The “Irida Divaina” of 19th
January announced with banner headlines that the mask worn by USA has dropped,
and it is very likely that the good translators at the American Embassy in Sri
Lanka would have brought it to the notice of the officials in the embassy who
are “committed” to human rights. It may be that the embassy is not concerned of
news items reported in the Sri Lankan press, especially of the “vernacular”
Sinhala as these are mostly read by Sinhala Buddhists. Why should the super
power be concerned of what the Sinhala Buddhists think of the American policy?
The embassy it appears has ignored the news item, and no media has bothered to
ask the spokesperson of the embassy to respond to it. However, it is an
important news item for the Sinhala Buddhist human rights violators and the Sri
Lankan government.
In essence what the “Irida Divaina” has
said was that the American government would withdraw the resolution that is
intended to be brought before the Geneva human rights council provided that the
Sri Lankan government would implement the following among others. Devolution of
all powers including land and police powers as per the thirteenth amendment to
the Northern and Eastern Provinces, Release land in the Northern Province, Hold
an independent investigation of all officers in the armed forces who have
alleged “war crime” charges against them, To allow the NGOs and media to work
without any obstacles within the country and To indict the tigers in custody or
to release them.
I do not want to analyze these demands,
and it is reported that the government has rejected all of them as they should
have been. The demands are political and a threat to the national security as
the Sri Lankan government has apparently realized. However, what is interesting
is that according to the “Irida Divaina” the American government is prepared to
drop the charges of human rights violations if the Sri Lankan government
accedes to the American demands. These charges on human rights violations would
naturally include those on so called war crimes, and what it implies is that
the west especially England and USA are using human rights as a political
weapon. This is not something unknown, and unlike the “pundits” and enlightened
people of various fora we yakkos knew always that human rights are used by the
western countries led by England and USA against countries in Asia and Africa,
in order to maintain the hegemony of the Judaic Christian culture.
The England led west has been using the
Tamils, previously the English educated Tamil Vellalas, at present the
dispersed Tamils in the west against the Sinhala people, especially the Sinhala
Buddhists. The NGO pundits and the UNP,
JVP opposition join the west in this exercise either directly or indirectly.
What the west wants is an autonomous Eastern Province and a Northern Province
controlled by the dispersed Tamils in the west, and as far as the former is
concerned TNA is only a tool in this whole exercise. The TNA or their
predecessors were only proxy of the LTTE in the parliament and the role that
the west wants the TNA to play in the parliament and the provincial councils is
similar. The TNA for all purposes is the proxy of the dispersed Tamils in the
west, and the Samapnthan, Wigneswaran and Sumanthiran thrithva (trio) can hold
on to the leadership of the party only if they carry out orders from the
dispersed Tamils.
The moment that the west and the
dispersed Tamils lose faith in the thrithva they will be replaced by another
thrithva in the form of Ananthi, Premachandran and Sridharan. The NGO pundits
in Sri Lanka have also gradually turning to politics from being good samaritans
interested in peace and human rights. They probably know with the west that
human rights is beginning to lose all the attractions with the government of
Sri Lanka flatly refusing to be fooled by western strategies.
The pundits writing on behalf of NGOs,
most of whom are non Sinhala Buddhists, are now agitating again for so called
international pressure on the government of Sri Lanka to implement the thirteenth
amendment and devolve more and more power to the Northern and Eastern
Provinces. The government correctly appears to believe that there is no ethnic
problem in the country. The President has said this, may be in different words
but it is the general opinion among the Sinhala people, especially among the
Sinhala Buddhists as well. It is not that the latter formed its opinion after
the government, but a case of the government getting the cue from the public.
As we have said often Sinhala nationalism is bottom up and the leaders and
opinion leaders take the cue from the masses.
Strictly speaking there are no opinion
leaders in the Sinhala society, as the latter are only the mouth pieces or the
writing arms of the general public. This is something that the western educated
NGO pundits among the Sinhalas, most of whom are non Buddhists fail to grasp.
Bandaranaikes had to implement what the Sinhala people wanted and even in the
case of Bhikkus they put down the essence of Sinhala Buddhist thinking into
words. As far as the Sinhala majority are concerned there is no ethnic problem
in the country and Sri Lanka is not a so called multi cultural society. The
Sinhala majority consider Sri Lanka as a Sinhala Buddhist country where the
others of different culture also live without losing their cultural identity.
It is this opinion that the so called opinion leaders echo and not the other
way around.
Of course the Sinhala majority may not
know the intricacies of cultural domination but they understand it intuitively.
Few months ago I had the opportunity to say in public that the western science
is “pattapal boru” (blatant lies), and the response I got from the public was
revealing. The middle class professionals who have been exposed to western
“higher education”, whatever it means, criticized me for what I had to say and
the way I said them. However, the so called common man whom I meet in my
travels around the country, was very
appreciative of not only what I said but the way I said and somebody (an
unknown person) told me I spoke for the “gama”. These people may not have heard
of Newton and Einstein and would be considered as uneducated by the so called
professionals, but in their hearts they know that western knowledge is
oppressive.
Similarly they know that there is no ethnic
problem in the country and we have been a Sinhala Buddhist country for more
than two thousand years whether that concept had been formulated or not long
time ago. It is not something that Anagarika Dharmapala invented but an idea he
borrowed from the Upasaka Upasika (untranslatable words peculiar to Sinhala
Buddhist culture) in the country. There
are no multi cultural countries anywhere in the world, England being the
supreme example for a Christian country. The English have been so successful in
maintaining their Christian culture, not to be confused with the declining of
Church attendance on Sundays, that the entire world education is now almost
part of the English culture. It is those who are exposed to this education
especially in the Advanced Level classes and in the universities who cannot
understand that the education that they have received is English Christian and
fortunately the ordinary Sinhala people have nothing to learn from them. What
the NGO non Sinhala Buddhist pundits who clamor for “international pressure” is
that the majority of Sinhala Buddhists, unlike the “educated” are not scared or
threatened by such demands. The Sinhala people know their onions when it comes
to culture and domination, and unlike the English they have not pushed their
culture through the throats of people of other cultures and hence not bothered
by the accusations against them by the England led west nor those in Sri Lanka
dominated by the west.
22-01-2014
