28 March, 2024

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Civil Society, Uncivil Conduct 

By Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

“…Thangathurai was pro-US and pro-Israel. Prabhakaran was also of the same mindset but he was also, strangely, inspired by Hitler. He had with him a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’… It was a strange combination. On the one hand, I think he had ideas about Jewishness, the state and the formation of Israel. On the other hand, the idea of eliminating the “Other” came from Hitler. There was a connection in his mind….” ` (‘RAGHAVAN, LTTE’s co-founder with Prabha, tells all’, interview by Ahilan Kadirgamar, Nitharsanam.net)

Do you recognize this ghastly ideological mix, this monstrous model? Or do you recognize yourself in it and like it? Is it happening to us here in the South too? If so what are you doing about it? I know what I am doing or trying to do, and always have done. 

When this chemistry takes place and model arises or is revived in the North, it is applauded or swept under the rug by Northern nationalists and Southern liberals in political parties and civil society. When this fanatical fusion came alive in the North, politicians and civil society excused them as “our boys” and now, “our girls”. It is happening again today. Meanwhile Southern nationalists condemn this phenomenon in the North, but applaud, appease, ignore or excuse the same phenomenon in the South, using the same argumentation that they do in the North. The South can see Northern fascism and the North can see Southern fascism. Each is blind to the fascism in its own part of the island, hidden behind its respective populist-nationalist disguise.

The truth is that Prabhakaran was a Northern Hitler while Hitler was a global Prabhakaran. The Tigers were the Northern Nazis, the Nazis were the global Tigers. It is and was only a matter of scale. Prabhakaran was the most evil leader this island’s history produced, while Hitler was the most evil leader world history ever produced.

I agree totally with the conclusion of one of my few living intellectual heroes, Emeritus Professor Richard Falk of Princeton and the University of California, Santa Barbara, former UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine, who concludes his latest interview saying: “…I feel it is not too alarmist or misleading to talk of the present era of American political life as ‘pre-fascist’, posing the formidable challenge of reversing the political current in the country as rapidly as possible to avoid any transition from pre-fascism to fascism…” (Wider Consequences of US Withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council, Truth Out July 3rd 2018.

I believe that what Richard says of “the present era of American political life”, applies even more strongly to the present era of Sri Lankan political life, in both North and South: the present situation is one of “pre-fascism” and the challenge is to fight off the danger of the transition from pre-fascism to fascism. I say it applies even more strongly because the US and India have the framework of a strong enlightened Constitution and institutions which ensure a true separation of powers, with guarantees and firewalls. We Sri Lankans do not have anything resembling the same measure of Constitutional protection and the chance for Constitutional change has vanished due to adventurist Northern demands in and out of parliament and the Northern Provincial Council. Having failed to prevent the rise of pre-fascism in the North and South, the elite neoliberal Establishment and its supportive NGO propagandists having actually contributed to it by pushing public tolerance to the brink, we are far more vulnerable to fascism and less able to prevent the transition from pre-fascism to fascism. 

Some of us fought the battle of ideas against Tiger fascism and Southern Pol Potism and rebelled against rightist authoritarianism in the 1980s. I did. Most in civil society did not. Today I fight the battle of ideas against the rise of the fascist-flecked Alt-Right in the South as well as against the ‘heroization’ if not deification of suicide-bombing terrorism and fascism in the North. Civil society either fight one battle or the other or none. It also denounces those like me who fight fascist ideology whether it comes from North or South, because to me, fascism is fascism and is plain wrong, plain evil, whoever and wherever it comes from.  

The week that the civil society petitioners called for the rejection of my nomination as ambassador, a personality from the opposite end of the spectrum, Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara, former head of the Civil Defence Force (CDF) told the Irida Lakbima that I wasn’t fit for the post of a “peon” in an embassy. He is a GLSF star at the Geneva sessions and a paper presenter at the Foreign Policy workshop of the recent Viyath Maga daylong session at the Shangri-La which served as an Alt-Right coming-out ball. What roused his ire was my support for the implementation of the 13th amendment. So, the neoliberal civil society activists criticize me because I oppose a move beyond the 13th amendment and the unitary state towards federalism, while Sinhala ultranationalists ex-military brass denounce me because I’m for devolution within a unitary state (13A). 

