19 March, 2024

Blog

Hitler’s Dark Shadow

By Sarath de Alwis

Sarath de Alwis

“History teaches. But it has no pupils.” ~ Antonio Gramsci 

Herr Hitler is back in the news. At a press briefing, in response to a journalist’s query, a Minister of State has suggested that the people expect decisive governance as that of a “Hitler”.  It seems that, in the public psyche of this land like no other, Herr Hitler is perceived as a magically mysterious super-efficient good Shepard. Not surprisingly, The German envoy in Colombo has responded. “Adolf Hitler, responsible for human suffering and despair beyond imagination is no role model for any politician.”

The German ambassador speaks with the advantage of hindsight. Retrospective wisdom has its inconveniences. He is not particularly fond of the Austrian born corporal who became Commander in Chief of the fatherland. Of course, he has good reasons.

Germany produced Emanuel Kant the philosopher who bequeathed humanity the great philosophical tract ‘Critique of Pure Reason’.

Germany also produced the German Jew Karl Marx who challenged the morality of regarding gold as the Holy Grail.

Germany produced Max Weber who defined the protestant ethic in public administration.

In the 21st century, Germany naturally prefer to depict their efficiency through the brands of Mercedes Benz, BMW and Porsche.

As Angela Merkle’s favorite philosopher Karl Popper insisted “The future is wide open and depends on us, on all of us.”

But then, despite there being no pupils, history remains a stubborn teacher.   

It is this same German nation that also produced Adolf Hitler. One can understand the anguish of the German envoy. This chap Hitler added ‘genocide’ to the lexicon and redefined the word ‘holocaust’.

Let us not forget. Hitler was human. Evil too is a capacity in human nature.

Niceties and naivetes should not blind us to demonstrable truths. Hitler appealed to the embedded chauvinism of the Prussian conservative mind. He was a symptom of the corrosive extreme right-wing nationalism of a people who were willing to marginalize historically significant minorities who contributed to the ideas that made Germany the outstanding nursery of western enlightenment. 

Hitler did not single handedly dismantle the dazzling edifice of German Jewish traditions of western philosophy. He had plenty of learned collaborators.    

When Hitler marched into Poland and Paris there were wild cheers in Berlin. Let us not forget that Hitler had a substantial mass base among German speaking peoples.

There is no doubt that at the peak of his power, he was loved by millions of people. Despite the serious reservations expressed by the German envoy, the fact that Hitler had millions of people clamoring for his leadership needs careful study.

That makes Hitler’s history relevant to us today, here and now. Hitler wrote an autobiographical manifesto ‘Mein Kampf.

In it he claimed that he was driven forward by a deep sense of personal destiny which he called providence.

Hitler told the German people, that they were Aryans and therefore by reasons of history and heritage they were ‘special’ and ‘better’. 

After the humiliating defeat in the first world war the Germans were intrinsically predisposed to believe that they were indeed a superior but a wronged people who deserved better.

The people found a connection with him. Hitler did not do it all by himself. He did not hypnotize the German nation. The Germans were ready to be hypnotized.

They were starving amidst unemployment and hyperinflation. The historian Lawrence Rees put it beautifully.

“In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had “charisma” because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people”.

Hitler’s madness had meticulous method. He visualized himself as the great ‘philosopher-leader’ in the mold of a Marcus Aurelius.

Astonishingly, he earned the active and open support of many intellectuals of his time.

The Cambridge scholar Yvonne Sherratt in her remarkable study ‘Hitler’s Philosophers’ details how learned men with impeccable academic credentials were driven by personal ambition to systematically vulgarize and distort the works of German philosophers Kant and Nietzsche and even Charles Darwin.

Fleeing intellectuals such as Walter Benjamin and Karl Huber were hunted down and murdered. Eminent minds such as Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt gleefully sanctioned and applauded Hitler’s raw acts of slaughter.

When we explore the person and ideas of Hitler, we must remember one solid stark truth. It is a difficult truth; it is a terrible truth. But it must be comprehended.

