Seeking security

Editorial Tamil Guardian 18 May 2013

Four years have passed since the Tamil nation suffered the zenith of genocide inflicted upon it by the Sri Lankan state, where tens of thousands of Tamils were herded into a tiny of slither of land, only to be massacred with heavy artillery, systematically raped and tortured, deliberately starved, deprived of humanitarian assistance and murdered in cold blood. The evidence - not only indicative of the appalling nature of the crimes, but the intentional and systematic way in which they were perpetrated – is increasing. Yet despite this, and the ample time that has passed, Tamils have not seen a credible, international process towards accountability and justice, or a meaningful attempt to deliver a political solution that ensures their future security. The Tamil nation is instead, more exposed now than ever before – its identity is being destroyed, its claims to nationhood are being dismantled and its homeland erased of its Tamil character.

Sri Lanka’s 2008 offensive against the LTTE, was actively endorsed and supported by the international community. Over and beyond the providing of military expertise and arms, the widespread proscription of the LTTE and associated international arrests, criminalised Tamil support of the resistance movement, and forced the Tamil nation to publicly dissociate itself from the LTTE.  Yet even after this ‘anti-terror offensive’ reared its genocidal head, (as Tamils had long argued was the case), the world did nothing. Far from being ignorant of the horrors unfolding, the international community - intent on eradicating any perceived impediment to its agenda of stability – hoped destruction would be swift, and turned away. At the height of the Tamil nation’s suffering, the international community failed to act – a wilful impotence which emboldened Sri Lanka to intensify its bloodbath, and laid the groundwork for takes place today.

Four years later, despite welcome and increasing censure, the international community fails to hold Sri Lanka accountable for the past, through an independent, international inquiry. Instead, it appears incapable of moving tangibly past the futile call of requesting a manifestly unrepentant, genocidal state to investigate itself. No doubt strengthened by this effective granting of impunity, Sri Lanka’s program of destruction - through a process of structural genocide – continues.  Yet the international community once again fails to halt it, or meaningfully instigate a process to resolutely address it. All the while Tamil resentment is growing. As the Tamil nation long feared, the absence of armed resistance has led to the unchecked burgeoning of Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism. Whereas in 2000, the LTTE’s sheer military might compelled the government to the negotiation table, today there is no incentive or compulsion for abuses to be reined in, or discussions on a political solution to be had. The Tamil nation’s political power and its longstanding demand for a lasting solution to the ethnic conflict has sunk to a point of irrelevancy in the eyes of the state.

Meanwhile the TNA, purported to be representative of the Tamil nation, continues in its failed policy of concessionary engagement, with a state unashamedly intent on imposing Sinhala Buddhist hegemony. In endorsing the 13th Amendment as a first step towards further political discourse, the TNA has adopted the weakest Tamil political position in decades; one that was rejected by the  TULF over 25 years ago. The futility of provincial councils, as a means of providing any meaningful security to Tamils, is only more evident today. Instead of working towards mobilising a wider pressure base internationally, within the diaspora and domestically, the TNA leadership’s recent alliance with the UNP ignores the chauvinism at the heart of Sinhala polity, and the unwavering popular support it continues to have within the Sinhala electorate. Apparently unwilling to step beyond the framework of reforming Sri Lanka to a pre-Rajapaksa era state, the TNA utterly fails to address the fundamental flaws inherent to the Sri Lankan state. It is these flaws that legitimised the 60 years of Tamil oppression, sanctified the mass slaughter of Tamils in 2009 as necessary to safeguard the integrity of the unitary state, and underscore the Sri Lankan state’s post-2009 project of structural genocide. As we have argued previously, more harm is done to an oppressed nation by having an ineffectual representation, than by having none at all.