On the morning after the UNHRC vote in which Sri Lanka won 29-12, I was criticized from these same two quarters. The civil society neoliberals denounced me for preventing an inquiry into accountability for alleged war crimes, while Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara criticized me for a reference to the Presidential promise to “ proceed with the implementation of the 13th amendment” in our victorious Resolution. Thus do the extremes mirror each other; complement each other.

The so-called civil society petition against my designation as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Russia does not provoke me into a personal defense of my record. With my performance in Geneva being mentioned in The Economist (UK), The Times (UK) and dealt with in (non-Sri Lankan) PhD theses, post-doctoral monographs, academic journal contributions and book chapters, sufficient to comprise a modest bibliography, the local “civil society” charges against me only make me smile and shrug. 

What the petition does though is make me look critically at the civil society phenomenon in Sri Lanka today.

There isn’t one civil society in Sri Lanka. There are three. There used to be four, but one has died out and there are three. Two of the three civil societies are the polar opposite of each other and constitute extremes. The only thing all three have in common is that they dislike me intensely and manifest that dislike on the record. This tells me I am staying pretty much on the (or a) Middle path or occupying a centrist space.     

What are the three contending civil societies that exist? Which is the one that has disappeared? The one that petitioned against me could be politely called pro-Western liberal cosmopolitan civil society. In concrete terms, going by the textual evidence, they all support the 2015 Geneva Resolution. Their civil society rival could be designated Sinhala ultranationalist civil society. The third is the Tamil equivalent of the latter, broadly sympathetic to Tamil Eelam and even to the LTTE.

The first category is perhaps best identified with Dr. Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu and the CPA, both signatories to the petition against me. The second is best identified with Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara. As for the third, I wouldn’t quite know whom to name as the most prominent. All three civil societies have their respective Diaspora supporters and bases. In the case of the first, these are on the faculty or student body, or are alumni of Western universities. In the case of the second it is the Global Sri Lanka Forum (GSLF) and its recent breakaway. In the case of the third it is the ‘Great Heroes Day’ commemorating Tamil Diaspora, represented by the TGTE.

There is an interface and overlap between the first civil society category and a milder variant of the third, represented by the British Tamil Forum/Global Tamil Forum (BTF/GTF).

It is not that the liberal cosmopolitan civil society is consistently pro-UNP. When the UNP had its most progressive leadership, explicitly committed to a multiethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, multicultural i.e. pluralist Sri Lanka, i.e. that of President Premadasa, most of today’s civil society liberals did not support him and indeed stood actively opposed when he was besieged by a combination of the old UNP establishment, the ultranationalists and the center-left Opposition. I stood with him and almost paid for it with my life, in a lynch mob attack. Even today, none of these liberal civil society activists support the most viable electoral option for the UNP; a young leader with a mass base who has won and lost, but fought many electoral battles in the Deep South. 

Not a single one of the signatories to the petition against me raised their voices against the LTTE during its Reign of terror that engulfed the country for thirty years. I fought that ideological battle. I still recall Prof Peter Schalk, a scholar and prominent Tiger supporter, walking me on Galle Face Green, his arm around my shoulder, cautioning me that following the damage I had done to the LTTE on the BBC’s award winning Suicide Killers (1991) by Stephen Lambert, he had seen my name on a magi board in an important Tiger office in Western Europe. 

I also recall the iconic father of Sri Lanka’s Special Forces and the LRRP, Gen Gamini Hettiarachchi, sending VVIP commando security for me on those annual occasions where I was a designated lecturer at the joint program between the US Special Forces and a selected 40 men of the Sri Lankan Special Forces. When I asked Gen Hettiarachchi who was the Commandant of the institution that hosted the program, why he had wasted VVIP Commandos on my security, his answer was that the military has a good assessment of the LTTE’s assessment of me and that whatever I do on my own time was my business but when I was a guest of the Sri Lankan armed forces, I was their responsibility and had to be accorded a degree of security that was commensurate with the threat assessment. 