Hitler was loved by many Germans.  As the historian Gilbert Allardyce points out, Herr Hitler’s regime was the most popular government when in midstream with Paris occupied and Brits paddling to safety in Dunkirk.   

Millions of Germans were loyal to the regime while a very substantial swathe of public opinion pledged allegiance to the Nazi party.

It was an unparalleled collective delusion of a great nation. This collective delusion held Hitler at the helm until he ended it all in the dark dingy bunker in Berlin. 

There were dissenting voices, those voices were far away, across oceans in distant lands.

Peter Viereck the American poet of German descent wrote presciently in 1940 when the Nazis were holding the world hostage;

“Someday the same Germans now cheering Hitler’s strut into Paris will claim “We did not know what went on , we did not know’. When that day of knowing comes, there will be laughter in hell.”

Let us return to the subject proper-the idea of Hitlerian governance. It is the ruthless authoritarian centralized rule by decree. It is rule by the führer assisted and enforced by a select elite.

Hitler held out a dream and a promise. The dream of a great nation. The promise of prosperity. The struggle was the immediate price and many Germans thought they could afford the price.

In her monumental work ‘Origins of totalitarianism’ Hannah Arndt makes three pronouncements that should help the reader to link up the idea of Hitler with contemporary events that are unfolding here and now.

This is how a Hitlerian autocrat would explain the inexplicable. You avoid inconvenient discussions.

“There is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future will reveal its merits.”

How do you convince, coerce and coopt the people? You invite them for a chat. 

“True goal of totalitarian propaganda is not persuasion, but organization of the polity. … What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part.”

Who formed the core group of loyalists, apparatchiks and the pretorian guard of the regime?

“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”

Dismissing Hitler as freakish manifestation of evil is absolute folly.

The first two decades of the 21st century has enough examples of credible Hitlerian hijacks of messy democracies where a rudderless rural peasantry links up with a desultory urban middleclass to seek order, stability and deliverance from a corrupt political class.

To the Liberal Democratic mind Hitler is the arch Icon of evil. Where liberal democracy is in decline, and ultra-nationalism is on the rise Hitler represents disciplined development.

Hitler is not the first populist. He is also not the last. All indications are that at least in this little island Hitler seems to be the father of ‘populism’. 

A personal note:

Just before the last parliamentary elections in August 2020 I wrote an essay which was titled ‘Why a super majority is a bad idea’.

As it turned out, 69 lakhs thought it was an excellent idea.

Since then I have avoided airing my thoughts, hopes and prayers.

I was overwhelmed by an inexplicable helplessness. I didn’t wish to edit my inner soul.

Yet I don’t dare to air my heretical beliefs in a liberal democracy or my passionate belief in a civic nationalism. I feel stifled by a soulless state that has little patience with my hopes and dreams.

It really doesn’t matter. The sun is setting. The shadow lengthens. I am nearing the end of a decade past the biblical span of three scores and ten.

So, after a long spell, I undertook this essay. Bottling up ideas that wish to burst out was too much for a mind with even the semblance of a conscience.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Latest comments

  • 22
    5

    Thanks, Sarath, for emphasising the need for disciplined, rational thinking, rather than lax and lazy sloganising.
    .
    The German Ambassador no doubt had the benefit of hindsight, but congratulating the alacrity with which he administered that rap on the knuckles was very much in order.
    .
    It’s difficult to make the Sinhalese to think; I’m sure he succeeded in forcing that. He was the best positioned to do that.

    • 17
      5

      Thank you Mr. Alwis,
      .
      How can leaders with record breaking high crimes ever be able to lead nations ? Can they be exemplary ?

      Million dollar question is, whether the people at large would realize this yet today. People are made to believe whatever being in the air but in favour of those so called pratriots.
      .
      People were misled as no times in the past. People are also complicit.
      :
      Their return is only connected with – to get their CRIME Investigations null and void ab initio. No astrology or any other prediction knowledge was necessary, anyone with some sanity was clear. People

      Those voters (6.9 mio) never saw that side of the coin. They are today speechless.

