{"id":113629,"date":"2013-11-06T11:31:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T06:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=113629"},"modified":"2013-11-19T18:43:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T13:13:47","slug":"chogm-keeping-mum-dr-manmohan-singh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/chogm-keeping-mum-dr-manmohan-singh\/","title":{"rendered":"CHOGM: Keeping Mum, Dr. Manmohan Singh?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jagath Asoka<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dr Jagath Asoka<\/p><\/div>\n

Dr. Manmohan Singh<\/a><\/span>, the Gentle Lion of Asia, this is your god-given moment to change the course of Sri Lanka. It is your Dharma to help hapless Sri Lankans! Dr. Singh, your prime task is to help us resurrect our Freedom of Speech and the Rule of Law. The new menace to our future is our current regime<\/strong>. You cannot help us by keeping mum. <\/strong>Even a ten year-old kid knows that Gandhi stood up against the British Empire; Lincoln against Slavery, Nelson Mandela against Apartheid, Lenin against Tsars, and Martin Luther King against racists; this world is a better place because brave people stood up against bullies. Are you going help us deal with these thugs and bullies of our current regime, because our Opposition has become impotent?<\/p>\n

I think you must do what FDR did in 1932, during his campaign against Herbert Hoover and during his inaugural speech. FDR remained almost mum about what he was going to do when elected. Even his very close friends and associates had no clue. We all know that FDR always talked with a fatherly voice of Yahweh. He was charming, witty, affable, and knew how to diffuse any threatening situation with his humor and charm and kept people and events at a distance, giving people the impression that he was above the fray. He never let the hatred of his enemies enter his heart\u2014even Hitler ridiculed FDR when he requested not to attack. When FDR delivered his solemn inaugural speech, he was like a prophet of the Old Testament. His enemies called him “a cripple” to cripple him politically; but he stood up like Atlas, and killed the worst dictators in the universe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

All bullies are cowards; they bully you until you stand up and fight. Those who have changed the history and made this world a better place for us, have only one thing in common: You cannot bully them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Dr. Singh, you have helped us before; you helped us defeat terrorists in 2009. Sri Lankans do not give you enough credit for that. We need action, and ask for action, now. We started dreaming of a utopian Shangri-La after we had defeated terrorists in 2009 with your covert help. You showed the world that you are not scared to take action when action is needed. But now, we are scared, again.<\/p>\n

I have to tell the same thing to the rest of the world: Canada, England, or any other nation who is on the fence. You must participate; you must empower hapless Sri Lankans who are suffering secretly and who are scared to talk. CHOGM<\/a><\/span> is not about politicians. You participate to empower the ordinary hapless Sri Lankans; we are not inviting all of you to a soiree where you are going to have champagne and caviar and covet irresistible voluptuous women when you are drunk and have orgies and then go to your luxury hotels in comfortable Mercedes cars.<\/p>\n

Four stooges have borrowed billions to entertain you, while many hapless Sri Lankans do not even have a single rupee to buy a Panadol when they are in excruciating pain. Most wealthy Sri Lankans are blind to the suffering and privation of hapless Sri Lankans. They will feed the Buddhist monks endlessly until they vomit; these wealthy Sri Lankans\u00a0 think that poverty is due to your karma; when the monks are satiated, they would preach about Nirvana, meditation, compassion; deep down, the truth is that they are scared of their own death; worried about their next life\u2014they really believe that they are going to come back to this world in their next life, smelling like roses\u2014while for the majority of Sri Lankans, their entire life is a meditation on privation and suffering: they meditate on how to feed their children, how not to become a burden to their own children when they are old and feeble; even if they were to work 48 hours a day for seventy years, they would not make what a corrupt Sri Lankan politician would make in an hour. Sri Lanka is not the utopian Shangri-La of James Hilton. Do not be fooled by what you see on the surface; scratch the surface and you will see fear, starvation, privation, suffering, and hopelessness. Participate you must, because CHOGM is not about you or the four stooges, their thugs, their sycophants, their laptop licking journalists, and their sleazy big bellied ambassadors; it is about ordinary, hapless Sri Lankans who are genuinely sincere; go to a village in Sri Lanka, and they will treat you like you are a god incarnate; they will feed you with everything they have, and then when you are gone they will starve, because they have given everything to you, but their hearts will be filled with joy, because they have treated you and\u00a0 made you happy. That is the real Sri Lanka.<\/strong> Yes, they are not very sophisticated with politics; they think their politicians are going to deliver what they promise. Participate you must because that is your Dharma: your duty. Show the world that democracy is still alive; no matter how charismatic thugs are; thugs cannot rule this world. Nowadays, Hitlers have thicker, longer mustaches, and they always smile, showing their stupid teeth. Do not ever believe a person with a permanent smile on his face; their pictures are ubiquitous in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Our spineless, myopic opposition, including some TNA members and Sarath Fonseka<\/a><\/span>, is thinking of boycotting CHOGM. There is no panacea for their stupidity and hubris. If they do not participate in a colossal international event where Sri Lanka will be on the silver screen, they are inadvertently supporting the thugs. Thugs always try to cow people with words and gestures; all you have to do is listen to them; make them believe that you are scared of them, and hit them so hard so that they cannot stand up again. The etiquettes, protocols, and civilized forms of communication are not the way; remember, thugs terrorize, like terrorists. You don\u2019t invite thugs to Buckingham Palace to waltz with them. Most Sri Lankan politicians are thugs, not Harvard-educated erudite statesmen; some of them have honorary degrees from Russia.<\/p>\n

