Smart Patriotism, Jagath Jayasuriya & The War Heroes Of Rathupaswala
“Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.” ~ By an anonymous victim of nationalism
Sri Lankans were being well entertained by the Jagath Jayasuriya“issue’ during the last two weeks. First it was the foreign media who reported it, then the Lankan media picked it up and increased the hype, as if there are attempts (or conspiracies) to take the general directly to Hague, where the International court is located, and right after that to the so called electric chair.
The typical ending for this kind of sensation would have been that the Joint Opposition (JO) trumpeting that ‘Yahapalanaya’ government is betraying the war heroes and Mahinda Rajapaksajumping up and down saying that he would sit on the electric chair and sacrifice himself (or his butt) for the war heroes and after another week Sri Lankans being entertained by another hyped up news. But what makes life interesting is the unexpected twists it hides from us. Nobody has expected that Sarath Fonseka would make a public statement that he would testify against General Jayasuriya on the war crimes allegations. For the JO this was like getting all four aces in the card game and they really played it well.
The above paragraph is also the summarized version of the future history stating how Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka became a traitor of the motherland.
Meanwhile in the same motherland, there were four war heroes being tried by the court of law. They obeyed the order from their superior officers and fired upon civilians protesting for clean water in Rathupaswala. But the JO patriots never utter a word about these war heroes of Rathupaswala. Even Mahinda Rajapaksha or Gotabaya Rajapaksa who were responsible for the defence ministry at that time, never say that they will volunteer to be hanged instead of the Rathupuswela war heroes.
Smart patriots Wimal Weerawansa, Dinesh Gunawardena and Udaya Gammanpilla, smart patriotic intellectual Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka and the Maha Sangha, everyone has never expressed their concern against the Rathupaswala war heroes.
Why even the war heroes are subjected to discrimination? Again, they acted against the terrorists who blocked the main road and undermined the rule of law in the country.
I discussed about this strange phenomena with some patriotic Sri Lankans. They said they too don’t know the reason for this strange phenomena.
No. Everybody knows the answer. The Sinhalese people accept that the army personnel involved in the Rathupaswala shooting which killed three innocent civilians should be tried by the court of law and punished. On the other hand, they don’t accept that the security forces alleged to have committed indiscriminate shelling on civilian concentrations, abductions, extortions, sexual assault and extra-judicial killings of journalists and opposing politicians should be tried by the court of law and punished.