The factors that led to the armed conflict have only intensified over the last four years. The military defeat of the LTTE left Tamils at the mercy of their now triumphant oppressors. The Tamil nation’s reluctant progression from peaceful protest to the taking up of arms was a natural response to escalating oppression – as evident in similar struggles worldwide, including those currently at play. The Tamil nation’s call for an independent state of Tamil Eelam, and its overwhelming support for the leading proponent of it – the LTTE, was born out of and sustained by the unremitting need for security in the face of genocide. Coupled with the TNA’s ineptitude and the international community’s failure to mitigate the immediate problems of the Tamil nation, today non-violent Tamil resistance is growing: from student protesters, civil society activists and alternative Tamil polity in the North-East (working at grave risk to themselves), and to diaspora activists worldwide. This May 18th, as the Tamil nation remembers on genocide past and present, and looks towards the 5th year of ‘peace’, the need for security is only more apparent; and the Tamil nation’s determination in achieving it, more profound.

Dangerous game of ‘diaspora politics’ is here to stay

By: David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy Published on Fri May 17 2013

LUCAS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR

Tamil protestors line the streets of downtown Toronto in March 2009 demonstrating against the political turmoil in Sri Lanka.

The Conservatives' foreign policy is too often based not on principle, but on pandering to diaspora communities in order to win votes.

Thestar.com columnist Natalie Brender recently argued that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to boycott the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka this November is because of that country’s deteriorating human rights and governance record. Harper’s purpose, she claims, is “to convey principled condemnation of what’s happening to human rights and democracy in Sri Lanka” in a challenge to our claim that this is more obviously pandering to the Tamil diaspora in order to win votes.

She then went on to state that sometimes “Ottawa’s foreign policy decision-making is logically inexplicable except by reference to a diaspora community’s pressure and votes” and that “those cases of egregious pandering to diaspora communities are not the rule in Canada’s foreign policy-making – neither with the Harper government nor with previous ones.”

We could not disagree more. Whether one calls it “pandering to specific groups,” “diaspora politics” or “creative statecraft,” it is much more frequent than Brender thinks and it is also not going away anytime soon because of the political incentive structures shaped by Canada’s demographic trends.

According to data from the recently released National Household Survey on Immigration and Ethnocultural diversity in Canada, in 2011 more than 20 per cent of the total population in Canada is foreign-born. In the last five years, the largest source of immigrants to Canada was Asia (including the Middle East), and most of these immigrants settled in the country’s largest urban centres. More importantly, the concentration of immigrant populations in specific parts of these urban centres means that they are the key to who wins these related political ridings. Justin Trudeau should take note.

Calling the Canadian government’s policy on Sri Lanka “principled” is misleading to say the least. Consider that, in 2009, Tamil Canadians filled the streets of Toronto and Ottawa to protest against what they called a genocide and to support intervention and a demand for an immediate ceasefire. One can hardly imagine more dire circumstances when the need for action was so obviously apparent. Thousands of civilians were caught up in the final stages of the Sri Lankan conflict. According to a UN report released in 2011, as many as 40,000 civilians may have been killed during the final stages of the civil war; many more have since suffered at the hands of harsh government reprisals and punitive policies.

A significant amount of evidence has been collected to confirm that war crimes were indeed committed during the final stages of the Sri Lanka conflict. Why didn’t Canada call for intervention at the height of the conflict when fact-finding and mediation were most needed? If there was ever a time for a principled foreign policy, 2009 was it. Yet the Harper government did nothing. For one, political necessity meant the Harper government was wary of a Tamil electorate which had thrown its support behind the Liberal party in previous elections. The Conservatives also feared their hard-line domestic security agenda would be compromised if Tamil Tigers were seen to be benefiting from Conservative action.

But now with the war over and the Tigers defeated, the political landscape has changed and the benefits of chasing after Tamil votes are pressing. Tamils are now openly courted by all parties, but no one it seems is more focused and determined than Stephen Harper. For if he is to have any have chance of maintaining a hold on a majority of seats in the House of Commons, in the next election, it will be because of political gains within Canada’s ethnic communities. The Liberal lock on immigrant support it seems is no longer self evident. In fact in an obvious attempt to win over Tamil votes, Jason Kenny suggested earlier this year in a press conference that it was a bad idea for his party to have declared the Tigers a terrorist organisation.

