Necromantic Politics
“This accursed, shortsighted statecraft!” - Heinrich von Kleist (Prinz Friedrich)
The state-owned ITN devotes one segment of its main Sinhala news telecast to remembering the Tiger. Evening after evening, the viewers are reminded of some long ago LTTE-deed, in lurid detail.
There are political forces, in the North and the South, who want ordinary Lankans live forever in the shadow of the Tiger. Sinhala and Tamil extremists need to keep the memories of the war vividly alive, because that is their only escape from the looming wilderness of irrelevance and obsolescence. This desire to constantly remind ordinary Lankans about the foul deeds of the enemy (and their own ‘heroism’) is something the Rajapaksas (and Sinhala-Buddhist supremacists) have in common with the pro-Tiger elements in the North and abroad.
Sinhala and Tamil extremists do not want a sober and informed discussion about the reasons and consequences of the war. They just want to keep hatred and fear alive, to lengthen the walls and deepen the dykes which divide ordinary Lankans.
The Rajapaksas need Tamil politicians to sound like cardboard versions of the LTTE. Every time some leading Tamil, here or abroad, waves the Tiger flag, the Siblings are delighted, because they can use that essentially silly spectacle to frighten an increasingly restive Sinhala public into obedience. The Rajapaksas do not want the Tamil polity to occupy the moderate centre and to reach out to their Southern counterparts and to the world. They do not want the Tamils abandon the counterproductive roar of the Tiger and find a rational and pragmatic voice which becomes acceptable to the Southern opposition and the international community.
That was why the Rajapaksas were obviously thrilled with the pro-Tiger outpourings of TNA parliamentarian S Sridaran and equally obviously dismayed by TNA Leader R Sampanthan’s measured and reflective discourse. TNA parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran publicly wondered why the “…government MPs allowed Sridharan to continue with a speech, which the government later termed as supporting extremism” while continuously obstructing “Sampanthan when he made a more moderate speech yesterday”[i]. Mr. Sridaran was allowed to speak because his speech was helpful to the Rajapaksas; Mr. Sampanthan was rudely interrupted, time and again, because what he said damaged the enemy image the Rajapaksas need to keep alive.
