KP and the new Tamil politics

by Nalin de Silva

(August 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The politics of English educated and Anglicised Tamil elite is over for good and with it the formulations and solutions of westerners who sponsored, abetted and encouraged Tamil elite politics are to be discarded. In fact, it was the English who cultivated this elite class of Tamils and used them against first the Sinhala Christian elite and then in general against all the Sinhalas, and especially the Sinhala Buddhists. Though the Tamil politicians and the western "experts", media personnel and others attempt to show that the Tamils have been discriminated against since 1956, we have shown that Tamil politics against the Sinhalas began long before that in the nineteenth century around 1875, after the English realised that the Burghers could not be made the leaders of the so called Ceylonese nation.

The so-called problem as presented by the Tamils and the English was non-existent and could be termed the inverse of the problem though the inverse did not exist. In the parlance of mathematics, it is similar to talking of the inverse of a matrix whose determinant is zero. The problem was depriving the Sinhala nation and the Sinhala Buddhist culture the due place in the country while giving privileges to the Tamil elite when they were a minority in population and were recent immigrants in history. The English overlooked all these and gave the Tamil elite a special treatment and trained them to be the leaders of the country after they had failed with the Burghers. The English from their point of view made a very grave error when they gave franchise to the adult "Ceylonese" as it enabled the Sinhala leaders to obtain a majority in the legislature in spite of opposition by the Tamil elite. The latter had been trying to dominate the legislature from the nineteenth century but all these attempts came to nought due to the universal franchise given with the general elections in 1931. Since then the "inverse problem" has been presented as the problem and the solutions that were formulated by various parties with vested interests were to this non existent "inverse problem".

Naturally, no solutions were found to a non-existent inverse problem and finally in 1949 Chelvanaykam had to introduce the idea of a separate state in the northern and eastern provinces, interestingly enough demarcated by the English as late as in 1889. It was a case of Tamil elite having realised at last that they could not become the leaders of the "Ceylonese" nation opting to be the leaders of the two provinces. The only "solution to the inverse problem that did not exist" was a separate state. This so-called discrimination by the Sinhalas and the Sinhala government as the Tamil elite presented it, was nothing but removal of the privileges enjoyed by the Tamil elite one by one. The Tamil elite was cunning enough to introduce their loss of privileges as discrimination against the Tamil community in general.

The making of Sinhala the official language that has been presented as the main cause for all troubles is a case in point. English had been the official language of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) under the English and the only people who could work in English were the English educated Ceylonese among whom the English educated Tamils were prominent. Neither Sinhala nor Tamil nor any other language had been the official language of Sinhale before the English became the colonial rulers. In the maritime provinces, the Dutch and Portuguese had been official languages while Sinhala continued to be the official language of the rest of Sinhale. Tamil had never been an official language in any part of the country and, as late Mr. Gamini Iriyagolle has shown,the pact between the Portuguese and the Arya Chakravarthi King in Jaffna had been drafted in Sinhala and Portuguese and not in Tamil! The Sinhala should have been made the official language as soon as we got independence in 1948, but those ‘nobodies’ who became ‘somebodies’ making use of the Sinhala nationalist movement did not attend to it. It has to be emphasised that though the concept of official language had not been formulated by western political scientists in the pre-fifteenth century era, there was an understanding as to what is meant by the language of the official documents.

It has to be remembered that when Sinhala was made the official language, it was given its due status and prior to that English had forcefully become the "official language" using colonial powers. Sinhala did not replace English as the official language as English had no status whatsoever except as the language of colonialists and by making Sinhala the official language again the ordinary Tamils did not lose anything. It was the English speaking Tamils (and their Sinhala counterparts) and the Burghers who lost anything, if at all, as their privileged status was lost. Many Burghers and some English speaking Tamils (and Sinhalas) went abroad to become second class citizens in their new adopted countries as they thought life was much better in those countries than in a Ceylon with Sinhala as the official language. However, some of the English speaking Tamils who remained in the country for some reason or other pretended that the Tamils had been subjected to injustice by making Sinhala the official language and attempted to mislead the ordinary Tamils. As far as the ordinary Tamils were concerned they had lost nothing as English and not Tamil had been the official language under the English and the Senanayakes. The anti Sri campaign illustrated this point more clearly. If the symbols EN in the number plate were replaced by Shri what did the ordinary Tamils lose due to that? The English educated Tamils would have preferred English alphabet to the Sinhala alphabet and its combinations but as far as the ordinary Tamils were concerned the Sinhala alphabet was closer to them than the English alphabet!

The above examples show how the English educated Tamils attempted to transfer their problem to the ordinary Tamils and gradually the former were able to mislead the latter so much so that the ordinary Tamils led by Prabhakaran fought the "war" of the English speaking Tamils without realising that they were fighting somebody else’s "war". The western forces naturally supported the terrorists and they knew of nothing but peace talks to carve out the so-called Northeastern province as a separate state. The term Northeastern or northeast is conceptually wrong but even today there are some English speaking Tamils who prefer this terminology. As the inverse problem did not exist so was the so-called solution to the problem. There was no possibility of a separate state and it was only a matter of time before the LTTE was defeated as we had realise long time ago.

The change of Tamil leadership from Chelvanayakam to Prabhakaran has also brought the end of politics of the English speaking Tamil elite. Though the LTTE terrorists were called ‘our boys’ by the English speaking Tamils, the latter did not have much faith in the former. The elite may have been thinking of regaining the leadership of the Tamils with the assistance of the English and the other westerners in the event of a separate state being carved out in Sri Lanka. The LTTE in the eyes of the Tamil elite and the west was fighting a "war" that they themselves could not fight. After the defeat of Prabhakaran the west and the English speaking elite have lost all bearings. They wanted the so-called diaspora to carry forward the struggle but what they did not realise was that the "diaspora" was not a homogeneous body. Most of the diaspora are ordinary Tamils and not elite though some of them may be speaking English. Dissension has already occurred between Karuna Amman aka Muralithraran and Pillayan. There are many others with George Master and Daya Master being the most well known leaders. The latest is KP and with him at least a section of the diaspora will move over to the governmental ranks. The crossover of various Tamil politicians in the recent past augurs well for Tamil politics and it may be that the ordinary Tamils are finally realising that they had been fighting somebody else’s "war". One could always claim that KP changed sides in order to save his life but that will not explain the dissension of many other Tamil leaders who have emerged from the ordinary people. The ordinary Tamils will ignore the English speaking Tamils though the latter still have a political muscle with the support of the western forces. It is up to the government to handle the new situation carefully and work towards a new Sri Lanka where all communities live in harmony respecting all cultures and recognising the significance of the Sinhala Buddhist culture and giving its due place. The threat to Tamils and the Muslims is not from the Sinhalas but from the west that does not respect any culture other than their own while paying lip service to all the other cultures. Read more...

The end of politics of the Tamil elite

by Prof. Nalin de Silva

(August 11, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)Shamindra Ferdinando has to be congratulated on rejecting the award he was given at a recent journalism awards ceremony. It is clear that the remnants of Tamil elite politics are still to be found in Colombo, London, Toronto and such other places but nobody will ever be able to go to pre Nandikadal era, even if hundreds of awards are given to some henchmen and henchwomen of Tamil elite politics involved in propaganda against Sinhala nationalism.The times have changed and though the so-called brilliant political analysts who were once for political solutions through peace talks are now credited for "forecasting" that peace would not be achieved without defeating Prabhakaran, even their time is over. The Tamil politics are into a different era and many Sinhala people would not be bothered whether KP is in custody or not. This KP under GR (Gotabhaya Rajapaksa) is not the same as that KP under VP (Velupillai Prabhakaran) and we have already entered a period of reconciliation of Sinhalas, Tamils, Muslims and others living in Sri Lanka, leaving out the elite aligned nation of Sinhalas and the elite Tamils and Muslims.

A Sri Lankan nation with Sinhala Buddhist culture as the significant culture that respects the other cultures will emerge but it will take some time and the aborted Ceylonese nation will have to be cremated with all the "pansakula" rites, though it never had any existence as a living or non living entity. The Ceylonese nation existed only in the minds of the English and their obedient servants and 1956 will be triumphant before 2056. Though Jathika Chinthanaya will not be credited immediately for what it has achieved by "enlightened" political analysts both here and abroad we are not bothered as we know how histories are (there being no history as such but only histories) written and we would wait for few more years to write our own history. At present we do not have power in the university history departments nor in other such places and may those who believe in an objective history go to their graves without seeing the history written by the Sinhala nationalists and rest in peace.

However, whether they like it or not I have to explain the KP phenomenon if I may call it so not for the benefit of the English historians and Tamil elite but for the serene joy of the common man (hudee jana pahan sanvegaya), in the tradition of writing of history in our culture. In other words how did that KP become this KP and has the so-called 9/11 got anything to do with that? The US may be worried about their security after that incident now called 9/11, but it has not changed its attitude towards global terrorism. The US in particular and the west in general have only one "principle". That is to safeguard and propagate their culture while weakening if not destroying other cultures.

