28 March, 2024

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Intellectual Mercenaries: Lanka’s Liberal Globalist Unintelligentsia

By Dayan Jayatilleka

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Anyone wants to know what’s really happening to, in and with our country? Anyone wants to know what’s going to happen to us? Anyone wants to know what the really important issues are? Then please read what a top global think-tank, the Lowy Institute, has to say:

“A key element in any overseas naval base, and even a logistics facility, is easy access by air for people and supplies. A naval base also requires maritime air surveillance capabilities. Control over Hambantota airport will give India considerable control over how the port is used. It is difficult to conceive of the Chinese navy developing a significant facility at Hambantota without also controlling the airport. In short, India is spending US$300 million buying an airport to block a Chinese naval base.

The long and twisted saga of Hambantota is emblematic of growing strategic competition in the Indian Ocean region, much of it focused on ownership and access to infrastructure. In coming years, we are likely to see a lot more jostling between India, China and others in the Indian Ocean over control of ports, airports and other pieces of critical infrastructure – and perhaps increasingly for control over governments.”  ~ Why India is buying the world’s emptiest airport?’ David Brewster

That’s the real deal. That’s what really happening to our country. Our political processes, and the Govt’s direction and decisions, all have to be understood as arising from the Government’s plan of what Dr Indrajith Coomaraswamy called “ strategic promiscuity”. The plan of strategic integration into the global and regional big power competition i.e. conscious semi-colonization. It is as if a leader of this island centuries ago, instead of fighting against the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, gave them all a piece of the island each and let them fight it out on our soil.

What kind of Government will place us in such insecurity and danger as spelled out by the low Institute analyst in which “India, China and others in the Indian Ocean over control of ports, airports and other pieces of critical infrastructure – and perhaps increasingly for control over governments” ?

Is this the fate our country? Is this the shape of the country we want to hand down to future generations?

What stands as a barrier is the combination of (A) multiparty democratic elections and their compulsions and (B) a strong patriotic opposition born at the Nugegoda fight-back rally in January 2015 and led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Muhammad Ali of Sri Lankan politics.

What kind of citizenry would vote for such a government or continue to do so? We have a chance to stop this in its tracks or retard its pace if we cast a tsunami-type protest vote at the upcoming local government elections.

In a fairly recent speech, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said something to the effect that a draft of a new Constitution would be ready by—and for– February 4th, the 70th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s Independence. What Minister Samaraweera will have as a consolation prize in place of a draft Constitution, is a local authorities election. Already Mahinda Rajapaksa and Anura Kumara Dissanayaka have called for the local government election to be regarded as a referendum, and Mr. Samaraweera would need a referendum if his Constitution is going to get through— so here he has one, or at least a pilot referendum, coming up.   

The political behavior of the Northern PC members from the Chief Minister down is such that only a criminal or a lunatic would trust that institution, area or society with augmented power such as a new Constitution or a liberal Constitutional reform would confer upon it. The open commemoration in the North of ‘Great Losers Day’ or ‘Great Suicide Bombers Day’ or ‘Dead Terrorists Day’ or ‘Terminally Retired Fascists Day’, and the ugly scenes on more than one Northern campus, show how grandly reconciliation is going under Yahapalana and its supportive NGOs, and what would happen if there were a new Constitution with a divisive referendum to endorse it.  (http://tamilguardian.com/content/thousands-gather-all-over-jaffna-district-mark-maaveerar-naal)   

From Nomination Day for the Local Government elections, the next two years of this government would run along predictable lines, unless there is a dramatic re-composition and reorientation. Attention will move from electoral nodal point to nodal point: the Provincial Council elections of mid-2018, the Presidential election of late 2019 and the Parliamentary election just before or after that. 

What all this means is that there is a chance that the over-ambitious, ideologically driven neoliberal ‘reform agenda’ of the Yahapalana government will be replaced or displaced to the margins, by the conventional, normal logic of electoral performance and survival. If the reform agenda is neoliberal and globalist, electoral logic in this country is almost always populist, which also means nationalist.

