{"id":163141,"date":"2016-05-29T00:35:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-28T19:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=163141"},"modified":"2016-06-04T23:58:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T18:28:10","slug":"the-struggle-to-free-the-tamil-political-prisoners-to-answer-for-the-displaced-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-struggle-to-free-the-tamil-political-prisoners-to-answer-for-the-displaced-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"The Struggle To Free The Tamil Political Prisoners & To Answer For The Displaced In Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ranjan Fernando<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ranjan<\/a>

Ranjan Fernando<\/p><\/div>\n

We are on the brink of a Fascist takeover, I feel. I cannot \u2018prove\u2019 it as one would a scientific hypothesis. Hence it is a collection of feelings based on what one hears, what one sees etc. In particular, I bring as a witness Prof. Sarath Wijesooriya, the successor to Ven. Sobitha whose impressive collection of civil organizations along with the Tamil votes brought about the downfall of the unlamented Rajapaksa regime.<\/p>\n

In his regular writings to \u2018Ravaya\u2019, Prof. Wijesooriya chronicles a litany of lost hopes, betrayals, corruption and spinelessness of the new regime that he with millions of equally fair-minded citizens helped to found. But now he is ready to take up cudgels against them instead of merely complaining and moaning about their misdemeanors. The good Professor is in fact informing us of instances where the government is wheeling and dealing with Rajapakses for party political reasons thereby delaying, obstructing the legal process.<\/p>\n

He once reminded me of Tsereteli and other ministers in the pre – revolutionary Kerensky regime in Russia, who played a similar role. The very weakness of that regime paved the way for Lenin, who was willing and ready to take power. Conversely, similar situations were obtained in Spain with General Francisco Franco coming to power in 1936, rise of Hitler (who was a mere Corporal during World War I) in Germany in 1934 etc, where the weak went to the wall yielding power to the strong. Prof. Wijesooriya now demands unequivocally and correctly that we should turn our backs on this degenerate regime and kick \u2013 start the good hearted civic populace to create the \u2018just society\u2019 that we all yearn for. Otherwise history will repeat itself, first as farce and then as tragedy. From homestead to the streets \u2013 let the march begin!\"Vavuniya_prison01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My second witness is none other than the Prime Minister\u2019s own elder brother, Shan Wickremesinghe. In his daily morning progamme in TNL, the radio and TV channel that he owns, he openly chides and criticizes the many misdoings of this government and its officials. Now they are two sane and respected persons that the country listens to.<\/p>\n

Yet, they and others should know that there are no vacuums either in nature or in society. Further, I think they know that Rajapaksa too is willing and ready and marching with seven league boots to establish a Fascist regime. All the forces are in place \u2013 from Mahavamsa mythology to many of temples and their corrupt monks, the lumpen proletariat , the debauched officials, local and national \u2019politician\u2019 thugs, media Goebbels and the reactionary army generals! Dr. Vickramabahu consistently takes the trouble to explain what \u2018Fascism\u2019 is and the methodology it uses to grab power.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa is compelled by circumstances to step into the void and take power. He has no option. Charges against him and his kith and kin are piling up daily. Though the noose is tightening round his neck the lever \u2013 operator is absent! He has to get off the scaffold and become the executioner. He has the appetite for power to put his weak-kneed accusers on the scaffold instead.
\nSo why is he waiting? Perhaps fear of International repercussions \u2013 United Nations, Geneva Human Rights Commissions, European Union, India and all that. He will soon get the courage to know that there are enough regimes that have defied the civilized world and created their own hell on earth. With the help of Chinese, he can establish a North- Korea type regime here and take us all to the bronze age. More importantly as the Professor seems to suggest, Rajapakse may be bidding his time to see how far the pliable President and the Prime Minister can be pushed to get him and his cronies off the hook.<\/p>\n

Now the democratic forces and the Tamils who are alarmed and feel despondent about these developments are offered two opposing palliatives. The first is to create a decent, honest and moral polity and the second \u2018solution\u2019 is to carry out a proletarian revolution which will wipe out class, caste and racial oppression. Though arising from different perspectives, both these groups do not recognize<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. A distinct Tamil Nation,
\n2. Their country Elam or
\n3. Their right to self-determination, with the honorable exception of Dr. Vickramabahu of the NSSP. They both, who essentially represent the Sinhala \u2013 Buddhist perspective either oppose that demand or over-ride it with various provisos.<\/p>\n

