Don't listen to the failed west

By Prof. Nailin de Silva

(January 28, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The western diplomats, Akashi the Japanese special envoy on Sri Lankan matters and of course one or two Indians have visited Sri Lanka again in the last few weeks. They appear to come in procession. The Indians after a long time seem to have a good understanding of what Sri Lanka is doing at the moment. Sri Lanka unlike during the JR Jayewardene regime is not a threat to India directly or indirectly and India appears to be happy in respect of the present situation in the country. The Indian government may have to do some jugglery with respect to Karunanidhi who has to respond to some of the maverick Tamil Nadu politicians. However, RAW is a different kettle of fish altogether and the Sri Lankan government has to keep a watchful eye on it.

Neither RAW, Akashi nor the western powers should be allowed dictate terms to the Sri Lankan government. Akashi and the western powers are "committed" to a so called political solution and they apply pressure on the government? However, we do not see a problem to be solved and we do not have to come out with so called solutions for non existing problems. It is true that the westerners have a problem in this country in particular and in Asia in general. They have failed to Christianize the region religion wise after more than five hundred years. They were successful only in Philippines changing even the name of the country, and in that sense not efficient as the Muslim invaders. However we have to admit that though the west has failed to Christianize Asia religion wise they have created a section of the middle class throughout Asia, which is culturally Christian.

In Sri Lanka the situation is worse as far as the west is concerned. Even the middle class is in general not listening to what the west has to say these days. The west at least from the time of the Dutch was interested in weakening, if not destroying the Sinhala Buddhist culture and imposing their culture on us. Tamil racism was created and nurtured in the process and the British wanted to give the local political, cultural and economical leadership to non Sinhala Buddhists, and to Tamil Vellalas in general and Ponnamabalam Coomaraswamy family in particular. The west did not want to give the due place to Sinhala Buddhist culture in the country. They manoeuvred with Tamil Vellala leaders to make the Sinhala Buddhists a minority in the legislature from the very beginning. Their plans failed and they could not prevent the Sinhala Buddhist representatives becoming the majority first in the state council and then in the Parliament.

Having failed in their attempt to make Sinhala Buddhists a minority in the Parliament in connivance with the Tamil Vellala leaders, they created the so called injustices to the Tamils in the country. SJV Chelvanayakam who was the first Tamil Vellala to realize that even with the manoeuvrings by the British the Tamil leaders could not become the majority at the centre established his separatist party to create a so called Eelam in the northern and the eastern provinces created finally in 1889 by the British. In order to help Chelvanayakam achieve his ambition myths that had already been created on injustices to the Tamils were given publicity and new myths were added to the list. The so called Tamil kingdom that was supposed to have existed in the British created northern and the eastern provinces and in the western seaboard up to Puttlam from Jaffna was created based on an erroneous minute by one Leghorn and judicial (not even administrative- all these have been discussed in "An introduction to Tamil racism in Sri Lanka" which is a translation of "Prabhakaran ohuge seeyala baappala ha massinala" that can be downloaded free from the website http://www.kalaya.org ) districts created by the Dutch, and wide publicity was given to all these myths by the British. The official language act in 1956 (remember that Chelavanayakam had founded his separatist party calling it the Federal Party to mislead the Sinhalas way back in 1949 long before the official language act) was supposed to have deprived the status that had been given to the Tamil language (by whom? the British!) and world wide publicity was given to the so called injustices to the Tamils.

The injustices to the Tamils and the un-Buddhistic attitude of the Sinhala Buddhists became an industry and the western "intellectuals" with their Sri Lankan imitators came on the scene. With hindsight we may say that 1976 marked the beginning of the end of Tamil racism with the Tamil leaders declaring their ambition to establish an Eelam, through the so called Vadukkodai resolution. Tamil youth were taught of an Eelam that existed at least from the time of Vijaya and Sinhala Buddhist cruelty. The youth believed their political uncles and grand uncles and took up arms with the blessings of India and the west to establish the Eelam of their elders. Of the youths Prabhakaran was the most ruthless and anti Sinhala Buddhist, and with Chelvanayakam was the most influenced by the Church. Prabhakaran was given funds by the west through NGOs indirectly and through the special envoys directly. It was not only funds that were given but even weapons, boats, and light aircrafts which probably took off from other countries or ships.