The reforms should have been primarily democratic and national, not primarily liberal and cosmopolitan/globalist, but they were. Who were the designers and drafters of the neoliberal reform agenda? Most of these persons, institutions and networks have been around and active in the same business, with the same disastrous results to their political masters, for the past 25 years. Yes, for a quarter century, since their debut was in the early 1990s. The present leaders of the neoliberal unintelligentsia were protégés of UK High Commissioner David Gladstone who, as his memoirs disclose, was tasked by London with applying the ‘New Public Diplomacy’ paradigm of Britain in Sri Lanka against the populist yet pluralist Premadasa (UNP) administration. Premadasa was the only President who could have anchored pluralism precisely because he was a successful populist.

The cosmopolitan liberal caucus really came into its own under Chandrika and Ranil. CBK’s disastrous Constitutional package, the openly federalist and “security sector reform” agenda of the Berghof Foundation (headed by Norbert Ropers), the anti-military recruitment Sudu Nelum (White Lotus) movement, the Norwegian ‘peace’ – actually appeasement—effort, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s CFA, and Chandrika’s PTOMS, were the utter, and utterly predictable (and predicted) failures that littered the decade 1995-2005, until Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected and cleared up the accumulated colossal mess, along with Prabhakaran and his Great Heroes. All of these failed projects were co-designed, driven or staffed by the NGO neoliberals who (especially the Berghof Boys) had earned the suspicion and contempt of Lakshman Kadirgamar and the hostility of Anuruddha Ratwatte.

An intelligentsia is judged by (I) its moral-ethical courage in the face of a challenge to society from barbarism, and (II) its superior intellectual and analytical abilities. The historical record shows that by each criterion taken separately as well as by the composite criteria, Sri Lanka’s liberal cosmopolitans failed abysmally.

For decades, even centuries, intellectuals the world over were judged by the stand they took against colonialism, imperialism and fascism, whether it was as an invading force or was homegrown (e.g. Italy). When Sri Lanka faced its greatest crisis and challenge of decades of war waged by a totalitarian, separatist militia which exploded more suicide bombers than all Islamist organizations put together, what did the liberal cosmopolitan intelligentsia do? The published record shows that these worthies almost never criticized Prabhakaran and the Tigers at the time, and most have yet to do so.  The record also shows that they criticized Mahinda Rajapaksa and Premadasa before him, as often and as vehemently as they remained silent about Prabhakaran and the LTTE. 

The collective mental prowess of the neoliberal globalist lobby is best evidenced by the record. Voluminous writings and pronouncements provide proof that, to a man and a woman (perhaps I’m being politically incorrect there), stoned, sober or drunk, the liberal civil society intellects were utterly convinced that the Sri Lankan state could never win the war against the Tigers. This stratum was so vacuous in analytical capacity that Professors of Political Science and Professors of Engineering alike, scoffed in print at the possibility of the military defeat of the Tigers while the war was a year or two (and in one case, a few months away) from being won!

I for one am glad that as far back as 1992, in an extended interview with DP Sivaram (Taraki) in the Northeastern Herald of which he was the editor, I argued, as a Realist, not merely for the desirability but also the feasibility of the military defeat of the Tigers by the Sri Lankan armed forces.

Chandrika, Ranil and Mangala remained the patrons of the cosmopolitan liberal caucus throughout that disgraceful decade (1995-2005) of appeasement. And with Yahapalana, the good old ‘New Constitution’ project was back on track!

The strong revival of the Mahinda-led Opposition, the easy retention by him of most of the SLFP support base, the effective nationalist-populist countervailing force that the MR-led JO  constituted, the socially delegitimizing bond scam on Ranil’s watch, the fissures in the bipartisan coalition, the dissent from and within the Sirisena SLFP, the balancing act by President Sirisena and his parametric constraints on the implementation of the globalist Geneva resolution and the new Constitution, the irruption of the Sinhala New Right, the rise of a possible ‘Putinist/Erdoganist’ Gotabaya candidacy, the global advance and local dependence on China, the shattering by the Syria-Iran-Russia bloc of the liberal ‘humanitarian’ interventionist ‘regime change’ strategy, and the current Sri Lankan political and economic crisis itself, were not foreseen or even foreseeable by the neoliberals, given their attitudinal blinkers, ideological myopia and arrogant affectations, atop their intellectual superficiality and analytical vacuity.

