Fall of an Idol

By Nalin Swaris

(February 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) When the now Citizen Sarath Fonseka announced his insurrection against his former Commander in Chief and his immediate superior, patriotic Lankans experienced it as a deeply painful loss, in the first place for Fonseka himself and the country whose territorial integrity he so valiantly fought to restore.

Fonseka’s electoral defeat called to mind David’s lament when he heard that King David and his bosom friend Jonathan had fallen in battle "How have the mighty fallen!". The Fonseka rebellion is a national tragedy coming so soon after a glorious victory. Never in the annals of warfare has an Army Chief raised the banner of revolt against his political superiors, immediately after a war victory. It did provide those who viewed the defeat of the LTTE with leaden eyes, a great deal of schaden froh – joy in the discomfiture of an adversary for Eelamists: arms dealers and peace pimps dependent on foreign funds for promoting a pro Prabhakaran solution the ethnic conflict.

When it was rumoured that the ex-General might contest the presidential elections, retired senior army officers, retired senior diplomats and academics pleaded with him to let wiser counsel prevail and desist. Such was Fonseka’s determination to avenge what he regarded was the shabby treatment meted to him, that he threw caution to the winds and pressed on regardless. Equally dismaying was the type of people whose support he courted. It was an Unholy Alliance - a coalition of resentment of losers. There was ‘Colombian’ Ranil Wickremesinghe unconcealed resentment that a gamaya from Medamulana was occupying the highest office the land. His contempt for Rajapaksa erupted to the surface when he shouted Poda Mahinda! (Get out Mahinda!). Vada (Come here) Poda (Get out!) was the language used decades ago by estate superintendents (peria dorais), assistant superiors (sinna dorais), and supervisors (kankanis) when addressing plantation workers (coolies). It was also (is?) the language used by Walawwa hamus when addressing their servants and social inferiors – the Sinhala equivalents being mehata vareng, palayang yande. Probably Wickremesinghe has been accustomed to this type language when addressing his social inferiors, Sinhala and Tamil, in this manner from a very young age.

Strange Bedmates

Fonseka’s preference of political bedmates like Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mangala Samaraweera evoked titters in many. The prematurely senile Somawanse Amarasinghe played Andare the royal jester of yore. "We knew the JVP alone could not win. The UNP alone could not win so we looked around and found a winning jokiya (jockey). Kohomade Jokiya? Than dinnenawa dinnewamai! (How’s the jockey? Now we our victory is certain!).

Chandrika played things close to the chest until the last day of the campaign. She symbolically declared her support to Fonseka from the ancestral Bandaranaike Walawwa. She had quietly campaigned for Fonseka in the Horagolla area. But Rajapaksa won Atttanagalle District which includes Horagolla, with a sweeping majority. Chandrika Kumaratunga has yet to come to her senses and cultivate some self awareness. She is a political non-person. Addressing the public she swore to end the corruption, bad governance and disregard of democratic norms by the Rajapaksa brothers. She pledged to restore the pristine purity of her parents’ party together with her loyal lieutenant Mangala Samaraweera after Rajapaksa is defeated by Fonseka.

Corruption and Chandrika became synonymous after the Supreme Court convicted her of corrupt practice and imposed a heavy fine on her. The Chief Justice who presided over that trial is now her ally against Rajapaksa. The public and private low jinks of the Lady and the Judge have been exposed by Victor Ivan in respectively The Rogue Queen and The Unfinished Struggle.

Mangala is another basket case. His democratic credentials and abuse of state funds for self aggrandisement was exposed by the UNP after it returned to power in 2001. As for press freedom, he vowed to teach a lesson to, what he called "the media mafia" – disreputable individuals who "could be bought for a bottle of arrack."

Oust Mahinda at any cost

I had many arguments with close friends and relatives who were Fonseka idoloters. My staunch refusal to back Fonseka provoked strong emotional reactions. The arguments back and forth were as follows. I told them I agreed with much of their criticism of President Rajapaksa’s style of governance. But, trying to topple Mahinda Rajapaksa at this point in time is sending the wrong message to the world. Besides who are the people who are his allies? Who will benefit from regime change? Have you so soon forgotten the sense of insecurity with which we all lived not so long ago? You people who drive around in cars may not have felt it as acutely as the people who were using public transport and it’s the buses, trains, bus and train stations that were deliberately targeted by the terrorists – not private vehicles or car parks." "Yes, yes, but Mahinda has had six months to improve things, Fonseka promises credible change. Wait and see we will win on the 26th." Fat hope I said, "The Sinhalese Buddhists in the rural areas are the salt of this earth, not people like you and I, deracine urbanites." They will vote overwhelmingly for Mahinda" In response to this a Christian friend muttered "Bloody SB majoritarianism". "Hey, hey, I replied, "Its your candidate who said that this is a Sinhalese Buddhist country and that minorities should know their place! "Yes, yes", but he has changed". "Credibly?", I asked tongue in the cheek.

Historical Memories

When the Prabhakaran Wickremesinghe non-peace process began, the director of a peacenik organization attempted to provided an explanation for Norway's’ sympathy for the liberation struggle of the LTTE by recalling Norway’s independence from Swedish rule in 1905. He wrote, "The Norwegian experience of being under colonial domination for some 500 years, and the exploitation and impoverishment suffered at the hands of the imperial powers of Denmark and Sweden, has given them a ‘historical memory’(sic)."
The man presumably believes that Eelam had been colonised by the imperialist Sinhalese.

