Sri Lanka: Much Ado about Sampanthan’s Nothing
12-June-2012
Guest Column by Dr Kumar David
Would there be consternation, palpitation and a media storm if some chap said: “The sun rises in the east, but sets in the west?” So why all the rumpus about TNA leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan’s (RS) remarks at the TNA sessions in Batticaloa? RS said that if the denial of basic rights to the Tamils is not halted, there will be a backlash and secessionist demands will again come to the fore. What’s novel about that? Methinks it a pretty obvious platitude. What’s got government party politicos, the press and a johnny-come-late opportunist diplomat so hot under the collar? The left in Lanka (not the Dead Left in government) has long been explicit that if this racist government goes on the way it is – it knows no other way in any case – the country will implode and explode. I don’t know when, but when the sun rises in the east we can be reasonably sure it will set in the west.
In fact the first person to enunciate this platitude, at a time when he was still a Marxist and before he got hired to draft constitutions, was Colvin R de Silva. Long before RS cut his teeth in politics old hands of my generation remember Colvin’s apt and grandiloquent turn of phrase in the 1950s: “You can have two languages and one country, or you can have one language and two countries”. Now isn’t RS simply paraphrasing the same sentiment, but in pedestrian prose?
I suggest that international readers who want easy access to important articles on this topic contact SriLanka Brief at srilankabrief@gmail.comand ask for the combo they have done. They provide a page with click-click links to an interview with RS himself, Rajan Philips’ medium-term historical analysis, Jehan Perera’s assessment of RS’s tactical stance, an interesting piece by Kalana Senaratne, and three items of horse manure, one from the aforementioned opportunist, another by Dead-Leftist Tissa Vitarana, and the third, a piece by aging chauvinist Gunadasa Amerasekara. The last three are a blend of comic entertainment and obnoxious witch-hunting.
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