That cluster of factors apart, there is another reason for their gross errors and serial failures; for the Lankan liberal cosmopolitan intelligentsia to be “either fools or knaves”. The designers of the reforms were either from overseas, or lived overseas as Sri Lankan expatriates, or were producing for an export market rather than a domestic market because their funding and their aspirations lay in the West. The reform packages were either imports or exports. They were not nationally produced with a comparative global study of best practices, for the purpose of capturing the domestic mass market, so to speak. Worse still, the liberal-globalist policy intellectuals were a mercenary intelligentsia! This accounts for the (pro-Norwegian) appeasement of the LTTE agenda, the neoliberal economic policies, pro-federal Constitutional change, and the ghastly Geneva accountability resolutions of 2015 and 2017.

With the present electoral trends, however parabolic, about to repeat the outcomes of 1956, 1970, 2005 and 2010, ending in a great Bonfire of the Vanities in 2020, perhaps the civil society cosmopolitan liberals should emulate their Northern cousins and hold their own ‘Great Losers Day’ from 2018 onwards. After 2020, it might have to be a strictly expatriate affair though.

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Latest comments

  • 10
    7

    All what you need is to dislodge this government at any cost .

    You know who introduce corruption to this country.
    Who looted public money?
    Who put loan burden on this on this government..
    All by your Mr and co .
    Now you do not blame them.but this government .
    You eat dhal curry with your adivece but nothing will happen

    • 3
      2

      Dayan the public racist types:

      “The political behavior of the Northern PC members from the Chief Minister down is such that only a criminal or a lunatic would trust that institution,…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. and what would happen if there were a new Constitution with a divisive referendum to endorse it. (http://tamilguardian.com/content/thousands-gather-all-over-jaffna-district-mark-maaveerar-naal)”

      You are damn rightand wrong.

      Though the week was designated as heroes day/maveerar thinam in fact it was a week long celebration of the birth of Avatar, the psychopath VP.

      However JVP terrorists are allowed to commemorates their fallen heroes because they were their own Sinhala/Buddhist terrorists.

      Dayan was made/educated to ignore/forget JVP terrorism for the rest of his life at Kanatte Cemetery on August 10, 1992.

    • 5
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      O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!

      Dayan,

      Cut the crap buddy ……………… here’s a very simple question for ya ……………….. what do we do to pay back the money borrowed by the Nugegoda Man for his Hambantota extravaganza? …………

      It’s a very simple question ……….. for which there should be very simple answer …………….. That’s if there’s one.

      Only solution is, just pay back the money and let the white elephants go to dust …………….. If you know anything about engineering, there is a natural rate of attrition ………….. in 20 years time we will have to build the airport all over again – if we want one in the same place.

      “Intellectual Mercenaries: Lanka’s Liberal Globalist Unintelligentsia”

      Oh yeah! ……. There are mercenaries in SL alright …………. but the jury is still out on their intellectual capabilities…………………..

    • 6
      1

      Dr.No are you not an Intellectual Mercenary yourself.

  • 7
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    A neutral analysis by David Brewster criticising the white elephants of sri Lanka, not the animal kind but the Hambantota development, Harbour, Airport, Cricket Grounds, Highway link. The white elephant is hibernating. Dayan is so upset that David Brewster refers to Mara’s white elephant. Dayan has no option but somehow drag LTTE and CM on NE in to Mara’s white elephant projects.. Poor Guy you can see the elephant in the room

  • 4
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    So, what is your prediction. How long Bond Scam Ranil. Money Launderer Ravi protected by the new Exchange control ACT would last or They would continue to hang just like Leeaches ?

    • 1
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      US will protect RW and prefer him as President. Then the capitulation will be completed. RW wants SL to be India’s 30th State to join slum dog millionaires with filthy pollution and public defecation but also lots of wealth. He dreams of the day the Kallathonis can live free in SL and overbreed. He is the ultimate anti Sri lankan intelligentsia of SL. His hatred stems from a lot of deep seated maternal issues like forced into a show marriage etc.