It would be enough for us to argue that there was no principled policy at play here, if being principled means abiding by and enforcing a commitment to basic standards of human rights and rule of law; and especially when violations of those rights are egregious and self-evident. One expects a government espousing “principles” as a cornerstone of its foreign policy to at least understand and apply these basic and fundamental tenets of international diplomacy through thick and thin.

But we have other concerns. As the Conservatives work assiduously to court diasporas from regions of the world deeply immersed in conflict, one must ask if these immigrants are fleeing oppression and long for freedom or are moving here because of business opportunities. With diaspora politics probably the most salient political issue of the 21st century, we are seeing the emergence of a more conservative society that fits perfectly into Harper’s Conservative agenda. If previous generations of immigrants brought in their suitcases issues such as human rights, democracy and the like, now we see a different kind of interests at play: business success perhaps at the expense of human rights, rule of law and justice.

Obviously not all of Canada’s foreign policy decisions are the result of diaspora politics but many of the important ones, including the likely boycott of the next Commonwealth meeting in Sri Lanka, are. As we have argued before, this “dangerous game of diaspora politics” is mostly about short-sighted, self-interested politicians. We believe Canadians need to wrestle the diaspora political agenda away from our elected officials as it is far too important to be left in their self-serving hands.

David Carment is a fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and editor of the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal at Carleton University.Yiagadeesen Samy is an associate professor of international affairs at Carleton University and a research associate at the Ottawa-based North-South Institute. You can access their research and writings here and here.

Blundering Politicians Continue Their Assault On Higher Education

By Shanie -May 18, 2013 

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way

With blossom’d furze unprofitably gay,

There, in his noisy mansion, skill’d to rule,

The village master taught his little school;

A man severe he was, and stern to view,

I knew him well, and every truant knew;

Well had the boding tremblers learn’d to trace

The days disasters in his morning face;

Full well they laugh’d with counterfeited glee,

At all his jokes, for many a joke had he:

Full well the busy whisper, circling round,

Convey’d the dismal tidings when he frown’d:

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)

 in The Deserted Village

It is said that in this poem Goldsmiith was referring to his own tutor in the village in which he grew up and where his father was the Anglican parish priest. Goldsmith apparently had a very high regard and respect for this village schoolmaster; but the schoolchildren, as kids everywhere, were quick to recognise their teacher’s varying moods and kept him in good humour and avoided inviting his wrath, It appears that our university administrators today are following what schoolchildren have been doing, before and after Goldsmith’s time. They seem to think, rightly or wrongly, that they owe their positions to politicians and  bend over backwards to show their loyalty to the politicians who have placed them in the positions they hold. Sadly this malaise has even spread to members of the University Councils who also think that they must do the bidding of the politicians who have placed then in their positions. Their decision making is therefore warped by this mind-set.

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which included the right to education. Primary education was to be compulsory and free while higher education was to be accessible to all on the basis of merit. The same Article 26 in the Declaration of Hunan Rights further states: “ Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.”

Sri Lanka has had a long tradition of learning. The village Buddhist and Hindu temples produced scholars in all disciplines of study including science and medicine, but particularly in the fields of art, literature and religion. But some years before the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.. Sri Lanka had introduced free education not just for the primary stages but right up to university level. Compulsory education was also introduced at the same time but it took a while to be implemented because of inadequate facilities. But following the Kannangara reforms, there was a surge in the provision of well-staffed quality schools in all parts of the country. The same held for university education. Access was on merit but not available to all. owing of inadequate material resources There was then only one University of Ceylon. Even wIth many more now, we are still not able to meet the demands for higher education. There is also a wide disparity between the universities in the quality of education each of them provide.

Issues facing higher education

These are the deficiencies and issues that the Ministry of Higher Education should be addressing. Free education needs to be strengthened; the Universities should be provided with adequate material and physical resources to meet the demand for higher education. The autonomy of the Universities should safeguarded and the Vice Chancellors and academic staff should be selected on merit and research encouraged.