The LTTE was nurtured by the west and various humanitarian organisations, human rights industrialists, media freedom people and other NGOs had a field day defending the terrorists. Solheim and others inflated Prabhakaran into a war genius and with others tried to create a public opinion that the LTTE was invincible. The so called peace councils of national council of churches and such organisations campaigned against "war", having interpreted operations against a terrorist organisation as a war. The local editors and others dubbed it the "Eelam war" and exposing their conceptual bankruptcy proceeded until Eelam war IV. Meanwhile the west with their "intellectuals" and other peace mongers went on to discredit the Army without forgetting to mention that the majority of the soldiers were Sinhala Buddhists. The idea was to disgrace the Sinhala Buddhists and the question was raised as to the appropriateness of war for the Buddhists. Some third rate Sociologists came out with hurriedly written equally rated books on "Buddhism Betrayed" forgetting that Gemunu, Vijayaba and other Sinhala Buddhist kings had fought against the invaders including the Christian Europeans who went round the world with the blessings of Pope. It was made to understand that while the Christians, Catholics, Muslims and others could engage in war the Buddhists had to observe sil even if they were attacked. All these third rate "intellectuals" were adequately answered and movements such as Sudu Nelum and Thavalams were defeated on a theoretical front. Though the west and their cohorts were defeated theoretically, at the military front the LTTE continued with their massacres. The Presidents and Prime Ministers were busy with peace talks and were eager to hear that the LTTE could not be defeated. A so called ceasefire agreement brokered by Norway and the other western countries was signed between Ranil Wickremesinghe and the terrorist fascist and wide publicity was given to it. In fact it was the west that was behind all the propaganda on behalf of Tamil racism in general and LTTE in particular and without their active involvement no propaganda would have been possible.

As long as the Presidents were produced by the British for Sri Lanka the west could engage in all the anti Sinhala Buddhist activities. Such Presidents only listened to what their masters in the west had to say and acted accordingly. In fact it is appropriate to say that they did not act. The Sinhala people decided "enough was enough" long before Ranil Wickremesinghe took up the slogan and defeated Wickremesinghe and with him the so called leaders produced by the west. Once we were able to elect a President with a backbone who was not a product of the west, the situation began to change rapidly. All that President Mahinda Rajapakshe had to do was not to listen to the west, and the rest followed. He was able to give political leadership to the able military leadership and the heroic soldiers and the armed forces, yes that Sinhala Buddhist army, has been able to turn tables. The armed forces have been very disciplined and have won not only the land but the hearts of the Tamil people as well. However, now no one is willing to give credit to the discipline, meththa and karuna that have been instilled in the soldiers by Sinhala Buddhism and the peace brigade is waiting for one mistake by the armed forces. Akashi has been happy about the way the development in the east but he has to be reminded that it would not have been possible if the government had followed their advice and continued with so called peace talks. The government had to engage in operations without any support or aid from the west (including) Japan and it was a victory for a government that did not listen to the west. The west with all those concepts of failed state has failed. Perhaps now they are waiting for a chance to intervene over the dead bodies of the journalists, under right to protect or some other scheme.

Now all the Akashis in the west are trying to advice the government on the so called political solution without clearly defining the problem. The government should not listen the west that has failed in so many ways and listen to the nationalist forces. It was by listening to the nationalist forces that the government has been successful in operations and it is the nationalist forces that know the problem and the solution. The west has its own agenda of not giving the due place to Sinhala Buddhist culture and the government should not succumb to the west under any pressure. Even if one assumes that there are injustices to the Tamils, by devolving power to the northern and eastern provinces, of course to the other provinces as well, the so called injustices to the Tamils living in the other provinces would not be solved. As the majority of the Tamils live outside the northern and the southern provinces it is clear that the so called problem of the Tamils is not solved by the "solution" that the west and their cohorts propose. The problem is that of accepting the significance of the Sinhala Buddhist culture in this country by the non Sinhala leaders and the Church (the ordinary Sinhala Christians and Catholics have no problem with that), and once it is done we may elect a non Sinhala Buddhist as the President of the country. We have to remember that Obama was elected as the President as an American belonging to the American Christian culture giving oath in the name of the Bible and not as a black or African American who went round the country criticizing the Judaic Christian culture and demanding devolution so that the injustices to blacks in the Southern states could be solved. - Sri Lanka Guardian