07 March 2021
On our way to
Mankerni regarding Tsunami Reconstruction work, we stopped at a spot in Batticaloa.
The folks there also had lost their home to Tsunami and we were assessing their
needs. At one point, when I said something about being democratic, Manik Sandrasagara
who was leading our team intervened and ruled that there were no ‘democratic rights’.
Later, in Mankerni, I better understood where Manik was coming from. The folks there
knew very about democracy and hence were likely to make-out a wish-list and
think that it was democracy. Understanding it was easier due to my experience with
Academics who tended to be autocratic and with whom I tended to take the path
of truth as an alternate to democracy. I
was reminded of that when I listed this morning to Sri Lanka’s foreign
secretary Dr Jayanath Colombage’s interview with Aljazeera under
the topic - Can Sri Lanka’s civil war wounds heal?
To
my mind, Dr Jayanath Colombage had very little feel
for Democracy and as per my experience with academics and armed forces – the way
to manage them is truth – structured as submissions. Then that truth occupies
the ‘idle’ democratic spaces in their current positions in civil administration
and demote them through themselves. This happened in the interview – starting with
the claim by Dr
Jayanath
Colombage, that he was normal without extraordinary powers. This is not valid
given that the President was elected through a democratic process to be autocratic
in defending the nation through armed power. Every officer appointed by the
President needed to be autocratic to fulfill this ‘stated purpose’ for which
this government was elected. If the officers do not have special powers they
would be the parallels of former LTTE leader – Karuna who barks now that he has
lost his Tiger status.
Dr Colombage, introduces his book ‘Asymmetric Warfare at
Sea: The Case of Sri Lanka’ as follows:
[The
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)incorporated maritime domain into their
grand strategy and exploited it effectively to develop their fighting
capability to a near conventional level. The Sea Tigers were the pioneers of
suicide terrorism at sea, swarming tactics, underwater explosive ordinance and
effectively fought with the Sri Lanka Navy for nearly 26 long years. Finally,
the navy undertook radical changes in its approach and used asymmetric tactics
at sea to attack the center of gravity of the LTTE; their international
logistic network and ability to fight at sea, successfully and regained the
command of the sea. Naval action destroyed the LTTE's ability to wage and
sustain war on land and contributed to the grand victory by the armed forces. This
is a unique real-life case in the contemporary naval history. There can be many
lessons to be learnt from this experience for maritime strategists, policy
makers, practitioners, academics and naval officers.]
This
confirms the extraordinary talent of Tamils that were never used by the Sri
Lankan Government. If it took the Sri Lankan forces fully resourced by the government,
26 long years to defeat the LTTE – it was because they had internal discipline .
Discipline is a structure that facilitates the preservation of our own work for
which we are yet to take credit. The difference between costs and benefits
develops as a regulating structure. Tamils developed this through Indian
training more strongly than Sinhalese – including Dr Colombage – due to common
belief in Hinduism by Tamils and Sinhalese becoming the Opposition of Hindus due
to Buddhism being part of the Constitution. Belief when kept together, opposes
at the primary level. Hence the need for consciousness of Equality in Diversity.
In his Daily News article
‘Prabhakaran condemned Tamil youth to death and untold miseries’ Sugeeswara Senadira of the President’s media
unit refers to LTTE leader as ‘megalomaniac, Velupillai Prabhakaran’.
Megalomania is presented as follows by Wikipedia:
Megalomania is a delusional mental illness that is marked by
feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.
I was also referred to as
a mentally unstable person by some Tamils in the company of social gossip
mongers. That was when I was interpreted as being Anti-LTTE. This was after I
was so labelled by the Australian system for daring to challenge them. The
Sinhalese parallel labels me as Pro-LTTE. That is how EQUAL we are!
In all instances, as per
my conclusion, when we oppose the pre-packaged labels given by those who did
not fully earn those their position benefits – especially status – start imagining
and hence see themselves in the mirror of an apparent junior who in fact is their senior at that time for the
issue. LTTE was a disciplined force and
was in fact senior to the government forces. This makes their opposition
delusional and due to their false elevation they see themselves in the eyes of
the true warriors. It is a real-time punishment by the system of Karma.
If the
LTTE’s status and power were the images of ‘delusional mind’ it would not have taken the Sri
Lankan armed forces 26 years to defeat them. Any structured projection is
valid. LTTE leadership has firmly established that they were a disciplined
force in terms of armed fighting. Their weakness was Politics and they made it
worse by shattering the political structured developed over a long period by
disciplined Tamils who forbore and continued to oppose Sinhalese takeover
through majority power. The discrimination they endured not only disciplined
them but also developed reliable structures that preserved their ownership
contributions. To the extent Tamils discipline LTTE in virtual reality mode –
those structures are repaired and restored. They now support global status of
Tamil contribution to Sovereignty.
Dr
Colombage highlights that the People elected this government for the purpose of
maintaining the security of the country. As per article 3 of the Constitution:
[In
the Republic of Sri Lanka sovereignty is in the People and is inalienable.
Sovereignty includes the powers of government, fundamental rights and the
franchise.]
Out
of the three - government, fundamental rights and the franchise - where True Independence
is, Fundamental Rights are confirmed.
The other two are group power. If the voters were dependent on the government
then the government did need more executive powers to protect the sovereignty
of the People who are weak in Fundamental Rights. Tamils also weakened this
power by depending more and more on LTTE and its armed power.
A
Tamil Diaspora leader wrote in response to my analysis of Mr Senadira:
[All
know that Tamil terrorism was a last resort against shameless Sinhala terrorism
against innocent tamil civilians. In fact they would have succeeded if not for
India and other opportunistic supporters.]
I
responded to the above as follows:
[LTTE was not born
because of racism by the government. It was born because they – the LTTE
reacted to racism at the level of reactionaries. All those who did not pay
their dues to higher education contribute to this level culture. Senadira is
also reacting to Tamils who are acting as per low level of thinking. ]
THIS
is the real problem that Sri Lanka faces – i.e. – reacting at the lower level as
if they are free to do so. When the Democratic structure is idle – People’s
power becomes less and less and Government power more. That is the only way an
army leader can function. That then does not qualify to the status of
Democracy. This happens when the People
fail to earn their benefits.
When
it came to the issue of East Container Terminal being kept local - Dr Colombage
effectively claimed that the government
was overpowered by Trade Unions , the Clergy and the Intellectuals – whom he
named as People’s power. This confirms reverse autocracy by the People. In
Democracy – the only time People are facilitated to have their say on the basis
of their belief is at election time. Given that the reversal happened so
quickly – it confirms that this government is allowing itself to be told by the
People and that they were elected for that very reason. This is NOT Democracy.
Democracy
works when the People believe in themselves and therefore elect a government
from amongst themselves. Where the People are not self-governing but rather
become dependent on the government – the standards go down and the investment
in higher mind structures become redundant. THIS is the problem that has weakened
Sri Lankan People and therefore the governments elected by majority. This often
results in the independent individual and small independent groups to withdraw
to their local corners to live in Peace. Where this separation is not
facilitated – they would become depressed and the governing group becomes
over-excited. We call this Aarvak kolaaru in Tamil. The two together confirm space
based bipolar disease. When it happens within the same person it is time based
manifestation. The intellectuals in the above mentioned cannot be true
intellectuals – for true intellectuals have the ability to bring both together
at the same time through intellectual discrimination and allocation of priority
until the net result is discovered.
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