Dayan Jayatilleka Skips Logic; Flies At A Tangent

By Shyamon Jayasinghe -July 3, 2014

Shyamon Jayasinghe

In his article published in the Colombo Telegraph of the 2^nd of July Dayan Jayatilleka (DJ) states as follows: “In a newspaper interview, Secretary of Defense Gotabaya Rajapakse denies allegations of any links with the BBS. He may be telling the truth.”

This assertion is a modifying statement that DJ makes after a limp, lukewarm and covered attack on the President and the Defense establishment over the running tragic soap opera that is the BBS. This kind of writing strategy typically shows up Dayan Jayatilleka’s ambivalence toward the Rajapaksa government.  Politically literate persons already know that there is enough evidence to lay the blame on the President and his brother, the Defense Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. They are not stupid. In fact DJ himself earlier in his piece makes some points that implicate the regime over this sordid affair. Example, how the President and Defense Secretary did not lift a finger over the whole last year when this mob went on the rampage trampling other peoples’ human rights and grossly violating the law. Even after Aluthgama, we still have to see whether any investigation will take place. Two weeks have elapsed but nothing of the sort has happened.  DJ admits Gotabaya had refrained from condemning the BBS in his recent statement.  We also know that Gota was present at the BBS AGM in Galle.  A few days ago, Gotabaya is reported to have said that there is nothing he can do about the BBS.  If the man in charge of Defense, aided by Duminda Silva the official Ministry advisor, cannot do anything over a serious violation of the law we need not have to tell them to resign and make way for someone else who can do that. And, mind you, Gota is the official war hero who won what was regarded as the unwinnable war against terrorism; not the fearless and decisive Sarath Fonseka who was dragged and put to jail under the most barbaric and inhumane manner. All these bits of circumstantial evidence are ample to make any morally conscious and sensitive writer to feel a worm when asserting that “Gotabaya may be telling the truth.”

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Whitewashing Saffron Fascism

By Dayan Jayatilleka -July 2, 2014

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

What is the role of the regime and state in a multiethnic, multilingual, multi-religious, multicultural i.e. pluralist setting and in a fraught, conflicted, actually or potentially violent situation? How should and how do the regime and state function?

Are the UPFA regime and the State a neutral umpire –as it should be– between the constituent communities of Sri Lanka where all citizens are constitutionally equal, or are they a biased (“hora”) umpire? If the case is the latter do the rulers and state managers not know or care that there is an ‘action replay’ at work in the international system in the 21^st century?

Do the regime and the state apparatuses under its command, including the security services, regard violent Sinhala Buddhist extremism as a threat to the stability of the state—as it should? Or are the regime and state benignly neutral towards it?

Do the regime and state regard only non-Sinhalese Buddhists or politically dissenting Sinhala Buddhists (such as the JVP, FSP, elements of the UNP and human rights activists) as foes or potential threats, however non-violent they may be? As the JR Jayewardene regime did with regard to Cyril Mathew and his JSS goon squads in the early 1980s, do elements of the regime regard the BBS and its Sangha Parivar as potential allies against the JVP, FSP and student unions and trade unions led by them?

Is it that the BBS is sought to be coddled so as to prevent its social constituency from shifting to its more natural leader Sarath Fonseka or peeling off a segment of the regime’s voter base?

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