The standard explanation of the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka as formulated by the west and Tamil elite could be stated as follows. "The Sinhala leaders, especially after 1956, have discriminated against the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Tamils wanted to redress their grievances through negotiations but the Sinhala governments were not willing to come to any settlement as the governments were forced not to do so by the Sinhala extremists. The Tamil leaders then had to resort to peaceful sathyagrahas but even then the governments did not listen. Instead of rectifying थेसे injustices to the Tamils, the Sinhala governments under pressure from the Sinhala extremists ordered the police and the armed forces to attack the innocent Tamil civilians who were engaged in sathyagrahas. Thus Tamil youth had no alternative but to take up arms against the Sinhala state. The Tamils wanted to rule their own areas, the so-called traditional homelands in the eastern and northern provinces."

However, in this formulation nothing is mentioned on the founding of the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (Lanka Tamil State Party) in 1949, seven years before 1956 in order to establish a Tamil state and of the politics of G. G. Ponnambalam, who wanted fifty-fifty, in essence reducing the Sinhala representation in the legislature to less than fifty percent, and of Ponnambalam Ramanathan and his brother Ponnambalam Arunachalam, who demanded equal representation for Tamils and Sinhalas, in that order, in the Legislature. These are sometimes referred to as communal politics of that era but the Tamil politicians who were involved were the grand uncles and uncles of Prabhakaran, who wanted the leadership of the country inspired and sponsored by the English governors and other English officials. It is unfortunate that some Sinhalas who have been brainwashed by the English propagandists still think that everything started after 1956.

The western countries continued to help anti-Sinhala politics of Prabhakaran and they used not only the Tamil politicians in Sri Lanka but the NGOs the western social scientists both here and abroad, and also the so-called diaspora. After the death of Prabhakaran the politics of Anglicised Vellala elite has also died a natural death, though there are ghosts involved in awarding anti Sinhala journalists and others prizes and medals in order to give them recognition". Prabhakaran, who took the mantle of Anglicised Tamil Vellala politics from Amirthalingam was neither Anglicised nor a Vellala. Amirthalingam was not Anglicised but came from a Vellala family. Changes had been taking place in the leadership without many of us taking note of them though both Amirthalingam and Prabhakaran had been continuing with the anti-Sinhala politics.

As I have mentioned before Tamil nationalism unlike Sinhala nationalism is top down and not bottom up. The leadership of Arumugam Navalar collapsed in no time and the Anglicised elite took over the leadership of the Tamils. Among the Sinhalas a similar phenomenon took place the leadership of Anagarika Dharmapala being defeated by the Senanayakes. However, it was not identical with what happened in Tamil politics as the Senanayakes though somewhat Anglicised were Olcott Buddhists and had at least one foot in the Sinhala nationalist movement. The Sinhala Buddhists have not been satisfied with this leadership provided by the Olcott Buddhists and had been looking for a Sinhala Buddhist leadership ever since.

The defeat of Prabhakaran had nothing to with 9/11 incident contrary to the claims to that effect by some political analysts trained by the west, who cannot find internal reasons to explain the victory of the armed forces. With all the deficiencies it was the leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa that finally defeated the LTTE and the Anglicised Tamil politics sponsored by the west. The Sinhala nation was armed with theories as well as this time and the President was immensely helped by those theories.

With the killing of Prabhakaran the west and the Anglicised Tamil elite had nobody in Sri Lanka who could give leadership to the anti Sinhala politics, and they had to depend on the so-called diaspora. However, the diaspora is not a homogeneous body and not all Tamils who have migrated in the recent years are Anglicised Tamil Vellalas. There have been people such as Karuna, Pillaiyan, Daya Master, George Master in the LTTE, who come from ordinary families but were used by the elite to "fight their war". It was only a matter of time before they left the LTTE and the politics of the Tamil elite. Some sections of the diaspora are only following these pioneers who left the LTTE, and KP is the best known example in this regard. KP is from an ordinary family and he like many others has now realised the folly of the policies of the Tamil elite that was sponsored by the English and the other westerners. There is no point attempting to resurrect the APRC or to establish some other body to find solutions to a discarded formulation based on so called injustices to the Tamils. The government is engaged in some kind of development in the north and the east and what we have to solve is a different problem and not that formulated by the Tamil elite and the west. Read more...

APRC ‘Report’

by Nalin de Silva

(August 04, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) A document purported to be the APRC report has been tabled in the Parliament by Mr. Yogarajan, who represented the CWC at the APRC. He has since then changed parties and is now apparently a member of the UNP. The other person involved with the so called report is Mr. Kariapper who represented the SLMC at the APRC. It is reported that copies of the so-called report would be sent to some embassies.

I represented the MEP at the APRC and I must categorically sate the neither I nor the MEP was a signatory to the so-called report. Mr. Yogarajan has been kind enough to send a copy of the "report" and I must also add that I find that it has not been signed by any of the representatives of the parties, though their names appear on it. The presence of the names might give the impression to the general public, I am not bothered about the impression of the foreign diplomats as they have no role to play in a purely internal matter, that the "report" gives the recommendations of the APRC as such but I must say that it is not the case as far as at least the MEP is concerned. The western embassies most probably will try to make use of the "report" to instigate the so-called diaspora (note the Biblical implications of the term which has connotations derived from that as far as the western world is concerned) but the government of Sri Lanka has already outplayed them even with Ban ki-Moon playing for them as a professional, meaning on a contract basis and not free of charge as amateurs used to play in the good old days. In any event, we have to support the government unconditionally if the western powers together with the likes of Messrs Yogarajan and Kariapper try to impose their will on this country.

It has to be mentioned that I left the APRC around the time the armed forces entered Killinochchi, not certainly Medavachchi, and the MEP was not represented by anybody at the APRC thereafter. Messrs Yogarajan and Kariapper may have a different agenda and may be thinking of applying pressure on the government to implement the so-called recommendations or whatever stated in the APRC ‘report’. Although I represented the MEP at the APRC, I must also state that I have never been a member of that party but the party and I had a very good understanding of the proceedings of the APRC.

APRC, like any other body, has had a beginning (uppada), an existence (thithi), and a decay (bhanga), and it cannot be resurrected now no matter how much some people want to do so. APRC is now gone for ever and if it was a living being we could have gathered to offer "pansukula" so that it will have a better life in the next "incarnation". Unfortunately, it was only a committee and it can only join the other committees that have faded away even without submitting a proper report.

The APRC was appointed while the LTTE with the assistance of the west and some political parties in Sri Lanka not to mention the NGOs financed, supported and maintained by the western powers, was threatening to establish a separate state in the northern and the eastern provinces. Although there were no problems for the Tamils and the Muslims merely because they were non Sinhalas, the Tamil racist parties and Muslim racist parties coined the so-called problems in order to justify their "struggle" to establish a separate state.

The fact that Chelvanayakam established his Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi or the Lanka Tamil State Party in 1947, which was before 1956, when all the problems began according to almost all the Tamil parties and some Sinhala groups sponsored by the west gives ample testimony to the nature of the so-called struggle against the government. Of course, the problem started long before even Chelvanayakam was born as the English wanted to pit the English educated Tamils against the Sinhala elite in the country. The Tamil leaders had been demanding equal or more representation at the centre, but after 1931 could not achieve their ambition mainly due to the universal franchise given to Sri Lanka by the British. In their history of colonialism the English from their point of view had not made a bigger blunder than giving universal franchise to Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Chelvanayakam and others realised that the Tamil leadership was not capable of leading the country from Colombo, as there was no way of reducing the Sinhala representations in the legislature even with multi member seats and nominated MPs. Thus, they resorted to clamour to rule at least the northern and the eastern provinces and began to "pile up grievances" in order to justify their demand for a separate state. The Muslims were not involved in racist politics of the Tamil parties earlier but Ashroff having realised that he could make use of the situation established his own party after having being a member of the TULF at the time the infamous Vadukkodai resolution was adopted.

He was taken up so much by the "strength" of the LTTE and Prabhakaran that at one stage he even demanded three national flags and wanted the national anthem be sung in Sinhala and Tamil. That was the absurdity that the Tamil and Muslim leaders could descend and of course we had the so-called Thimpu conditions. Thimpu talks and various other talks named after cities in the world and deliberations at various All Party Conferences including the APRC took place in this background with the LTTE calling the tune with the support of the western powers and India.

The Sri Lankan government proceeded with the operations against the LTTE and when the armed forces entered the Killinochchi area we knew that our role was over as far as the APRC was concerned. The MEP as well as the JHU did not take part in the proceedings of the APRC after that and the APRC died a natural death though some members continued to meet probably twice a week until late night and also visiting foreign countries to "learn" from their experiences. I did not take part in any of those visits as I had nothing to learn from them and I was waiting for something else to happen.

If the APRC managed to come to an agreement before Prabhakaran was killed and if the government and the LTTE agreed to implement the recommendations of a report that gave expression to the agreement then that report would have had some validity. The APRC could not come to an agreement before Prabhakaran was dead and the conditions under which the APRC was appointed are no longer valid. The APRC, though not stated explicitly, had to find a solution to a problem that had been formulated by the Tamil elite with the help of Indians and the western powers.

Messrs Yogarajan and Kariapper have the freedom to take the dead body (read the APRC ‘report) to Parliament, the western embassies and plead with them to resurrect it. However, now the conditions are different and the "standard formulation" of the Tamil problem by the Tamil Parties, the west, NGOs and other such organisations is not valid. In summary the conditions under which the APRC was appointed are not valid now and hence the document produced by Messrs. Yogarajan and Kariapper as the so called report of the APRC has no validity at all. There are different problems and so far the west has forced us to solve the problem as formulated by the elite. The APRC was the last "attempt" to solve that problem in the eyes of the west, the NGOs and other such organisations, the elite etc., and it is all over though Messrs. Yogarajan and Kariapper fail to understand that. The APRC "report" will end up where it should be namely in the dustbin of history. Read more...