  • 3
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    Now Yahapalanaya is a disaster, bond Scam Ranil can make a new govt dharmistha Samajayak with the help of TNA.

  • 4
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    An Intellectual Mercenary – Would that be someone who selectively refers to the Brewster article omitting parts damaging to his hero, Mahinda ? ” The whole project has turned out to be a white elephant. International shipping companies had no interest in using Hambantota, when there was an excellent port at nearby Colombo. Only a handful of ships visit the port, mostly docking there at the insistence of embarrassed Sri Lankan agencies.

    The shiny new Rajapaksa International Airport also sits virtually unused, with a full complement of employees and only one international flight a week. The empty terminal and its bored-looking workers make a great photo opportunity for journalists. Some of the newly-built hangars are even rented out to locals to store rice…….

    …..For some, Hambantota is a perfect example of what can happen when an authoritarian leader, not subject to usual democratic balances, gets into bed with Chinese companies that may well have ulterior motives. The project is held up as proof that the Belt and Road often involves foisting uneconomic projects on developing countries with loans that can never be repaid. “

    • 0
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      “Omitting or hiding” may not the words deserve place here. Thero had given the link. He is in a better seat and come to know about some honey on the mountain flowers. He had shared it if you a one to go for it.

      Think about this. Lankawe government regularly declares election. The government uses CTB to Rupavahini to take its messages to Mass. Oppositions also coming to power. Then why would somebody blames the governments are undemocratic because they are declaring election on auspicious times for them and using the state resources for their victory? Thero has his way of thinking. But why blame him as he said not to use the election?

      Paths have been opening. We always have been traveling. But our end always have been the dungeon the Great Lord Buddha created for Yakka. (He gave the rope Yakkas should have got, for us, it seems.) It never even by accidently went to anywhere else.

      If Satan is not here, would you need the god? Will Hurricane flood or mudslide would be sent to earth by anybody else? So Satan is the savior of the god by extending the lease on his life the calamities. If Ehelepola was never born you may never would have flied by plane with your Amude! If you want the God Ranil in the government, you need Satan Thero to oppose him. The Thero, who invoke the calamities on the land of Buddha. We need Ranil to cast his grace and thero to wipe it out and the game keep going.

      Lion will not let the deer go. But the deer has to run and escape. Otherwise it perishes. Why blame lion? It has its stomach and mouth too. Modayas and Tamil have to fix them.

  • 2
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    “After 2020 it might have to be a strictly expatriate affair though”.

    This should have been pursued and realised in 2010. If it was done then, country wouldn’t have fallen in to an abyss now.

  • 5
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    Jayatilleke has written many confusing pieces characterized by convoluted logic and lack of clear vision before but this, I believe, takes the cake. Indeed it must be difficult to propagate his particular brand of Sinhala supremacy while pretending that it is different from that of the more crude and blatant racism of the Sinhala Alt-right.Different or not, they speak doom for the country which will continue to be embroiled in conflict for the foreseeable futures

  • 2
    1

    Jayatilleke has written many confusing pieces characterized by convoluted logic and lack of clear vision before but this, I believe, takes the cake. Indeed it must be difficult to propagate his particular brand of Sinhala supremacy while pretending that it is different from that of the more crude and blatant racism of the Sinhala Alt-right.Different or not, they speak doom for the country which will continue to be embroiled in conflict for the foreseeable futures

  • 6
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    Intellectual mercenaries!

    Spot on — it takes a thief to know a thief!!

    • 1
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      Kumar R.

      “Intellectual mercenaries!”

      First of all are you willing to endorse/recognise this public racist an intellectual?

      Please note some definitions/explanations of intellectual:

      A person who uses the mind creatively or

      A learned person or one of high intelligence; especially, one who places greatest value on activities requiring exercise of the intelligence, such as study, complex forms of knowledge, literature and aesthetic matters, reflection and philosophical speculation; a member of the intelligentsia; as, intellectuals are often apalled at the inanities that pass for entertainment on television.
      – definitions.net/definition/intellectual

      Please note an intellectual is associated with learning not with sitting on his/her bum.

