{"id":104892,"date":"2013-09-12T00:13:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T18:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=104892"},"modified":"2013-09-15T15:51:36","modified_gmt":"2013-09-15T10:21:36","slug":"the-tnas-hardline-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tnas-hardline-manifesto\/","title":{"rendered":"The TNA\u2019s \u2018Hardline\u2019 Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a time-tested formula to obtain the optimum in any engagement.\u00a0 It was proposed first by the All-Knowing and All-Seeing, the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama.\u00a0 The doctrine is contained in two ideas: compassion and wisdom.\u00a0 Applicable to all, this formula offers the best instruments to dissect and respond to the manifesto recently<\/a><\/span> put out by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).<\/p>\n

Promising sun, moon, stars and everything underneath is part and parcel of manifestos.\u00a0 If, as Lee Kwan Yew once said, democracy in Sri Lanka is but the periodic auctioning of non-existent resources, the TNA cannot be faulted for promising the undeliverable.<\/p>\n

The TNA manifesto pledges a commitment to a separate state in no uncertain terms.\u00a0 The deliverability aside, there are several reasons why such a manifesto makes sense, politically that is, for the TNA.\u00a0 There is no Tamil country in this world.\u00a0 As such, the promise has appeal, albeit to the less-critical and baser instincts of the Tamil community.\u00a0 It need not be a place, even if obtained, that someone in Colombo or Toronto, for example, would ever inhabit, but it is certainly an idea that is warm enough to warrant support.<\/p>\n

Then there is also the issue of belonging.\u00a0 The distance between the powerful and the powerless is such that few can actually relate with heart and soul to rulers.\u00a0 A Sinhalese being President does not make all Sinhalese feel safer.\u00a0 A woman president doesn\u2019t automatically emancipate women from patriarchal fetters.\u00a0 Given decades of deliberate mis-education by communalist leaders, a war where primarily Sinhala soldiers fought an outfit made of Tamils and failure to address real, felt grievances (never mind the inflations of the same), that sense of un-belonging can be expected to be more acute in a Tamil.\u00a0 The TNA manifesto<\/a><\/span>, therefore, is something that the Tamil voter could salute, never mind the fact that it echoes the Vadukoddai Resolution and the anger, violence, misery, death, destruction and dismemberment it precipitated.\u00a0 Manifesto-scribblers are tasked to script documents that rake in the votes. They don\u2019t have to deal with the fall out.\u00a0 Responsibility is not their referent framework.<\/p>\n

The TNA Manifesto is different from those of other parties only in the fact that it pledges to deliver different \u2018undeliverables\u2019.\u00a0 It plays on different aspirations.\u00a0 The key words remain the same: \u2018undeliverable\u2019 and \u2018aspiration\u2019.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing undemocratic about it.\u00a0 Hardliners, after all, can operate within a democracy and do their \u2018hardlining\u2019 democratically.\u00a0 And of course, this is \u2018vintage\u2019 Tamil communalist politics.\u00a0 Nothing new here.<\/p>\n

The manifesto, therefore, should be looked at with compassion, as we have done above.\u00a0 That\u2019s part of the \u2018wise way\u2019, we offer, of treating the TNA and its hardline politics.\u00a0 Wisdom, however, has other dimensions.<\/p>\n

The TNA\u2019s hardline precludes the possibility of any reasonable, say, \u2018softliner\u2019, considering that party as a credible partner in post-conflict reconciliation. Indeed, this manifesto can be branded as \u2018RECONCILIATION OBSTACLE\u2019 because it proposes a schema that will result in perpetual antagonism between communities.<\/p>\n

Hardliners and \u2018hardlines\u2019 are not contained by legislation and especially not by that horrendous affront to democracy, democratic process and communal harmony, the 13th<\/sup> Amendment.\u00a0 On the other hand, it remains a legitimate cling-on for separatists, Indophiles, regime-haters and other spoilers in the absence of a comprehensive, gloves-off, lets-be-real, lets-not-beat-around-the-bush, exercise to enumerate ALL grievances of ALL communities that include credible measurement of the same, leading of course to practical mechanisms capable of alleviating grievances to the satisfaction of all.<\/p>\n

All this calls for a fresh sheet of paper.\u00a0 The first line on the paper could be \u2018The Second Republican Constitution\u2019.\u00a0 Whether we like it or not, that document and all the errors scribbled into it that make for the legal accumulation of privileges by the rulers and the cover-up of all things illegal, while systematically robbing citizen of participatory agency in decision-making, remains \u2018starting point\u2019, this side of revolution or invasion.<\/p>\n

It is a relatively simple exercise (and one that has been done by many critics) to identify all its flaws and all its anti-citizen clauses, i.e. those lines which favor ruler and detract from the ruled.\u00a0 In the rush to assert identity, consequent fixation with one\u2019s community and simultaneous suspicion of the relevant \u2018other\u2019 to the point of fear, sense of threat and resolution to fight (back), the broader category of \u2018citizen\u2019 has been forgotten.\u00a0 In power politics this is to be expected; \u2018citizen\u2019 is somehow less sexy than \u2018Tamil\u2019, \u2018Buddhist\u2019, \u2018Catholic\u2019 or any such identity.\u00a0 Hardliners will not think \u2018citizen\u2019, and this adds to the burden of \u2018softliners\u2019.<\/p>\n

Whatever the TNA\u2019s \u2018hard line\u2019 produces, the softer and ultimately more enduring line of national reconciliation is that which focuses on \u2018citizen\u2019, engages relentlessly with the constitution and consistently privileges reason over emotion.\u00a0 Everything else is nothing but testosterone rush and the comparison of libido.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":93503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe TNA\u2019s \u2018Hardline\u2019 Manifesto - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tnas-hardline-manifesto\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The TNA\u2019s \u2018Hardline\u2019 Manifesto - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tnas-hardline-manifesto\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-11T18:43:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-09-15T10:21:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Malinda-Seneviratne.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"329\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"367\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tnas-hardline-manifesto\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-tnas-hardline-manifesto\/\",\"name\":\"The TNA\u2019s \u2018Hardline\u2019 Manifesto - 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