By
C.A. Chandraprema
When Mahinda Rajapaksa was first elected to power in 2005, he won on a patriotic vote. Many national minded people feared that a UNP victory would mean complete capitulation to the western powers and even division of the country. After assuming power, the Rajapaksa government exceeded the expectations of the patriotic masses and not only finished off the LTTE in record time but even while the war was in full swing, they began a development thrust unseen since British colonial times. But another set of problems was generated by the very act of expeditiously finishing off the war.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Beruwala-Jun18-pic via: facebook.com/BBCSinhala
One of those is of course is the encirclement of Sri Lanka by the Western powers, the UN, various international NGOs and the Tamil diaspora all calling for accountability over alleged human rights violations. That is the external challenge. The internal challenge created by the success of the Rajapaksas is the question of patriots who were suddenly rendered redundant by the end of the war.
After a war, most countries are usually faced with the problem of demobilized fighting men. A complicating factor in Sri Lanka was that this was a civil war and there were fighting men on both sides of the divide who had to be looked after. But Sri Lanka handled this problem extremely well in what can probably be a model for other nations to follow in similar situations. A policy of not demobilizing the army but making them an integral part of the development effort of the country was adopted.
In the case of LTTE combatants they were rehabilitated and given vocational training to be able to live as ordinary citizens. The demobilized LTTE cadres may not have had the security of a readymade pensionable job, but still the success of the programme is evident in that there have been no significant attempts by these ex-fighting men and women to regroup. Where the government failed however was in looking after the Sinhala patriots who had by design or accident ended up turning patriotism into a political career.
If we look at the period before 1994, there was no political space for Sinhala patriots outside the UNP or the SLFP. During that period, the UNP was in power and those advocating the Sinhala line were concentrated within the SLFP. Even unaffiliated patriotic intellectuals like Nalin de Silva and Gunadasa Amarasekera supported the SLFP at the 1988 presidential elections. During the late 1980s politicians advocating the Sinhala line were largely concentrated in the SLFP in the form of individuals like Jinadasa Niyathapala, Tilak Karunaratne, S.L.Gunasekera, Hemakumara Nanayakkara and others. What opened up a political space for an independent patriotic Sinhala political party after 1994 was the adoption of a capitulationist political line by both the SLFP under Chandrika Kumaratunga and the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Govt. insensitivity
What started off as a National Movement Against Terrorism in the late 1990s to oppose the capitulationism of both the UNP and the SLFP gradually transformed into a political party and from the year 2000, the Jathika Hela Urumaya has been represented in parliament. The number of their representatives reached its highest point in 2004 at the peak of the capitulationism of the UNP and the SLFP. In 2008, a breakaway group of the JVP led by Wimal Weerawansa which was also largely motivated by patriotic considerations came on the scene.
So when the war ended in 2009, there were two political parties, the JHU and JNP espousing the Sinhala patriotic line. But with the end of the war, their brand of politics suddenly lost relevance to the electorate. At every election since the end of the war, both the JHU and the JNP have been losing ground. The fact that the JHU and JNP were in coalition with the SLFP compounded their problems because when you are in coalition with a larger partner who also articulated much the same ideology, your separate identity is blurred and the voter fails to see the importance of voting for your candidate as against any other person on the list.
The situation today is such that after the next parliamentary election, there may not be a single representative of the independent Sinhala patriotic parties left in parliament except for Wimal Weerawansa who will always win because of his oratory and because he is seen by the public as a pillar of the UPFA – more so than most SLFPers. Even Udaya Gammanpila came second in Colombo at the Western PC elections only because he was made the leader of the UPFA group. JHU votes alone could not have propelled him to the second position. After the war ended, the marketplace for Sinhala patriotism suddenly disappeared. No one could get elected merely by espousing the patriotic cause and political hegemony once again slipped back to the two main parties – the SLFP and the UNP. Coupled to these woes was the insensitivity of the leaders of the government to the special problems faced by these small separate political entities that had joined the governing coalition.