Who killed Susantha Anura Bandara?

" The fights among students take different forms and very often it occurs between the group sponsored by the JVP and what may be called the anti-JVP group. They attack one another with clubs, bicycle chains, stones and sometimes students are armed with lethal weapons."
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by Prof. Nalin de Silva

(July 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is sad that yet another University student has died as a result of a clash between the pro JVP group and an anti JVP group. Susantha Anura Bandara had been admitted to the hospital apparently after a clash between the two groups and when he died a few days ago the so-called Inter University Student Federation (IUSF) that has no legal status and is only an arm of the JVP accused the police for killing Bandara. Bandara had not been a member of the JVP student group and it was clear from the very beginning the so-called IUSF was attempting to sell the dead body to gain political mileage. However the mother of the deceased student made a statement to the effect that her son before he died had claimed that one Bassa or Basnayake had assaulted him and that the latter had struck on his head twice with a stick. It was later revealed that this Basnayake belongs to the JVP group.The IGP Dr. Mahinda Balasuriya at a press conference stated this and now Anura Kumara Dissanayake has held another press conference to deny that a JVP student was involved. According to Dissanayake the Badulla Judicial Medical Officer Dr. M. N. Rahuk Haq’s post-mortem report has said that there was no evidence of violence and the body had no injuries.

I hold no brief for the IGP or the government. I only state that Bandara died as a result of the clash between the two groups. The IGP appears to be depending on information furnished to him and drawing conclusions based on such information. I do not know anything of the post-mortem report and MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake may be correct on that score. However, I have found it difficult to understand how these honourable MPs behave. Dissanayake knew that Anura Bandara had no body injuries and that there was no evidence of violence. However, in spite of having this information he kept quiet when the IUSF accused the police of murder. Even today they are carrying out their vociferous campaigns against the police and Dissanayake does not tell his disciples that Bandara did not have physical injuries.

It is up to the courts of law in Sri Lanka to decide whether somebody killed Susantha Anura Bandara and if so who did it. Let the police produce the suspect, if any, before a court of law and proceed in the usual manner. My intention is not to get involved in the legal process but to examine the politics behind the death of the student of the University of Ruhuna. Most of the problems in the universities are due to the JVP students who are in a minority. However, none of the other political parties are involved in university politics to the same extent as the JVP and therefore the non JVP majority either have to form their own student societies without a political support or keep quiet. Very often the students opt for the latter and the JVP students get elected to the student bodies by default.

The fights among students take different forms and very often it occurs between the group sponsored by the JVP and what may be called the anti-JVP group. They attack one another with clubs, bicycle chains, stones and sometimes students are armed with lethal weapons. However, this is not a recent phenomenon as it was observed in Peradeniya in the late sixties. This was the time the JVP became active in the universities for the first time and they were determined to capture power through sheer violence. The bomb that exploded in the Marrs Hall in the early part of 1970s should have been an eye opener. The JVP attracted young university students those days and some university student unions were controlled by leaders who had JVP inclinations.

Before the latter part of the sixties the LSSP, the CP and the MEP dominated student politics in the universities but they were interested in the class struggle and the civil war only theoretically in the Marxian sense. In practise, they were engaged in the struggle to obtain a class at the final examinations and in a war to succeed at the civil service examination. The Trotskyites and the Stalinists would argue in the common room or debate with one another in the dining hall on the class struggle and the civil war but afterwards get back to their comparatively luxurious rooms to prepare for the ‘class struggle’ and the civil war that mattered most to them personally.

However, in their debates they believed in the dictum that according to historical materialism the working class would capture power and more importantly that it was an objective necessity, though they did not prepare for it even in their dreams. Occasionally they would march to Kandy shouting slogans have an argument with the police officers who themselves had been undergraduates in the yesteryears and hence knew that the slogan shouting would end at the Lyons Café and it was good fun to all including the general public who watched the revolutionary march from Peradeniya to Kandy. However, for the young undergraduates who began to enter the universities in the late sixties the revolution was serious business though they were more romantic about it. They had their peasant parents and younger brothers and sisters waiting for them to come back as graduates and the family depended on them much more than in the case of the previous generation.

Recently the 1960 batch celebrated their fiftieth anniversary of admission to the university and in our first year we were with the fourth year students who had stayed to follow or, shall I say, read for a special degree from this batch. In turn in our fourth year we were with the "pioneers" of violent politics and we were able to observe for ourselves at first hand the nascent revolution in the universities. We definitely belonged to the transitional period and the 1960 batch never would have imagined that it was possible for a student to kill a fellow student. After all, to get "booted" by a girl and to see that another batch mate had moved on to fill the vacancy was not a cause for committing murder. However, by 1967 the ominous signs were all there for anybody to see between Mahaweli and Hantane. It was only a matter of time and the LSSP, the CP and the MEP had to give in to the violent politics of the JVP. The members of the former parties were engaged in theoretical and theatrical violence but the latter having taken the objective reality, the necessity of the class struggle, the inevitable victory of the working class from historical materialism were determined to make sure that the violent revolution took place and ended with victory of the so-called working class. If the latter could not find the theoretical working class described by Marx and Trotsky they substituted themselves for the working class. The former would call the latter petite bourgeoisie but for the latter the former were "pakis booruwas". The former may not have been violent in practice but they were the honourable seniors or the jeshta uththamayas who introduced violence to the raw fresher translated as kunu freshas. I myself will be retiring from the university service in about two months without offering a solution to the problem. The theoretical "panthi vairaya" has taken the form of a practical "vipaksha vairaya" and we cannot absolve ourselves of the blame claiming that in our time there were no murders of students in the universities either by the police or by the fellow students. Read more...

In defence of Wimal

The powers concerned would have got the message, and more importantly the issue has been taken to the streets from the living rooms and bedrooms of the diplomats and the rustic Sinhala nation, and not the sophisticated alien nation will back the "uneducated" Wimal to the hilt.
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by Nalin de Silva

(July 14, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I would not have written this article if not for the comments made in the Sunday English language newspapers and by some political opponents of Sinhala nation and Sinhala nationalism. For some of these "celebrated" authors who have made a name among the English newspaper readers Wimal Weerawansa was at best a joke. They claimed that the fast had a script written by Wimal himself or somebody close to the government and it was not a fast but a farce. One learned person went on to say that Wimal was uneducated and by that she probably meant that Wimal Weerawansa had not proceeded beyond the GCE Advanced Level class. These commentators were telling us that everybody knew that Wimal was not going to die and was waiting for the President to come with orange juice or thambili water. I am not sure whether the act of the daughter of Wimal Weerawansa was also in the script as I have not been able to get a copy of it. There were other pundits who were reminding us that UN could not be moved by street demonstrations and only civilised diplomacy could change the attitude of the United Nations secretary Ban Ki-moon. (We now know how to spell this Korean name in English and thank God for it). The JVP went on to announce at a press conference that the appointment of the so-called advisory panel by Ki-moon had been mentioned in a joint statement made by the General, I mean the secretary general and not the other general, and the government of Sri Lanka.

Wimal Weerawansa is not one of my favourite personalities and I do not rate him as a good politician, and I suppose the feelings are mutual. Like most of the others in the nationalist movement or the Jathika Vyaparaya he has not acknowledged my contribution to the movement and he never invites me to his various activities. However, I have known him for nearly twenty years since he wrote to Lakmina newspaper I edited unofficially, though Sunil Madhava who had JVP inclinations at that time was the official editor. Wimal was known as Wimalasiri Gamlath those days and if I remember correct he used to draw cartoons for the weekly tabloid. Ironically three cabinet ministers in the present government contributed to that paper, Dallas Alahapperuma and Champika Ranawaka being the other two. Even twenty years ago I with a few others associated with the newspaper were for the military operations against the LTTE and at that time the JVP of which Wimal Weerawansa was a member, and Champika were opposed to the so-called war. The opposition was so much intense that members of the JVP and others questioned why I, a war monger, wrote the editorials when Sunil Madhava was the official editor. Finally, I was unceremoniously relieved of my duties as the unofficial editor (I did not ask even for an allowance for my editorials and other editorial work) and I had to leave the paper which unfortunately did not last long. Soon afterwards, I was relieved of my duties at the University of Colombo and thus I was reduced to the sole unemployed Ph.D. holder in the country for ten years!

However, over the years most of those who opposed me at Lakmina have came to the position I held in the early nineties and I am glad about it though they may claim that they took up the present position on their own. I am not bothered about these recognitions as I am now old enough to realise that they do not matter much, and not at all once one has gone over to the other world. In any event, the national movement now has a good middle order, meaning those who have reached the middle age, though we may not have a corresponding increase among the young people. I am sure that Wimal Weerawansa by his fast attracted many young people to the national movement, and we in the movement should be thankful to him at least for that. The present younger generation being the children of JRJ open economy without nationalism cannot be given nationalistic feelings through newspaper articles or lectures as they are immune to those media. I have experienced this in the university and the students whom I met after my long sojourn were different from the previous generations. However, they can be politically motivated but unfortunately only the JVP has been successful even in a limited way in this regard. Wimal Weerawansa’s fast is not a farce and whether he has realised it or not many a young people would have been politically motivated by his mediation. Already somebody, I am not sure of his age, has staged a one day fast in protest of the appointment of the notorious panel. This is something that the above mentioned educated people would not understand and I would be happy if they continue to enjoy their blissful educated ignorance.

