A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Monday, June 26, 2017
Sri Lanka: BBS — Bothersome baby!
While incitement to violence must be dealt with as a matter of law and order, oftentimes it is not dealt with because there is tacit and explicit support in government circles for the politics provoking the incitement. It is possible to draw neat lines in theory between political chauvinism and political violence, but the lines are invariably blurred in the real world.
( June 25, 2017, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) In
politics, all may not be well even when things seem to end well. The
vicars of gods in Jaffna and diplomats in Colombo may have helped avert
the spectacle of a No Confidence motion in the Northern Provincial
Council. But Jaffna’s political circus is by no means over. The TNA’s
relief will not last longer than the effect of its last migraine pill.
There are media reports implicating the Chief Minister and his adviser
from down under about funds received from expatriate Tamils and
apparently gone unaccounted so far. And the Chief Minister is now
reportedly targeting for dismissal the Chairman of the Council, CVK
Sivagnanam, for lead-signing the petition to the Governor to remove the
Chief Minister. The circus continues. The Northern Provincial Council
came into being with quite an electoral bang, but its performance in
office has been nothing more than a whimper. It has done nothing worth
mentioning except passing high voltage resolutions on explosive topics.
Having run out of resolution topics, the Council is now stuck between
corruption scandals and procedural chicaneries.
Lost in the to-and-fro over the No Confidence motion are issues of
corruption and Council procedures. The TNA leadership and the Chief
Minister must address the quite serious allegations of corruption
levelled against ministers by the Chief Minister and his supporters, and
against the Chief Minister by many Councillors and even expatriate
Tamils. As NPC elections are still a few years away, to clean up the
mess by letting the people throw out the whole rotten lot, the rotten
mangoes must now be dealt with, and dealt with according to procedures
that are applicable to elected bodies and elected officials.
It seems odd that that elected Councillors could be investigated by an
outside group of notables appointed by the Chief Minister. I am not
intimately familiar with parliamentary conventions or the provisions of
the Provincial Council legislation, but those who are must point out if
what the Chief Minister in Jaffna has been doing is proper process. In
fact, as a retired Judge of the Supreme Court, Mr. Vigneswaran owes it
to the public to explain and confirm that the investigative process he
has been following conforms with parliamentary conventions and the
Provincial Council law. It should not be that because he was a Supreme
Court Judge, the Chief Minister could hire and fire a minister the way –
say Donald Trump does.
Aiders and Abetters of BBS
In the south, just as in the North, the debate and disagreement are not
over anything positive or productive, but about who are and who are not
among the benefactors and beneficiaries of Bodu Bala Sena. Whose enfant
terrible is it? There is no one owning this bothersome baby of southern
politics. Many are denying paternity while being accused of providing
BBS protection at the highest levels of government. What began as a
nuisance on the political fringes is now a menace at the centre of
politics. No one will openly support it now, as Champika Ranawaka and
Gotabhaya Rajapaksa allegedly did in the past. And no one will disavow
or condemn it either, including the Prime Minister and the President.
Not only should the two leaders openly and unequivocally condemn BBS,
they should also make it clear to every minister and government
parliamentarian that anyone having anything to do with BBS will be
expelled from cabinet or the ‘unity’ government.
Let there be no illusion; the PM or the President will do nothing of the
kind. But let us not stop insisting that they do so if only to expose
the cynical duplicity of mainstream political leaders in dealing with
organizations like the BBS. Most political leaders are ambivalent
towards the BBS to avoid the risk of antagonizing the more extreme
sections of the voting population. Unlike in the old parliamentary
voting system, the preferential and presidential ‘electorates’ have
given undue electoral weights to a plethora of disaggregated voting
blocs defined by loyalties ranging from caste and kinship to
ethno-religious extremism, bigotry and chauvinism. Short of changing the
electoral framework, there is no other way to deal with this phenomenon
except by pressurizing ‘mainstream’ political leaders, the
Wickremasinghes, the Sirisenas and the Rajapaksas (Chandrika Kumaratunga
will have no hesitation in doing this), to take an uncompromising stand
against organizations like the BBS and call out their electoral bluff.