My gut feeling is that you will participate directly or indirectly. Desperate times call for desperate measures!. If you cannot participate, at least, please send Jayalalithaa<\/a><\/span> to Sri Lanka as your special CHOGM envoy. You must make our thugs taste the bitterness of their own medicine. When you are in Sri Lanka, talk to hapless Sri Lankans\u2014Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, and Burghers, not to the laptop licking Sri Lanka journalists, the prostitutes\u00a0 of this regime<\/strong>\u2014and ask the ordinary people whether they are scared of the Janus-faced four stooges. Ask them whether they believe that the rule of law applies to all Sri Lankans. Visit Jaffna and ask Wingneswaran<\/a><\/span> to organize a town-hall-style meeting. That is how you empower Sri Lankans.<\/p>\n

You can kill two birds with one stone. Your rival\u2014Narendra Modi<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u2014has already taken the first step by saying that Tamils in Tamil Nadu must help the Tamils in Sri Lanka. You cannot stay above the fray; if you do, your party will lose. Given the history of India, you have to consider what Tamils, not only in India but also in the rest of the word, including the Tamils in Sri Lanka think of the current regime.<\/p>\n

Regarding Tamil Nadu, you do not want to take back your country to early 1960s. Remember, when you deal with the public faces of Sri Lankan politicians, these stooges and thugs, they will smile, showing their teeth, giving you the impression that they are really compassionate; they will promise to cooperate with you. They will even promise more than what you ask them to do. Remember what they promised ypu: 13th Amendment<\/a><\/span> plus approach. When you are done talking to them, let Jayalalitha deal with their snarling hyena-like faces that they show to their hapless journalists. Give Jayalalithaa a chance to face her archenemies and look them in the eye and tell them that they must stop bullying their own people, not just the Sri Lankan Tamils; tell them that they must stop kidnapping people with white vans; tell them that if they do not stop, they will be annihilated. You cannot fight thugs with diplomacy. You need to learn their language if you want to communicate with them effectively; remember how Bush dealt with Musharraf after 9\/11. Bush did not send Powel, a soft-spoken diplomat; he sent Richard Lee Armitage; take a look at Richard Armitage, and you will get the message. Armitage\u2019s message was very pithy: If you don\u2019t cooperate with us, we will bomb you ‘back to the Stone Age.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was studying in Ukraine, I noticed an interesting phenomenon: older, hefty Russian women would kick out the inebriated Russian men out of public places when they misbehaved or when they became ungovernable. This is a perfect example of enantiodromia: women become more masculine as they grow older, and men become more feminine. I have seen a lot of older Russian women with mustaches.\u00a0 So, this is why Jayalalitha would be the ideal candidate to deal with our thugs who have become politicians. She can intimidate them to a point where they would look for their mothers to hide behind their mothers\u2019 skirts. Dr. Singh, if you or Jayalalithaa does not participate, you are empowering the thugs; by participating, you will transfer the power back to our hapless Sri Lankans; there are millions against these four stooges and their thugs, but they are impotent; fear has tied their tongues.<\/strong> It is time to inject some audacity to them and make them face their own bullies. We need to remind them what FDR said: Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course, there are three groups in Sri Lanka: Rajapaksa prostitutes; hapless spectators, and real reformers; Most of us\u2014Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, and Burghers\u2014love our country. Whether you are a residence or an expatriate, Sri Lanka is the place where we were born, where we discovered ourselves and our friends, where our eternal bliss reside, where we fell in love; Sri Lanka is our Holy Land; our spring of ambrosia. Yes, we can disagree, argue, and insult each other when we disagree; that is what people do when they love the same thing but disagree on how to protect what they love. Sri Lankans are very opinionated, and that is our prerogative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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