We do not need these educated people to tell us that Wimal Weerawansa was not going to die as a result of the fast. With or without his daughter telephoning Mahinda Mama it was only a matter of time before the President would intervene to stop the fast. In any event this was not the first fast in the world to end without a death and we have seen so many fasts in this country and abroad where the "hero did not die". Fasts have different purposes other than winning the demands involved with the fast which could be understood by uneducated people like me. (I do not believe in certificates and I am prepared to accept that I am not educated). When Mahatma Gandhi staged number of fasts it is very unlikely that the Indian independence movement would have allowed him to die as a result of the fasts. The fasts staged by the Federal Party (Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi or the Lanka Tamil State Party) in the fifties and the sixties would not have ended with the death of the leaders of the party as its present leader Sambandan could testify. Those fasts had the objective of inciting the ordinary Tamil people against the Sinhalas, and in spite of the so-called non violence tag, they were intended to invite violence. I am not comparing Wimal Weerawansa to the leaders of the violent Tamil politics who engaged in such politics in the guise of non violence or to Mahatma Gandhi but fasts have different objectives.

The educated, especially the English educated people who think that they are eloquent and good at delicate diplomacy, whatever it means, could convince Ban Ki-moon to withdraw the panel that has been appointed. However they are mistaken. The power does not come from the mouths of a few sophisticated people that the English education has produced but from the people. Yes the power is with the uneducated people led by politicians like Wimal who themselves may be uneducated. In any event, what is the education that these so-called educated people talk of? It is simply a training that they have got from their masters and the mistresses in London, New York and Paris and such other places. I went to a school where the motto was "learn or depart" but I neither learnt nor departed and I have not "succeeded" in life. At the university I did not learn anything that was not found in the books written by the westerners and the university was only able to find a wife for me and give me a certificate though I did not obtain that "grand" certificate given by the Chancellor at the convocation either in presence or in absentia. The convocation procession is not even a fancy dress parade as far as I am concerned, as it is a parade of young and old people who have been given cloaks of Judaic Christian culture to imprison their spiritual heritage under the cloaks. The academics in Sri Lanka are in general sales representatives, who distribute knowledge created in the west, and they are no better than those who sell "pitikiri" produced in New Zealand to the public in Sri Lanka.

This story on education has another side. How many private sector bosses could not proceed beyond the GCE (Ordinary Level) class? Of course, these people are not considered to be uneducated and no cartoonist would portray any one of them as an ignoramus. They are supposed to have leadership qualities having played for the school. Wimal has played cricket for the Kalutara Vidyalaya and opened batting for the school. It is ironical for the private sector bosses to claim that the PRESENT DAY graduates are not fit to be employed by them. The lack of "quality" between the present day graduates and the older graduates is not to be found in the area of the knowledge in their respective fields. In fact I know that the present day students in Mathematics and Physics have a better knowledge, of course, of that created in the west than I had when I was a student. The difference is that they are in general not posh as their predecessors in general and they may not know to wear the tie and hold a glass of champagne properly. All these are summarised nicely by Kumar David (we hold diametrically opposite views these days though we were members of the same parties not so long ago) in his column to the Lakbimanews last Sunday. ‘In 1970 Mrs. B made HAdeS (Gunasekera) permanent secretary planning, and my uncle (one Mr. Andrew Joseph) claims he approached the urbane Gamini (Corea), his predecessor in the post, and gently inquired: "I say Gamini, what is the most important quality to succeed at this level?" The answer came pat but broke his heart; poor HAdeS could manage neither. "Oh HAde S, you’ve got to learn to hold a glass of champagne, and how to lay the French Ambassador’s wife!"

I do not know of Wimal’s capabilities but he is certainly not acceptable to the class of the commentators and they talk of decent diplomacy instead of taking the issues to the streets.

The JVP is only propagating untruth true to their policies and the appointment of the panel is not the result of any agreement between the government and the UN. The critics want to know whether Ban Ki-moon would withdraw the panel of advisers, which is not worth a window panel. How can he withdraw it when he did not appoint the panel? Ban Ki-moon is only a paid loyal servant of US and UK and we know that he will not be ordered to withdraw the panel by these powers as an immediate response to the fast. However, the powers concerned would have got the message, and more importantly the issue has been taken to the streets from the living rooms and bedrooms of the diplomats and the rustic Sinhala nation, and not the sophisticated alien nation will back the "uneducated" Wimal to the hilt. Read more...

What is India up to?

"The big brother attitude of the Indians was clear at the carnival. Sri Lanka spent millions of rupees in order to make the carnival a success. It was of course a Bollywood film festival, and not a Sri Lankan festival."
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by Nalin de Silva

(June 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) India featured in the Sri Lankan newspapers last week but not in a friendly manner. First it was on CEPA with many Sri Lankans coming out against the agreement claiming that it is in favour of India. Then IIFA came into the picture with some demigods in Indian film industry not attending the carnival that was staged in Colombo. Later it was learnt that even some of those who had come to Colombo were not seen at Temple Trees, where the President had made arrangements to receive them. The President himself was absent at the main ceremony held at the Sugathadasa indoor stadium and it was very clear that everything was not that rosy. Meanwhile Rosy Senanayake having spoken in favour of IIFA first was heard criticizing the government for the absence of so called super stars at the carnival, while Wijitha Herath was lamenting over the money spent by the Sri Lankan government. According to him the money should have been spent on the poor internally displaced people over the "floods". Then finally a Sunday Sinhala newspaper said under banner headlines that the Indian government wants to discuss the so-called ethnic problem and the solutions with the Tamil parties in Sri Lanka.

All three components of western colonialism, namely the economic, cultural and political have been covered by CEPA, IIFA and discussions by the Indian government with the Tamil parties in Sri Lanka. The three components are interdependent and one would affect the others. The CEPA cannot be considered in isolation. Nor can IIFA. Views have been expressed both for and against CEPA and we have to consider what would be the balance sheet in about five years time. There is no economic pundit who could predict what happens in five years in his/her field and in a sense it is a futile exercise to have a chat on economic predictions in five years. However, knowing the attitudes of India and how she treats her neighbours we should be able to come to a decision on the suitability of CEPA.

The attitudes of India were expressed in no uncertain terms at the IIFA. The "big superstars" kept away from the carnival on the pretext that there were threats from the LTTE. It was clear that they were talking of LTTE threats in India and not in Sri Lanka. There are no threats from the LTTE in Sri Lanka and people have been moving without any fear for one year since Prabahakaran and the "invincible" LTTE cadres were drowned in Nandikadal. It is India that is apparently unable to provide security to the big super stars and if India cannot solve its problems then they should not try to implicate the others. In a sense it is India that prevented the so-called superstars coming to Sri Lanka and thus using the "threats" by LTTE sympathisers in Tamil Nadu and other places in India, in addition to those living in the western countries, against the Sinhala people and the Sri Lankan government.

Sri Lanka has solved the problem and is taking steps to reconcile the various ethnic groups with the Sinhala people, and if not for the "allegations", "pickets", "agitation" by the Tamil Nadu Tamils and the so-called Tamil diaspora living in the western countries and of course the western and Indian politicians and "intellectuals" who sponsor all these activities there would not have been any discussion of the so-called Tamil problem within the hackneyed paradigm of injustices, aspirations, homeland and other such parameters leading to a separate state. The west and India rather than supporting these groups and bowing down to their demands should have taken steps to defeat them. However, what is taking place is something else. They are using the Tamils in their countries against the Sinhala people and Sri Lanka. If India and west cannot take steps against these so-called agitators, then it is their problem and not ours. In a sense the problem has been transferred to the places of origin of the problem, and Sri Lanka should not take any notice of these "agitators". If India cannot give protection to the Indian "superstars" in India what can Sri Lanka do? India should not try to make use of their inability to solve a problem that they have created in order to recreate the problem in Sri Lanka. The same goes for the west.

The big brother attitude of the Indians was clear at the carnival. Sri Lanka spent millions of rupees in order to make the carnival a success. It was of course a Bollywood film festival, and not a Sri Lankan festival. However, the Indian organisers should have seen to it that the local artistes were given pride of place without confining actresses of the calibre of Malini Fonseka to a chair in the back row. Further it has been reported that some of the so-called superstars after coming to Colombo thought it fit to ignore an invitation by the President to be present at a function. If they kept away due to "threats" in India, then surely it is the problem of India and not of Sri Lanka. India by encouraging these acts of the "superstars" is only giving the upper hand to anti Sri Lanka anti Sinhala groups in India. After all they say that India and Sri Lanka are friendly countries but should a country act in this manner against a friendly country?

If as reported in a Sunday Sinhala language newspaper India wants to have discussions with the Tamil parties in Sri Lanka, then it can be interpreted only as an infringement of the sovereignty of the country. India has no business to interfere in the activities of Sri Lanka however big she may be. India may be big but she is a relatively new (junior) country having come into existence only after the English invaded the subcontinent. It had been a collection of dynastic kingdoms before and as we have said before a quasi federal state may suit them. We are not going to recommend a unitary state for them not only because they have had no such states in the past but we are civilized enough not to interfere with internal matters of another country. Sri Lanka though considered a small country has a history going back to Pandukabhaya as a unitary state.