Apart from cynicism, there is also common ground between many mainstream
political figures and the agenda of the BBS and its brotherhoods.
Aspiring politicians were on BBS platforms earlier but are now allegedly
extending support from within the cabinet or from the opposition
outside. To the extent the Prime Minister and the President do not
isolate and expose the hidden benefactors of BBS, they are only aiding
and abetting its political lunacy and they too deserved to be condemned
as cynical beneficiaries of BBS politics. Remember, they too are guilty
who only stand and wait! Indeed, the present government has been sitting
on its law-and-order hands for over two years and allowed the BBS to
find its footing after losing it in the January 2015 presidential
election, and re-establish its presence even more menacingly than it was
in 2014.
While incitement to violence must be dealt with as a matter of law and
order, oftentimes it is not dealt with because there is tacit and
explicit support in government circles for the politics provoking the
incitement. It is possible to draw neat lines in theory between
political chauvinism and political violence, but the lines are
invariably blurred in the real world. This is not to suggest that all
chauvinists must be put in jail, but to warn that governments and
mainstream political leaders who do not honestly and openly oppose
political chauvinism will not have the stomach to firmly deal with those
chauvinists who incite violence. When a government is silent in the
face of virulent chauvinism, the law and order agencies will be confused
about their role in dealing with inciters and executors of violence.
This has been the political story so far of the genesis and growth of
the BBS.
There are also the moral and social dimensions. From a moral standpoint,
it is a copout to suggest that intolerant extremism can be tolerated so
long as it is not inciting violence. That is to condone verbal violence
while assuring that no physical violence will be tolerated. It doesn’t
work that way. Verbal violence invariably motivates the more truculent
elements in society to resort to physical violence against ‘others’ who
are ethno-religiously different. These wing-nut elements do not need
organization or coordination to attack those who are different and
helpless. On the other hand, almost all of the violence perpetrated
against Muslims and Christians has been well orchestrated and well
organized.
What is the earthly reason for turning on Muslims and Christians? Which
aspect of Sinhalese nationalism in its current manifestation is under
threat from either of these groups? There was background to the
political antagonism between the Sinhalese and the Tamils after
independence, and the battles and wars that came out of it. What have
the Christians and Muslims done after the LTTE was defeated to become
the targets for the violent putt shots of the Bodu Bala Sena? The
concern over Christian conversion is a false concern to justify native
bigotry that has nothing to do with enlightened Buddhism. Equally, the
apparent local reaction to international radical Islam is again the
contrived handiwork of local busybodies. Islamist (NOT Islamic)
terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere is no reason to attack
Muslims in Sri Lanka. It is not the Muslims who need to be told to
‘behave’, but it is the government that must tell the BBS to behave –
befitting the ethos of Buddhism and abiding by the norms and values of a
civilized society.
The contradictions of chauvinism can be hilarious if only they are not
pregnant with violent consequences. The established opponents of the
present government are virulently anti-Indian and passionately
anti-Modi. Yet, many of them find common cause with Modi’s preposterous
ban of cow-slaughter in India just to stick it to the Muslims in Sri
Lanka. Even among Sri Lankan parliamentarians, there are those who will
campaign on platforms against cow slaughter, but insist on eating pork
in parliament to pamper their taste buds not caring that they are riling
the sensibilities of Muslim MPs. Other mixed societies after long
periods of open and subtle intolerance have developed ways of positively
tolerating and appreciating the cultural differences among different
peoples. The question is whether Sri Lanka that has experienced
tolerance and appreciation of different religions at the social and folk
levels for centuries, should now suffer the eruptions of religious
intolerance because a few hundreds of miscreants cannot be put in their
place by a spineless government?