ගාන්ධි නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාවට කැඳවාගෙන ඒම -5
As in many other colonised countries, the political awakening that sought reform came out of the religious revival — the native religions, pushed into a low condition under foreign rule, working to recover the standing they had held. In Ceylon that happened in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.
ගාන්ධි නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාවට කැඳවා ගෙන ඒම (3)
Gandhi’s analysis of the crisis modern Sri Lanka faces and of the way to overcome it comes with his commentary on Sri Lankan history, and this instalment is his reading of the Portuguese and Dutch periods: the conversions, the Karava and Salagama communities, the Malays, and the taking of the Kandyan kingdom.
ගාන්ධි නූතන ශ්රී ලංකාවට ගෙන්වා ගැනීම (II)
It was Gandhi who showed the world that spiritual strength joined to popular power can be turned into an undefeated motive force working for the progress, the justice and the liberation of ordinary people, free of self-interest, malice and hatred. Einstein said at his death that a powerful following can be won not only by political cunning but by the example of a disciplined and exalted human conduct.
ජයග්රහණය හා ඉදිරි ගමන
Rajapaksa’s re-election was large but its limits are visible. Ivan contrasts Wickremesinghe’s acceptance of defeat in 2005, decided by 180,786 votes, with Fonseka’s refusal to concede without explaining why the result is dishonest — a soldier new to politics who misread his crowds and campaigned believing defeat impossible. Both sides broke the law: the government used state media and resources as every government has since 1977, while the opposition used overseas websites and an FM station to spread false reports that the President had fled to India and the Elections Commissioner was under house arrest. The alliance behind Fonseka was held together by nothing but hostility to Rajapaksa, and included men who had accused him of Lasantha Wickrematunge’s murder. The anti-Rajapaksa revolt was largely urban, and the victory drew almost no Tamil, up-country Tamil or Muslim support. Infrastructure spending in the north and east has not answered the political question beneath it.
ජනාධිපතිවරණය ජනතාව භේද කරන තරගයක් නොවිය යුතුය
Government figures have attacked the Tamil National Alliance’s decision to back Sarath Fonseka, one claiming it could revive terrorism. The alliance did serve the LTTE’s programme, but out of fear rather than conviction; with the LTTE defeated its representatives can act freely, and its local councillors have sung the national anthem. Backing one of the two main candidates is better than a boycott or a separate candidate. Fonseka, once a hardline Sinhala nationalist, has drawn wide minority support. The Vaddukoddai declaration ruined the Tamil people as much as the country, and the LTTE’s defeat opens space for a united society of equal citizens. Both candidates have a duty to make this an election that moves the country forward rather than one that sows division.
ජාතිවාදය බෙදුම්වාදය හා කල්ලිවාදය
Ivan takes the president’s promise that there will be no more room for separatism — and,
importantly, for racism — as the right formula, since each feeds the other. The victory
should produce humility rather than triumph, and the test of it is whether wrong opinions
are defeated by argument rather than by threat, and whether thinkers, journalists and
artists can say what they think without fear for their lives.
What Next?
Written after the LTTE’s defeat in May 2009, the piece credits Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sarath Fonseka and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa with the victory and turns to what remains: uniting a people divided by race, religion and caste, and settling the ethnic question. Ivan blames the Tamil leaders who first proposed a separate state as much as Prabhakaran, and argues that 1956 could have been handled differently.
සිරසේ සිරසට පහරදීම
The Claymore detonated inside Sirasa’s operations room symbolises the security forces, whoever ordered it: only the forces and the LTTE hold Claymores or know how to handle them, and if the forces did this the signal it sends is more frightening still. Ivan traces the campaign that preceded it — Wimal Weerawansa’s JVP putting up posters nationwide calling Kili Maharaja and Sirasa a front for the LTTE after Sirasa depicted Weerawansa as a donkey, Mervyn Silva calling the channel a Tiger supporter, and public accusations over its coverage of the airbase attack on the day Kilinochchi fell. The attack was the logical outcome of that campaign. Naming political opponents as LTTE supporters, and rejoicing when they are killed by the LTTE, is an established habit here: SLFP supporters let off firecrackers when Premadasa was assassinated, and UNP supporters painted a pottu on Chandrika’s posters in 1994.
එල්ල වී තිබෙන අභියෝගයට එක්සත්ව මුහුණ දිය යුතුය
The war has entered a new phase and the LTTE has answered by attacking civilians in the south. Ivan distinguishes civilian deaths from air strikes, which may happen, from attacks aimed at civilians, which are chosen — then says the danger now is a second Black July, and that neither suppressing the opposition nor destabilising the government can be justified against it.
60 වසරක නිදහසේ අස්වැන්න
Sixty years on we still blame the British for what we have made of the country, Ivan writes, and we are not ready to ask honestly whether we did it to ourselves. India was worth wealth to the Empire and Ceylon was worth its position; what we inherited was a political system we then steered in a feudal pattern, dividing citizens by race, religion and caste for the convenience of ruling them.