The Sri Lankan government should take a tough decision and not allow India to have discussions with the Tamil parties under any circumstances. Sri Lanka does not agitate on the plight of the Dalit Buddhists in India nor have discussions with political organisations of the Buddhists in India. The President Rajapaksa should not bow down to the pressure exerted by India in different fields. It is true that Sri Lanka has had good relations with some of the dynastic kingdoms of ancient Bharat, especially with the Mauriyan dynasty of King Ashoka. However, that should not deceive us to believe that India would be a friend in the twenty first century and we have to be extra vigilant in the months ahead. Read more...

A change of paradigm if not of ‘chinthanaya’

by Nalin de Silva

(June 02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Apparently the US is happy with the steps taken by the government on reconciliation, though we know that in general the statements made by external ministers are for the consumption for the general masses. The US must be having some ideas on reconciliation and it is not necessary that the Sri Lankan government also has the views on the subject. The US may be happy as probably it thinks that its ideas on reconciliation would be explored by the Sri Lankan Government.

The views of the Sri Lankan Government on reconciliation are not clear at the moment except for the expression of the need of some kind of development in the northern and the eastern provinces under "Uthuru Vasanthaya" and "Neganahira Udanaya" respectively. Undoubtedly, some kind of economic development is essential in those two provinces for reconciliation, though we may prefer a development that is compatible with the history and the geography of the country rather than copying a western model, whether it is Singaporean or Korean or something else. All is not well with these countries and even China and India supposed to be the Asian economic giants of the twenty first century are not doing well almost after a decade of the new century. These so-called Asian countries are following the western economic model with western theories of economics and as such they are finally directed and controlled by western economic gurus who would hold the reins. There are some so-called sociologists who think that we are concerned with Eurocentric knowledge. However it is not as simple as that and we struggle with the western domination of knowledge and even Eurocentric knowledge is a concept of the western knowledge and consists only a tiny fraction of knowledge created in the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya, which is the reason for the hegemony that Gramsci was deeply interested in.

While some kind of development is necessary for reconciliation, the US or any other country including India should not attempt to impose their fancy ideas as so-called well thought out solutions for the Tamil problem in Sri Lanka. They should at least now, if they are genuine, think why all their solutions have failed so far. I am not writing these lines on the assumption that global power and the zonal power are genuinely interested in solving the problem, and it is not likely that these ideas would be even considered by them. However, the Sri Lankan government with its many Tissa Vitharanas opposing any change of paradigm could spend a little time over the ideas expressed in this article.

The paradigm that has been used to "understand" the Tamil problem is one of injustices and solutions to rectify those injustices. It is said that the Sinhala Buddhists are the worst human rights violators in the world and that they not prepared to do justice to the Tamils in the country. The Sinhalas are supposed to have oppressed the Tamils since 1931, when the first D. S. Senanayake government, though without a cabinet as such was formed through the State Council. Even before that, according to some Tamil leaders, the Sinhala leaders had deceived the Tamil leaders with their "promises" and had worked against the interest of the Tamils. For example the Tamils would claim that the Sinhala leaders promised a separate seat for the Western Province Tamils but did not agree to that later. The Tamil leaders would also say that as the Tamils were bombarded with injustices gradually the Tamils were united under the Federal Party and then finally under the TULF and the LTTE.

As there was no solution for the injustices faced by the Tamils, the Tamils, according to the Tamil leaders, some Sinhala NGO pundits and western theorists, had no alternative but to demand a separate in the so-called Tamil homeland that had been in existence for thousands of years. The Vaddukodai resolution formulated all these and demanded a separate state. Chelvanayakam incited the Tamils against the Sinhalas and their culture and language and what Prabhakaran did was to continue the politics of Chelvanayakam with arms. He was assisted by the west and India.

Since the Ponnambalam Ramanathan days certain Tamil leaders have accused the Sinhala people and their leaders as racist and not being prepared to listen to the reasonable demands of the Tamils. As the Sinhalas did not listen to the Tamil demands it was claimed that the Tamils had to intensify their just struggle and finally Prabhakaran and the other terrorists had to take up arms of course provided by the west and India. Thus the west and India and of course the NGO pundits justified terrorism of the LTTE and even today the West is trying to accuse the Sri Lankan government of defeating the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world. All the so-called war criminal charges are brought against the government in order to nullify the victory over the LTTE, if possible.

Prabhakaran is no different from Chelvanayakam or Ponnambalam Ramanathan as they based themselves on the same paradigm. I have described the evolution from Ramanathan to Chelvanayakam in ‘An Analysis of Tamil Racism in Sri Lanka’. They differed only in the methods they adopted and not in the political paradigm. Prabhakaran was at the apex of the paradigm and at Nandikadal it was not only the LTTE that was defeated but the entire paradigm. The Thirteenth Amendment was imposed on us by India as a so-called solution within the same paradigm and this amendment is not valid now.

The West and India at one stage blamed the Sinhala people for not giving in to Tamil terrorism and branded the Sinhala people racists of the worst kind. Even today the attitudes of the West have not changed and they are not prepared to listen to the Sinhala people. The Sinhalas do not recognize the paradigm of Tamil politics and do not consider that Tamils have a problem in this country merely because they are Tamils. Without accusing the Sinhalas as racists who are not prepared to meet separatist demands, the West should have tried to understand why the Sinhalas are opposed to such demands.

Even if the West or India want to go back to the Thirteenth Amendment with some additions there is no way that the Sinhalas would agree to it. Separatists claim that the LTTE had to take up arms because the Sinhalas did not want to meet their just demands. Now having taken up arms and having been supported by the Tamil leaders of the TULF, TNA the LTTE has been defeated, in spite of the assistance given by the West in terms of so-called theory, propaganda, publicity, diplomacy and also arms. Having being defeated by the armed forces now the Tamil leaders promoting separatism want to go back not only to the Thirteenth Amendment but to the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kadchchi, which could be translated as Lanka Tamil State Party. This is nothing but ridiculous and it is clear that those Tamil leaders want to begin another cycle of racist politics under the discarded paradigm. If the Sinhalas had thought that the Tamil demands were just they would have agreed to meet them and the Thirteenth Amendment without sacrificing the lives of the security forces personnel. Now having achieved victory if somebody wants to go back to the Thirteenth Amendment, it is a betrayal of those members of the armed force who sacrificed their lives fighting against in essence the Thirteenth Amendment and the paradigm of Tamil politics.

What is needed is the rejection of this paradigm in Tamil politics without going in circles within the paradigm, and think of the whole problem within a new paradigm, if not within a new Chinthanaya. It is time to listen to the Sinhalas at least for want of a change. Read more...

Some comments on results of general elections

By Nalin de Silva

(April 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The UPFA has narrowly missed a two-thirds majority in Parliament. With the results of 20 districts released UPFA has 117 MPs. It is unlikely that the alliance would be able to nominate more than 18 MPs from the national list making it to get elected at least 15MPs from the remaining two districts that can send only 16 MPs, in order to have a two thirds majority. This is an impossibility and the UPFA would miss the required number by about 5 or 6. However ironically the JVP - SF alliance has 5 MPs elected already and as they are likely to get one more MP nominated from the national list. It is this alliance that has prevented the UPFA obtaining a two third majority.

The JVP–SF alliance has attracted a portion of the nationalistic vote in and around Colombo, and in the urban areas in Kalutara, Gampaha and Galle districts. It is not that the JVP has all of a sudden become an urban party or party of the urban lumpen proletariat in the jargon of Marxism. The JVP is still a party of the rural Sinhala youth but it does not have a vote base more than 3% percent of the population. It lost the only seat that they secured in Hamabantota through Galappatti in 1994, and nowhere in the country would they have won a single seat if they contested the Parliamentary elections as the JVP. However in certain urban or suburban electorates they were able to poll more than 10% of the vote thus attracting in general more than 7% of the nationalist vote in these electorates.

There is a section of the nationalists in and around Colombo and in certain urban areas that would be called urban surnationalists with apologies to surrealists. It was a section of these surnationalists who identified themselves with Ven. Soma Thera and voted for the JHU at the elections held in 2004. A section of them has now identified themselves with the retired General and they now vote for the JVP – SF alliance. They vote for one political party or alliance not based on party politics but giving priority to issues. They are nationalists but for them very often single issues are more important than general policies and live with contradictions. It does not mean that the sets of people voted for the JHU in 2004 and those voted for the JVP – SF alliance in 2010 are identical, though some would have voted for the two parties in the respective years.

What is disturbing is that for the first time when the Sinhala voters were ready to give a two-third majority to a political party, based on preferences, the UPFA was not able to grab the opportunity. Sometime ago in the late eighties and early nineties it was driven into the heads of the SLFP leadership that an election cannot be won by appealing to the Sinhala voters alone under the preferential system. While the SLFP under Chandrika was going around the country trying to attract the Tamil vote with various promises on so called devolution, we showed that a political party could win an election by appealing to the Sinhala voters only. In fact later we showed that the Sinhala voters alone could deliver a two-third majority to a party if issues are addressed nationalistically, of course under special circumstances. An opportunity had been created after the defeat of the LTTE and the nationalist voters were prepared to give a two third majority to a party that appealed to nationalism.

However, not all the votes of the nationalists went to the UPFA. The surnationalists with their contradictions voted for the JVP – SF alliance. The JVP was able to market SF successfully to this vote base in the urban areas. The very same electorates that in general voted somewhat heavily for the Hela Urumaya in the 2004 general elections voted similarly for the JVP – SF alliance as well. If the JVP was able to market SF in 2010 the Hela Urumaya was successful in marketing Soma Hamuduruwo in 2004 to the urban surnationalists.

