Crisis Proliferation, State Of Siege & The Coming Crack-Up

By Dayan Jayatilleka -June 29, 2014

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

The crisis is proliferating by the week. Which will come first, the crack-up or the state of siege? Which is the egg and which the chicken?

There are two ways in which a country, a nation state, is destroyed. One is by supra-state/supra-national forces, i.e. external forces of hegemonic interventionism. The other is by sub–state/sub-national forces i.e. internal forces of fragmentation.  Sri Lanka is being destroyed by both, and the two are feeding off each other.

Insofar as the Rajapaksa administration is unable to resist and defeat the first category, the external forces by the correct foreign policy and diplomatic strategy), it is unable to defend the country from hegemonic external interventionism as exemplified by the OHCHR International Inquiry (which may be referred to in future as the Ahtissari panel).

Insofar as the Rajapaksa administration is unable or unwilling to crackdown on the fanatical Sinhala Buddhistfundamentalists who ignited the violence in Aluthgama, it is only furnishing weapons and ammunition for the external interventionists.

Insofar as the Rajapaksa administration is acting in a manner that generates speculation about a cover up (bullet wounds turning into cuts) or is not acting in a manner that clears up such doubts, it is reinforcing the argument that an external inquiry is needed because the state machinery does not function impartially.

As for the danger of internal fissure leading to fragmentation, the manifest lack of willingness of PresidentRajapaksa to articulate, clearly and forcefully, a vision of and for the nation that is explicitly and diametrically opposed to the discourse of the Bodu Bala Seana and its smaller, more vicious copycats such as the Sinhala Ravaya, means that the state has abdicated or is held back from playing its legitimate role as the umbrella and shield of all Sri Lankans, irrespective of ethnicity, religion and language. This abdication by the state as umpire –and protector of all equally– removes any obstacles from the path of internal fragmentation and accelerates the process.                                             Read More