By Mario Perera, Kadawata

It was Anton Balasingham who bore the tag of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”LTTE theoretician’. What that meant, in the final analysis was that he was a glorified spokesman of the terrorists. He was called Dr.A.B, although we know he did not have a doctorate. Even if he did… so what ? In the world of today when titles are cheaper by the buckets, what matters is the quality of the holder and not of the label. We know that Dr.Colvin R.D de Silva refused the title ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Queens Counsel’. That did not diminish his stature, rather the contrary. Balasingham espoused the classical ideals of the LTTE all centering on the concept of a separate state called ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Ealam’. When ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Dr’ AB crossed the great divide his mantle fell on Thamilchelvam and after him on Nadesan. What all this means is that the word ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”theoretician’ was nothing more than a puff of air used to inflate the title holders concerned.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But there are more than normal nincompoops vying for that honour. These are persons whose theories could rightly be considered as smacking of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”insanity’. First a man called (prof.dr…) Peter Schalk. After critical analysis of his literature intellectuals of our own consider him to be ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”nuts’. His pretensions are vast and he vaunts them without the least scruples. What he purports to display is something akin to omniscience which reminds us of that comic film personality with a similar claim couched in the phrase: “I know the law”. This person Peter Schalk is a Swede. One of his principal contributions is as regards LTTE suicide bombers. He tries to set up an ideological framework in which to justify and enthrone these killers. There is no need to delve into European literature that investigates the psychic set up of these suicide squad members, the so called ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”black tigers’. Their religion, sadly like every other, would also seem to provide ideological platforms for supporting their misguided self destructive and murderous fervour. Krishna’s discourse to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita illustrates this point. If you are convinced of your cause, go to war and kill, for ultimately ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”no one kills no one’. The one and only ONE is the indestructible immortal SELF, and what is human history but a projection of empty forms within that SELF; mere mental effusions without ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”real’ content, a drama, a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”lila’ within the mind of the great Observer. The only reality is ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”THAT’ (TAT TVAM ASI-Thou art That).