The JVP was able to market SF to the surnationalists so successfully due to the apathy of those who handled the propaganda machinery for the UPFA, especially in the state electronic media. They allowed the JVP and Anoma Fonseka to campaign for SF claiming that the retired General had been "arrested" illegally and that it was the retired General who won the "war" but who has been "imprisoned" in a "cell" for challenging the President at the Presidential elections. The UPFA never countered this propaganda successfully and they merely concentrated on attacking the JVP without realising that the people would vote against the Marxist Party. However, the people had already made up their minds to vote against the JVP and the campaign of the UPFA was redundant. Had they spent few more hours exposing SF and showing how the retired General had betrayed the President and the Defence Secretary in order to save his neck by agreeing to be a "crown witness" for the British and the other western governments, after his speech at Dharmashoka College Hall in Ambalangoda, the UPFA could have polled a fair share of the urban surnationalist vote and obtained a two third majority, especially with Tamils and Muslims turning away from their traditional parties that have begun to talk of so called injustices to the minorities again.

The JVP will not be able to sell SF hereafter and even if they find another commodity it would not be able to do better as the people are now more knowledgeable of that party. Wimal Weerawansa has been reduced to a one man party and the JHU is no better. One each from the LSSP and the CP has been returned and it is clear that the SLFP has now consolidated its position as the party of the Sinhala nationalists. The UNP has to change its policies and unless its leadership becomes nationalist it will not be able to do better. On the other hand if the SLFP drops its nationalist policies a vacuum will be created and there will emerge a new party with more nationalistic credentials.

The fact that UPFA has been able to poll votes in the Jaffna and Batticaloa districts augurs well for the future and it is pointless to find a so called solution in terms of a report by an APRC that was clearly non existent after the armed forces entered Killinochchi. All those so called solutions were attempted by non national forces when Prabhakaran was alive and as we are under different conditions now those so called solutions are not valid.

Now we are in a different situation altogether having defeated Tamil racist politics militarily and thus politically (military solutions are also political solutions). If the ITAK or TNA is trying to go back to the days of SJVC or TC or Ramanathan type politics then they are only dreaming of repeating the cycle this time with the help of the so called Tamil diaspora and to produce a Prabhakaran who will bring nothing but agony for the ordinary Tamil people. It will remain a dream and the SLFP should now think of a way of addressing the common Tamil man directly and becoming the party of Tamil nationalism as well without leaving for diasporas and others to continue politics of Tamil racism. Read more...

The end of UNP, JVP and SF

By Nalin de Silva

(April 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) On April 5, 6 and 10 in 1956, we had Parliamentary elections which reduced the UNP to 8 seats and defeated it for the first time. The UNP was then headed by John Kotelawala and his leadership had no semblance of any nationalistic interests unlike in the days of the Senanayakes.The SLFP established in 1951 in the model of a western liberal party, after about 1954 became the nationalistic party of Sri Lanka. In 1956 under the leadership of SWRD Bandaranaike, it formed an alliance with the VLSSP of Philip Gunawardane, and the parties of V. Dahanayake and IMRA Iriyagolla. The MEP that took a nationalistic line from the very beginning was swept into power within a few months in April 1956.

The leadership of the UNP was given to alien thinking, though in the Senanayakes it had leaders who could be identified with the nationalistic interests to some extent. In fact, the Senanayakes were more nationalistic than the Bandaranaike, and the UNP and the SLFP represented social movements that did not reflect the interests of the leaders. It should be realised that around 1955 nationalistic leaders such as LH Mettananda, who initiated the idea of a nationalistic political alliance, wanted Dudley Senanayake to become its leader. Apparently Dudley Senanayake who had ‘retired’ from politics after the hartal in 1953 suggested the name of Bandaranaike as the leader to the nationalistic leaders who met him. It would be interesting to speculate what course the country would have taken had Dudley Senanayake accepted the invitation to become the leader of the nationalistic movement. When Philip Gunawardane joined Dudley Senanayake in 1965 probably they were attracted to each other as nationalists defying the so-called class based politics formulated in Marxism.

There is a difference between leaderships and leaders in any movement, especially in political movements. While the leadership generally represents the social forces (not necessarily class based) that give rise to the political movement there may be leaders who do not see eye to eye with the leadership in general and with the social forces. The UNP represented the alien nation of the country from the very beginning from its Congress days and the SLFP at least from 1954 represented the Sinhala nation in spite of some of the leaders. In the early 1990s, Chandrika Kumaratunga was brought from her self-exile in England by interested parties to change the nationalistic policies of the SLFP to a Federal or Confederal policy, backed by the English and other western states. They almost succeeded and if not for the elections that brought Ranil Wickremesinghe into power as the Prime Minister Chandrika would not have been forced to form the so-called probationary (‘parivasa’) government with the JVP and to listen the nationalistic forces.

The nationalistic forces became strong and gradually rallied around Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was elected the President in 2005. He had to work with Chandrika’s Parliament elected in 2004 but he made sure that the Parliament would last till 2010 completing the full six years. After the Parliament was dissolved WJM Lokubandara, one of the nationalist leaders in the UNP finally joined the SLFP where he belonged. It is no secret that the present UNP leadership and leaders such as Ranil Wickremesinghe and Ravi Karunanayake belong to the alien nation and leaders such as Tissa Attanayake are only wasting their time in the party.

The UNP which had served the English even with the Senanayakes have now almost come to the end of the road. The party would not have many representatives in the new Parliament and even among them the influential emotionally Sinhalas would be very small. It cannot proceed in the present form and if the party is to survive, it will have to change its policies as well as leadership. Even with the support of the West with the present leadership, the party cannot move forward as we are entering a new era in politics. The present and the foreseeable future belong to nationalistic politics and if the UNP is to survive as a vibrant political entity, it has to change its course and adopt nationalistic policies.

The old Marxist parties as well as new Trotskyite parties are today virtually non existent not because the former went into coalition politics with the SLFP, but due to the fact that after the SLFP became a nationalistic party they had no role to play. If the old left went down the hill due to coalition politics then the question could be asked why the new Trotskyite parties could not have much influence in national politics in spite of not coalescing with the SLFP. The JVP that oscillated between nationalistic politics and Marxist politics managed to make an impact in politics due to the nationalistic politics it adopted from time to time.

However, it appears that the JVP is now being used by the western forces against the nationalistic policies. Fifty years after fifty six, finally in about 2006 the nationalistic policies have become dominant in politics and Marxist policies have no role to play in the country. No Marxist will be elected as an MP at the forthcoming elections as a Marxist, and there is no need to appoint members of Marxist parties as MPs from the National List as they would be representing only a virtual electorate. Those politicians such as Champika Ranawaka and Wimal Weerawansa, who were with the JVP at one time or other, have become members of nationalistic parties that orbit around the main nationalistic party the SLFP. It is very likely that they would be absorbed into the SLFP unless they manage to evolve nationalistic policies alternative to those of the SLFP. If the JVP is to have some influence in national politics then it has no alternative but to evolve alternative nationalistic policies.

The Tamil parties will be dealt with in a separate article and for the time being it is necessary to consider the fate of Sarath Fonseka the man who could not become a hero. As we have said number of times after his speech at Dharmashoka College about the so-called white flags he has become a prisoner in the hands of the westerners, especially of the Americans meaning those who live in USA and not the continent of America, and he is prepared to become a "crown witness" against the President and the Secretary of Defence, in order to save his neck. He is now in league with the JVP. Theirs is an alliance between a political party and an individual who has no experience in politics, and dances to the tune of the JVP. Going by the way the JVP members and sympathisers vote he is unlikely to get the maximum ‘manape’ or preferences for him, unless some non JVPers who vote for the DNA give their preferences to the general. In any event it is very unlikely that the JVP would allow him to be an MP and he would realise his folly very late. The JVP by highlighting the General’s health conditions makes people question how he survived the "war conditions" in the battle field without air conditioned rooms and hot water. The JVP is presenting a poor picture of the man which would be detrimental to the image of the General as a "war veteran". Perhaps, that is what the JVP wants to do as they would be finally throwing Fonseka to the dustbin of history as a weak person who had wanted all the comforts of life without making any sacrifices even in the "battle field". The general would not be made into another Aung San Suu Kyi and as he has lost his nationalistic base he can only hope for the best at his various trials in the next few months. Read more...

Liberalism, Sinhala nationalism and the Presidential Election 2010: a belated rejoinder

By “kathika” study circle

(April 05, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) On the eve of the Presidential election 2010 the ‘‘Kathika’ study circle issued a statement on the election and there were some responses to it to which we could not attend at that time. In this article we address some key issues arising from some of the pertinent responses to our statement.

The statement of the ‘Kathika’ study circle on the Presidential Election 2010, titled 2010 Presidential Election: Nationalism Or Liberalism? “Yes, Please!” sought to present an analysis of the political processes operative in the lead to the election.

