By Tisaranee Gunasekara“Madness is the purest, most total form of qui pro quo; it takes the false for the true, death for life, man for woman, the beloved for Erinnys and the victim for Minos”.
Foucault (Madness and Civilisation)
(October, 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) If the devastating Black Tiger attack on the Saliyapura Air Force camp serves to wake us from our hubris-induced slumber of complacency, the LTTE would have done us a favour. The shocking security lapses which enabled the spectacular success of that attack stemmed from our unclear and unreal thinking. We thought the war was as good as won; we thought the Tiger’s back and his resolve were broken. Disinformation is a staple fare in wars; its target is usually the enemy. In Sri Lanka the regime ends up by believing its own disinformation. The result is a false sense of safety and wellbeing. With an enemy as resourceful as the LTTE this is a dangerous state to be in.
The Saliyapura camp fell for the same reason Mr. Wickremesinghe’s Peace Process failed – the fatal inability to understand the LTTE. It is an inability that is common to both peaceniks and Sinhala supremacists. The Tiger and its self-deified leader cannot be understood without understanding the Black Tigers. As long as Vellupillai Pirapaharan is alive the LTTE cannot be appeased, even with the most generous federal solution (such a solution is necessary for the Tamil people). As long as the Black Tigers exist to play the role of force multiplier in critical situations, the LTTE cannot be defeated, let alone marginalised.
Mindless devotion is a hallmark of the Tiger; it is the be all and end all of the Black Tiger. The Black Tigers killing machines; they are fanatics, ‘dispossessed of what is specifically human’ (Foucault), from reason to mercy. Unlike the Islamic suicide bombers they engage in their bloody quest, not in expectation of any heavenly rewards in afterlife, but for a self-made God who, in reality, is an unprepossessing looking man. Their fanaticism therefore is of a different order than the fanaticism of a religious fighter. The Japanese Kamikaze pilots were motivated by veneration for their Emperor, who was seen as God incarnate, a linear descendent of the Sun Goddess. However that was a myth and an institution which had existed for centuries; believing in that myth and venerating that institution was integral part of Japanese ontology. The Black Tiger phenomenon is thus incomparable. While the Black Tigers are fanatics to the point of animality, they are also committed, courageous and efficient, beyond the bounds of humanity. This totality needs to be comprehended rather than parts of it.
Same Tiger; New Tactics
The essential nature of the enemy can remain unchanged while his modus operandi undergoes a radical transformation. As long as Velupillai Pirapaharan is alive the Tigers will remain an anti-civilisational entity – more akin to the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge than the IRA or the ANC. However a drastic change can take place in the tactics they use to achieve their eternal goal. We need to understand these new tactics, if we are to face them successfully. As an American officer, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling pointed out in a controversial and celebrated essay, “The most tragic error a general can make is to assume without much reflection that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past” (Armed Forces Journal).
The Anuradhapura attack is symbolic of this new turn. It was carried out in the main by 22 Black Tiger cadres, including 3 women; the two Tiger planes seemed to have performed a purely supportive role. The Black Tigers’ ritual pre-attack photograph with the God-Leader was released to the media before the attack was over – a chilly reminder that Mr. Pirapaharan’s godhead rests on voluntary human sacrifices and the Tiger gains strength by devouring its young.
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