By Rohana R. Wasala

Vinod Munasinghe’s constructive feedback comments (‘A statue of Mandela will do no harm’/The Island/May 18, 2020) on my opinion piece of Saturday (May 16) titled ‘This is no laughing matter’ provided the cue for this attempt to submit my ideas, for reader scrutiny, about the subject hinted at in my title today, for what they are worth. I appreciate Munasinghe’s suggestions. Sincere thanks! I stand corrected about the location of the International Crisis Group which, I erroneously wrote, was headquartered in South Africa. It is in Brussels, Belgium as you correctly point out. My sincere apologies to the readers for the error. You have also given a better idea in outline about the history of formal and informal interactions between Sri Lanka and South Africa over a longer period of time than I suggested. But I believe that Munasinghe will agree with me that the SA High Commission’s request for a Mandela statue to be erected in Colombo needs to be interpreted in terms of its timing: May 19, 2020 marks the 11th anniversary of the defeat of armed separatist terrorism; and it is also the day that a memorial ceremony is held for the fallen war heroes; meanwhile the Cabinet’s seemimgly casual compliance with the superficially innocuous request needs to be commented on, too.  

However, the question implicit in my previous piece, i.e., ‘Why a Mandela statue in Colombo?’, was not meant to detract in the least from the great admiration that I have for Nelson Mandela as a fierce anti-imperialist, heroic freedom-fighter, and great human being. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Sri Lankan government taking a decision to install a Mandela statue in an appropriate place in Sri Lanka so long as it doesn’t do so at the behest of some coercive outside power.

Back to my subject. Munasinghe is right about Yasmin Sooka and Navaneetham Pillai not being representative of the South African government. Of course, he doesn’t say that I think they are. My point is that Sri Lanka is being baited, particularly at UNHRC, Geneva, for alleged perpetration of war crimes, human rights abuses, non-observance of democratic norms in domestic politics, and the whole caboodle of similar offences that the country could be falsely imagined to have committed; this makes us wonder whether the powers that be are using international civil servants (like Sooka and Pillai who seem to be possessed by some inexplicable personal grudge against the majority ethnic Sinhalese community) as a cat’s paw in persecuting the whole Sri Lankan people for applying pressure on its nationalist political leaders, in pursuit of their own geopolitical ends. 

Naturally, the sovereign people of Sri Lanka who would resent their own civil servants to lord it over them, reject with the deepest contempt the current undue advances of international civil servants. By allowing them to act in an imperious manner towards Sri Lanka, these global powers are violating the collective human rights of all Sri Lankans, while compounding their already artificially complicated internal problems, rendering them even more intractable. International nosy-parkers’ unsolicited interventions turned to cases of brazen interference in Sri Lanka’s civil disputes during the Yahapalanaya. The Western imperialist powers (aka international community, neoliberalists, neocons, champions of globalization, and so on) try to manipulate internal politics in Sri Lanka under the pretext of protecting the minorities from the alleged majoritarianism of the Sinhalese, something that these selfish foreign powers do in  their own national interest back home. Nationalism is good for those imperialist powers,it seems, but when the Sinhalese majority practice nationalism (embracing all Sri Lankans as one nation), they denounce it as racism, and use that bogus criticism to suppress and persecute the Sinhalese.  

But this theme is incidental to the basic point that Munasinghe sets out to enlighten us on in his response to my piece. He touches on what could be called a tradition of delaying the setting up of statues in memory of national heroes worthy of such honour. Munasinghe says that ‘Why a Mandela statue in Colombo?’ is a good question because …..Sri Lanka has been tardy in erecting statues of people, who contributed to the country’s liberation from colonial oppression. For example, CWW Kannangara, the father of free education, in this country, did not have a statue erected to him, until 1989, 20 after his demise. It stands in front of the Matugama auditorium”. I agree. Petty personal politics, in my own opinion, is at the root of this perennial anomaly.

Actually, a more recent instance of the same phenomenon was at the back of my mind when I started writing about the proposed Mandela statue in Colombo: the case of the Lakshman Kadirgamar statue. It took eight years after his assassination for a statue of Lakshman Kadirgamar to be erected! He was an independent minded patriot but an unwilling politician who put himself in the firing line in the literal sense, as it were, out of love of his nation/country and the sincerity of his commitment to the establishment of national unity. In that, he stood in stark contrast to most average politicians who have or demonstrate little understanding of the real meaning of nation or national unity, and care less about whether these terms mean anything to the voters whose support they woo using those terms exclusively as rousing slogans. 

The apparent sloppiness of attention with which the Cabinet of Ministers seemed to have decided the matter about the Mandela statue made me a little angry. It incidentally reminded me of the shabby treatment that the late Kadirgamar was subjected to by some of his closest political allies, both in life and in death, with a single honourable exception, though. 