The central idea of our statement was that if Sinhala nationalism had come to believe that it had established itself as the dominant ideology in Sri Lanka over liberalism following the victory in the war against the terrorism of the LTTE, the run up to the presidential election showed that liberalism had established itself in Sri Lanka as a force that is capable of levelling a serious challenge to nationalism. We argued that the events leading to the Presidential election showed that the Sri Lankan public had sharply divided itself into two contending camps representing the discourses of nationalism and liberalism, and the belief systems and the ways of life built on them which are taken (by them, the public) to be antithetical to each other. We also maintained that whichever side of the two camps in the election, the victorious side may seek to impose its ideological hegemony on the opposing camp, thus aggravating the clash between nationalism and liberalism and giving rise to a long drawn out antagonism in our society which will in turn further strengthen its autocratic tendencies and thereby expose us to the danger of massive social instability in the long run. Our analysis intended to throw light on this scenario urging reflection on the future prospects this will hold for our country.

Until the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) joined the opposition camp, even many who were within the government camp believed that their margin of victory would be minimal. That this was a widespread sense was evident in that all the pro-government forces, political, intellectual, and otherwise were working hard to convince the public that they should vote for the government candidate. Even though how the people voted in the election once the TNA played into the hands of the government was unbelievable for the most optimistic of government ranks, the opposition camp polled over 4 million votes winning the urban centres of Colombo, Galle and Kandy.

In the post Presidential election landscape the oppositional discourses between Sinhala Nationalism and liberalism have continued even though, sans the former army commander being their candidate, the main opposition coalition is raising the issues of cost of living, lack of employment, destitution etc. as its main slogans. Whether the conflict between the nationalist and liberal camps will give rise to social instability in the long run is something that is left to be seen.

Criticisms

One criticism levelled at our analysis of the political situation in the country in the above statement was that we had ignored the complexity of the state as we urged our readers to imagine the state as a union of citizens and therefore define the role of the state as creating the conditions that would facilitate political dialogue among the citizens. When we suggested the imagining referred to above we were drawing inspiration from the practices of the ancient city state or the polis, the epitome of which was the ancient Athens of Socrates. We were not thinking so much of the modern ‘state’ or the ‘nation state’ but a futuristic state which would have sufficiently addressed the implications of the all pervasive character of modernity and capitalism. In our efforts to imagine beyond the dictates of the contemporary political scene we believe we are in good company with Hannah Arendt the central theme of whose writings can be taken as an argument for the revival of the public realm, the ideal type of which she found in the Ancient Athens. It may be relevant for our discussion here that in discussing American politics in her On Revolution, Arendt in fact went on to suggest that the Ward system proposed by Thomas Jefferson would come close to what she imagined to be a genuine public realm of citizens in place of the bourgeois parliamentary democracy, even though she would not have agreed to trade in bourgeois democracy for any form of authoritarian government that would have denied the limited democracy the former offered. We have no qualms about the necessity to attend to the strategies and tactics of governance and state craft, especially when the sovereignty of the state is threatened from both within and outside. Our goal in following Arendt here is to use this moment to arouse our collective imagination to think beyond the present to imagine an alternative future to that of modernity and capitalism, an orientation which no doubt those who are geared to think only in terms of reality here and now may consider naive or unrealistic.

Another comment on our article was related to our ‘methodology.’ We not deny that in our analysis we are guided by theoretical premises which we both apply to and examine in the context of the social processes we are examining. This is generally the method of the social sciences, unlike the natural sciences which used to claim that they begin with observations and then go onto form hypotheses. However, even in the natural sciences, this premise has been seriously challenged since Popper’s work in the latter half of the last century.

The most engaging and detailed response to ‘Kathika’ statement came from Buddika Bandara and Prabha Manuratne (B&P) of who raised several key issues to discuss which we devote the rest of the article.

Sinhala nationalism and liberalism: oppositional discourses

B&P argued that the Presidential election campaigns of both the main camps were based on the rhetoric of victory in the war and that both the camps had a mix of nationalists and liberals among their leading politicians, thus making the “opposition drawn [by ‘Kathika’ ] between nationalism and liberalism, less clear.”

Our position was that the two main contending camps at the Presidential election represented for the public who rallied among them, the discourses of nationalism and liberalism which the hard core followers of each camp would take to be oppositional. The election campaigns of these two camps began by focusing, one, on development, and the other, on liberal democratic values, good governance etc. Even the election manifestoes of the two camps did not refer to the victory in the war as the main plank of the campaign. The war rhetoric surfaced only in the last stages of the campaign when the Tamil National Alliance joined the opposition camp.

We would agree with B&P’s assertion that in selecting the former army commander as their candidate by the opposition, the role he played in the military victory against the LTTE would have been crucial as it is only a person with such ‘nationalist credentials’ who could have mounted a serious challenge to the then incumbent President who was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces in the war against the LTTE. However, this in itself did not push the election campaign to become riveted on nationalism from its onset but only later as we discussed above. In fact, by selecting the army commander, the opposition believed that they had displaced the nationalist rhetoric from the campaign, which in fact was the case, until the TNA joined them.

In our view, that both the main camps of the election may have had politicians of liberal and nationalist orientations did not affect the main thrusts of the two campaigns due to the reasons stated above.

We do not believe that nationalism and liberalism are always mutually exclusive and that they do not and cannot coexist in reality. Our analysis was not focussed on individuals but discourses around which the public were rallying. We only posited nationalism and liberalism as discourses, in so far as they are perceived by their respective strong followers as antithetical to each other. Strong Liberals abhor nationalism as suppressing democracy and freedom of the individual and thereby plurality in society, while strong nationalists consider democracy, freedom of the individual and plurality as secondary in importance to the sovereignty and integrity of the unitary state. That those who have been in power would combine elements of both nationalism and liberalism in their governments, regimes and ranks do not negate the polarised perceptions of those who believe in the two discourses.

freedom: liberal and political

B&P correctly observe that the liberal notion of the freedom of the individual in the market place does not guarantee freedom for all citizens to actively participate in politics. This in fact is the weakness of the liberal notion of individual freedom.

When we refer to liberals as valuing the freedom of the individual in the market it does not mean that the regimes oriented to promoting free market capitalism in Sri Lanka have assured freedom to all individuals under them either.

A liberalised economy does not necessarily offer democratic political and social freedom to all individuals. While the notion of the rights of the individual has its roots in the liberal idea of freedom, a political regime can, as J.R. Jayawardena (JRJ)’s regime did, violate the rights of individuals while assuring freedom in the market place. We have already commented on how the JRJ regime attacked the foundations of all the democratic institutions while promoting the free market. In our view he was no liberal, but an authoritarian ruler.

Whether the rise of terrorism in the Sri Lankan Tamil community is due to the state depriving ‘avenues to the democratic participation of the Tamil people,’ is an issue that has been discussed extensively and we have no intention of revisiting the debate here.

Moreover, the freedom of the individual we refer to as valued by liberals is the liberal notion of the individual as separate from community and tradition, the de-ontological individual, the notion of which Michael Sandel famously criticised in his book Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. The Liberal notion of freedom does not necessarily believe in freeing the individual from all forms of oppression and exploitation including economic, political and social variants, as Marxists would have it.

The Liberal notion of the freedom of the individual has only a weak sense of citizenship where a citizen is treated at best as a voter or consumer. Under a bourgeois liberal democracy, one cannot expect the state to entrust its citizens with a robust citizenship.

The idea that ‘citizenship must be conceived as a way of holding the state accountable’ seems to come close to the liberal notion of the citizen, as if the citizen is outside or external to the state.

B&P are correct in that the Liberal notion of individual freedom does not address the issues of the commoditization of social spaces. In fact, this notion is not at all incompatible with democratic social spaces being subjected to commoditization.

It is liberalism that presents the individual as the opposite of society and the freedom of the individual as freedom from society. It has been the position of ‘‘Kathika’ that freedom of the individual becomes meaningful not in imagining the individual as free of society but as a part of a society.

We choose to not take the individual and society as opposites but instead view them as a totality. We would argue that it is not the individual that is a necessary precondition of a society but rather it is a society that creates the individual and the conditions for his freedom by setting the limits for individuals to become who they are.

While we can agree with B&P that the JRJ regime cannot be held responsible for the structural adjustment policies imposed by the IMF, we cannot forget his enthusiasm in embracing them. It has been pointed out that under the JRJ regime Sri Lanka was the first South Asian economy to embrace the structural adjustment policies imposed by the IMF while both India and China among others responded cautiously by opening up their economies at their own pace and under conditions favourable to their own economies. When JRJ triumphantly declared “Let the robber barons come!” it showed clearly his enthusiasm in embracing these structural adjustment policies. (See, S.B.D. de Silva’s The Political Economy of Underdevelopment for a thoroughgoing analysis of the JRJ regime’s economic policies.) JRJ’s liberalised economy favoured the growth of a mercantile capitalist class in Sri Lanka, as opposed to an industrial capitalist class. Furthermore, it facilitated the growth of a middle class based on trade and private sector employment.

A critique of proletarianisation in the sense of an increase in the incidence of wage labour, that may have taken place globally consequent to structural adjustment policies, needs to be located in the context of discussions on the implications of the persistence of peasant ways of life and pauperisation.

It was during the JRJ regime that Japan gifted the Television to Sri Lanka. The cassette tape industry that developed under the liberalised economy together with the television and the video player paved the way for the growth of the entertainment industry in exponential terms. The freedom of consumption offered by a burgeoning entertainment industry and mass media based on it offered a false sense of political freedom to a generation of youth coming of age under the liberalised economy. The difference between the so-called “popular culture” and commoditization of social and cultural spaces under consumerism turns out to be one of degree rather than one of substance.

urbanisation and modernisation

It is not clear whether as B&P argue that the rise of Sinhala nationalism associated with urban Buddhism is directly connected to the desire for an authoritarian leadership.