      • 0
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        NV,

        I appreciate your well deserved reservation on the “intellectual” qualifier.

        However, as you note, the definition stipulates “learned OR one of high ….”.

        Note, it is “OR” and not “AND”, and so my concession was in deference to the dignity of the Universities that decided in their wisdom to confer his degrees to certify that he is a “learned”, however much in tragic error they were in the certification.

        That is on them! Hope they learnt their lessons from “educating” Dayan.

        • 0
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          Kumar R

          Thanks for your response.

          The question is does this public racist know the difference among educated, learned, wise, …. His paranoia/racism is unfettered by universal truth.

          Does natural justice mean anything to this war monger and crime denier?

  • 1
    2

    Intellectual Mercenaries? Who the mercenaries are? I always wonder why, many times, Thero reflect him on the headings? This time, he honestly tells about him. As long as the word “Intellectual” is comes under umbrella of “Sinhala Intellectualism”, no harm.

    ” strategic promiscuity in Indian Ocean”? .Mother Lankawe, the tail wagging bitch for every International Dick, Harry & Tom?
    Thero and Old King, the Ehelepola-Pilimathalawa Kumpal or the combination is responsible for the Hangbangtota Kingdom being sold to China. Old King fledged & borrowed on Hambantota Kingdom from foreign Countries for war. Thero made the 2nd mortgage on it for draw support for UNHRC, in May 2009, so save Old King’s red Reddi. Ehelepola – Pilimathalawa won Kandyan King Vickramarajasinhan and sold Kandy. Then Kandy went to the hands of Whites.

  • 2
    1

    It is as if a leader of this island centuries ago, instead of fighting against the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, gave them all a piece of the island each and let them fight it out on our soil. Tell me about that story man! Will the Joint Comedy Club Modayas get this? I really need foreign label, full bottle to read and enjoy this.
    a strong patriotic opposition born at the Nugegoda fight-back rally in January 2015 and led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Muhammad Ali of Sri Lankan politics. Is the rape for birth was 2015 January election? Yes we know, for the Parkinson diseased Modaya crowd sees Mohamed Ali in every fight. Further the amazing twist here is, Mohamed Ali fights but, it is the Modaya crowd, the audience suffers by the Parkinson Disease. What to do? That is the fate of our country.

    Is this the fate our country? Is this the shape of the country we want to hand down to future generations? For Thero’s future Generation? What kind of story is that? Anyway, aren’t they our cubs, Linage, Scions? Deserve anything better we inherited? Didn’t we get the JVP revolution and Sirimavo’s bread and standardization? So what is wrong if leave bind for whatever left behind for us?

  • 2
    0

    Intellectual mercenary? Look whose talking!

    The truth is that for the last 13 years at least, our crooked politicians, getting increasingly bolder, have played fast and loose, fingers in the jam jar, snouts in trough, sleight of hand stuff to leave decent citizens breathless with their audacity.

    From ‘Helping Hambantota’ to the ‘Bond’ fiasco, politicians of every hue and bent have screwed us, with impunity. Not one bugger has faced justice.

    On the other hand, a reputable senior civil servant who ‘follows orders’ re the ‘sil redde’ distribution is hauled off to the clink while the Great Liberator who gave the order swans about town talking about a ‘come back’ no doubt to re-constitute his crooked cabal and bring back such stalwarts (like Sajin Vass G – he who slapped arguably our most presentable diplomat in the Big Apple).

    The present lot of politicians, of all parties, are all the same, with few exceptions, out to take as much as they can in perks and privileges (including opportunities for commissions and kick-backs).

    Professional people with doctorates and impressive qualifications condemned to serving scoundrels who can just about sign their names. What a set-up? If there was a Gresham’s law in politics they would surely have been disgraced and driven out.

    Until then, they will sell the family silver to the highest bidder, and to hell with geopolitics.
    The over riding consideration is, will there be something in it for me and mine.

    • 3
      2

      Spring Koha

      What does Dayan’s agreement with Wimal Weerawansa that “Mahinda is not a name, Mahinda is a country!” tell us about both public racists?
      Wimal Sangili Karuppan Weerawansa also thought its a good idea to carpet bomb the North and bomb the parliament.