It was not very long nago that we had a prolonged and unprecedented trade union action by the university academics. It was resolved only when the university authorities and the Ministry of Higher Education agreed to implement the major demands of the striking academics. But none of the major demands ofFUTA appear to have been have been conceded and the Ministry seems intent on gearing up for another confrontation with the University teachers.

It is now generally accepted that the recommendation of theUNESCO that member countries of the United Nations should aim at allocating 6% of the GDP for education to ensure that that the minimum standards in education are met. But to our shame, the present allocation in Sri Lanka is only 1.9%. Politicians are fond of saying that Sri Lanka will become the educational hub of Asia. This is pure rhetoric. In fact the Budget, instead of increasing the allocation for education, actually reduced it, presumably to provide for the huge increase in allocation for the Ministry of Defence. If Sri Lanka is to move forward to becoming an educational hub of Asia, there must be definite commitment by the government towards the end of allocating of GDP for education. This cannot be achieved by the Ministry issuing diktats on political bases. The Kannangara reforms came into being after considerable public discussion through the media and through direct consultations with academics. No such discussions take place now. The Ministry must give up its  ‘take it or leave it’ attitude, that only it knows what is best. All stakeholders, including the academics and parents, need to be drawn into the decision making process. This will make for healthy democratic governance not only in education but in all areas involving people’s lives.

The introduction of compulsory training in military camps for new University entrants was also an unacceptable unilateral decision. This was perhaps not a brainchild  of the Ministry of Higher Education but a decision forced on it by the ideologists of the Ministry of Defence. It appears that the curriculum is more an exercise in indoctrination, in disregarding our pluralist past and highlighting our narrow present. Obviously those who formulated the curriculum did not think in terms of the LLRC recommendation that we should be fostering reconciliation.

But it is the Ministry of Higher Education that is solely responsible for the politicisation of our Universities. The University administrators and the University Councils have also to take their share of the blame for not resisting the naked politicisation of our Universities The appointment of a new Vice Chancellor for the University of Colombo has been embroiled in controversy. Attempts are being made to appoint the spouse of the former Vice Chancellor who is now the Chairperson of the University Grants Commission, when among the short-listed candidates is a senior academic with unmatched academic qualifications. But the spouse of the favourite candidate has been a loyal political favourite and was herself rewarded by being appointed to the Chair of the UGC.

The crisis at Peradeniya

The appointment of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya has also been mired in controversy. The person chosen was the least qualified among the short-listed applicants the appointment was obviously a clear political decision. So also was the Vice Chancellor’s choice of a Deputy.  These are leading to a real crisis situation in the University system.

In a hard-hitting statement, the FUTA has written: “Having minions of unscrupulous  politicians  at  key  positions  in  administration  is now taking its toll of the entire Sri Lankan University system  as  Vice Chancellors are appointed not on academic merit but solely on political connections. These institutions are now depicted in the public’s eye in negative hues due to unprecedented politicization and deterioration of autonomy. This is despite the efforts of FUTA and its sister unions to enlighten the public and exert relentless pressure on the administrators and the government to realise and respect the importance of university autonomy and academic freedom.

When the last TUA action of FUTA ended, it was agreed to have senate meetings at each university on autonomy, academic freedom and politicization. Despite this, the government continues to attempt to violate the autonomy of our universities taking political interference to an unprecedented level…..