I further recall US Charge d’Affaires at the Permanent Mission in Geneva, later US Ambassador to Kenya, Mark Storella (a New Englander and Ivy Leaguer) walking me to my official car in Geneva, opening the door graciously and asking me if the vehicle was bullet-proofed, and when I laughingly said “no”, he said “but it should be…you are under a greater threat than any one of us here…you have a security threat from the Tigers!” 

The Magnificent Hundred civil society activists not only did not fight the battle of ideas against the fascist–totalitarian Tigers, they actively advocated a Chamberlain-like policy of appeasement and supported the CFA. A senior political scientist and prominent petitioner actually placed in print a criticism of the then PM, Ranil Wickremesinghe, that the CFA failed because he did not give the LTTE its due status of equality as a proto-state! 

None of these civil society liberals denounced the assassination, unprecedented in modern times, of a Foreign Minister, namely Lakshman Kadirgamar, by the LTTE. Nor had they denounced the LTTE for murdering the liberal Tamil politician and intellectual Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, a man who had afforded them considerable institutional patronage. 

At the time of the greatest protracted challenge faced by Sri Lanka, the neoliberal civil society cosmopolitans failed the moral and ethical test.

I had argued on the record in a lengthy interview with the top pro-Tiger intellectual DP Sivaram (aka Taraki) in the Northeastern Herald, January 1993 (Vol1, No 6, pp. 8-12) that the LTTE could be defeated decisively by the Sri Lankan military, and such a defeat should be the goal of the State. This was reiterated at length in my first book “Unfinished War, Protracted Crisis” (Vikas, New Delhi, 1995). I was consistent in this and wrote a piece in the Island in 2004 entitled ‘Why Prabhakaran Will Lose’. 

During the last war, two professorial petitioners wrote that the Sri Lankan state could not militarily defeat the LTTE; could not win the war. They were defeatists as well as moronic analysts.

It is not that neoliberal civil society and its ally, Tamil civil society, did not have chances to make choices. Few artistic interventions have held up a moral mirror before their societies as has “Demons in Paradise”, the factual yet dramatic film (with the actual protagonists, not professional actors) by Jude Ratnam which was shown at Cannes. The film commenced with a reconstruction of the emblematic horror of July 1983, immortalized in a photograph of a man, stripped naked, seated on a step, about to be kicked to death by a group of Sinhala youth. The film starts with an interview with the photographer at the very spot he took the picture. The movie’s dramatic climax is a campfire scene around which activists from the LTTE and other organizations recount the awful atrocities visited by and upon them by each other. This movie, which could have had a cathartic effect, was ignored by civil society here and in the Tamil and Sinhala Diasporas. 

The movie had favorable reviews in the quality press in India and the West. None of the ‘liberal” signatories to the petition against me, reviewed the film. It was ignored or not shown at all in the North. It caused not a ripple among the Sinhala ultra-nationalists. Only small audiences appreciated it within the Tamil Diaspora, at screenings which usually followed by denunciatory interventions by pro-Tiger activists. I was one of those who reviewed the film favorably.  

I said there were four ‘civil societies’, one of which has gone extinct. That was the real civil society. I have its archeological remnants, from the University of Ceylon magazines of the first post- independence decade, through to the Marga journals, Logos (Fr. Tissa Balasuriya) and of course the Lanka Guardian under Mervyn de Silva’s founder-editorship. This was a civil society that was always autonomous of the state and government, but not necessarily antagonistic to either, and served as a strong counterweight both to the state as well as to non-state and anti-state ultra-nationalist fanaticism. This civil society was modernist, and philosophically universalist in its values. It was culturally westernized but by no means pro-Western politically, economically or in foreign policy terms; it was Third Worldist. Its function was primarily intellectual–a dual role of independent-minded critique and the proposal of well-reasoned, progressive reformist public policy.  It would have been utterly unthinkable for that civil society to have drummed up a petition to oppose a nomination of a credentialed public personality however controversial to the post of Ambassador!

