The three stooges of terror

By Roy Ratnavel

(July 27, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Three Stooges – Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine, were instrumental and key players in an American classic comedy act of the early to mid–20th century and best known for their silly antics of hitting each other uncontrollably in comedic haste. Their hallmark was physical slapstick comedy punctuated by quickly-delivered one-liners, within outrageous storylines to nowhere.

In the episode “Women Hater,” Moe, Larry and Curly join the Woman Haters Club, pledging their allegiance and vowing that they'll never take a wife. Larry soon reneges when he secretly marries his sweetheart named Mary. A new scene begins inside a restaurant. The stooges are eating at a table.

LARRY: Fellas, I’ll have to quit that club I joined last week.

MOE AND CURLY: Quit the club?

LARRY: That’s what I said.

MOE: Why, you big fathead, what do you mean? [takes a pretzel and hits Larry in the face with it]

LARRY: It’s this way, I met a beautiful girl and fell head over heels in love.

MOE: Why, you must be outta your mind.

CURLY: You’re crazy!

MOE: What are you thinking of?

LARRY: But I promised to marry her tonight.

MOE AND CURLY: Tonight?

MOE: Why, don’t you know, if you violate the rules of the club, you’re just as good as dead.

CURLY: If you get married, you’ll be carried out and clubbed right on the head. [takes a celery and hits Larry on the head with it]

MOE: Down with the traitors of the Woman Haters Club. [grabs a seltzer bottle and sprays Larry in the face with it]

LARRY: Fellas, you’ve convinced me. I guess that you’re right. I’ll have to call the wedding off. I’ll tell her tonight.

Recently there is another variety of three stooges have emerged – not in America, but in Canada. These stooges aren’t funny or lovable or they do any act of slapstick. In fact there is nothing funny about them – there are “Three Stooges of Terror” and they are for act of Sri Lankan state-terror and aptly renamed Jamal "Moe" Mohamed, Selva "Curly" Kumar and Lenin "Larry" Benedict. Not to be outdone, these stooges also have created a club – it is a “Tamil Haters Club” with grand total membership of “three.” Yes, three; no, it’s not a typo.

In their petulant rebuttal [Not in our name, National Post April 2, 2009] to my “Counter point” [Why Canada's Tamils are upset, National Post March 20, 2009], these stooges attempted to describe the virtues of their stooge-club known as Canadian Tamils for Peace and Democracy (CATPAD), but neglected to point to the Achilles heel of this otherwise appealing political philosophy of this club: its doctrinaire disregard for any commonly-shared conception of “Peace and Democracy.” As such, it should be renamed to fit the acronym CATPAD: Clowns for Act of Terror and People Against Democracy.

If I may say so, their rebuttal was a pedestrian, boringly predictable utterance on public forum I have seen in a while. Sri Lanka’s cruelty on its own citizens is then becomes proof not of the bankruptcy of its ideology but, rather, evidence of this trios’ bias on the matter. The worse Sri Lanka treats Tamils, the more it brings to question the three stooges’ commitment to democracy and common decency. Frankly, anyone who tries to diminish the cries of “Tamils” on Canadian streets best look at his own incivility and motivations first.

After reading their incoherent drivel, it appears to me that there is no lack of useful idiots, who will help Sri Lanka achieve its goal of total annihilation of Tamils. The three stooges are living example that even stupidity can serve a sort of salutary function. Sad, but true.

Lots of Tamils are dying and are already leading miserable lives in Sri Lanka because of the nonsense preached by the likes of these stooges of Sri Lankan terror-apparatus. Not the Tamils, but this ‘trio of Sri Lankan citizens who undermine Canadian democracy.’ Us Canadians cannot excuse any failings by the Sri Lankan government to meet the higher standards naturally expected of democratic governments in a conflict.

What these Sri Lankan stooges have proven so far is that, humankind is generally somewhere between selfish and evil – and they belong to latter, most extreme spectrum, and inherently evil. As Canadians our primary interest should be to prevent Canada from being used as a launching pad for attack on democracy by the stooges. We should use our power to weaken these Sri Lankans who are inherently inimical to our way of democratic life. In commenting on the recent Tamil protest in downtown Ottawa, Sri Lankan High Commissioner Daya Perera urged the Canadian government to end the protest, by claiming that “There is a limit: the freedom of expression has to stop somewhere.” Is it any wonder why Tamils fled Sri Lanka?

Even before Tamil Diaspora set off to prove Sri Lanka’s “ethnic cleansing” tendencies there were the usual voices urging Western governments to dilute this principled position while a vast archive of evidence exists to support this claim. This year is the apex of such Sri Lankan intension of bloody initiation to erase its Tamil population. We must persuade our government to name this recent episode as such and abandon weasel wording and officially calls the episode by its right name, which is the word I used above.

The attempt to hide Sri Lankan evilness takes two forms: the constant attempt to distract Western government by referring to Tamil freedom struggle as ‘terrorism’ and to discredit the Tamil Diaspora as ‘Terror sympathizers.’ Using a personal attack, like calling anyone who questions the Sri Lankan government as “Terror sympathizer”, is a cheap and childish way to try to shutdown the debate about atrocious behaviour by Sri Lanka that has been going on long before 9/11.

Archbishop Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and a champion of Human Rights, declared last year: “With a terrible record of torture and disappearances, Sri Lanka doesn’t deserve a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. It should be voted out.” And, Sri Lanka was voted out. Is he a terror sympathizer?

Every year, the deniers and euphemists set to work again, and there are usually enough paid servants to tip the scale in favour of their Sri Lankan client. Of late, Tamil opportunist’s evil alliance with Sri Lanka has also been good for a few shame-faced Tamil stooges like, Larry, Moe and Curly.

Neither the stooges nor their philosophy say anything about the many activities which are clearly destructive to civil society in itself, and therefore of our common way of life. Crucially, however, it is only the unity and common desire for Tamil freedom of what binds the Diaspora layer that enables us to say "hands off" Tamil freedom; and we can only do that when we behave as united conscious participants – while ignoring nonentities like CATPAD – in the creation of common moral bonds that make the good society something far more than the sum of its individual parts.

Current spontaneous mass protests and hunger strikes of Tamil Diaspora around the globe much to the surprise of all deniers and stooges, stands as an example of “sum of its individual parts.” What has also amazed the world is that Tamils from many nations and three generations are involved in these unrelenting protests. The long running slyly suggestion was that the LTTE had a death grip on the Diaspora and held them hostage. Now, the same people are claiming the near extinction of the Tigers. So extending this argument suggests to me that by no stretch of the English language could these participants’ of mass protests be described as being "held hostage by LTTE."

So what is that made thousands of people take to the streets around the world? One word – “commitment” – commitment to Tamil freedom struggle. The commitment of Tamils is such this is one of the reasons why the Tamil resistance movement will continue to fight. Tanks and bombs can’t erase our passionately held beliefs. The movement that was born of resistance to Sri Lankan occupation and rose to broader Tamil support simply won't perish.

So what will the three stooges say now?

I doubt that any one of the stooges about renege by quitting Tamil haters club, and embrace the Tamil freedom cause – especially “Larry,” because he very well knows it violates the rules of the club. It reveals their simple-minded conjecture to hide Sri Lankan army innocence and the conspiratorial nature of their guilt.

I repeat, “Three Stooges of Terror” – even their stupidity can serve a sort of salutary function.

(The writer can be reached at roy_ratnavel@hotmail.com )

-Sri Lanka Guardian