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ We find such ideas in other civilizations too. Take the Enneades of Plotinus where we are confronted once again with the notion of the shadow shapes interwoven in life and death encounters. “Murders, death in all its guises, the reduction and sacking of cities, all must be to us just such a spectacle as the changing scenes of a play; all is but the varied incident of a plot, costume on and off, acted grief and lament. For on earth, in all the succession of life, it is not the Soul within but the Shadow outside of the authentic man, that grieves and complains and acts out the plot on this world stage which men have dotted with stages of their own constructing”. The phenomena are similar to a city of Gandharva, an optic illusion, a foam, a bubble, an emanation, a dream, and a halo of light produced by the whirling of the glowing tip of a stick.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A judge of the House of Lord once said that not even the devil knows the mind of man, which suggests that the human mind could be more than diabolical! It is not because such thoughts float about in the world of ideas that they should be appropriated and concretized. For this to materialize there should be a motivation for dying which is as strong as or stronger than the attachment to life itself. This is where these theoreticians and ideologues make their worse than diabolical contributions. As defenders and advocates of such ideals they are promoters of the cult of death. They not only vindicate suicide killers but also encourage others to do the same. As such would they not be accomplices of suicide and murder? Once again if life and death are dream phenomena would not death for a cause or a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”higher cause’ be also an exercise in self deception and futility? Does a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”no one’ dying for a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”no thing’ have any sense? But this is the paradox of it all. “Die because nothing in you dies, but what you die for is something worth the annihilation of your nothingness”. What is all this but insanity? Psychiatrist say that humans all suffer from the insanity syndrome, the difference being one of degrees. Yet the ideas mentioned above defy even the common notion of insanity for not all insane individuals want to self destruct and commit mass murder at the same time. As regards the Bhagavad-Gita what is of paramount importance is ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”righteous action for its own sake, and not for the fruit it produces’. Now the murderous suicides may think that their action is righteous, yet they commit it exclusively for the fruit others will enjoy. This intent empties the action of its righteous content thereby making it iniquitous. The unholy is therefore clothed with pseudo-holiness, appearing to be what it essentially is not. Hence any thought of clothing terrorism with Hindu spirituality is another version of the Emperor’s new clothes.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ As for Peter Schalk, the Scandinavian, he comes from a region where the suicide rate is very high and caused by nothing less than boredom with life. Some such countries are welfare states to such an extent that not working is a better option than working. Now it is a pithy saying that the idle mind is the devils workshop. So Peter Schalk justifying and encouraging suicide would appear to be a matter of second nature to him. What he says implicitly is: I am a potential suicide but being afraid of death (as Prabhakaran, Pulidevan, Nadesan and their ilk ultimately were…) I like to see others blowing themselves up. He is so fascinated by the cult of death that he consciously or sub conscientiously identifies himself with these destroyers of life and goads them on, what else for than his sadistic pleasure and self realization.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Why were Peter Schalk and others like him so involved at all with the LTTE? The apparent answer is besides the boredom with life itself, that their countries provide them with nothing to identify themselves with. There is nothing in place to bloat their egos and gloat on them. This attempt to identify self with something transpiring beyond their physical and mental (including cultural) horizons is also a confession of the backwardness of their cultures. Stagnant civilizations like stagnant waters are devoid of light; hence the search for light and glory elsewhere. We know that in these materially super abundant countries night is like day yielding the confusion between the real and its self created substitutes. Now where better to indulge in such hyper diabolical phantasies than somewhere in or around the Indian subcontinent. Here there is an overflowing wealth of culture and civilization, and also hope for a glorious future. But foremost for people like Schalk a small country like Sri Lanka still tied down with the chains of colonial excesses, is fertile ground to sow the seeds of their own vain glory. The quagmire of divisive politics created by the British is now metaphorically made into something akin to a brothel of sorts for use and abuse by a small group of countries audaciously pretending to be the international community. We know where swine like to wallow.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ There is then this ideologue of somewhat a different hue. He is also a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Prof.Dr’, Seemampillai Joseph Emmanuel by name. He ones declared in public that the suicide killers were martyrs and that the Church recognized this by giving them a catholic burial. Now here is another hyper diabolical initiative linking terrorism with the spirituality of the Catholic Church. The perpetrator is a Roman Catholic priest who was the Vicar General (meaning second in command of the diocese) of the Jaffna Bishop Deogupillai and the Rector of the Major Seminary (St.Francis Xavier Seminary) in Jaffna. When a priest of that rank embraces and enthrones suicide killers elevating them to the ranks of the martyrs without the least reprimand of his hierarchical superiors call them bishop, archbishop or Bishop’s conference or whatever, one has an insight into the mind set of these colourfully robed Church elite. Furthermore that this man was appointed Rector of the Major Seminary of Jaffna, the training ground of Tamil Catholic priests is an obvious indication that the hierarchy did not mind, to say the least, that future Tamil priests be indoctrinated and embrace the same convictions. The progression of the insanity of this Prof. Dr and Rev. is absolutely astounding. He wrote a book titled “Let my people go” and canvassed international support for his theories. He even enticed Desmond Tutu into subscribing to his views. Now this gentleman went still further on this unending highway that is lunacy. He was trying to concoct a ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”liberation theology’ FOR TAMILS ONLY! He has gone on record as likening PRABHAKARAN to…guess whom; none other than JESUS CHRIST. An all this while the colourful hierarchy who launched a hilarious outright war on Rev.Fr.Tissa Balasuriya about some personal ideas affecting only himself and his intimate literary circle, finally excommunicating him (which is the death knell for a Catholic as it literally means being sent to hell), said absolutely nothing. No such excommunication for Prof. Dr. Rev. SJE. This is probably explainable in that only human beings go to hell, while those who surpass devils in the evil they represent, surely have no place even with the devils themselves!

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Let me comment on the phrase ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Let my people go’. This is a reference to the Book of exodus of the Bible. The reference is more animatedly recapitulated in the verses of a Negro spiritual which I quote.