Both in terms of its stance in world affairs as well as in Sri Lankan politics, this civil society was genuinely non-aligned, though certainly not neutral or equidistant. That civil society was internationalist, patriotic, progressive and modernist while today’s divides up between the neoliberal-globalist cosmopolitan and post-modernist on the one hand, and the parochial, nativist, ultranationalist and pre-modernist on the other.  

In contradistinction to the earlier civil society, today’s civil society consists of an archipelago of non-governmental organizations which behave as if they are or should be the government! Some, such as the signatories to the petition against me, behave as if they run the Yahapalana government or should. Others behave as if they will run a nationalist successor administration or should. Still others think they are a proto Tamil Eelam government which is around the corner (more “round the bend” I’d say). All three current “civil society” streams have abdicated the moral and intellectual responsibility of an authentic, strong autonomous civil society. 

The increasing ascendancy– not the coming into being–of Sinhala ultranationalist civil society is due precisely to the disgustingly anti-national stands of the cosmopolitan liberals. Just as Sinhala Only was enthroned in the context of social revulsion towards the culture (and foreign policy) of the UNP of Sir John Kotelawela, today’s ultranationalist civil society groups surf the broad revulsion among the masses to the unpatriotic postures of the neoliberal democrats. It is a classic backlash.  

 I am accused by the civil society ‘activists’ of being opposed to Reconciliation. Well, I am certainly opposed to a lop-sided policy of reconciliation which has resulted in Black Tiger Day, the day of the suicide terrorists who blew up Rajiv Gandhi, Ranasinghe Premadasa, Gamini Dissanaike and Neelan Tiruchelvam to name just a few, being openly commemorated in the North! I can think of no society anywhere in the world which would tolerate the open commemoration of a terrorist suicide bomb squad within its own internationally recognized and legitimate borders. This brand of appeasement pushed by civil society has derailed the necessary project of reconciliation, and instead resulted in a burning desire in the Sinhala majority areas to see a leader who will crack down decisively on the theatrics of terror. With the ban on Mahinda Rajapaksa running for the Presidency, this has resulted in the default option of an Alt-Right candidacy. 

“Whatever one sows that shall he also reap”. (Paul to the Galatians 6:7)

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    Sri lankan media is highly corrupt. Journalists are botom feeders. Other than that there are levels of civils society which are supported by the govt at different levels. All those are getting funds from overseas. Some of those are direct foreign govt involvements. In the Case of DJ being appointed to the Russian Embassy, THE BEST CANDIDATE is Ms.TAmara Kunnanayakam (if she is available). You come in the middle and the least favorite should be Rajiv wijesinghe. Don’t think much about you being not appointed as the ambassador. Probably, the president is still weighing merits and demirts and what really behind is. Civil society is just diry hyenas. THE MOST IMPORTANT thing political analysts talking right wing politics of rajapakses when ranil wickransinghe is identified by the western socialist media as the MOST RIGHT WING NEOLIBERAL PRO-WESTERN POLITICIAN who now tries to use the west involvement as the escape rout. some Anglican, I suppose, political analysts are talking about DARMIC OR DHAMMIC PALAKAYA (probably he is talking about a Balakaya) for the next yahapalana govt which will have a similar name. most of them are for money. the western govts have everything in place for them to succeed, and why do you think Ranil wanted to move a NAvy camp to near hambanthota port ?