The University of Peradeniya is one of the oldest and most prestigious of Sri Lankan  universities has also not been spared. The government appointed the least qualified candidate as Vice Chancellor highlighting bad governance and vested interests.  In an attempt to exert pressure on the VC to comply with existing procedures, the  Federation of Peradeniya University Teachers’ Associations (FPUTA)   officially  met  the  newly  appointed  VC  and  communicated  the  importance  of winning the trust of the academic community he was appointed to lead. But this was not to be: the Deputy Vice Chancellor appointment at the University of Peradeniya  which followed  also reflected the will of government-backed administrators rather than that of the academic community. The person appointed had antagonistic relations with both academics and students due to high handed and unethical behaviour and no right-thinking administration would have selected such an individual to a position of great responsibility. In protest, the Peradeniya Academic community through the Union submitted a petition signed by members of all faculties, requesting the Vice Chancellor to replace the Deputy Vice Chancellor. This was ignored. To stall these unprecedented breaches on autonomy, the Peradeniya Univesrsity Community through FPUTA staged a one day token strike. As there was no positive response from the administration, the members withdrew from all the voluntary positions that directly dealt with the Deputy Vice Chancellor. FPUTA also resolved that its members will resort to agitations at crucial events/junctures, as deemed necessary by the academic community to protest the deterioration of university autonomy and academic freedom. The academic community is also considering boycotting the convocation procession and the dinner this year.  This is a final resort since the academic community is fully aware and sensitive of the importance of this occasion for students. This step is being considered reluctantly to protest against the deplorable lack of sensitivity towards the will of the entire academic community of University of Peradeniya by the politicized administrators.”

Lowering academic standards

Also at Peradeniya recently, there were surreptitious moves to admit ten students to the Medical Faculty without going through the competitive GCE Advanced Level examination by which other students are selected for the MB BS programme.  Sadly, there were university academic administrators who colluded in these moves. It is believed that the ten students were selected not on their academic records but they were coming in as fee-paying students.   FUTA in their statement say: “It is learnt that interested political masters and their flunkeys have threatened and intimidated academics who protested against this decision. The authorities concerned clearly wanted to change the Peardeniya Medical Faculty into a degree shop and sadly, university administrators are letting it happen.  Despite this, the Faculty Board of the Medical Faculty stood resolutely by their principles and have been able to defeat this well planned initiative. Similar stories of unprecedented ill-deeds are regularly disseminating from the entire university system.

We believe, now it is time for the academic community of Sri Lanka to step up their fight to safeguard the university system in what is possibly the darkest period of university education in this country. It is now time to stand united against the tides of darkness that threaten not only our institutions, but also our dignity. It is  now  time  to fearlessly stand up for what we believe is right.”

This statement of FUTA reflects a growing disappointment with the way that some political supporters of the government, including ministers and bureaucrats, are helping the people to openly distance themselves from the government. The country now needs a Mandela-type leader who will not fight evil by evil, one who will embrace the other without abandoning principles and stand firm on ensuring democratic governance. Is there such a leader on the horizon?

OPPOSITION MYTHS, POLITICAL REALITIES

OPPOSITION MYTHS, POLITICAL REALITIES

Image courtesy Asianews.it

Groundviews

18 May, 2013 Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

Erroneous political thinking and analysis obscure and obstruct the path of the political recovery of the Opposition in Sri Lanka. They can be disaggregated into six myths.

Myth 1 is that unity at all costs in the ranks of the main democratic opposition party is a necessary and sufficient condition of political success.

The reality is that as in mathematics, any number into zero is zero. If the leader or candidate of the main opposition party is an electoral liability, internal unity only suffocates rather than liberates. If internal unity within parties is an absolute condition of political success, there wouldn’t be a gruelling season of primaries in US politics aimed precisely at choosing putting the party on the right track and the candidate with the best chance of winning. France went a step further with a nationwide election for the leadership of the French Socialist party.

Myth 2 is that unity of the Opposition ranks is a necessary and sufficient condition for constituting a viable counterweight to the regime and projecting a credible alternative government.

The reality by contrast, is twofold: not only is a united opposition under an unappealing leadership and on the basis of a wrong-headed programme, an insufficient condition for victory, a disunited opposition can still cause regime change if a single one of the divided opposition proves to have the winning strategy and candidacy. Pakistan’s recent elections and the victory of Nawaz Sharif and his PML is a stark case in point.

Myth 3 is that the latent or growing economic crisis, taken together with the fulfilment of conditions one and two listed above, can defeat the regime.

The reality is that economic crises, however serious, can play themselves out an infinite variety of ways, given the intersection and interplay with and the overlay of other factors, most notably nationalism, ethnicity, religion and language. The rise of fascism in Germany against the backdrop of the Depression is of course the classic case in point.