Moreover, the application of the term "historical memory" to Norway is wholly contrived. It is generally used with reference Asian people’s awareness of the antiquity of the civilisations which go back several millennia. Compared to the ancient civilizations of Asia, Norway, is to use the Hindi expression, a kalka baccha – yesterday’s child. Though the Norwegians hypocritically and their local highly hirelings cynically, tilt at the "foremost place" given to Buddhism in the Constitution, they see no problem with the fact that Lutheranism is still the state religion of Norway and that only a Lutheran can be become its Head of State.

Asian revolutionaries fighting foreign occupation awakened the "historical memories" of their people. Mao ze Dong’s writings are redolent with recollections of ancient Chinese thinkers and war strategists. The Chinese brand of communism developed by Mao was called a Sinisation of Marxism. "We must critically assess our heritage from Confucius to Sun yat Sen and take it forward," he wrote. King Hussein of Jordan in a highly emotional speech in Arabic condemned the barbaric character of Gulf War II, ordered by a Texan cowboy. He evoked the historical memory of the peoples of the region recalling the magnificent millennial Mesopotamian civilization. The deeply Westernised Jawaharlal Nehru began a serious study of his country’s history while in a British jail. He serendipitiously celebrated the wonder of his nation, in The Discovery of India. The Vietnamese revolutionaries declared that their revolt against French Colonialism. Japanese occupation and the American neo-colonial attempt, was the continuation of their 1000 years struggle against Chinese occupation. That is historical memory.

Three Hundred Years of Struggle

Historical memories were kindled when the unity and territorial of this island nation seemed to be in peril during the Presidential election campaign. The Sinhala Buddhist peasantry led by warrior heroes have a glorious history of centuries long resistance to foreign occupation. There were three centuries of unceasing struggle against struggle against Western colonial powers, Portuguese Dutch and British, - the longest struggle against Western colonialism in the region. The last great peasant rebellion against the British was in 1817. The heart of the rebellion was Uva. The British crushed the peasants of Velassa – land of hundred thousand rice fields, with horrifying savagery. The destruction of buffaloes used to plough the fields was calculated to destroy the peasant economy.The milk of buffaloes was used for producing curd. That was the beginning of peasant malnutrition. Sixty one years after independence Uva remains one of the island’s poorest regions.

The Kandyan Kingdom was not defeated militarily it was weakened by factional feudal strife among the Kandyan chiefs. A year after the rebellion, in 1818, the Kandyan Kingdom was ceded to the British after ‘peaceful negotiations’ by the Kandyan Convention. The British realized that as long as the geographic dimensions of the Kandyan Kingdom remained untouched there would always be a threat of rebellion. In the first redrawing of the map of the island in 1832, a Central Province was created as a landlocked region. The new Northern Province extended as far as the Central Province. (History of Ceylon ed., K.M. De Silva, 1973)

Black Skins, White Masks.

The post colonial period left a small Anglicized elite in positions of privilege and for a brief period also of political power. But in recent years we have seen a very disturbing new phenomenon – a very tiny segment of Colombo based opinion makers, funded to the hilt by Western donors promoting alien interests. They fulfil what is called an ‘echo function’. They express what is basically Western views. These are then picked up and quoted by Western diplomats and journalists as ‘authentic’ and informed, indigenous opinions. The vocation in life of these deracine individuals seems to be to denigrate everything related to the majority community in this island. They look with contempt on our rural Buddhist masses as people sunk in "rural idiocy" – and still trapped in an obsolete world view, whereas they project themselves to their Western paymasters and interlocutors as culturally emancipated cosmopolitans. They do the rounds of diplomatic cocktail parties proudly preening: "We may not have your colour, but we have all your respectability."

The Challenge Ahead

For me as for many other patriots going by his public face and function, Sarath Fonseka was a great hero in a long line of heroes inhabiting our "historical memories". After Ranil Wickremesinghe trivialised the capture of Thoppigala, a young woman journalist asked Lakshman Kiriella about Wickremesinghe’s dismissal of Thoppigala as "a mere jungle" Kiriella barked at the young woman, "Don’t come here to ask questions without doing your homework. Have you looked at a map? It IS a jungle!" Then he added that had he learnt from a "very reliable source" that orders had been given "from the very top" for the army to let the LTTE fighters withdraw into the Vanni with their weapons.
I immediately thought, even if such orders came, Sarath Fonseka would have refused to obey them. Such was my esteem for the man. The bitterness of my disappointment is inversely proportional to the great admiration I had for him.

We must not forget that four million electors did not vote for President Rajapaksa. 40%of the electorate is not a number that the President can lightly dismiss. There are not all traitors. Theirs was a largely protest vote against the President’s despotic style of government. The President held the storming barbarians at the gate so that Sarath Fonseka and the other service chiefs could finish their given task. Now the challenge is within. The President must start cleaning his house. For a start he can order the State TV channels to stop their 24x7 eulogising of him as a Great King. Sovereign power resides with the people. It is they who re-elected him to be the Head of a Democratic Republic. In sober reality they did not and they constitutionally CANNOT crown him King. The struggle for democracy is an ‘Unfinished Task’. It is the challenge before all true patriots who love our people.