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      The SPIN Doctor Dayan cannot be more fake story telling than this piece of SHIT he had to write in the process of Fool the Masses. The Sinhala voters are dumb all right (along with its few minority votes) in producing the GOVIGAMA Ruling Elite member led govts. The blame DJ makes agsinst only the Tamils equating them to NAZIs but forgetting or hiding the Real Nazis who lends its support to the Govigama Mafia members in running of the Sri Lankan state throughout a span of 70++ years. US and the Great Britain is owned by the Rothschilds and the Rockerfellers Jewish syndicate. They created the present modern world to function under its strict authority through direct and indirect manupulations. The need for a LOYAL managers to run the entities they own is supplied through their Secret bloodlined but localized Crypto Jews who are Elites who are being made to control the system by proxy on behalf of the Jewish Masters in the West. After the conclusion of the World War 2, the Germany’s Nazi scientists and the influential technical expert figures were transferred to the US system under the “Operation Paper Clip” project and through which the continuation of the NAZI methods, policies and mechanisms had a continiuation. The Govigama Ruling Elites are thus one of the Direct Agents of the such NAZI project who without any hesitation following and implementing the same FASCIST ideology thru the Sinhala Buddhism. 70 years of history of the Ceylon/Sri Lanka govts is a glaring example. DJ wants to hide this fact.

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      “the local “civil society” charges against me only make me smile and shrug. “
      This is an unusually long and verbose “smile and shrug” from Dr. DJ , the master of narcissism. I did this, I did that, I was lynched ; the “I” word appears at least a hundred times.
      “I further recall US Charge d’Affaires at the Permanent Mission in Geneva, later US Ambassador to Kenya, Mark Storella (a New Englander and Ivy Leaguer) ” Good lord! Are Ivy leaguers and New Englanders better in some way than plain Bandas from SJU? Or is it an oblique reference to DJ ‘s own US education?

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    Hello DJ,

    I don’t have much regard for what passes for civil society in Sri Lanka.

    But on that Raghavan quote about VP having read Mein Kampf, many people read Mein Kampf at that time. Does that mean they were motivated to be Hitler and to eliminate the other?

    It was the creation of Bangladesh, not Israel, that motivated Tamil nationalism in the late 1970’s, though later on, after the burning of the Jaffna public library and the pogroms of July 1983, many Tamils did try to draw out parallels with the Jewish experience, the Diaspora and the Holocaust.I don’t have mu

    VP thought of himself as a Chola King, not a Hilter; that even a Chola fantasy would lead him toward a fasistic path, and the Tamil people to disaster, is another matter. The issue that I am highlighting is that you as usual quote questionable characters when it suits you.

    If Raghavan had really thought VP was Hilterian, he would have left the LTTE even earlier than he did. His musings were self-serving; he was in exile and married to Nirmala Rajasingham, Rajani’s sister, and didn’t have much to say for a long time. By the time of that interview, with all other LTTE co-founders probably dead, and VP pinned down in the Vanni, Raghavan could make up anything without being challenged.

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      It is LTTE’s co founder of Prabha who is saying Prabha was inspired from Hitler. Not only that LTTE and its terrorism has many similarities with Hitler. There is a reason why Tamil Nationalism has many parallels with Nazi movements.

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      Correction: It should read ‘fascistic’ not ‘fasistic.’

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    What a change in Dr. Dayan Jeyatilake. As many readers pointed out earlier you can buy him simply giving a job. He has proven now that is true after his name was nominated for Russian Ambassdor post under Ranil’s government. Once he said Gota is the ideal candidate for President and now he has become al-right fascist. He coudn’t come straight away to that point but he brought the help of Prabhaharan to justify his new invention. He worked very well with the most dangerous EPRLF group and Indian army when they jointly recruit child soldiers to fight LTTE and remove Sinhalese in the East. What a wonderful character Dayan is? He worked very well with Mahinda & Gota during their white van era and in the massacre of Tamils.

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    Dayan, the north has no liberals.

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    “I wasn’t fit for the post of a “peon” in an embassy.”
    may be Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara, thinks you will be wasted in Moscow….perhaps he thinks your continuity as peon to the Rajapakse’s is more critical than being shunted away in Moscow.

