{"id":55654,"date":"2012-10-03T10:11:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T10:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=55654"},"modified":"2012-10-14T10:50:18","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T10:50:18","slug":"dying-for-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/dying-for-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Dying For Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>

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

Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Devasiri<\/a><\/span> has provided probably the best answer to various critics of the agitation campaign of the Federation of University Teachers\u2019 Associations (FUTA<\/a><\/span>) of which he is the President.\u00a0 His interview in the Lankadeepa of October 2, 2012, Devasiri covers much ground and puts the record straight regarding FUTA\u2019s alleged NGO-funds-dependency as well as claims that FUTA was the pawn of political groups with agenda that had little to do with the main thrust of demands.<\/p>\n

He has claimed that FUTA, contrary to claims made by various Government spokespersons, has no interest in overthrowing the Government.\u00a0 Indeed, he was quoted in the \u2018Rivira\u2019 as being more interested in \u2018changing the people\u2019 or rather appointing \u2018a new people\u2019.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Devasiri is old enough, educated enough and has enough political savvy to understand that agitators don\u2019t always control the script.\u00a0 True, various attempts by politicians of various parties to make (small) capital of the political moment were effectively stymied by FUTA organizers.<\/p>\n

There is no getting around the fact that the front seats at the end-o-march rally were occupied by politicians of a political party that held \u2018privatization\u2019 as an article of faith.\u00a0 That should not take away too much gloss from what was clearly a very well organized event where political maturity prevailed over the general slip towards lumpenization that one has come to expect.<\/p>\n

We are not talking here about demand-fairness, or the intellectual weight and moral worth of the same.\u00a0 We are talking specifically about a demonstration of political position and related objections.\u00a0 The claims about a \u2018sinister hand\u2019 amount to unadulterated rubbish, although one would not rule out people sniffing for possible takings of a kind more pernicious than the easily visible clinging-to-straw exercise of the UNP.\u00a0 If there were, they were excluded from script-writing.\u00a0 Even poor Comrade Bahu was unceremoniously hoofed out of the stage.<\/p>\n

There was, however, a rather disconcerting \u2018end note\u2019 to the above interview.\u00a0 Devasiri, when questioned \u2018what next?\u2019, ominously said, \u2018If the government decides on coercion, that would be a big step<\/strong>; if that happens they will be discredited (emphasis ours)\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Big step\u2019?\u00a0 For whom?\u00a0 The FUTA struggle?\u00a0 Devasiri follows that \u2018conclusion\u2019 with the equally ominous, \u2018We do not know what could happen beyond that\u2019.\u00a0 Devasiri is no baby.\u00a0 He lived through 88-89.\u00a0 His fascination with things political is well known.\u00a0 He is not only a historian but a keen student of politics as well.\u00a0 He has read not only Marx, but Antonio Gramsci too.\u00a0 He knows the old theories about the ideological state apparatus giving way to the coercive and under what kind of conditions.\u00a0 He cannot be \u2018innocent\u2019 and \u2018not-knowing\u2019 about \u2018what could happen beyond that\u2019.<\/p>\n

Technically he is on safe ground.\u00a0 He could say \u2018big\u2019 means \u2018important\u2019 or \u2018significant\u2019, which is true.\u00a0 On the other hand, as a person who is not insensitive to nuance in statement and\/or silent, Devasiri would have been quick to point out (if that statement was made by a political \u2018other\u2019, for example) that the \u2018big thing\u2019 is something anticipated or even desired.<\/p>\n

It is not very different to the Inter University Student Federation and their kind of political engagement where a \u2018death\u2019 is desired in order to keep things moving.\u00a0 A couple of years ago, a key mover in that organization told me, privately, that it would be good if the government pushed them (the JVP \u2013 he made no secret of his party loyalties, although in public the IUSF vociferously claimed \u2018independence\u2019 from all political parties) into the jungle.<\/p>\n

We would like to be generous to Devasiri, if not for anything, because it is hard under the circumstances to be generous to the Government, even if it\u2019s certainly not an either-or situation.\u00a0 We would like to think that Devasiri, knowing well the inevitable outcome of such a \u2018big step\u2019; around 60,000 dead and the system (which, as much as politicians, denies) stronger by another round; would do his best not to push things towards that tragedy.\u00a0 He might even tell himself that in a way that is what can in the end keep the system going.<\/p>\n

If we get that \u2018big step\u2019 and we get a replay of say 88-89 who gets discredited will only be of academic interest.\u00a0 Historians like Devasiri will no doubt write all about it.\u00a0 There will be a lot of discarded placards to clean up.\u00a0 Among them a problematic but certainly appealing one-numeral slogan cum crowd-puller: 6%<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Nation Editorial<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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