The Past Is Obdurate: Response To Dayan’s Response To TNA’s Manifesto
TU Senan
Leave aside the problem of countering the ‘bad publicity’ created by Navi Pillay, the main problem now for the so-called ‘thinkers’ attached to the Sri Lankan government is about how to handle the northern election. Electoral violence needs to be justified. Most importantly the government needs to prepare for aTNA-led province and to tackle the possibility of protest and discontent among the youth that is emerging under the shadow of this change.
For this Dayan Jayatilleka has a solution. To combat the future, travel in a time machine to battle the past as though it’s the presence… It may sound like science fiction but Dayan is not new to political fictions. Look at the way he takes on the TNA’s election Manifesto.
The manifesto will have serious ‘consequences’, he warns, then goes on to describe parts of it as ‘morally repugnant’ and a ‘lie’. This may sound like a typical Dayanist attack, but there is more. We are amused to know none of these attacks were made about new points in the TNA manifesto for the northern provincial elections 2013. All the points in this manifesto he is going on about were also made in the TNA’s 2010 manifesto – in fact almost the entire manifesto is modelled on the 2001 version!
While the memories of those slaughtered by his government in 2009 are still burning in our minds as though it happened yesterday, and the four years that have passed make no difference to those who suffer, that’s not the kind of time lapse that the ex-minister for youth affairs in the north east is suffering from. His suffering is to do with the spectre of the LTTE. After claiming in 2009 that the LTTE was dead and buried, it has been a custom since then for the government and their cronies to summons its ghost to attack and possibly bury the living who dare to oppose them.
If any electoral disorder takes place in the coming days, the TNA will simply be accused of provoking it. Through this and through the spectre of the LTTE, the government will try to continue its military control in the northern region. Look at the stark warning Dayan delivers. He argues that a ‘confrontation with Colombo’ is more certain and will ‘perhaps prove more consequential’ and lead to a ‘strategic politico-military lockdown’.
This should not be taken lightly. This ‘future vision’ is also shared by Rohan Gunarathna, close ally of the regime and so-called ‘world expert’ in terrorism. He called the manifesto an ‘avatar of the LTTE’ at the defence seminar which was organised by the Sri Lanka army. Read More
