Daily News Editorial

For all those who say that there is an overreaction on the part of the defence establishment to the legitimate expression of academic dissent in the North, the article in these pages yesterday by Dr. Susantha Goonetilleke, a former president of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS), should be must reading.

Dr. Goonetilleke gave the reader a brief overview of how the academic community in the North was by and large complicit in the falsification of facts, with regard to archaeological discoveries that cast light on ancient place names for instance, in the Northern Province.

These academics, working to the grand plan of the LTTE disinformation unit, went along with a devious campaign to reclassify these findings as evidencing some kind of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”Tamil BuddhismƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢, that was separate from the Buddhism that prevailed in other parts of the country.

This process of rewriting history could not be rectified until there was a comprehensive liberation of the North, and the areas previously held either by force of terrorist weapons or through force of pervasive Tamil Tiger intimidation were brought under the full control of the Sri Lankan government, through its Armed Forces. It is in this particular context that the current attempt to rationalize the runaway academic freedoms of the North, acquires legitimacy after years of this nonsense, when a virulent form of Nazi-like disinformation was the order of the day in the North.

After all, the Jaffna academics that have gone into paroxysms of righteous anger ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” feigned of course — against the restoration of law and order in Jaffna and the rest of the North, never tire of talking of an army-led ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”thought policeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ that seeks to, as they say, regiment the views of the free and independent intellectual community.

Thought police? The LTTE diktat which prevailed in the North, with the active connivance of the academic community, was in pursuance of thought obliteration, never mind thought policing ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” and the creation of a robot culture for scholar and Everyman, that believed in only one thing, the alleged cruelty of the hegemonic dominant culture of what they called ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”the Buddhist governmentƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Sinhala occupying forcesƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢!

These LTTEers and their partners in academe had no time to ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”policeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ peopleƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s minds, they steamrollered over the slightest hint of original thought in the region. Goebbels could have been put to shame with some of the blatant tactics of falsification and vilification these academics peddled, to promote the LTTEƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s brand of altered history.

Some readers would remember that the LTTEƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s brand of Nazism was no joke — Prabhakaran at one point adopted the Nazi salute, and it took one tough question posed at his infamous Killlinochchi press conference for him to decide to eschew that nod to Nazism, and the Nazi ideology, whose methods he was the best mimic and exponent of, in modern times.

What alternative does the defence establishment have under the circumstances, other than to be hyper-vigilant, and ensure that there is no brainwashing comparable to the fascist order of mind control that was adopted during the ignominious period Prabhakaran held the people of the North ransom to his insatiable desire for total control?

If the military has to control things in the North now, it is just so that PrabhakaranƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s brand of control from the grave is put down, and kept down forever. Nobody should underestimate the level of diabolical distortion that the Nazi-like LTTEers were capable of through a dishonest and pliant academic community in the North.

Not all, but a great many of them were able to internationally sell the myth of Sinhala led persecution with tales as tall (and as dangerous) as Sinhala Buddhists and their fondness ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”for Tamil meatƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ — as Susantha Goonetilleka pointed out in his article on Monday.

The country breathes a collective sigh of relief that these days of perfidy are behind us and that Sri Lankans are spared this drivel of unadulterated race-based hatred. But eternal vigilance is the price of peace, and hats off to the defence establishment for not being misled by the liberal bleeding hearts that would have us believe that just because Prabhakaran died at Nandikadal, his narrative from hell would also double down and die with him.