The philosopher Louis Althusser, while noting that for Friedrich Engels the economic factor is said to be effective only ‘in the last instance’, wryly observed that nonetheless ‘the lonely hour of the last instance’ in which ‘ His Majesty the Economy’ strides forth as all other factors step back with a curtsy,  ‘never comes’. Instead he unrolls the concept, borrowed from Freudian psychoanalysis, of ‘overdetermination’; of a complex compound of unevenly developing factors exceptionally reaching a point of condensation in which however, the dominant factor is hardly ever the economic ( or to say the same thing, is almost always non/ extra-economic).

The greatest political thinker of the 20th century, Antonio Gramsci, whose concepts have had to be rediscovered and grasped by parties making a victorious breakthrough, ranging from Britain’s New Labour to Brazil’s PT, characterised the notion of an economic crisis ultimately sweeping all before it as ‘mechanistic’ thinking and an almost religious faith that sustains opposition parties in long years of adversity but does not really bring them to a position of ‘hegemony’. For hegemony to be achieved, an indispensable factor is not the economy but the ‘national–popular’ or the ‘popular–national’, and the Opposition as presently led, consistently fails that test, not only on the ‘ national’ aspect (‘can we Sinhalese / can we as Sinhalese trust him? Will he betray us?) but also the socioeconomic (does he care about us? won’t he privatise everything?).

Myth 4 is that it is not necessary to win over a majority of the majority of voters; the securing of the fullest support of the minorities would render necessary only a quarter of the majority vote, which would be almost automatically obtained due to the coming economic crisis.

The reality however, is that in conditions of a perceived existential threat such as that posed by/from Tamil Nadu, any swing of minority votes to the Opposition candidate could be compensated for by a corresponding or greater swing of an ethnic majority to the rival candidate, especially when the opposition candidate is indelibly associated in the collective memory of the overwhelming ethnic majority, with a period of national humiliation. Even without such a polarising dynamic, electoral victory is sometimes possible with strong support from a large ethnic group: the support of the Punjab was the basis of Nawaz Sharif’s victory.

Myth 5 is that a spoiler candidacy can guarantee the victory of the Opposition.

Here again, the reality is that in a presidential election, even if a breakaway pushes the race into a run-off, it is a choice of two national leaders and the question is who do we trust to be our leader in these difficult times? It is difficult to imagine that choice being the current leader of the Opposition under any circumstances; still less if he competes against the present incumbent. This negative factor cannot be transcended, however the Opposition is configured.

Myth 6 is that successful street protests are a precursor or indicator of nationwide political strength and momentum.

The truth is that public protest and social movements are of considerable importance, especially as catalysts, but even the most impressive protest constitutes but a fraction of the voting citizenry of any country; social protests do not automatically translate into political success and may prove electorally irrelevant or even generate an electoral backlash. From the protestors at Tahrir Square to those in Moscow, massive demonstrations in the recent past have not been reflected in the national political endgames. This was of course true of the dramatically romantic ‘events’ of May ’68 in Paris and the paradoxical June ’68 re-election of the Gaullists to the National Assembly, and the anti-Vietnam demonstrations in the US followed by the election of Richard Nixon. In Ceylon, the Left launched the Hartal of 1953, while the non-participating SLFP won the election of ’56. Much depends on whether the demonstrations accurately reflect the nation’s social composition (albeit in miniature), whether they fail to resonate with the broader public, or whether the protests do resonate with respect to the issues at hand but do not constitute/present an acceptable alternative leadership for the nation.

Though Egypt and Russia are superficially contrasting cases in that the former represented change and the other continuity, there are underlying factors common to both. By-passing the urban demonstrators and their dramatic manifestations, the bulk of the citizenry voted for patriotic or nationalist populists who had retained the support of the provinces and the clergy and stood for a strong nation-state.  Mohammed Morsi and Vladimir Putin were both more ‘organic’ – to use another concept from the Gramscian canon—than their rivals. Putin rescued Russia from its seemingly endless retreat as a state during the years of pro-western appeasement under Yeltsin and won the Chechen war. The first half of the last decade, the CFA-PTOMS years were Sri Lanka’s Yeltsin years and the UNP leader our Yeltsin, while Mahinda Rajapaksa is seen to have redeemed Sinhala self-respect and restored the strength of the state.