      Do these two racists remind you of “Tweedledum and Tweedledee”?

      • 1
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        Native Vedda

        ‘dum and ‘dee? You have been too kind. I have always thought of the two as the front and backside of a pantomime horse. Sometime DJ takes the back, other times Wimal. and, guaranteed, the excited audience will always fall about laughing!

  • 0
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  • 5
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    In the first instance why was the Harbour and the Air port built? These should have been thought of. You were the adviser to the MR govt. why did you not protest?

  • 2
    0

    Except the cricket grounds, all the other projects were proposed by Southern Development Board appointed by Chandrika. In fact, Hambantota port project idea was floated about 20 years ago but non-of the previous Governments paid attention to that. Under President Rajapakse, the responsibility of implementing the port project was given to the then Minister of Shipping but nothing happened. The rumor is that Singaporeans oiled the palm of the Minister and he put it under the carpet. Then President Rajapakse took the responsibility and went ahead with the project. Wait and see what will happen when Kra Canal is dug in Thailand. After that Singapore port will be dead.

    • 1
      3

      Eagle Blind Eye

      ” The rumor is that Singaporeans oiled the palm of the Minister and he put it under the carpet.”

      Did the rumour also indicate “Tamils are thought to be somewhat influential in the City State hence the conspiracy to deny Sinhala/Buddhists the port facility”? .

      The rule of thumb “the larger the project larger the kickbacks”.

      Singaporeans are not that stupid to not to know about what is happening all around them unlike stupid fascists of this island.

  • 4
    0

    We give too much credit to people considered to be intellectuals.
    What matters is honesty.
    A dishonest intellectual is far worse a person than his ‘non-intellectual’ counterpart.
    Also those who liberally point fingers at others should do some serious soul searching.

    • 0
      1

      SJ

      “Also those who liberally point fingers at others should do some serious soul searching.”

      Look who’s talking!

  • 1
    2

    Mr.DJ, I don’t agree with you usually, but you make good points here.. Have you noticed how intrusive the US is now since 2015? They are even doing hilariously absurd USAID projects like “increasing youth voter participation” workshops. WTF? SL already has a much higher voter participation rate than US will ever dream of having.

    It also holds so many patronizing condescending workshops and constantly are sending Military delegations and warships on “friendly visits” to build up ties? It is almost weekly. Where were they for decades before that? And USAID(go check the facebook page) is all across doing some absurd waste of our US tax payer money.

    Soon we will have a Christian Ten-Commandments Bible bearing, gun bearing Pedophile in our US Senate and they want to preach to Sri Lankans about elections and women’s rights too? WTF again.

    Do you think that is because of Rice&Curry? It is because of SL’s new strategic importance. They seem to covet Trincomalee, the 4th largest natural port in the world and HQ for British Navy during WW II after Singapore fell.

    Add to that the growing alliance between India and US. India is their second largest weapons buyer and India does more joint military exercises with the US than any other nation. India is clearly worried about China(only nation they fear) and so you are right about it . Soon you will see Indian troops to “protect” their interests. Who knows they might even do a Sikkim like putsch.

    But does SL have an option with these massive debt ridden white elephants MR created? Mattala was a waste of resources of a fragile ego.

    I see no option but to get cornered because foolishness by this regime and the previous regime. We cannot go back to the Non-aligned world.

    • 2
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      Mano,

      The “foolishness” did not start just with the last two regimes.

      Whatever negative sentiments we may have about the British, they helped bring Ceylon to be the cream of the then “underdeveloped” world, with golden foreign exchange earning capacity with splendid tea, rubber and coconuts and in the process establishing the very best of road and railways and enviable educational, health and welfare-support system outside of the developed world.

      Following that, the predominantly Tamil-admin dominated state institutions maintained or improved on the British established institutions and infrastructure, and Sri Lanka rose to be enjoy QOLI (World Bank) comparable to the best in the world on many aspects. Cognizant of that professionalism, the British, US and many of the oil-rich Africa were more than happy to import, not just tea, rubber and coconut, but most importantly doctors, engineers, accountants, geologists and educators to work in their countries with premium compensation.

