By
Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka
Second of a Two-part Article
At the beginning of the first part of this article ,I referred to two groups of people whom the Gods are driving stupid as a prelude to driving them mad, which itself is a prelude to destruction. The first group was the pro-regime or anti-Rajapaksa liberals. The second group consists of the Tamil nationalists.
The Tamil nationalists are behaving in such a manner as to secure the electoral victory of the hardest line Sinhala nationalists around. This is not the first time they have behaved thus. Every time they expect the world to support the Tamil cause and the Sinhala nationalist to lose all external support—thereby ending up with the victory of the Tamil project of self-determination. It has never worked. It won’t work this time either.
The Tamil nationalists have not learnt from the example of Anton Balasingham who knew when the Tamils should stop, not push beyond a certain point, abandon the offensive strategy and consolidate their gains, adopting a defensive strategy if needed. He argued as much in 2002 (the April 2003 Tokyo conference was the case in point) and lost the argument.
Prabhakaran won the argument and lost the war. Chief Minister Wigneswaran among others, is arguing for an offensive political strategy on the part of the Tamils, when they should be digging in for a defensive one.
In any other country, including in South Asia, the clear photographs of staffers of the Hatton National Bank in Kilinochchi commemorating May 18th with a large graphic of a lion with a sword, hovering over a fallen Tamil damsel, would have led to a massive withdrawal of money from the HNB by the citizenry. If I had money in that bank, I would have pulled it out. There should have been demonstrations outside the head office! In the Sri Lanka I grew up in, the HNB would have been promptly nationalized, preceded by newspaper editorials and parliamentary speeches calling for such a step!
Worse still, is the recent speech given by Chief Minister Wigneswaran in which he spotlights the weakness of the Sinhala leadership and argues that the Tamils must fight like Muhammad ali, punching while the rival is tired.
C V Wigneswaran while addressing Tamil People’s Council (TPC) meeting for youth in the Jaffna library auditorium on Saturday May 26th, said the following:
“Tamils have our rights according to international law. As the earliest people of this country, we have the right to claim self-rule over our area we live in…We have forgotten that we have rights as ancient people according to UN charter.
We have now a weakness that has spread among our youth. After our arms were silenced, a defeatist mentality has set in. We have hopelessness of who is going to deliver our expectations. We have to change all this and instill confidence in our people. You should know the behavior boxing champion, Muhammad Ali. He avoided the punches of his opponents and made them tired. When his opponents were tired, Mohammed Ali punched them profusely. Our moves should be like that of Mohammed Ali.
Sinhala political leadership which is denying our rights is getting weakened. They are facing political issues, economic problems, debt and intense international pressure. Sinhala political leadership is asking for more time to fulfil the promises given to the international community. This action has lowered the image of the Sri Lankan government in the eyes of the international community.
At such a time, Tamils should be united and tell the world our suffering which has happened in the past and present. Sinhala leadership should give us self-rule. We should have firm confidence that for its own reasons, the Sinhala political leadership should concede our self-rule at some point of time.”
This text appeared in the pro-Wigneswaran website Pathivu entitled ‘We Should Follow the Moves of Muhammad Ali’ and in the Sunday Thinakkural (May 27th, 2018) under the heading ‘Sinhala Political Leadership Is Getting Weakened’.
This dangerous thinking does not come from a lunatic fringe or a radical base in Tamil politics; it comes from the mainstream, and the top; from the Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council. In the face of this challenge, we need a strong state, a strong center and a strong leadership which crucially includes Mahinda Rajapaksa and may well include Maithripala Sirisena. If the challenge from the North becomes even more strident, the automatic result will be a pan-Sinhala recourse to the Gotabhaya option.
The Tamil people have been unused to the regular exercise of democratic electoral politics and have only recently re-started the practice. Therefore the Tamil nationalists have forgotten that whenever the “Sinhala political leadership is getting weakened”, as in 1965-1970 or 2001-2004, the Sinhalese merely resort to the peaceful democratic method of throwing out such a leadership and electing themselves a strong political leadership! That option is coming up again in just 18 months. What happens to Chief Minister Wigneswaran’s ridiculous strategic recommendation then?
Is it perhaps the case that the recent Mullivaikkal melodrama has reawakened such nostalgia in Tamil nationalist circles for the extensive practice of suicide bombing, that Chief Minister Wigneswaran has turned it into a peaceful political strategy?
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