Gunadasa Amarasekera

March 23, 2018, 10:30 pm

It was heartening to read Tamara Kulanayagam’s highly perceptive observations on this issue. We are beholden to her for the courage she has displayed in voicing her thoughts. ‘The island’ too could share it for giving it publicity. I understand that she is rather disheartened with the way the present government is handling the issue at Geneva, but I have not lost hope. Sarath Weerasekera and I have already forwarded our objections as to the way the High Commissioner is handling the matter.

Her in depth analysis of the causes, Tamara relating it to the 1983 Black July, and her conclusions are all encapsulated in her concluding passage which reads as follows-“My conclusion is that anti-Muslim attacks serve only Washington’s agenda, propping up its allies in a tottering yahapalana government, silencing the opposition within and outside government, dividing the people, shifting their attention away from the real issues and advancing Washington’s objective of turning Sri Lanka into a vassal state that can be utilized in its strategy of containing and rolling back China.”This is certainly the naked truth that most have failed to realize.

Tamara

These observations of hers have emboldened me to reproduce some observations I had made way back in 1986 in an essay written in Sinhala contained in the booklet-Ganaduru Madiyama. That was the time our liberal intellectuals were desperately offering their solutions to the so-called ‘ethnic problem’. There were so many discussions and seminars, one of those highly acclaimed intellectuals invited me to participate in one of those discussions. It was the deliberations at that discussion that provoked me to write that essay. Not being a political analyst or even a student of political Science but a mere writer of fiction I did not mind displaying my colossal ignorance on this issue. I fancied the role of the little child who said that the emperor was naked.

This is what I wrote in that essay.” There cannot be a greater act of self-deception than accepting Tiger Terrorism as a language problem or a problem related to ethnicity. This act of deception was the result of a well thought out plan introduced and propagated by Western Imperialists and their henchmen here. Their intention was to conceal their objective, conceal the truth and convince us that there was an ethnic problem which could be resolved through Federalism-by dividing the country in the name of Justice and Fair play to the minority Tamils and Muslims of the North and East. All other causes were ignored. Many a liberal intellectual bought it. Little did they realize the conspiracy behind it .Even if there was no conspiracy was there a rational basis for such a proposition? “By now it should be obvious that there is nothing, but a well-planned conspiracy of the Western powers to get a foothold in this country by dividing it up to achieve their so called geopolitical ambitions.

We need to avert this tragic fate awaiting our country. It does not matter, who offers a solution, how, or why as long as we are all aware of the bigger picture within which we all have to operate.

Gunadasa Amarasekera