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    Dayan Jayatilleka
    You are sore. Dr. Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekara and hundred other civil society activists, opposed your nomination. Naughty naughty naughty.
    .
    Of course you must fight these ‘infidels’. Bring out three of your supporters in the first instance.
    PS: Make sure they are not Dayan Jayatilleka, Dayan Jayatilleka and Dayan Jayatilleka

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    I don’t know how to respond to this.
    CT, please help.
    Is this a political science article or a personal rant?
    A victim statement?
    The ramblings of someone coming unglued, or a cry for help?
    Or an ingenious marketing pitch?
    Or all of the above combined to drive the reader over the edge?

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    “Whatever one sows that shall he also reap”. (Paul to the Galatians 6:7), quotes Dayan.

    Sure – ‘karma’ is a bitch, as Dayan well knows after several of his experiences, like that “lynch mob attack” he relates, like the experience of being fired and denigrated by his hero MR and all sorts of other uncomfortable situations he has been in – all directly connected to what he had “sown”.

    What a paean to himself, the unmitigated egomaniac!

    Let’s hope he is never appointed to represent our country anywhere, anytime. We don’t need chameleonic (just check his checkered history for his leapfrogging abilities) characters representing us.

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    This so called SL political analyst keep talking about his “I, Me, Mine” feelings.. keep doing the same.. not facts.. But cunningly or with the IQ80 SB condition, he started with ” Meanwhile Southern nationalists condemn this phenomenon in the North, but applaud, appease, ignore or excuse the same phenomenon in the South, using the same argumentation that they do in the North. ” …… Then he keep taking about his disturbed feelings due to Civil Society open action against him…

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    What kind of culture and upbringing can produce this kind of egoist?

    A very small country of no significance ? They have fought an internal war which they could not conclude for 30 years.Actually they have not concluded anything-everything is half done. From that small war Napoleans( GR) Churchills(MR) and Bismarks (Dayan) have proclaimed themselves.

    These are jokers from a land of jokers.

    Dayan lacks intelligence and humour. if he had any of that he would not write like this.

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    Just one question relating to the premise of what you write.

    In your comparison of Prabhakaran and Hitler, you say “…Hitler was the most evil leader world history ever produced”. Presume this is based on the alleged killing of “six million Jews” in Europe between 1942-1945. The figure of six million is highly contested, but let us assume it is correct.

    How does this six million compare with the total elimination of populations and civilisations started by genocidal maniacs – all Crypto-Jews who converted to Christianity in days before their ships sailed – like Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Luís Vaez deTorres, James Cook and other so-called ‘explorers of the new world’?

    In rating Hitler as “the most evil leader in human history”, are you failing to count the billions of victims of these lying, greedy racists just through ignorance, or because they are not considered as ‘human’ by the Jewish world history you seem to have fully digested. Nazism, contrary to the current distorted hitory of the world taught to people like you, can never match the ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ perpetrated by colonialism. It is pity that as a self-acclaimed Leftist you are blind to this fact and the clever diversionary tactic created by the very people behind colonialism. Hitler was, in part, against the British Empire and the Jewish forces behind it, though his ‘Final Solution’ was obviously wrong.

    Just one advice. Think before you decide again to contaminate the world with these bogus theories.

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    While I agree to a large extent with what the writer has to say about Prabhakaran, his becoming a terrible reality must be traced to the Tamil elite that with a veneer of education thought too highly of itself and the consequent weakness of Tamil society. The few who could have challenged this phenomenon emigrated.

    One could indeed trace several potential Hitlers in our history. There were those who during our State Council days said that the Indian emigrant labour should be chased out of the country.
    Bandaranaike was no liberal. By the early 1930s he had chosen to build his political career on Sinhalese supremacism. Having made this choice, he could not tolerate the estate Tamils having the vote. He actually said in 1940 that he would be at peace when the last Indian had left the shores of this Island.