      And what did the “Sinhala only” greed for the “entire pie” get you? — Some measly dinars (worth its weight in gold in poor SL of course) for which you guys were willing to sell our wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters to wash Arab backs! Good going.

      Just blaming the last two regimes is not honest.

      • 1
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        Agreed on all that! I was stating an agreement with the Geo-Political games powerful nations play. US has no effing interest in real democracy though if it can have a friendly regime that is a democracy and pro US it helps them. But look at their allies in the Oil Rich Middle East.. And now under my great #MAGA President even Duterte who is engaging in extra judicial killings is welcome. I feel SWRD weak and was caught in the maelstrom of ethnic politics when he abrogated the BC pact.

        My agreement with DJ was about nations like India wanting to make sure China is not in the region; India is afraid of China and they have nightmares since getting their butts whupped in 1962. Read up on how they absorbed Sikkim. Sikkimese natives do not consider themselves Indian at all and their kingdom has been overrun with other Indian ethnic pisspoor still defecate on the roads poor.

        As for US, it wants partners and a military presence because they are smart and think in very long term perspectives. Do not forget India, armed, trained and financed terrorism in SL; and also do not forget how they blocked the SL military from completing the mission before 1987. Love the comment on the “We are so great” but we send our poor people Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim to the middle east as chattel. Cannot agree with you more. They are the #2 source of foreign exchange and the fancy entitlement system of the layers of political administrations in SL.

    • 2
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      Mano Ratwatte,

      Your post shows that the chronic insecurity that afflicts the Sinhala Buddhists not just confined to the uneducated and racists!

      • 0
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        Burning Issue

        Sinhala/Buddhists are afflicted with paranoia at birth. If not, Sinhala/Buddhist fascists groom them into one.

      • 1
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        Interesting ad-hominems attacks by you and NV who claims to be Aboriginal Lankans. FACT is SL or Ceylon became a place for big powers to play geo-political games.

        Do you know why Ceylon opted for Dominion status and retained British bases until SWRD stupidly asked them to vacate? who do you think was talking about absorbing Ceylon? Read up on it.

        And we all know when JR stupidly antagonized India who were very friendly in the 1970s, they started arming, training and financing separatism in Ceylon? JR became too close to the US. And we all know rest of the story. I AM ONLY agreeing with the geo-political commentary of how super powers and regional powers work and behave. Read my comments again. JR is responsible for 1983 Black July and what we reaped but FACT is India is fearful of China. So stop calling people you do not know effing goddamned names; if you are a tamil supremacist, then you are no different from a *ucking white or sinhala supremacist. Ceylon is a land of lose opportunities. I am an agnostic and not a temple going buddhist. But that is for another date comrade. NV and others like you guys have this superiority complex or actually perhaps an inferiority complex taking on the guise of a superiority complex. I am ok with autonomy and even the Canadian model for lasting peace. But that too is not what I mentioned.

        • 1
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          Mano Ratwatte

          What is your point?
          I know who I am and there is no obligation for me to prove who I am.

          • 1
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            Native Veddah so you know who you are? That’s reassuring. I for one thought that you were absolutely clueless about your identity.pretending to be a veddah and obviously ashamed and embarrassed of your Dravidian heritage and its disgusting culture. I can smell you from here!

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    The writers commentary about neoliberals should point out that there is nothing ‘liberal’ about their philosophy and they are maniacs after global domination (for resources) and for building the fourth temple in Jerusalem. (Watch the news now to see how they have forced Donald Trump to do what they want). They are so cunning that the Indian project in Sri Lanka at hambantota and Trincomalee are really for them, carried out by the corrupt Modi government in collaboration with corrupt, backboneless Ranil. Maitripala does not have a clue. The colonisers in Sri Lanka and their descendants today are undermining Sri Lanka on their behalf. Only a patriotic government and peoples movement can save Sri Lanka.

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    Dayan is down to writing his Biography.
    Chapter 1 (or is it Introduction?) is titled “Intellectual Mercenaries: Lanka’s Liberal Globalist Unintelligentsia”.
    ‘Mercenary’ Yes, ‘Unintelligentsia’ Yes Yes.
    ‘Liberalist’ NO, ‘Global Liberalist’ NO NO, ‘Liberal Globalist’ NO NO NO
    ‘Intellectual’ NO NO NO.