      • 19
        5

        Brilliant piece as always ……. I was thinking what had happened to Sarath.

        Calling a man a Hitler doth not a Hitler make.

        I don’t think Gota has any of the “talents” of Hitler ……… Hitler was an evil genius. Gota is a stuttering moron.

        Ordering cronies to kill a few surrendered powerless people from the faraway safety of a fortified bunker is not Hitler-ian leadership. Unlike Hitler, Gota is not leadership material …….. he just rode onto leadership on the coattails of Mahinda …… without Mahinda Gota would still be a security guard in California.

        Do any of you realize that Mahinda did Donald Trump before Donald Trump did Donald Trump? It’s the same playbook. …….. both are lowbrow geniuses …….. at what they do

        When Mahinda is gone all this will fizzle out.

        For the sake of the country ……. I hope I’m right.

        • 2
          9

          “When Mahinda is gone all this will fizzle out.
          For the sake of the country ……. I hope I’m right.”
          *
          Mahinda went in 2015 and did anything really fizzle out? Whatever little that seemed to have gone returned with a vengeance.

          • 12
            4

            Should have said, when Mahinda kicks the bucket ……. but that would’ve been unkind. :))

            That’s why, the nice/kind always get robbed, murdered, abused ………. by the “not so nice.”

            The story of humans in one line :))

            • 4
              4

              nimal fernando

              “Should have said, when Mahinda kicks the bucket ……. but that would’ve been unkind. :))”

              He won’t.
              He is immortal.
              He is all powerful sun god, so the poor Sinhalese think.

  • 21
    15

    Yes you are right there is similarities between Hitler and Rajapaksas. They have massive support of Buddhist Sinhala (6.9 million votes) and educated people like Prof. GL Peries, Prof. Vitharnae. They also had/have the goal of establishing a new racial order inSri Lanka dominated by the Buddhist Sinhala “master race.” “Holocaust of Jews” of Hitler equates to “Holocaust of Tamils”????

    • 13
      21

      Ajith,
      “Yes you are right there is similarities between Hitler and Rajapaksas.”
      —-
      What you say is partially correct. Hitler was a strong leader admired by a large majority of Germans. Mahinda Rajapakshe is also a strong leader admired by a large majority of Sri Lankans. Hitler hated Jews and wanted to eliminate them but Mahinda Rajapakshe did mot hate Tamils and did not want to eliminate Tamils. He only wanted to eliminate Tamil terrorists who were massacring civilians and ruining the country.
      Sri Lanka Armed Forces under the leadership of Mahinda Rajapakshe liberated about 300,000 Tamil civilians who were kept as a human shield by Tamil terrorists. Rehabilitated 11,872 Tamil terrorists who surrendered and released without charging for the crimes they had committed. 594 Child soldiers who surrendered were handed over to their parents.
      When Sinhalayo say they want a Hitler, what they have in mind is a strong leader. It is a pity that this dong key picked Hitler instead of referring to Lee Kuan Yew or Mahathir Mohamed.

  • 32
    32

    Yes, it cannot be denied that Hitler was popular among Germans, mostly because he reversed the humiliation of WW1, and rebuilt the economy.
    But what makes him popular among not-so-brilliant Sri Lankan politicians and clergy? The root is in the rants of the charlatan Anagarika, who mixed Hitlerite racial theories with his own narrow chauvinism, and convinced the Sinhalese that they were superior Aryans. Unfortunately, the man is now a “national hero” and his poisonous speeches are still taught to school children by half- literate clerics. Who will remove this racist from his undeserved pedestal?

    • 20
      19

      What about your obese leader VP who died at Nanthikadal? After 30 years of encouraging underage children to bite cyanide capsules, he was caught in the mud, begging for his life. Your leader was a greater coward than Hitler.

      • 14
        24

        Lester,
        Why are you upset? Are you related to the fake Aryan Don David?