    If things did not get very bad, it was because there were restraining systems in place and it was colonial rule. After independence when these restraining systems had been undermined, we saw the terrible fury of communal violence. Even here, Tamils enjoyed considerable protection because of India and international institutions.

    Against this picture of the State, many in the world were prepared to close their eyes to what Prabhakaran was doing to his own people and saw him as a liberator.

    Prabhakaran’s appeal today rests on the bankruptcy of Tamil politics and Tamil institutions. Universities in this country are in a poor state. But in the South one does come across a few university dons with a progressive outlook who speak out. In Jaffna there is hardly one, and Prabhakaran’s mental outlook has a tight hold on the University. Do the UGC and politicians in the South deliberately seek the dilapidation of this institution?

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      Rajan Hoole
      couple of comments;

      “…his becoming a terrible reality must be traced to the Tamil elite !

      he didn’t have time for the Tamil elite.

      but the fundamental point is that emergence of Prabakaran is rest solely and squarely on the Sinhala poliics

      ————————————————————————————
      “…Prabhakaran’s mental outlook has a tight hold on the University.”

      ” Prabakaran’s Ghost still has a tight hold and haunting the Sinhala polity including commentators like Dayan

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        but the fundamental point is that emergence of Prabakaran is rest solely and squarely on the Sinhala poliics///////////

        This can be challenged. This is not the case, would any other race in the place of Tamils produce a Prabhakaran and an LTTE? A separatism and terrorism are two different things..

        Looking at Tamil Nationalist movements in TN and Tamil nationalist tendencies in Tamil society as a whole we can see fanaticism not observed in any other community.

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          A separatism and terrorism are two different things..
          Agree – but LTTE formed out of state terrorism. 1959, 1971, 1974, 1983…to fight state terrorism…
          ..separatism evolved out of necessity …

          …Tamil nationalist tendencies in Tamil society as a whole we can see fanaticism not observed in any other community….

          well we need Tamil nationalism to counter Sinhala Nationalism and Sinhala fanaticism.

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            Rajash
            Prabhakaran is a product of Vadukkodai resolution.
            Soma

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              somass

              “Prabhakaran is a product of Vadukkodai resolution.”

              In one of his interviews he confessed that 1958 riot had had the biggest impact on him. Prabhakaran and a few others formed the Tamil New Tigers (TNT) in 1972. Restructured and brutal LTTE emerged in 1975 from Tamil New Tigers (TNT). Vattukottai Resolution was passed on 14 May 1976 and died few minutes after it birth.

              Why don’t you shove your piece of history wherever you find the first hole.
              Tips, man is known to have 8 holes in his body.

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            My point is LTTE was not simply a separatist org but a terrorist org. Tamils simply cannot form a separatist org without adopting terrorism due too inherent fanaticism in Tamil Nationalism

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              my point is Tamils needed to counter state sponsored terrorism and inherent Sinhala nationalism and Sinhala terrorsi…..as all peaceful avenues were exhausted…

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                Still dont get the idea of Separatism vs Terrorism………..

                as usual LTTE terrorism can be justified because of 58, 83..bla bla…..

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              sach

              “My point is LTTE was not simply a separatist org but a terrorist org. “

              I am sorry when did you have a point?

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      Ah Rajan, nice to see you here again on CT forums. Wouldn’t you think if the Chinese laborers now coming in droves for construction projects request citizenship 30 years down the road all current inhabitants of this island will protest? Not very different from the estate laborer situation all those years ago. It is self preservation and nothing to with politics.
      As for the University system in Sri Lanka it is the the same principle, the dons are bogged down in the well of self preservation and cannot see two feet ahead.

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        wannihami

        “the dons are bogged down in the well of self preservation and cannot see two feet ahead.”

        Just forget the University Dons for a second, in your case you can’t see even beyond your nose. Is it because Gota’s b***s are blocking your view?

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    Dayan J Alzheimer,
    “ghastly ideological mix”?
    Describes you perfectly well. Do you recognize yourself in it?
    WE DO! WE ARE APPALLED!