This is despite the main lesson of modern history of how nations came about. And how without such recognition and the subsequent power sharing to establish a unified country we will be killing each other until the human species that is doomed to die out in less than a hundred years due to environmental destruction and population explosion. (This forecast was first given by Prof. Frank Fenner in 1970s and now accepted by most governments.)<\/p>\n

While it is not worth wasting time about the \u2018revolution\u2019 solution, it is good to remember that the most vociferous group among them, the JVP, had racist attitudes from its inception, were ardent supporters of the war against Tamils and demanded the use of heavy weapons against them. With such \u2018revolutionaries\u2019 who needs reactionaries!<\/p>\n

The most astute and ardent spokesman for the first solution of creating a decent, honest society is Victor Ivan of \u2018Ravaya\u2019. I think that among editors, he has written the largest number of books ranging in style and content from chess to \u2018Saving Sri Lanka\u2019. I wrote a review about the latter to \u2018Sunday Leader\u2019 recommending that it should be translated to English. The book essentially contrast our crass, backward \u2018national leaders\u2019 with their reactionary attitudes against Indian Statesmen who molded, with blood & tears, a modern society and a state that is democratic, decent & secular. We didn\u2019t have to fight for our independence – it was thrust on us. Shedding blood and tears we left for a later date! And we are still at it with gusto. With characteristic aplomb, Victor is continuing his crusade though sadly he too supported the war. He does not recognize the qualitative difference between the armed uprising of the JVP and the Tamil war of Independence. He asserts that the \u2018state\u2019, whatever its nature, is morally just and duty bound to suppress all uprisings.<\/p>\n

Yet there is a discernable sea-change in his attitude towards the utopia of building a decent unitary state. He laments now that we the Sinhalese are congenitally incapable of being decent and honest! He claims now that our natural propensity towards thuggery, betrayal, brigandry and the like must have been inculcated into our genes from the mythical founder of our nation, King Vijaya! If so, not only is it an aberration of the Law of Evolution enunciated by Charles Darwin and its corollary, Social Evolution (I have reason to doubt whether Victor accepts Evolution as a scientifically proven fact) but it also destroys his original thesis of the necessity to build a decent, democratic society. So, here you have the \u2018thesis\u2019 and the \u2018anti-thesis\u2019 wrapped up in one bundle! One contradicts and neutralizes the other and we are left with a void as with the \u2018socialist revolution\u2019 option. We are orphaned by both perspectives. It is the net result of not appreciating the yearning of the Tamil Nation to be Free.<\/p>\n

This is where the struggle to free the Political Prisoners and to answer for the Disappeared comes on stage. Particularly the Political Prisoners are the living symbol of all that is vile and contemptible of the Sinhalese psyche.<\/p>\n

The ideological bedrock of Sinhala Fascism is Mahavamsa<\/span><\/a>. It annihilates, reverses and prostitutes all the teachings of that great, noble and fearless philosopher Buddha. I recall, with a lump in my throat, Bertrand Russell once telling me that \u201cof all the so-called religious leaders, I will bow my head only to Buddha\u201d.<\/p>\n

When I read Mahavamsa, I had in it echoes of the Old Testament approving of genocide, ethnic cleansing, conquering of other peoples\u2019 lands and above all, reducing the inhabitants thereof to sub-humans. Once you declare humans to be animals, it is but a small step to annihilate them as vermin. So you start with absurdities and end up with atrocities.<\/p>\n

Do you know what prisons represent? Why is that storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution, attack by Fidel and Che\u2019s forces on Batista\u2019s Cuban Prison and so on are very symbolic of bringing down those oppressive regimes? Why did Ho Chi Ming say \u201cwhen the prison gates open, dragons will fly out\u201d Enough said. Because prisons are, my friends, the ultimate symbol of man\u2019s hatred towards his fellow \u2013man and the Tamil Political Prisoners are a living symbol of Sinhala chauvinism and racism. Helping to get them out will create the conditions to expose many ills in our country.<\/p>\n

Now let us try and answer these questions honestly:-<\/p>\n