    • 1
      30

      OC
      It may surprise you that a sizeable section of Tamil/Dravidian nationalists (not Periyar though) were admirers of Hitler. They took a leaf off Subas Chhandra Bose’s book. (Bose’s attraction to Hitler was against a background of Gandhi undercutting him in the Congress and his own desperation to build an army of resistance).
      There were plenty of secret admirers of Imperial Japan here. (I am not sure if JRJ was one– but a likely candidate.)
      We need to appreciate the circumstances that enabled Anagarika to emerge as a SB hero or even a father figure.
      The Sinhala (and Tamil (and Muslim)) elite wanted to please the colonial rulers. Anagarika was able to create an impression of being an independence campaigner without being one. But his political line failed to win support.
      His image was later rebuilt alongside resurgent SB chauvinism. (An AD stamp appeared to mark his birth centenary in 1964.) In the past few decades it has become a cult.
      Wondered why India waited until 2014 to mark the 150th birth anniversary?

      • 5
        10

        OC
        Truth hurts.
        I never thought so badly and so unanimously, unlike your truth.

        • 1
          7

          SJ,
          I did see the 21 red thumbs. Truth hurts Lester more than anyone else.

          • 1
            6

            S.J,
            “Wondered why India waited until 2014 to mark the 150th birth anniversary?”
            Probably by that time the generation that could remember what he was really like had died out?

      • 2
        5

        SJ

        “India releases postage stamp to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Anagarika Dharmapala”
        https://mfa.gov.lk/india-releases-postage-stamp-to-commemorate-the-150th-birth-anniversary-of-anagarika-dharmapala/

  • 14
    22

    The fact that Adolf Hitler was actually Austrian not German appears to have escaped both the German ambassador and the Austrian Consul! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler
    .
    But seriously, I think our morons imagine that the word ‘Hitler’ is a synonym for ‘any average dictator’. The German ambassador has probably realised this and has responded firmly but gently.

    • 14
      22

      @Paul
      it really does not matter where the beast and mass murder was born , he was the ruler of Germany and the sick basxxxxd enjoyed killing millions .

      He even abused christianity , he made special iron croses to his special trusted forces to celebrate them .
      That is how sick he was

      • 8
        17

        Lanka Netizen, yes I am aware. Hence the exclamation mark and the phrase ‘But seriously’.

    • 3
      30

      “Hitler was an Austrian-born German”
      It is that German ‘race’ that Hitler spoke of– not passport!
      He sought to unite all Germans of Europe under the Nazi flag.
      I do not think that the ambassadors missed on anything.

      • 1
        26

        BTW, was Nepolean French by that token? He was more Italian like all Corsicans.

        • 4
          11

          I withdraw my earlier statements to declare:
          Hitler was low caste Tamil who bleached his skin and converted to Catholic Christianity.
          *
          Napolean was a child of a French royal couple, born out of wedlock and abandoned in the waters of Marseilles. Found by a Corsican fisherman poaching in French waters, he was sold for a few Euros to a poor Italian noble family. (Do not ask me if there was the Euro then. This piece of history is as authentic as most others here.) When Nepolean discovered his true origin, he set to work on becoming Emperor of France (which he did).

  • 20
    18

    An important and a very troubling essay. Its implications are deep and distressing.

    • 1
      0

      Yes, these kinds of Sarath de Alwis essays are very important, but though this is not in the level of average mass. The relevancy here is it is telling a message to learned Sinhalese, who are like many learned German, who willingly accepted and admired Hitler in his time. It is not that time those Germans failed to for see what was about to come because they had no reference point to refer for the right. The problem is, it is easier to awake & release the satanic nature in the human being, than stimulating & nature their humanistic senses. How many times you have read in news when a Petrol Tanker over turned and leaking, the drunkard driver got out and fled, but the on lookers went to fetch gas and burned in that? The greed for that small amount of gas is enough to make them bet against their own life. In that nature, if you had warned them to leave the site, they would yell back at you that you are the thief, who was trying steal the whole gas for you, while they were nice and sympathetic so were sociably sharing the gas within them.