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    This is a pukka piece.

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    “With the ban on Mahinda Rajapaksa running for the Presidency, this has resulted in the default option of an Alt-Right candidacy.”

    That is not a Ban – that is a provision of the Constitution! Don’t you know the difference?

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    Tamil Nationalism always found inspiration from Hitler. As a student of Tamil Nationalism, I have seen picture of Tamil Nationalists in Tamil Nadu carrying pictures of Hitler. It is a scary sight.

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      sach claims ~ “………I have seen picture of Tamil Nationalists in Tamil Nadu carrying pictures of Hitler………..”.
      When? Where?
      .
      Are you sure you are not confusing with the Gotler brigade/supporters/acolytes of the Ven. Vendaruwe Upali Thero, the Anunayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter?

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    And now you can see the likes of Saravanamuttu and CPA types frantically insulting Dayan J

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    DJ, DJ….you shouldn’t be in moratorium sir. This is the way to become self-actualized: See Sri Lankan as the unitary state in Dutugemunu’s time. That’s the time when the agrarian, socialistic, Buddhist paradigm was at its peak.

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    Dayan,
    You sent this to Agnes Aunty Agony Column. Please remind us when the reply is due to appear.

  • 0
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    “The truth is that Prabhakaran was a Northern Hitler while Hitler was a global Prabhakaran. The Tigers were the Northern Nazis, the Nazis were the global Tigers”

    Dayan are you suffering schizophrenia and keep hearing the word Global???…you want to be a global ambassador for the Sri Lanka Sinhala Buddhist Hitler !!!!!

    are you haunted by the Ghost of Prbakaran
    are you haunted by the ghosts of 100s of thousands of civilian bombed by when they too refuge in the government designated no fire zone
    are you haunted by the ghosts LTTE carders who surrendered to the army and subsequently slaughtered to death
    are you haunted by the ghosts female carders who surrendered to the army and subsequently slaughtered to death

    are these acts committed by the Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist Hitler worse than what Hitler did.

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    Mahinda R at least gave him a diplomatic post for a limited period but it looks like Gota R will not give him even a peon post in an embassy. Gota always trusts and listens to Sarath Weerasekara than anyone else. However, that does not mean Gota will not use Dayan where and when necessary.

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    Thero had read of Mein Kompf to compare LTTE with Nazi’s. Rapist Army having a UN charter in one hand and with only other hand raping and murdering. That is record of Zero Casualty Operation Humanitarian Rescue Mission. But the interesting part is Thero’s association with Cuban, South American dictators. Thero earned his PhD by writing hymn about a world ruthless Rapist -Murderer Castro. Thero’s justification of Hitler’s elder brother, who lacked a wealthy Germany’s resources, but was stuck with poor Cuba, to burn down the world, is telling what in the latter days he did in UNHRC.

    Thero writing narcissistic essays in CT and we are reading it for years. But I yet to have to read comment agreeing with him. He claims his writing is taught in universities. Then, are those professors are foot noting for those students, in a free media world, Thero has only unfavorable rating?

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    Dear Dayan thank you for the writeup. The biggest downfall for all of us the Sri Lankans are we do not like to be challenged intellectually. We can not discuss the points raised by a fellow man objectively if that interferes with my agendas/manifestos. We also do not know how to make reason with another man’s view point too. I wish we all generated and argued objectively for our believes as much as you did then perhaps we could have contributed more and avoided the nations bleeding long ago……..I would say I did not play my part too as a fellow citizen…….however respect all who stayed on cause to do so however difficult it was to convey one’s view point and respect. All I said is what happened historically in our Country that politics was all about undermining others but not about making a case for our thinking nor what I had to offer then how can we argue for freedom/freedom of expression/democracy is beyond my belief. We killed mentally/physically every fellow man who did not share our thoughts is our Sri Lankan history. Now with the global agendas/and the geo politics of the day we as a nation may have lost all the opportunity to learn from each others journey forever……hate to say.

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