“When Israel was in Egypt’s land; let my people go. Oppressed so much they could not stand; Let my people go. Go down Moses, way down in Egypt’s land. Tell Old Pharoah; Let my people go.

Thus sayeth the Lord Old Moses said. Let my People go. Or else I’ll strike your newborn dead. Let my people go”.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ That these suicide killers (the Prof. Dr. Rev.’s catholic martyrs) struck down newborns is known to all and sundry. The title however is as insane as the rest. There is absolutely no comparison between the parties in question; Egypt, Israel, God and Moses on one side, and the Democratic socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and a group of secessionists thriving within its territory. So the god S.J.Emmanuel invokes cannot be the God of Israel and S.J.E cannot don the identity of Moses. The Epistle to the Hebrews says that Moses walked as if he saw the Invisible One (He.11, 27). But identifying Prabha with Jesus, S.J.E’s eyes were well on the corpulent figure of Prabha and Prabha’s Ealam. Moses was shown the promised land from afar. He did not enter it but saw it nevertheless. S.J.E saw his Ealam only within the perimeters of his mind. There was no real Ealam either to see or enter into. He will probably never again enter into this land the unitary State of Sri Lanka, the only one he can call his own, living as he does in exile in Germany. That the Catholic Church looked on without a frown of dissent is a devastating condemnation of its role in the Ealam war.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ S.J.E.was grappling with the idea of writing a liberation theology for Tamils only to the total exclusion of the Sinhalese. What is liberation theology? Catholic theology is based on classical western (basically Greek) thinking. It is a descending theology, the heavens opening and revealing its treasures. It is a triumphant theology in which Christ conquers, Christ reigns and Christ commands (Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat). It is the theology of miracles, of divine grace, of heavenly apparitions, of human beings endowed with powers to forgive sins, bring down Jesus on altars, to bind and lose on earth, the validity of which is endorsed in heaven. It is the theology of a Kingdom replete with power and glory intermingling and coalescing with earth. It is the theology of a new city, the heavenly Jerusalem, now symbolically the Vatican…and who knows, if SJE’s wishes were fulfilled, of Tamil Ealam.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Liberation theology was propounded by South American countries, ruled by dictators at the service of imperialist capitalist USA. These liberation theologians have recourse to Marxist economic policies to obtain and claim an equitable distribution of wealth to the poor. It is an ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”ascending theology’, one of the poor and the needy whose blood cries out to God for Justice. This theology was condemned by the Vatican, and the person mainly instrumental in procuring this judgment was a cardinal who is the present Pope. Incidental it was he who was deeply involved in the excommunication of Fr.Balasuriya at the behest of the Sri Lankan bishops. There is no liberation theology in Latin America for a secessionist movement to carve a separate State out of any of those countries. The prayer of Latin America’s liberation theologians is ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Thy Kingdom come’. Their contention with the western block is about the nature of this Kingdom. They never ever said: Let my people go! So SJE has once again led himself down the garden path. In any case his liberation theology for Tamils never saw the light of day.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A final word abut SJE’s liberation theology being only for the Tamils to the total exclusion of the Sinhalese. This might have a semblance of validity if God created the Tamils through a separate and unique mould in his mind. If he did so, on the final day of reckoning as described in the gospels, he would invite the righteous Tamils into heaven with the words: Well done my good and faithful TAMIL servant. Yet this is what SJE wants the Tamil Church to endorse. He said; I was born a Tamil and then became a Catholic. But it is the common teaching of the Universal Church that God created man to HIS IMAGE AND LIKENESS. If SJE was born a TAMIL, this can only mean to him that GOD IS ALSO A TAMIL; that HE has the image and likeness of a Tamil.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ We know through the bible that when God wants to destroy his enemies, He clouds their minds. This means in very plain words that HE makes them go NUTS. Really, about this thirty year madness that was the Ealam war, one could exclaim with Shakespeare: O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.

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