Can we assume , that the resurgence of Sinhala nationalism is due to the social anxieties created by the social and institutional crises brought about by capitalism which in turn lead to the desire for the re-establishment of stability through a “strong” authoritarian, militaristic leader?

Is the resurgence of Sinhala nationalism propelled by a desire to find an authoritarian leader who can bring about “law and order” in the face of modernisation and urbanisation which undermines the stability of traditionally established institutes such as the rural family and trade union movements? Is there a feeling that liberalism is undermining the public health and education sectors, and also leading to the spread of political violence in our society?

What is the nature of the relationship between urban Buddhism and the restructuring of the rural family under the present modern-urban conditions? Examining the possible impact of the restructuring of the earlier forms of the rural family under modernisation and urbanisation necessitates a close investigation of such changes in the rural family.

While the decline of the trade-union movement may have more to do with the changing conditions of the working class, women migrating to the Middle East for work undoubtedly affected the stability of the rural family of certain social strata.

Even though the government has imposed certain restrictions on such migrations, one wonders whether there has been any significant public outcry to ban women from migrating. While the migration of labour is voluntary, urban life brings its own benefits and pleasures even to the poor. Further, whether the post 1977 changes in economy and society have brought about a significant migration of labour to urban centres is something that needs to be empirically verified.

The matter with education in Sri Lanka, is not so much the concept of private tuition and the spread of private or international educational institutions. since they could be seen as the manifestations of us not being able to come up with a national educational policy that has in mind the good of the collective, as opposed to the benefit of individuals in the market place.

We agree with the observations of B&P that the spread of violence in politics in the country has affected the democratic political space.

It is with the 1971 insurrection that for the first time the post-Independence Sri Lankan state was threatened with violent take over. Even the traditional left parties supported the then government in suppressing the insurrection. When not only the state but even civilian life was threatened with terrorism in the South in the 87-90 period and then by the LTTE’s terrorist campaign, protecting democracy became a priority in the minds of the public and many therefore chose to support the state in silence. It may not be an irony that a society which condemns violence in its basic beliefs had come to tolerate such violence in order to protect democracy. However the young who experienced the naked brutality of political violence in the 87-90 period for the first time in their lives would have no doubt begun to question the values upheld by their society. The breeding of political violence on a wide scale has undoubtedly dulled our sensibilities, but can we say that as a society we have lost the capacity to determine what is ‘right’ from what is ‘wrong’ due to such violence?

Urbanisation and the modernisation of Sri Lankan society occurred throughout the colonial and postcolonial periods. Modernisation can be absorbed by any society as long as it takes place at its own pace, without being a violent imposition. The phenomenon of Urban Buddhism has been recognised in modern Sri Lanka in different forms, a key variant of which has been named Olcott Buddhism.

the resurgence of Sinhala nationalism

A desire for an authoritarian leader in post independence Sri Lanka is not necessarily related to the rise of Sinhala nationalism. In Sri Lanka, the emergence of nationalism has occurred in several waves, first emerging in the anti-colonial period, to resurface in the post independence Bandaranaike era and now rear its head again in the aftermath of the newly liberalised economy of the 80s.

Due to anti-colonial sentiments during the latter part of British rule, there was a strong Sinhala as well as Tamil nationalist movement and none of the two did represented a desire for an authoritarian leader.

In the early post-colonial period Sinhala nationalism was both anti-imperialist and anti-elitist. In the earlier phase of Sinhala nationalism which brought Bandaranaike to power in 1956, there were no signs of a desire for an authoritarian leader, something which Bandaranaike was not. The next resurgence of Sinhala nationalism comes in the wake of liberalised economy under the JRJ regime. In 1987, the Indo-Lanka peace accord aroused anti-Indian nationalist sentiments. The JVP took a nationalist stand against the Indian intervention in the war against the LTTE and the imposition of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and the Provincial Councils Act.
Thus, JRJ became the first manifestation of our desire for an authoritarian leader. However, authoritarian JRJ did not ride to power on Sinhala nationalism. Next, people identified Premadasa as the benevolent authoritarian leader we have been waiting for.

It was Sarachchandra who was a liberal in his thinking who fired the first salvo against the consumerism spawned by the liberalised economy by writing Dharmishta Samajaya. JRJ, having campaigned for a "Dharmishta Society," revealed his true intentions at the ACBC Hall when Sarachchandra launched his "Dharmista Samajaya" by getting party henchmen led by the JSS leader Piyasena S. Jayaweera of the UNP, to mercilessly assault Prof. Sarathchandra and the Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thero and others who attended the launching ceremony. (see, “JRJ: Farsighted statesman?”Savimon Urugodawatta, The Island, Sat, May 9, 2009)

In our view, in this present era of globalisation there is a resurgence of nationalism in Sri Lanka mainly due to the response of the Sinhala intelligentsia to the call of the Jathika Chinthanaya. The JVP’s turn to nationalism and the creation of the PNM and the JHU are some of the outcomes of this process.

The resurgence of Sinhala nationalism in the ‘post-liberalised-economy period’ in Sri Lanka has to be traced to Gunadasa Amarasekera and Nalin de Silva. If Amarsekera’s Jathika Chinthanaya, together with Nalin de Silva’s activities in the Chinthana Parshdaya is what prompted the resurgence of Sinhala nationalism in the post 1977 era, the shift of JVP politics towards the Jathika Chinthanaya and the setting up of the National Patriotic Front initially with JVP involvement is what rallied the masses around Jathika Chinthanaya.

Amarasekera’s and de Silva’s Jathika Chinthanaya was initially developed as a critique of the traditional Left of Sri Lanka’s inability to be sensitive to local cultural traditions in formulating their political programmes. The suggestion was that in order to make the Left political agenda successful, its ideology, nationalist thinking, must be incorporated into the mix. The Jathika Chinthanaya was meant to be a critique of capitalism and modernity. While Amarasekera was busy winning over the JVPers to the Jathika Chinthanaya, it is the war against the LTTE that propelled Mahinda Rajapakse to national political leadership with the intervention of Buddhist Sangha who cleverly maneuvered MR’s rise to political leadership in the country by blessing him with their official recognition. By this process the Jathika Chinthanya itself became the spearhead of the anti-LTTE movement.

What brought Mahinda Rajapakse to power as President in 2005 was the desire on the part of the people of Sri Lanka to defeat the LTTE. It is highly questionable whether the sense of gratitude which members of the public across the spectrum of various strata seem to have towards the Rajapakse regime for ending the war can be put down mere chauvanism.

why nationalism?

Our argument was that those who rallied around Sinhala nationalism represented a desire on the part of the public to preserve a sense of collectivity that would uphold values which had been eroding due to the impact of globalisation.

It is our view that what globalisation, with the increasing commoditisation of all social spaces and relations including culture and art, threatened to do away with was the traditional values in society which gave a sense of collectivity to people. Hence, we propose that it brings out resistance from those who value a form of collective life that gives identity to them through creating a culture and a civilization.

We wish to argue that this sense of collectivity in the past was based mainly on an understanding of being members of a community centered on being Buddhist. Gananath Obeysekera in an article titled “Buddhism, Ethnicity and Identity: A Problem of Buddhist History” has described this sense of the Buddhist collective as being built in the past on the notion of the Sasana and not the Jathiya or nation as such.

Obeyesekera writes that “Buddhists had a conception of a trans-local cultural consciousness that was conceptualized in the notion of sasana. Our conception of sasana is a "form of nationhood" constructed by the ethnographer on the basis of a phenomenological reality existing in [the] Sri Lankan culture and consciousness.”

Thus if in pre modern times the Sinhalese had the perception of being members of a collective identified as the sasana, a community of Buddhsits, we would argue that with globalization when the values of Buddhism have come increasingly under threat due to consumerism and commoditization it is the desire for Buddhists to preserve their values that nationalism utilises to its advantage. The impact of capitalism and modernity in the sense not of modernization of infrastructure and the technology but the commoditization of all spheres of life and the spread of liberal individualism threatens to uproot people from their traditions that gave them a sense of belonging and collectivity. While the old forms of collectivity and belonging are being undermined in an increasingly atomising society there are no new forms of solidarity emerging. We could understand with Anthony Smith how when the cultural existence of a people is threatened their last refuge becomes the ethnie, even as the notion of a Sinhala nation is an anachronism as much as that of a Tamil nation is one.

Therefore, looking at it through this lens, we see that capitalism and modernity threatens the very foundations of human society. The market logic of capitalism takes into its grip everything collective and consumes and commoditizes every human creation that formerly gave value to human existence. Having a sense of collectivity is merely a human response to the human condition of plurality.

Making social spaces more democratic can be achieved through a sense of politics that recognises the citizen as the centre of politics rather than a representative of a political party. A true democracy would assure freedom to its individuals members, that is, citizens, allowing them to actively participate in the public discourse on collective affairs.

The need to move towards a true democracy and create the socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions necessary for that would require us as a collective to rethink the capability of both capitalism and modernity to sustain humanity and the world. This is not something we can rely on political leaders for. It is a change that has to start at the level of the individual citizen.

Thus, in penning this article, we hope to contribute to such a discourse, even in a minor way, and encourage people to begin talking about how we can create an environment in which the citizen once again becomes the centre of society. Read more...