The Island editorial under the title ‘An overdue honour for Kadir’ on August 12, 2013 – the day that the Lakshman Kadirgamar statue was unveiled in the premises of Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies at Horton Place, Colombo on his eighth death anniversary after it had been stored away in a crate for a number of years – opened thus: 

‘Lakshman Kadirgamar, one of Sri Lanka’s illustrious sons, is honoured posthumously today. His statue which was lying in a crate for years in the backyard of an institution named after him has been taken out, dusted and installed at long last—eight years after his untimely demise. Better late than never! 

‘Oxford honoured its outstanding alumnus , Kadirgamar, while he was alive. His portrait  was unveiled at the Oxford Union on March 18, 2005 a few months before his tragic end. It was indeed a very rare honour. He was the Treasurer and President of the union in 1958 and 1959 respectively. That is the way great men and women should be honoured’.

The Island editorial of August 12, 2013 also stated: ‘It is heartening that the Kadirgamar statue has come up where it should be. But, there is no need for statues to perpetuate the memory of Kadir, who laid down his life for this country. With or without memorials, he continues to live in the heart of every right thinking, grateful Sri Lankan, who appreciated his selfless service to the nation. The erection of his statue will only serve to prove that Sri Lanka is not a land of ingrates’. 

The Island editor paid an even more moving tribute on the day of Kadirgamar’s funeral, August 15, 2005: ‘Farewell to an uncrowned king’, wherein he made this biting comment on the shamelessness of the countries that supported the LTTE that assassinated Kadir:

‘The diplomats of the countries, where the LTTE is allowed to operate need no clothes, when they pay their respects to Kadir. They can file past his coffin, stark naked. For, they have proved they have no sense of shame.’

The story of the Kadirgamar statue/s is related by his daughter Ajita Kadirgamar in her biography of her late father titled ‘The Cake that was Baked at Home:  Snapshots of the Man’s Life by His Daughter’ (Vijita Yapa, Colombo, August 2015). This is found in the Chapter titled ‘A Tale of Two Statues’ (pp. 324-333). She has some extracts from the editorial of The Island of August 12, 2013 mentioned above including what I have quoted above (except the last bit from the editorial written on August 15, 2005 the day of the funeral).

The story of the Kadirgamar statue is a bit complicated. However, it has nothing to do with Kadirgamar himself or his unique legacy to the nation. The delay in erecting a statue in his honour was neither caused by minor issues of a personal/family nature resulting from certain disagreements between his surviving children on the one hand and his widow on the other,  but by the determined obstructions placed by his sneaky unworthy rivals who would have been beneath his notice when he was alive; reading the account, one feels that this factor was almost entirely responsible for the inordinate delay.. 

From Ajita Kadirgamar’s account one can guess that Kadir’s unworthy successor put dampeners on the statue erection project. She writes: . ‘Three years after LK’s death, there was still no decision where the statue should be erected’. She   quotes the following from Dr U. Pethiyagoda writing to The Island on April 11, 2013: ‘His statue must surely be smiling to itself as it languishes in a box at the institution, which however is not shy to blandish his illustrious name!’ She goes on to extract this from Namini Wijedasa/transcurrent.com on ‘Foreign Minister Bogollagama’s antics and escapades’, August 24, 2008: ‘At one cabinet meeting, the question of where the Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial statue should be installed arose. The foreign ministry has been given the task of finding a suitable permanent address for the statue. Bogollagama was absent. President Rajapaksa asked Deputy Minister Hussein Bhaila where the statue would eventually be erected. Bhaila said he could not tell as Bogollagama was not in Sri Lanka. It will take another ten years for him to get back”, Rajapaksa had reportedly said angrily. As acting minister, you must make a decision. If you can’t take decisions in such a manner, I will have to appoint somebody else to your place”.  

According to Ajita Kadirgamar, among many who commented on ‘the predicament’ was former Sri Lankan Ambassador in Doha Satharatilaka Banda Atugoda, who in 2012 stated: ‘A day may also come when it will dawn in the conscience of the authorities responsible, petty-partisan-selfish-egoistic attitudes should be erased from their minds, when it comes to honouring national patriots like Lakshman Kadirgamar, by deciding to place his statue in the premises of this Institute, which is gathering dust at present.’ I think Atugoda hit the nail on the head in this case. 

Eventually, the statue was unveiled by the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Kadirgamar Institute premises at Horton Place on the late leader’s eighth death anniversary of August 12, 2013.

What upset me about the SA High Commission’s request for a Nelson Mandela statue in Colombo and the ministers’ easy-going accommodation of it apparently without considering the circumstances, if any, that make it  something imperative in the national interest was that it immediately made me wonder whether the era of politicians who allow themselves to be blinded by  ‘petty-partisan-selfish-egoistic attitudes’ is still not over.