As in Egypt, Russia and Pakistan, he or she who can break through and swing the provinces can win the election in Sri Lanka. As Mervyn de Silva once wrote, the road to power through the ballot box runs through the paddy fields. The UNP has and can pull it off, but only under an ‘organic’, ‘national-popular’ leadership. It has always failed when its leadership is seen as ‘comprador’ and/or minoritarian. However much the policies of the incumbent administration run contrary to the objective interests of the Sinhalese and Buddhists, including those in the provinces, the Opposition’s current leadership is not and will never be subjectively, normatively, regarded as ‘organic’ and ‘national-popular’ as Mahinda Rajapaksa is, and certainly not more so.

Given public perception of two equally patriotic candidates (or two equally unpatriotic ones) the electorate will opt for the one who can be trusted on socioeconomic issues, which is why welfarist Labour party leader Clement Attlee who had been in the wartime coalition government, defeated Winston Churchill and Prime Minister Premadasa beat Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1988. If peaceful democratic regime change is to take place the only way it can and at the earliest time it can, namely at the Presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2015-2016, the UNP and the Opposition at large, must visibly, audibly and credibly close that ‘patriotic’ gap.  No student of history can underestimate the fund of legitimacy derived from a historic military victory over a deeply hated foe in a ‘fault-line war’. No student of politics should assume that the parabola of such patriotic legitimacy is easily intercepted by an Oppositional project moving on a purely economic and governance trajectory. When I say that successful interception would take a Patriot missile, the pun is intended.  A caveat: Mahinda Rajapaksa’s appeal does not derive exclusively from patriotic achievement. Even among those who can lay claim to that achievement, he communicates more personal appeal. He comes across as resolute but affable; more personable, less dangerous.

No political formation that fails to carry with it (a) the provinces and (b) the armed forces and their families, can win an election. Without the support or benign neutrality of the latter, a level playing field may be difficult to secure. The UNP can win in the context and under conditions of an economic crunch but not if – and not as long as –it is led by someone who triggers the collective memory ‘Claymore’ of the CFA and thus generates apprehensions of the weakening of the national state, national security, the erosion of sovereignty, the bartering away of the military victory and a sell-out of the Sinhalese in the face of ‘external’ and ‘alien’ pressure, threat and imposition.

Mahinda Rajapaksa’s significant speech at the Victory Day parade this year demonstrated that he retains much of his appeal, remains the figure with the most credible narrative and discourse in the Lankan landscape. His speech also demonstrated the sources and components of that discourse: the invocation of the memory of national retreat to the brink of defeat and dismemberment, followed by resistance, recovery and victory. The narrative is encased in a larger longer chronicle of Sinhala history and the emergence of the ‘great leader-saviour’ who heads the resistance and thereby the revival. The underlying theme is national resolve, faith in the patriotism, the resilience and heroism of the people, especially the youth, to resist.

The narrative is emotive and credible, tapping into deeper wellsprings than all other available discourses. The audience is the majority of the overwhelming majority, the Sinhala families living in the provinces.

The impressive parade also has a message, whether intended or not, in the run-up to the Northern Provincial Council elections which the alphabet soup of Tamil ultranationalists in Tamil Nadu and the Diaspora need to take on board: this is what you will have standing in your way in case you are tempted to opt for an exit strategy, and there’s plenty more where they come from. These men and women, this generation, this leadership and future ones will fight any attempt from which ever quarter, at dismemberment of the island and a return to the dark days of retreat and appeasement.

That’s a discourse that’s hard to beat and can neither be negated head on nor ignored; it can only be superseded. It can only be superseded by an alternative discourse which respects and incorporates these themes and supplements them with others, rather than rejects them.

