Jayatilleka’s New Political Mission & Its Darker Undercurrents
By Siri Gamage -March 10, 2015
Dr. Siri Gamage
Dayan Jayathilleka seems to be on a mission in a hurry! Ever since the previous Rajapaksa regime was overthrown by the voters on January 8th 2015, he has been putting out a large number of articles to various media claiming now there is an ‘existential threat’ to the Sinhalese from various sources including the Tamils. He seems to be trying to be the theoretician for the defeated political forces, as Anton Balasingham was to Prabhakaran, and continue to justify the defeated Rajapaksa project by citing historical political figures and their thoughts. Intelligent people from all walks of life understand the folly of this project couched in Sinhala patriotic terms.
Rajapaksa is portrayed as the protector of Sinhala Buddhist Nation and in Jayathilleka’s words he restored the boundaries of the country after winning the war (No one would argue this latter point though many including Sarath Fonseka contributed to this result). He does not speak about how the regime used this ‘protector façade’ to build an empire while severely curtailing the media, brutalising society and civic activists, centralising power and favoring family members in government appointments, politicising the foreign service (a subject he should be familier), intrusions into rule of law, corruption through mega deals (according to media), increased taxes, creation of an expensive provincial political mafia, and much more. These are minor matters for him that should be ignored. What matters is to beat the drum of ‘an existential threat’ while conniving with the defeated political forces, including the parasitic deshapremis and leftists, and try to reconstruct a political discourse that was rejected by the majority of voters on the 8th of January.
Let’s look at the nature of this political discourse that he is trying to reconstruct and give lifeblood by writing non-stop to various media outlets. It is none other than ‘majoritarian Sinhala nationalism’ though he makes musings about Sri Lankan identity in the course of doing so. The Sinhala nation that he and his political colleagues are trying to use as the flag post for their failed project is an ‘exclusionary one’. It excludes ‘significant others’ such as the Tamils as a group from the national political equation. It is essentialist in nature in the sense that only Sinhalese can belong in it. No one else. He says that the Sinhalese nation should have more rights compared to ethnic minorities. In other words, the Tamils can’t have same powers as the Sinhalese. The Tamils can have cultural rights not political rights equal to the Sinhalese (See his article dated march 7th, 2015 in CT).
These are very narrow racialist -not nationalist-views being pumped out almost on a daily basis through various media to provide currency and reconstruct a failed discourse together with the failed Rajapaksa project within which he seems to imagine a future for himself and other Sinhalese politicos beating the patriotic drum. This looks like the Bhumiputra concept adopted by Malaysian governments (under this minorities had a rough deal), not necessarily enlightened or humanistic views that should come from an academic, though a politically partisan one in that. In a post-war context where reconciliation between the Sinhalese and Tamils should be the main focus, repeating the mantra of Sinhala nationalism, an existential threat, denial of legitimate rights of the Tamils as equal citizens etc. can have far-reaching consequences for the harmony and well-being of society.
