace will dawn on this land at last. I beg to defer and it is very likely that Prabhakaran has either escaped or about to escape with the help of the west of course, and the so called Tamil diaspora (it is interesting that we have been forced - conditioned- by the west to use this biblical term to describe these scattered people with the connotations associated with the word. It is better to use the term scattered Tamils or Burgher Tamils after the Burghers who migrated mainly to Australia when they began to lose their privileges after fifty six. A pundit in "foreign service" who thinks that he has a superb intellect but who cannot think abstractly and conceptually might say that Tamils cannot be Burghers!) will now be used by the west as demonstrated in the case of the incidents at Sri Lankan embassy in Oslo and that bridge over the river Thames. The terrorist organization LTTE will now be replaced by the scattered Tamils in the west with the front organizations of the LTTE by the western powers. It is possible that with these scattered or Burgher Tamils, Britain will get Prabhakaran to declare an Elam in exile and the Rajapakse government will have to appoint a set of hard nosed diplomats as the "war" will be shifted to a space outside the boundaries of Sri Lanka.
We will leave Miliband and company to discuss pluralism and supremacy in Sri Lanka, as the so called moderate boys and girls are busy praising each other on their moderate stand on supremacy. These people have now realized that there are Tamil supremacists as well though until recently they knew only of Sinhala supremacists. The moderates are for pluralism, unity in diversity, equality of races, equality of cultures and do not seem to recognize that in any given country with a history there is a culture that is either predominant, significant, foremost or more equal than the other cultures. They go by the principle that all human beings are equal in principle though they know that in practice it is not followed anywhere anytime in the history of the mankind. Surely these moderate boys and girls are more equal than most of the others in the country merely through the contacts that they have in the society. At the same time, of these moderate boys and girls those who live abroad at least know that in their adopted or the residing countries they cannot get their articles published in the newspapers as easy as they can get them published in Sri Lanka. They should also know that in those countries there are people more equal than them who can get their articles published in the newspapers often.
We have a moderate academic writing from USA, a person whom I believe pontificates that people are equal while implying that cultures are also equal. As a Sinhala Buddhist I have no inhibition to state that all human beings are equal. After all Buddha treated all people equally and in Buddhism there are no chosen children of God not only because there is no God to have (create) children but also because by birth people are not categorized into high and low casts or sets. However equality of people is an ideal we would like to practice but very difficult to achieve especially in the present western Christian modernity as it was in the Brahmin society of Bharath. Both these societies have or had more equal people even in theory through the concept of chosen people, and it is nothing but hypocrisy to talk of equality even on a theoretical plane. After all the Sri Lankan academics living in the western countries are nobodies outside their faculties and very often outside their departments, and would not be recognized in the local supermarket, whatever mart it could be, other than by the Sri Lankans living in the area and the few members of the department. They live a lonely life reading and writing to the Sri Lankan newspapers using the internet facilities. What is emphasized here is that individuals are not equal in the western societies even in theory but only in text books and research papers that have no value in the day to day life of the people. It is nothing but hypocrisy to highlight equality of people, a concept that cannot be derived from the basic premises of the western Judaic Christian culture. Equality in the west is only a rhetoric introduced by the French revolution but not a principle, and following the western academics we may call it a post French revolution rhetoric. (It should be remembered that the so called revolutions very often only introduce rhetoric.) The Sri Lankan academics in the west (how many concepts and theories, not "research papers" in "prestigious international journals" are associated with these academics who claim that they had to migrate in search of a "research culture"?) can afford to write rhetoric from their ivory towers as long as they do not visit the local supermarket that functions within, shall I say, the paradigm of western Christian modernity.
These moderate boys and girls for pluralism, variety, diversity and what not do not realize that when it comes to knowledge (and global culture- In fact the so called global village is none other than a world with western Christian culture) there is no pluralism. In our universities and schools we teach only what we have been asked to teach by the west, and though there are many sciences, medicines and engineering in our faculties of science, medicine and engineering we teach only western science, western medicine and western engineering. Except for a few students at the University of Kelaniya, the overwhelming majority of the others in our universities are ignorant of non western sciences. Is not teaching one of the sciences as THE SCIENCE, a sign of supremacy, hegemony, etc., of the west? These boys and girls do not realize that when they talk of pluralism they are using a camouflaged western concept that makes the west very innocent while keeping their hegemony intact. The Barak Obama incident is played with full volume to inform us that in USA a black has been appointed the President. Obama is not a black who has been appointed the President but a black who has become somebody in the western Judaic Christian culture by accepting and immersing in that culture. The Sri Lankan "intellectuals" are at a very low level in thinking in terms of abstract concepts, as a pundit has decided to mock the concept of Obama that was defined in these pages recently. D. S. Senanayka as explained was not an Obama with respect to the Sinhalas. He was an Obama in the western Judaic Christian culture having become a somebody in that culture by accepting one of its varieties, namely the Anglo Saxon Christian culture. He was acceptable to the British as the head in the old state council, before Sri Lanka gained limited independence. It has to be emphasized that Obamas are created relative to cultures and that there are no absolute Obamas.
(To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
>
>
>