The Opposition as currently led has no credible narrative, no discourse, which has any comparable emotive power. No leadership which is embedded in the public memory and the historical narrative as having appeased the Tiger has the chance of a snowball in hell of beating a leader whose story is a stark contrast; one of victory.

Anyone who watched Mahinda Rajapaksa’s V-Day 2013 speech and thinks that whatever the material hardships, the present leader of the Opposition can come remotely close in terms of credibility and appeal, or assumes that the latter’s CFA track record can be brushed under the rug, or that this memory of national disgrace will not turn the entire Opposition electorally radioactive; anyone who thinks that the voter will entrust the leadership and future of the country to such a person over and above Mahinda Rajapaksa, is rendering the status quo a great service by refusing to identify what fundamentally needs to be rectified.

The majority of the citizens are Sinhalese; the majority of Sinhalese are patriotic or if you prefer, nationalist. They will remain especially so in the face of the combination of Tamil nationalist challenge from the Diaspora and Tamil Nadu and Western/West-based criticism of the armed forces and the war on ground of accountability. The opposition as currently led, cuts itself off from that patriotic majority of citizen-voters. It cannot compete with the incumbent on the terrain of patriotism/nationalism. That terrain must and can be shifted but it cannot be shifted beyond certain parameters outside which the current UNP leadership will always tend to fall. Not even a severe economic crisis can shift the terrain fundamentally, because what is involved is a collective perception of an existential threat. Anyone who thinks this terrain can be fundamentally altered or profitably abandoned as toxic, lacks a sense of both history and politics and how they work (not least in Eurasia and the post-colonial global South).

This is why every serious and responsible political analysis, commentary or discussion today must revolve around the elections that are on the horizon, in the middle distance. Regime change in the UNP/Opposition remains a prerequisite for democratic change in the larger polity. Without such peaceful, democratic, internally generated change, we may be unable to prevent the escalation to ‘hard options’ by powerful external actors; options which may cost us our sovereignty, security and territorial integrity; our existence as a single state and country.

German Kurdish federation demands justice for Tamil genocide, condemns powers

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 May 2013, 09:50 GMT]
YEK-KOM, a Germany based federation of numerous Kurdish organizations, demanding justice for the genocide of the Eezham Tamil nation, condemned the world powers who rejected “the just demands of the Tamil people, turned their backs and have instead supported a military solution” in a solidarity statement sent on the occasion of Mu’l’livaaykkaal Remembrance Day. Emphasising the need for the state terror against the Tamils in the homeland to be halted, the federation further called on the German government and the European Union to “take diplomatic measures and exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government till the self-determination of the Tamils is recognized.” They also called for revoking the ban on the LTTE in the EU to ensure equality of parties and for a just peace. 

• Statement by YEK- KOM

Calling for international community to break its silence on the Tamil massacre, the statement called on the world to bring the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity to justice. 

Noting the parallels between the Tamil and the Kurdish national struggles, the statement asserted that both were movements against assimilation and destruction. 

Criticizing the international support for a military solution against the Tamils, the statement said “In the public world of the genocide of Tamils is still ignored. This must change!”

Sinhala colonization by government at Musali. First stage, 1,500 families, allege Adaikalanathan MP

Friday , 17 May 2013

Government is in the process of introducing Sinhala colonization in the areas coming under Musali divisional secretariat unit, currently has brought 1,500 Sinhala families and activities are processed for settlement alleged, Tamil National Alliance Vanni district parliament member Selvam Adaikalanathan

 

He said, before the northern provincial council election, government has taken measures to introduce Sinhala colonization in the Mannar district.

 

Measures had been taken to settle approximately five thousand families; however the Tamil and Muslim people faced displacement and were affected by war, are not considered so far in the proper manner for resettlement.

 

 

In this state, the first stage of colonizing Sinhala people at Musali commenced, by transporting one thousand and 500 families to the locality and now they are involved in erecting huts.

 

 

He said, matters will be expedited to invite Tamil and Muslim peoples representatives by the Tamil National Alliance  to discuss and to take action against the Sinhala colonization said Adaikalanathan.

Friday , 17 May 2013