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    A brilliant article, Dr. D.J.

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      Joint Comedy Clubs duds are flopping. The Patriotic club is getting warning from Thero that if they don’t perform, he would switch the side in the election, like he did in Jan, 2015. If they don’t come under SLFP soon, like their war crime menace, another history of their foolishness going to be written on the stone. Thero senses that and taking very delicate steps on advices to them.

      Champathi is too junior to decode Thero’s essays.

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    Sri Lanka lost it sovereignty when MR and his coterie got the Chinese to help them put down the Tamils. There is no point complaining. Just grin and bear. Soon most of SL will become colony of the China and the remaining under India.

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    Hello Moronic DJ,

    Firstly, Sinhalese chauvinists and thugs, including Premadasa’s thugs, were involved in the 1983 pogroms against Tamils, which drew India in. You had no shame in supporting Premadasa under the pretext of supporting the downtrodden.

    Then, while prosecuting a dirty war in the Vanni, Mahinda Rajapaksa went on a spending spree, mortgaging the country to China. Whether it was for weapons he couldn’t afford, or the various boondoggles in Hambantota or his utter corruption, it was MR who mortgaged the country so that he could be the uncrowned King.

    You again supported MR wholeheartedly and continue to do so.
    What kind of pervert are you to pass the blame to ‘liberal intellectual mercenaries’, when all along, it has been people whose boots you licked who have brought the country to this sorry pass?

    If India and China jockey for control of parts of Sri Lanka, it is because, as they say, Karma is a b***h.

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    It appears that the DEAD LTTE members are still living in the minds of Dayan and his henchmen( if Any). Only way to silence him is to give him a portfolio for “nothing” and keep him happy.

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    NV needs to prove that he is a Vedda. As far as I am concerned Sinhalese Tamils Malayalis all are predominantly S.Indian in DNA and both phenotypical and genotypical identities.

    READ what I said about geo-political games. Why is US fishing for a larger footprint since the regime change? MR erred by throwing himself at China’s mercy and it rattled India; the same India was really pissed off at SL when JRJ tried to throw his lot with US during the Cold war and learnt their lesson.

    Why the ***k do you think there is a “Visit” almost weekly if not monthly by US military teams? why did the US help create a Marine force for the Sri Lankan armed forces? to pluck coconuts because they cannot find indian labour ? SL can never fight and win against a foreign enemy or fight India: SL needs to cooperate and live with India as a partner. Why did US help create a Marine Corps? And why do so many Navy ships and military delegations come there now? India and US are very close allies. They are countering the One-Belt One-Road policy. FACT. Read some real IISS type or other analyses on it please before attacking me

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    The hallmark of a well conceived article is its capacity to draw barbs from those who glibly support the interests of those it seeks to expose. Dayan has done admirably well here. The vacuous comments by notorious commentators are only possible by the cloak of anonymity provided by this website. They will be otherwise quaking in their shoes waiting to run to their hideouts among the palmyrahs.

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    Well place essay by DJ, that is historically important and politically decisive ,which that want to be further research on subject point out by writer timely address by new generations of politics.

    Demand for new search of political intelligence’s and their contributions to an investigated is essential by political activities of that young generation of Sri Lankan elites will come into being.

    The class concessions and capacity of Intelligences are key factors of developing prime roots of Democratic order to be address by new activities in Island? Is that New Political Task not by Anarchism of terrorist of past and currently an operating in adventurist politics of JVP and LTTE!

    Nevertheless the Democratic system required more moderated and well educated intelligences out of old frame work.
    Meanwhile by enrich and development of democracy in Lanka, that we want lot of intellectuals to be address in the area of every sphere having vast vacuum to be fulfilled by political -economic scientist.

    The comment about this essay by Kumar R…… seems to be servant of colonial masters. He supposed to be old school of thought that lackeys of out- dated political school of thought old Westerns.
    He did not got point of what is that an idea of DJ has been advocated .

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