These are separate political parties with separate hierarchies and separate dependents who have to be looked after. It goes without saying that party leaders with followings to maintain cannot be treated like ordinary members of the SLFP. For an SLFP minister to be shifted from one ministry to the other or to have a programme pruned is not the same as the leader of a separate political party being shifted around or having a programme pruned. An SLFP minister has only the supporters in his electorate to maintain. But separate political parties will need greater consideration.
The government should in fact ask themselves whether it was really necessary to deprive Champika Ranawaka of the Power and Energy ministry and if it was, whether he should not have been given at least the environment ministry he held earlier. In Weerawansa’s case, the government should ask themselves whether they could not have allowed his low-interest housing loan scheme to continue. Changes of ministries or the pruning of projects may lead to not only to a loss of face but a whole existential crisis within those parties.
In contrast to the plight of the Sinhala patriotic parties, the minority ethnic parties like the Tamil National Alliance, the Muslim parties and the political parties of the up-country Tamils are all doing well in the post war period. Indeed the minority ethnic parties which are in the governing coalition may be seen to be wielding disproportionate influence in contrast to the Sinhala patriotic parties. This no doubt adds to the resentment. The government should help both the JHU and the JNP overcome their existential problems by offering them a package they cannot refuse to disband both parties and integrate with the SLFP – one good ministry each, with guaranteed representation for their leaders in parliament through the national list even if he does not get enough preference votes to get elected. Special projects in their ministries that reach out to the public, and a fixed number of chairmanships and directorships in government enterprises for the second tier in their parties should be made available. They must be given a package that will enable them to join the SLFP with self respect.
Hambayo! Marakkalayo!
We can see that the plight of the Sinhala patriotic parties has led to certain sections resorting to desperate expedients such as trying to create a new enemy for the Sinhalese in the form of the Muslims. This country is not short of threats from outside by the Western powers, the UN, various international NGOs and the Tamil diaspora. But rallying the people against the external threat will help only the Rajapaksas and the SLFP core of the government and will not help solve the dilemma faced by the Sinhala patriotic political parties which are at the same time in coalition and competition with the SLFP. The party that is facing the most amount of problems appears to be not so much the JNP as the JHU.
The JNP probably has less problems because Weerawansa is seen as a pillar of the government and despite some hiccups in the relationship, things seem to be on even keel again. It appears to be the JHU that is having the most problems which is understandable because Ranawaka’s ministry was downgraded.
However this attempt by certain quarters to shore up their political fortunes by positing the Muslims as the new enemy of the Sinhalese is bound to fail. It is true that Muslim and upcountry leaders have the opportunistic practice of serving in every government by trading their votes for ministerial portfolios. But at the same time it must not be forgotten that in both the UNP and the SLFP, the vast majority of those who wield power are Sinhalese. So the Sinhalese too will have the final word in everything whichever political party comes into power. Furthermore, not even the most extremist of the Muslim organizations have any hope of setting up an Islamic state in any part of the country. The way the Muslim population is distributed makes such a thing impossible. For the Muslims to breed fast enough to overtake the Sinhalese as the majority community will take a very long time. While extremist doctrines may spread among the Muslim population it will not have a practical impact on the rest of society. The extremists can mutter their extremist views to themselves and stay at home.
To best the Muslims at their own game when it comes to business, you don’t need a hate campaign or violence against Muslims. All you have to do is to quietly organize a boycott of Muslim business establishments. The people realize this which is why every attempt made by certain people to whip up an anti-Muslim hysteria among the public has failed. There was an attempt to combine this anti-Muslim hysteria with a campaign against cattle slaughter. One monk was persuaded to set himself on fire in front of the dalada maligawa and the JHU was trying to portray the self immolation of this monk as a ‘self sacrifice’ for a cause. That project was a dismal failure, and today even the name of that monk has been forgotten. Even the Alutgama riots which flared up due to a local dispute did not spread anywhere else. In fact the Alutgama incident has now made both the Sinhalese and the Muslims more cautious and that will inhibit the possibility of similar incidents in the future. Some Muslim leaders are now on the lookout for the activities of hotheads among them, going to the extent of asking the authorities to ban events organized by extremist Muslim factions.
