Laws of man vs. laws of nature

by Dr Vickramabahu Karunaratne

(August 01, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) During the second Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna insurrection, many youth were denied the dignity of burial. Many victims’ corpses suffered the indignity of being left to rot in the open, at the mercy of dogs and crows, says Priyankara the director of the play Antigone- Adawage dawasak. This comment took me to the days of 88/89 when the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna led insurrection not only attacked the government power centres but also attacked and killed those who stood for the rights of minorities.

In my village Moladande, Yatinuwara, one of the area leaders of the JVP, popularly known as Marathon Karune was killed by the government forces and the body was left, tied to a lamp post at Godamuduna junction. On the other hand six of my comrades, including the New Sama Samaja party district secretary Nissanka, were brutally killed by Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna killers. I had to fight all the way to give them a decent burial. They threatened and ordered us to carry the coffins below the knee level when taking these to the cemetery. It meant virtually dragging these along the road. In many such other instances the families were so terrorized; they did not want us to participate in the funeral. Bereaved family members were humbled by the barbaric order of the killers, to give a burial suitable to traitors to the country. Because we defended the rights of Tamil speaking people we were classified as traitors to the country. Because we stood for equality of languages we were hunted; because we stood for power sharing to smaller nationalities we were ordered to be killed. I survived thanks to many sacrifices made by my comrades and supporters.

Underlying theme

It is claimed that on a more universal level, the play also high lights the eternal struggle between the laws of man and the laws of nature. Ultimately this is the underlying theme of the play says Priyankara: “The clash between the laws of natural justice and man made justice can be seen everywhere. Man made laws are based on reason. But natural laws touch a deeper; more spiritual reality. These are two elements that constantly clash.” Though he does not spell out what these laws of man are, we can identify the latter as the laws enacted by those who posses armed power within society. In this bourgeois society state power is with the ruling capitalist class. If there is an insurrection, then the military section of the state, will take the position that rebellion should be crushed at any cost. As part of repression they will use dead bodies to terrorize the rebels and supporters. This behaviour of the state military apparatus could be seen from the time of ancient regimes dependent on slave labour. All states based on exploitation have used this tactic of causing indignity and horror as method of repression. On the other hand, rebels world over, particularly the guerilla fighters, used cruel deformation of corpses to repel oppressive forces, and also, opportunists within their ranks.

Exploitative system

These are then, the man made laws, or ethics of class struggle. Yes, these are based on reason; reason to preserve the exploitative system or the reason to liberate from oppression. Final argument of both the oppressor and the oppressed is that end justifies the means! What about natural laws? I think, in order to arrive at the natural laws, we have to go back to the dawn of human existence. Big brained infant survived because of mother care. If not for collective care for a relatively long period of few years it is not possible for the human offspring to survive. It is in a primitive matriarchal society that we learn to respect human existence. The deployment of drive that leads.

to greed and cruelty is less biological than we assume. It is a part of the mental condition of an exploitative society; care and respect for life is in constant struggle with the deployment of drive. Lacan the famous student of Freud explains “the constancy of the thrust forbids any assimilation of the drive to a biological function which always has a rhythm. The first thing Freud says about the drive is, if I may put it this way, that it has no day or night no spring or autumn, nor rise and fall। It is a constant force.” So, this constant force is a socio psychological entity; a result of social existence and the tension of class struggle. If then,the only counter to this drive is ethics based on collective cooperative human existences.