    • 0
      0

      A gold merchant sell the gold as bars, only. It is dirty looking square bricks. The inner value of it is not see-able by mass. It is the jeweler who makes the pattern in it and makes it shiny. Then only a woman sees the gold as it is. So like the jeweler, the teachers who are immediately above the mass have to convert this gold into jewels for the mass to accept it and adore it. Sarath de Alwis like the ones only can write about truths. But the second tier leaned people has the responsibility of making this digestible to the juvenile mass minds. Remember again, people like to fetch the gasoline from the leaking tanker. It you tell them that it is unsafe and stay away, they get angry. Thus formulate the message for them if there is interest in saving them. This is not a one man job. Different people at different levels have to get involved into it.

  • 17
    24

    What beautiful prose by Sarath de Alwis.
    I wish the German Ambassador reads this insightful essay. The foreseeable future for srilanka is spelt out herein. This is a Prophecy!

    Lets give the devil its due. Apart from the Mercedes Benz, BMW and the Porsche it was during Hitlers time that the Volkswagen Beetle came on the highways of the world.

    Spiritus quidem promptus; Caro vero Infirma [ The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak]
    laments Sarath de Alwis. Not to worry; eeakdavi is also of the same vintage.

    • 13
      16

      Cicero wrote a piece on old age, the best part of life. Mr Alwis please write more. It is a pleasure to read what you write.

  • 16
    22

    More than a week since the Politician made this ignorant suggestion, it is extremely clear he has zero knowledge of important past history connected with politics .

    I really believed that the new young politicians are a breed of well educated , with ethics and well informed of events of past and present and if they are not then ignorence is no excuse.

    Anyone who makes irrespobsible remarks about holocaust or emulates a ruthless inhuman mass murderer who incinerated millions of innocent men , women and children alive using crematorias , just because they belong to a different ethnicity & religion is extremely disgusting and unforgivable.

    If at all he has some ethics in him, he owes a public apology to all the jewish people in the world and the others all whose ancestors were victims and special apology to the people of Germany who are our main tourists.

    meanwhile I request some well informed member of his party to update him.

    • 8
      14

      LANKA NETIZEN,
      “If at all he has some ethics in him, he owes a public apology to all the jewish people …”
      —-
      Yes, he owes a public apology.
      If Malabar Vellala Tamil politicians who promoted and supported Tamil terrorists that massacred Sinhalayo using suicide bombers, claymore bombs, AK47s and chemical weapons for three decades have some ethics they should extend a public apology to Sinhalayo for the crimes committed instead of trying to take revenge from the Government and Sri Lanka Armed Forces that defeated Tamil terrorists and restored peace by bringing fabricated war crime charges and charges on human rights violations.

    • 6
      15

      @readers I beg your pardon , it should read as past events and not past history.
      thank you
      LN

    • 7
      4

      LANKA NETIZEN ,

      This guy , reportedly the ignorant and racist son politician of a
      prof politician never knew about the balls of Hitler ! Had he
      known he would never even have imagined to match His Hero
      with Hitler I am sure ! A German researcher reported to have
      found Hitler’s medical screening during his capture in 1923
      which confirm that Hitler had only One Testicle ! He had
      suffered from right-side Cryptorchidism – a clinical disorder
      wherein his testicle failed to fall from his abdomen to the
      scrotum .

  • 22
    17

    The article has little relevance to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka does not have the industrial might to invade other countries. Neither is there any dictatorship, as GR was voted in by the majority of the population. Germans loved Hitler but he was not voted Chancellor. He was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg. When Hindenburg died, he became President not through a vote, but some legal maneuvering. The author claims that all authoritarian regimes are the same – incorrect. Stalin was far worse than Hitler. In any case, Nazi Germany and the USSR both became superpowers. They collapsed because the borders were stretched too far. China is another authoritarian regime. But China is doing very well, since it does not get involved in foreign wars. Meanwhile, the West is crumbling from debt and other issues.