The Sinhalese are also obviously tired of these conflicts and do not respond to these attempts to whip up hysteria. What is most embarrassing, pathetic and despicable about these attempts to create a new enemy for the Sinhalese is the use of monks to do the rabble rousing. The link between the JHU and the mad monks of the Bodu Bala Sena is not clear but one can see that when the thug-monks of the BBS make an assertion, it tends to be echoed by the JHU. This is an embarrassingly pathetic finale to an organization that held the moral high ground in the late 1990s and appealed to reason and logic attracting many Sinhala middle class voters.
The reason why monks have been sent to the forefront to create disturbances is obviously because of the immunity the robe enjoys. This writer fully understands and indeed sympathizes with the predicament faced by the Sinhala patriotic parties after the war and also agrees that the government has not been sensitive enough to their special needs as separate political parties. However what cannot possibly be condoned is the misuse of the robe of the Buddha for some miserable political objective.
It was only since 2012 that a certain group with shady links to Norway hit upon the idea of using monks to destabilize the country. In order to create another ethnic conflict the law will have to be broken and an ethnic group harassed. If laymen tried to do this, they would have been dealt with by the law enforcement authorities; hence the use of monks. Because of the traditional respect that monks have enjoyed in this country, when a monk calls upon the public to become ‘unofficial policemen’ he is not arrested whereas if a layman had said the same thing, he would have been arrested before he could complete the sentence. With each succeeding operation of the Bodu Bala Sena, it became obvious that the authorities were reluctant to arrest or baton charge them no matter what they did. This was an unusual situation that the government faced, one that had not been faced by any government in the entire history of the country.
All the projects that these monks started were failures as public rallying points. Today, nobody is interested in the Halal certification issue, boycotting of Muslim owned apparel outlets or in the slaughter of cattle. But where the marauding monks succeeded was in enjoying immunity from arrest and prosecution no matter what they did. Government ministries were invaded, anti-Muslim hate speech was spewed forth from stages, other monks who refused to toe their line were harassed openly in public. By the time the Alutgama incident came around, the Bodu Bala Sena had in a sense reached an impasse. They could engage in thuggery and spew forth hate speech with impunity, but the anti-Muslim campaign was not taking off the way they had hoped. The unplanned incident which occurred in Alutgama was a gift from heaven for these rabble rousers.
But even Alutgama has proved to be a failure because the riots did not spread beyond Alutgama and Beruwela. In the wake of the riots, the former patron of the BBS Ven Kirama Wimalajothi openly disassociated himself with the group. The Muslims have also now been alerted to watch out for hot heads among them. The government too has become slightly more assertive with regard to the BBS as when they prevented a BBS ‘adistana pooja’ organised at the Dalada maligawa from becoming the usual public show. Even the media seems to have understood that they were giving publicity to conspirators and subversives. In the past two years, wherever the BBS organized an event, the media would fall over one another to cover it and broadcast Gnanasara’s uncouth speeches and footage of the unseemly scenes he created.
In the context of the dearth of news after the end of the war, the footage provided by the mad monks was manna from heaven for the media particularly the TV stations. This unusual behaviour by monks attracted attention. Any unusual behaviour always does. Back in late 2009, at the height of Sarath Fonseka’s presidential bid, this writer noticed that if Fonseka’s speeches had 4,000 – 5,000 hits on Youtube, clips of Mervyn Silva’s stupid antics had several times that number of hits! People have an appetite for scandal. A Buddhist monk uttering uncouth language in public, breaking the law in full view of the police, invading ministries, leading demonstrations and generally creating mayhem was good for the news channels until even the media appears to have realized in the wake of Alutgama that this is not news laced with scandal but subversion and incitement. So it appears that even the media will be careful about what they cover and what scenes they broadcast in the future.
