Jaffna rally: Waving national flag etc

| by S. L. Gunasekara

( May 09, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UNP contested the elections for the Eastern Provincial Council under the name and symbol of the SLMC and under the leadership of Hakeem who has been a Minister in the Governments of Kumaratunga, Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa and is presently a Minister in his multitudinous cabinet. Everyone knew full well that the purpose of the exercise was for the SLMC to `profit’ from the votes of UNP supporters and for the UNP to `profit’ from the votes of SLMC supporters – in short, that it was a mercenary political marriage rooted in expediency with principle and the betterment of the Country being as foreign to it as a `flying saucer’. Thus, neither the UNP nor its then senior partner the SLMC made any claim that that shoddy deal was born of a noble purpose to bring the East and the South together or to forge National Unity.

A few days ago, the Ranil Wickremesinghe faction of the UNP held a joint rally with the Sampanthan faction of the TNA. The object of the exercise was identical to the UNP’s previous exercise with the SLMC with which it had co-habited in Government and outside, and may well do so again. That that object was purely and solely for the TNA to `profit’ from the votes of UNP supporters and for the UNP to `profit’ from the votes of TNA supporters was so patently obvious that it was unthinkable that anyone of sound mind could have thought differently. Yet, many are the People who have failed or refused to accept that fact. In any event, it is nonsensical for parties which are incapable of forging unity among their own members to lay claims to forging National Unity.

In a propaganda exercise worthy of Josef Goebbels, the UNP, aided and abetted by the TNA trumpeted this shoddy exercise as being one that brought the North and the South together, was a giant step towards forging National Unity and constituted the consummation of the policies of the late Don Stephen Senanayake!!! They also sought to portray the dishonest charade of Sampanthan waving the National Flag as proof of this monumental fib. How even the UNP could have been so utterly base as to defile the name and achievements of that long deceased National Leader par excellence in this malodorous exercise of seeking to clothe a vile effort at political chicanery in the lily white garb of a vestal virgin I cannot imagine. However nonsensical, however mendacious this propaganda exercise was, tragically, many people believed or purported to believe it as many among even the German intelligentsia believed or purported to believe the lies trumpeted by Goebbels.

Marriage of convenience

How is it that People who were not hoodwinked by the marriage of political convenience between the UNP and the SLMC, were so hoodwinked by the UNP’s latest marriage of political convenience?

The answer to this question, to my mind, is that many people are so fed up ‘to the gills’ with the ineptitude of Mahinda Rasjapasksa and his government and the resultant misgovernance [and at times ‘non governance’] of the country, that they are ready, willing and eager to believe anything whatsoever to the government’s detriment, while being wholly oblivious to the question of whether those who want to replace Mahinda Rajapaksa and his government have the competence and ability to run even a tea kiosk in a petti kaday! Mahinda Rajapaksa and his bunch of `Yes Men’ who constitute the so-called ‘government must take serious note of this alarming fact and take remedial action to prevent the country falling into the clutches of a band of self-seeking power hungry politicians intent on ‘bettering’ for their own perceived benefit, the abuses now being committed by the Rajapaksa regime.

Was there any meaning in Sampanthan’s act of waving the Lion Flag that appears to have impressed so many? Was it simply a cosmetic exercise designed to deceive the gullible?

A mere empty gesture?

The National Flag symbolises our country and the Sri Lankan Nation, each of which is one and indivisible. If there was any meaning in Sampanthan’s said act, it must follow that he accepts this reality and jettisons the policies of the ITAK, the principal political ancestor of both the TULF and the TNA that the Tamils of Sri Lanka are a ‘Nation’, separate and distinct from the Sinhalese who constitute a separate Nation. It would also mean that Sampanthan has jettisoned the other basic policies of the ITAK and its illegitimate off-spring, the TULF, that the Northern and Eastern Provinces are the "exclusive homeland of the Tamil People" and that the settlement of indigent/landless Sinhalese People in and around irrigation schemes in those Provinces must stop forthwith, while it was perfectly permissible to settle Tamil People in and around them. If Sampanthan’s act of waving the National Flag has some meaning and is not a mere empty gesture to deceive the gullible, he must necessarily make an express public pronouncement to that effect.

Whether Sampanthan would do so is not even a moot point. He will not, because his said act was nothing more than an empty gesture to deceive the gullible and gain political support. That cosmetic gesture of Sampanthan was as fraudulent as his oft expressed concern for the Tamil People and their welfare – for he, together with his party of shameless racists, accepted the LTTE as the ‘Sole Representatives of The Tamils’. They did so while those purported ‘Sole Representatives’ kidnapped little Tamil children, extorted money from, abducted, enslaved and murdered those Tamils who would not, like the despicable TULF and TNA, cow down to and dance to the discordant tunes of the LTTE, and tormented the Tamils as no one has ever done before or since. The LTTE committed these atrocities without any observable protest from the TNA whether in its previous incarnation as the TULF or thereafter. Indeed when the LTTE with the overt support of members of the TNA, by threats and intimidation deprived the students of Jaffna University of the priceless boon of having Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole as their Vice Chancellor, Sampanthan to whom his own perceived interests and fortunes were paramount, raised no audible voice of protest in favour of Prof. Hoole. When the LTTE was defeated however, Sampanthan and the TNA sought to distance themselves from the LTTE – an attempt that was as futile as that of Lady Macbeth to wash the blood from her hands.

The utter perfidy of the ‘flag waving’ Sampanthan and the TULF which he once led [and thereafter the TNA] becomes all the more despicable and revealing of the ‘characters’ of their members when one recalls the fact that they accepted these criminals as the `Sole Reptresentatives Of The Tamils’ even after they had foully murdered Amirthalingam, their former leader, Yogeswaran, Thangadurai [the former elected MP for Trincomalee whom Sampanthan replaced on the queue system consequent to his murder by the LTTE] and the sole heroine of the TULF Sarojini Yogeswaran.

Silent acquiescence

Sampanthan’s colleagues in the TNA who are now critical of Sampanthan for waving the National Flag are not one whit better than he. They are as guilty as Sampanthan for their silent acquiescence in the atrocities committed by the LTTE on the Tamil People while professing a wholly dishonest concern and love for them. They are also as guilty as Sampanthan for maintaining a silence that is not merely deafening but is treacherous as well about the thuggery practiced by India by lending its support to the thieving Indian Fisherman who regularly rob fish from our territorial waters in the North and East, thereby depriving the indigent Tamil fishermen of what should have been their catch and hence their livelihood. They could not have cared less about whether Sampanthan waved a National Flag or any other, and their protests are as empty cosmetic gestures as Sampanthan’s impugned act.

Let us not forget that despite their purported opposition to Sampanthan’s act of waving a National Flag. They remain members of the National Parliament, enjoy in full measure the salaries, allowances and munificent perquisites afforded to them as members of the National Parliament at the expense of the Sri Lankan Nation. They engage in their frequent foreign trips as citizens of Sri Lanka on National passports. When they are obviously ready, willing and eager to accept the indisputable fact that they are members of the Sri Lankan Nation when it is to their material advantage to do so, what basis can there be for objecting or purporting to object to Sampanthan’s empty gesture of waving the National Flag?

Sampanthan, his supporters as well as those members of the TNA who purport to oppose his cosmetic gesture of waving a National Flag do not one whit for the Tamils, the Sinhalese or the Moors or any other inhabitants of our land but only for themselves. In this context, the fervid attempts being made by the government to get them to participate even in the proceedings of the nonsensical proposed Parliamentary Select Committee is nothing short of being downright stupid.