  • 13
    23

    In no uncertain terms, the statement of that State Minister is uncalled for. We all know that Hitler was addressed as “Fuhrer”, just as much as Prabhakaran was addressed “Thalaiver”, both the words mean leader. It is interesting to note that some of our political parties too sport a leader and they are reverently referred as “Nayaka-thuma”. Alright the 20A was passed to give the much wanted authority people sought to “do a job of work”. IS IT DONE? While people find it difficult to get things done others become “Sugar Daddies” with a whopping unjust enrichment, amidst a carcinogenic oils and undesired fertilizer. Can I be bold enough to ask that idiot of a State Minister does he want his boss to ultimately end his life like Hitler and Prabhakaran did? There are established ways of good government and that fool must learn that long before he ever became a Minister.

  • 10
    21

    The writer says: “Dismissing Hitler as a freakish manifestation of evil is absolutely false”. Then he reasons it out as in the next paragraph: ” The first two decades…….from a corrupt political class”. The circumstances in Sri Lanka were a little different to those then prevailed in Germany. We too had a “Political Corrupt” class prior to 2015, but not an “Oppressed” class of the general public. In 2015, the general class opted for a political setup that promised elimination of the then corrupt, and that new regime was proved equally or much more corrupt than the one kicked out. In 2019, the people, even though, had prior knowledge and tested experience of once ousted, did a “360o” turn around and opted for the same regime and gave them a massive majority to rule the country. In Germany, Hitler from the Army made a stunning victory to meet the aspirations of an “Oppressed” class and free them from the “Corrupt” political class. It was an easy victory through the “Ballot”. He too used the same slogan as “Rajapakse & Co.”, in that, : “Hitler told Germans that they were Aryans and by reason of history and heritage they are special and better”.

  • 17
    11

    Good hearted people wish a human existence with only characters of Buddhas or Christs and absence of Hitlers or Pol Pots
    A vain hope.
    In the evolutionary scheme of things random variations produce extremes at both ends
    and one end wouldn’t exist to the exclusion of the other.
    In fact one is the cause of the other.

    Soma

    • 10
      3

      Soma,
      .
      I have the feeling you re on your head. It is obvious you see/read almost anything and everything upside down, or may be you are suffering from a syndrome of rarity.
      .
      Alone people to think of a brutal man of HITLER nature, shows, the level of the srilankens fell in as of today. That deep… as nothing can help them easily.

    • 2
      4

      soman

      “In the evolutionary scheme of things random variations produce extremes at both ends and one end wouldn’t exist to the exclusion of the other.”

      How come the evolutionary scheme of things random variations produce 6.9 million extremes? Was it an accident? Must be a huge accident, more than equal to many Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. It is going to take many decades to remove the toxin.

      Do you seriously believe Shavendra and Kamal are capable of getting things done effectively and efficiently? Both look and sound pathetic.

      • 0
        0

        NV
        How come 6.9 m extremes?
        Now we have to look for the other extreme as laws of evolution cannot go wrong.
        Go to the middle of two parallel mirrors and count how many images are there. Count how many thumb ups for Native Veddah and thumb downs for Soma.

        Soma

      • 0
        0

        NV
        “Do you seriously believe Shavendra and Kamal are capable of getting things done effectively and efficiently? Both look and sound pathetic.”
        They are counting how many Sun God worshippers are there.

        Soma

  • 4
    16

    Gota can never become Hitler. He lacks the passion, vision and fearlessness Hitler had (no matter how barbaric he was).

    The very troubling reality is all top countries did genocide against their minorities either in their country or in other countries.

    e.g. USA, China, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Australia, Canada, Russia, India, Turkey, Italy, Netherlands, etc.

    Then there are countries that genocide their own majority and are condemned to total disaster.

    e.g. Cambodia.

    Gota can only become like the second. Shame!

  • 16
    18

    Sarath Don’t you think it was this buffoon Ranil who made the super majority of 69 million possible for MR ?. We need a good analysis of this miserable fraud’s role as a politician in Biyagama, later PM four or five times, ceaseless global traveller and leader of UNP and its effect on the larger society.

