Ten Questions for the Peace-Lovers

There is, indeed, a great phobia - night-sweats and terrors if you like - of the outcome of a ‘peace-deal’ with Prabhakaran that the nationalists cannot shake off despite the soothing luIlabies cooed into our ears by the angelic brigade of peace-lovers. Let us unburden some of these fears by putting ten questions to the ‘ahimsa’ folk. We need real answers - not pious rhetoric - to dispel those ‘phobias’ mentioned above.

______________________

by Leo Panthera

(May 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Peace-pundits (and a host of like-minded others) regard the wooden-headed nationalists - those who are persuaded that the military option is ineluctable - as the pitiful victims of a fear-driven pathology of the spirit that obstinately refuses to consider humane modes of conflict-resolution which entail an eschewal of violence. The ennobling sentiments behind such a stance must stir the conscience of all civilized folk - but it is also necessary to acknowledge the painful truth that war and peace are not based on unadorned moral propositions.

Civilization and Godly Ways cannot be practiced unilaterally in a domain where the aggressor exploits one’s moral scruples to aggrandize a regime rooted in violence and moral depravity. Gandhi cannot be pitted against Hitler. These thoughts crossed my mind on reading an article by Dr. JG published in ‘The Island’ recently. (26th July). He says (inter alia) ‘after many years of fighting the prospect of negotiating an end to the fighting appears to hold many terrors’. Quoting a ‘Baseball philosopher’ he quips - ‘when you come to a fork in the road, take it’. Judging from the tenor of these remarks it would appear that the ‘Nationalists’ (a convenient label for those who hold that the physical erasure of Prabhakaran is a necessary pre-condition for peace) have a troubling phobia of a psychological nature that they must heal before ‘taking the fork’ - that is, the road to peace that is seemingly wide open to those with good will and good conscience. There is, indeed, a great phobia - night-sweats and terrors if you like - of the outcome of a ‘peace-deal’ with Prabhakaran that the nationalists cannot shake off despite the soothing luIlabies cooed into our ears by the angelic brigade of peace-lovers. Let us unburden some of these fears by putting ten questions to the ‘ahimsa’ folk. We need real answers - not pious rhetoric - to dispel those ‘phobias’ mentioned above.

I. There is a popular saying ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’. What is the payoff incurred in suing for peace with so intractable a monster as Prabhakaran? Is it Confederation? Is it Tamil Eelam? Is it plain Surrender? Dear Peace-makers, please set the outer limit of compliance so that our ‘negotiators’ can do effective business with the Man in the North.

II. What happens to our bases in the North and East following a unilateral ‘farewell to arms’ by a morally chastened Sri Lanka? Will our demoralized troops hot-foot it to the South to escape prosecution by a ‘War Crimes Tribunal’ set up by Prabhakaran’s numerous friends? The all-mighty fuss over the alleged ‘rape’ of some Tamil women gives us a foretaste Eelamist vengefulness.

III. Will Prabhakaran send his fabulous arms to the smithy (to be beaten into ploughshares) when peace dawns? Will he do away with those explosive-laden vests and his cyanide toting suicide gangs in a mighty act of goodwill towards his Sinhala brethren? Is this wondrous metamorphosis of the soul of a monster possible?

IV. Multiparty democracy is the New Touchstone of good governance. Will Prabhakaran fall in line? Can there be elections in the ‘New Confederate State’ with the Boss in a Fortified Bunker examining battle-plans for Eelam War V? Will tongue-weary lawyers in distant Colombo have any clout in the former freehold of the great killer?

V. While the ‘liberated territory’ of the North-East will boast of an ethnic purity unheard of in other parts of Sri Lanka, the Southern, Central and Western regions of the ‘ancient regime’ will swell with immigrants, refugees and sundry infiltrators. Have the peaceniks worked out the social and political cost of this demographic upheaval? Will the Sinhala indigenes become outcast and marginalized in their own territory while the world acclaims the justice meted out to the minorities?

VI. Will the New Deal be stable - the heavily militarized State of Tamil Eelam lying cheek-by-jowl with an apathetic mish-mash of feuding principalities without common political purpose? The disarray seen at the dawn of the new millennium in the ‘Sinhala State’ will be multiplied a thousand-fold with the breakaway of Tamil Eelam. Have our peaceniks the vision to see through this deepening gloom? Will not this instability bait Prabhakaran to cause even greater damage to the hated Sinhalayas?

VII. There is much cock-crowing by futurologists that the billions saved by giving up the fight will be bountifully employed in resuscitating the ailing economy of Sri Lanka. Friends, is this true? Can we survive in this hostile world with ceremonial fools carrying dummy weapons? Is it not fair to suppose that a potent naval force is the ‘sine qua non’ for our existence in a geo-political hot-spot such as we find ourselves in? Can we let down our guard on the hazardous supposition that the Monster in the North is a ‘Born Again Humanist’?

VIII. Will there be copy-cat rebellions in other parts of Sri Lanka inspired by the liberation heroics of the leader of Tamil Eelamism? It will be much easier the second time round with fall-back positions in the newly-liberated territory making the logistics of conflict a piece of cake compared to the agony of the Eelam struggle. Will the Sinhala Heartland go for a song?

IX. Let us talk about ecology and resources in this tight little Island. Can the North-East Confederate State survive without bleeding the resources of the rest of the Island? If Prabhakaran is peeved on this issue, will he not fight again to get what he wants?

X. What will happen to the Sinhala-Buddhism of historic Sri Lanka? While Mosques, Kovils and Christian Churches abound in the North-East, the last of the Buddhist temples will vanish under the suzerainty of the Anti-Buddhist Monster Prabhakaran. As the custodians of a great history, can we stomach this shame?

To aII this tight logic, there is the standard riposte - ‘we have been fighting (in fits and starts, of course) this horrible war for well-nigh eighteen years and there is no end in sight. We must have peace at any cost’. If the cost of peace is surrender and the eventual destruction of a predominantly Sinhala-Buddhist State, it is certainly too high. As for the duration of the conflict — we may have to wage war for half a century if the ‘Lisbon Principle’ guides the thinking of our leaders. When the Great Earthquake devastated Lisbon (around 1790) killing over 300,000 innocents, the survivors thanked God for his goodness in sparing them the ignominy of sudden extinction. When our Chief Air-Base is devastated by a dozen or so armed desperados, the high and mighty thank the armed services for protecting the little that remains. It is a sin to blame. An excellent moral principle but a disaster so far as the successful prosecution of a war is concerned.
- Sri Lanka Guardian