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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Back to 500BC.
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Sunday, July 2, 2017
A hidden design
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats
Last week I wrote and warned against a creeping saffronisation of
mainstream politics and the tacit embrace of what the Bodu Bala Sena and
its head, Gnanasara Thero stand for, by the sangha writ large. There
has been pushback. Several senior monks have publicly disassociated
themselves from the Asgiriya Chapter’s explosive statement, providing a
rare but telling insight into what is a complex and enduring power-play
between and within each nikaya. Strongly worded statements by civil
society have been published, admonishing government for not acting
against the incitement to violence by the BBS, and the hatred it spouts.
Like a kindergarten bully, the BBS acts with impunity on the playground
of politics and society, but when occasionally caught and placed in a
corner, projects to the public a face that suggest it has been unfairly
accused and punished. The cycle continues.
Arguably, the likes of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anarchists, those
who believe in and fight for ISIS, xenophobes, racists and bigots are a
feature of a healthy democracy, precisely because they are on the
fringe. At the margins of society and politics, shunned by mainstream
media, opinion, policymaking and politicians, these grotesque groups and
their frenetic followers exist only as a reminder of what a society,
politics and country should never be, or aspire to follow. Though a full
study is impossible to cover in a single column, there are two key
reasons why in a developed democracy these groups don’t grow and infect a
country writ large with their psychosis. One, the institutional fabric
of governance, including the rule of law, is strong and applies to
everyone without fear or favour. This provides citizens with a variety
of options for the good life no matter who they are, what they do or
where they live, within a democratic space - a prospect far more
appealing than subscribing to the ideals of, and a sense of belonging
that comes from being part of a smaller group. Secondly, more advanced
democracies have institutional frameworks and a strong civil society
that stem the growth of radical extremism and fascism.
Rechts gegen Rechts (Nazis against Nazis), an initiative against
right-wing extremism in Germany is a key example, where residents and
local businesses of villages and towns that suffer neo-Nazi
demonstrations and marches, give ten euros for every meter participants
in the rallies advanced to a group called EXIT-Germany, which supports
those who wanted to leave fascist, right-wing groups. The idea was that
the more neo-Nazis marched, the more funding would be raised to
undermine their very existence. Like drops oil in a body of water,
extremist groups in more developed democracies find meaning in their
existence but within a very circumscribed space.
Content featuring or published by French journalist Nicolas Hénin on
ISIS also offers another perspective on the likes of the BBS. Hénin,
held hostage by ISIS for ten months, in an article penned in The
Guardian newspaper late 2015 notes that the likes of ISIS are drawn to
ugliness on social media, and "heartened by every sign of overreaction,
of division, of fear, of racism, of xenophobia". He notes that central
to the world view of ISIS is the belief that communities cannot live
together with Muslims, and that finding supporting evidence is what they
are geared towards. He ends the article with a key, strategic idea,
noting that what they expect is bombing, but what they really fear is
unity. In a video interview with the Independent, Hénin goes on to note
that "the winner of [the war against ISIS] will not be the party that
has the newest, the most expensive or the most sophisticated weaponry,
but the party that manages to win over people".
It is with these points in mind that the developments last week give
further cause for disquiet. The argument is often made the government
and President came to power because the minorities voted for them. While
electorally accurate, neither President nor government openly embrace
this fact because they perceive it will somehow reduce their appeal
amongst the majority community in the South. What you find as a
consequence is a government with an ostrich mentality in the face of
growing fascism, intolerance and violence - that hopes it will all go
away if silence is maintained and its gaze averted. This author believes
the situation is in fact much worse - that instead of or in parallel to
strategic disengagement, there is also tacit support of what is
essentially the agenda of the BBS, voices through individuals who are
proxies to those higher up in power. Over the course of just one week,
we have heard the kind of rhetoric from the present government that
stripped of context, could be mistakenly yet easily identified as being
produced under the Rajapaksa regime - a political order many of us
thought we had overturned and left-behind, for all the obvious reasons,
in January 2015.
NGOs are yet again to blame for everything that is going wrong in the
country. This isn’t new - the same voices that rail against NGOs today
earlier this year noted that the Consultations Task Force - that
architected one of the most comprehensive consultations around
transitional justice in any post-war context and appointed by the Prime
Minister - was also not to be trusted because it consisted of
individuals from NGOs. Individuals from civil society who state facts,
which are openly in the public domain, are now forced into exile and
hiding. Individuals who spout conspiracy theories, appear shoulder to
shoulder with the BBS, who repeatedly call people lunatics and mad for
being opposed to violent extremism, who say all temples are beyond the
control or remit of government, are allowed to speak and act with
impunity.
There is a dangerous design weaved into what is seemingly chaos and a
lack of coordination. Just like Trump’s manic tweets, inflammatory
statements by powerful voices in government generate a lot of short-term
attention and opposition, but a larger design around majoritarianism’s
creep seems to be going unnoticed. In February 2015, at the height of
the euphoria around yahapalanaya and its promise, one of the first
decisions of the incumbent President was to appoint Rakitha Rajapakshe,
the son Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, as Media Secretary in the Ministry of
Defence. And while the Cabinet of Ministers and the Prime Minister spoke
against intolerance and the rise of extremism, the President has
remained largely silent. In the company of MP Rajapakshe, the President
last December railed against social media for maligning judges. MP
Rajapakshe in Parliament last month launched a diatribe against UN
Special Rapporteur Monica Pinto’s report on Sri Lanka, which reflecting
the current state of affairs, was far from rosy. The President last week
placed the blame on Facebook and social media as impediments in
building national unity and reconciliation, forgetting perhaps that not
unlike the time of his own Presidential campaign, one of the only open
and free spaces available for civil society to actually strengthen both
is social media, and Facebook in particular. A terrible tag-team, this,
but a telling one at that.
The government, if it is really serious about reconciliation, national
unity and suchlike, needs to win people over. Right now, it’s not.
Coupled with an economy in a mess, it is haemorrhaging public support.
What one arm says, another disavows. What one person says, another
undoes. What one person promises, the actions of another undermine. What
ONUR wants, the Minister of Justice undermines. What the Prime Minister
says, isn’t what the President echoes. What the Foreign Ministry
promises the international community, isn’t what is actually delivered
or given life to on the ground. What the BBS wants, however, is what is
being slowly but surely mainstreamed. Note the silence of Gnanasara
Thero, after his both defiant and prescient last words outside court. A
larger community of sangha and politicians, from within government,
partial to the concerns of the BBS, powerful and predatory, are making
their presence felt. President Lincoln said that a test of a man’s
character was gaining power. The narrative when the President and this
government were desirous of power is markedly different to the
narratives they give life to when in power. Which is stronger and which
endures remains to be seen, but with heavy heart, I wouldn’t bet against
saffron.