    Just like Hitler, Ranil was able to gain unshakable control of the UNP( maybe its cultural and intellectual bankruptcy made it possible) and the rest just followed. He made it easy for Chandrika, Prabkaran, MR and now GR. He made it difficult only for poor UNP guys including Sajith.

  • 13
    15

    Sarath,

    Te sun is setting, because it is the evening. It is not an end. The sun will rise again tomorrow morning and it will be another beginning! and this cycle continues.

    Do not despair! be an optimist! You write beautifully and you are a treasure house, be a beacon light to the future generations

  • 10
    23

    A personal note:

    1) Just before the last parliamentary elections in August 2020 I wrote an essay which was titled ‘Why a super majority is a bad idea’.

    As it turned out, 69 lakhs thought it was an excellent idea.

    *** I remember you as a man who wrote in the aftermath of the Easter bombings that Gotha the CRIMINAL despite all his past was the man for the Job. So you are one of the 69 lakhs who have Tamil blood on their hands.

    2) Since then I have avoided airing my thoughts, hopes and prayers.

    I was overwhelmed by an inexplicable helplessness. I didn’t wish to edit my inner soul.

    Yet I don’t dare to air my heretical beliefs in a liberal democracy or my passionate belief in a civic nationalism. I feel stifled by a soulless state that has little patience with my hopes and dreams.

    *** Hitler once headed Germany with the same passionate belief. and dreams

    3) It really doesn’t matter. The sun is setting. The shadow lengthens. I am nearing the end of a decade past the biblical span of three scores and ten.

    *** With the UN vote sun has already set on Sinhala Lanka

  • 9
    22

    The picture of Hitler on this page appears as though it has been slightly morphed with a photo of Basil Rajapaksa. This is not entirely inappropriate I must say!

    • 1
      26

      Has Basil displayed fascist streaks?

    • 1
      5

      SJ,
      Is it statistically possible that everyone but Lester has got more red thumbs than green?

  • 11
    23

    The article forgot to mention the aryan connection.
    I heard hitler sent nazis to asia looking for a ‘lost aryan race’
    They came as far as tibet supposedly.
    If they had come all the way to sri lanka they would have found
    the ‘sinhala aryan race’
    But they would have been left scratching their heads wondering
    why these ‘aryans’ on the island were so dark in colour.

  • 7
    4

    ” Let us not forget Hitler was human. Evil too is a capacity in human nature”. “Dismissing Hitler as a freakish manifestation of evil is absolute folly.” – Sarath de Alwis. Isn’t Nandasena Gotabaya- our President fitting into the above categorization? In the latest incident of the Media briefing by Rev. Muruthettuwe Ananda of Abyaramaya where MP Wijedasa Rajapakse was the “Cheif Spokesman”, both the Gotabaya and Basil were severy dealt with even with reference to their families stationed abroad with all comforts provided to enjoy. The day after this media briefing, GR has “Telephoned” MP Wijedasa Rajapakse and scolded him in “FILTH”. This was revealed by MP Wijedasa yesterday at another media briefing. MP Wijedasa said: “The president was frothing mad at me and, shivering with his anger by addressed me in filthy language. I too could not control myself and, retorted in the same language: This media briefing is now available in Social Media plus Daily Mirror. I have seen a similar picture of Hitler summoning his Generals and addressing them in the same way. Are these “Developments” a “POINTER” to the direction that our President is moving and where he and his family leading this country? This “Manifestation” cannot be “Freakish” and “Human evil too is a capacity in human nature” as Mr. Sarath de Silva expresses.

  • 0
    0

    Well written, refreshing and food for thought. So where do we go now?

Leave A Comment

Comments should not exceed 200 words. Embedding external links and writing in capital letters are discouraged. Commenting is automatically disabled after 5 days and approval may take up to 24 hours. Please read our Comments Policy for further details. Your email address will not be published.