Painful insult to Buddhism
Never before in our history has Buddhism been insulted in this manner by ordained monks for a political objective. What is most deplorable is that a group referring to themselves as patriotic Sinhalese have not only condoned but actively encouraged this kind of behaviour by echoing the views of the mad monks. The question that we have to ask ourselves is whether any political objective is worth destroying the image of Buddhism? When the thug-monk spoke in Alutgama he was screaming that the Sinhalese have no leader and that they needed a new leader. Mahinda Rajapksa gave the Sinhalese the leadership it needed to achieve a war victory that amazed the entire world. Not stopping at that, he initiated a development thrust not seen in this country since British colonial era. Quite apart from that he has shown himself to be a sane and balanced leader who does not persecute the opposition political parties and create unnecessary tension in the country. Most recently, Mahinda stood up to Narendra Modi and told him politely that the provincial councils will not be given police powers. The Sinhalese already have a leader, the likes of which we have never had before!
What is clear is that the immunity of the saffron robe has gone into the heads of these maurauding monks. Indeed this immunity is heady stuff. Monks can invade government ministries with TV cameras in tow and even with multiple video recordings of the incident, the police fail to recognize the miscreants. Little wonder that that in the run up to Alutgama, these mad monks were literally brimming with confidence. There is a video on You Tube which shows the scene at one of the interchanges to the southern highway. It’s after nightfall and some vehicles carrying thug monks has been stopped by the police. The dialogue between the most venerable monks and the police goes as follows:
Venerable monk: “Muge ammalata … meke hambayanto okkoma sellang danna puluwan. Wal parayo, rupiyal seeyata dahata nemena wesige puthala. Umbala video dala pennapallako. Annduwath peralanawa me ammage redden. Me deshapalana bale nemei, deshapalakayo ekekwath ganan ganne ne api. Gas ballo, Hambayanta puka denawa.”
Overawed cops: Methane hambayo ne ekekwath.
Venerable monk: Ekata eka kiyannaenna epa…
Overawed cops: “Wedagath hamuduru kenek nam oya wage kunuharapen baninawada?”
Venerable monk: “Kunuharapa katha nokarana eke vipaka me, Thopila okkoma hitaagena inne hamudurugollo ponnayo kiyalada? (The last word that can be audibly head as the most reverend monk gets into the vehicle is ‘vesige puthala’.)
This would have been funny if it was just a case of road rage. But these were the rantings of a delusional madman who actually believes that he is above the law and he can even overthrow governments. There was the threat uttered recently by one mad monk that if he is arrested, he will contest the presidency! Which is in effect a threat to defeat Mahinda by splitting the Sinhala vote – and he seem to think that he can do it. Even as late as the first half of 2012, the names of these madmen were unknown to the Sri Lankan public. When this writer queried as to what Gnanasara was doing during the war, one of his supporters wrote in to the Divaina saying that he went from bunker to bunker in the border villages distributing ‘pirith pen’. Another thing he had done was to disrupt meetings of the Anti-War Front! We see from this reply that he distributed pirth pen where there is risk to life and limb and resorts to thuggery when the target group is unarmed. These are the individuals who seek to overthrow a government led by war heroes who surprised and inspired the whole world!
Looking at the meteoric rise of Gnansara, General Sarth Fonseka must be thinking what a fool he was to have fought terrorists for more than three decades at such an immense risk to his life. If he had joined the Buddhist monkhood as a youth instead of joining the army, he could have led a life without any risk and after the war, he could have staked his claim to the presidency simply by speaking in uncouth language and throwing his weight around! Sarath Fonseka is a genuine war hero and that is why we in The Island have always referred to him as ‘General Fonseka’ even though he has been stripped of his rank. But what can we say about Gnanasara, a delusional monk thinking that he can topple governments and create new leaders for the Sinhalese! What is the point in winning the war if we are going to suffer worse insults to our dignity and good name as Sinhala Buddhists after the war than we ever suffered during the war?
As I have been saying all along, this problem should be met with an iron fist, the jackboot and well seasoned bull’s pizzles. It is the Rajapaksas who finished off the LTTE and who are facing the international encirclement. It is they who face jail for life if this government falls. These marauding monks are trying to bring the government down by destabilizing the country, which is exactly what the external forces against Sri Lanka also want. These monkish conspirators are the Trojan horse within the defences and all genuine patriots should regard them as such.
Courtesy:Sunday Island