By Sena Thoradeniya

Chairman Mao concluded his article titled, Report on An Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (1927) quoting the parable of Lord Sheh who loved dragons. As told by Liu Hsiang (77-6 B.C.) Lord Sheh was fond of dragons that he adorned his whole palace with drawings and carvings of them. But when a real dragon who heard of his infatuation for dragons and paid him a visit, Sheh was frightened and ran for his life.

Bible says: For they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). We should anticipate suffering serious consequences as the outcome of our own actions.

Foreign funded NGOs, Sarvagamika priests wearing saffron robes, white cassocks and skull caps, media personnel and anglicised Western embassy cocktail party scribes, some sections of the so-called professionals and academia, gentlemen criminals” donning black coats and pseudo theorists who theorised   the Galle Face Carnival making modern myths jointly created a Frankenstein at the Galle Face Green.  They celebrated it and glorified it not knowing that it will be morphed into a sinister monster. All of them were descendants of Lord Sheh who sang hosannas to the so-called  ”Aragalaya, Porattam, Struggle” (their words) colouring 2022 as the year of victories”, describing Galle Face Carnival as a popular uprising”, birth of a revolutionary movement”, bloodless revolution” etc. Thus, they sowed a wind without realising that they are going to reap a whirlwind.

The monster first appeared at Peradeniya University soon after the end of Galle Face charade, on September 14, 2022, when a group of IUSF members (or Raggers”) attacked a group of Law students (anti-Raggers”) while they were dinning in it and subsequently prevented them from entering the canteen. Protests erupted against the Dean of the Faculty of Arts threatening his ouster. The rallying call was if we can oust an elected President ouster of a Dean is child’s play”.  Peradeniya Arts Faculty Teachers ‘Association (PAFTA) was compelled to issue a statement condemning this act, becoming a set of descendants of Lord Sheh notwithstanding their unstinted support to Galle Face Protesters, as the most violent segment at the Galle Face was IUSF members.

We cannot recall whether various Teachers’ Associations at Peradeniya and elsewhere came forward in support of the besieged Dean.

In December 2022, about 300 student- marauders attacked a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Peradeniya, his son and inflicted considerable damage to his official residence forcibly trying to enter it and injuring some residents. No doubt all of them may belong to a group who spearheaded the campaign against the former President.  

Very same television anchors, editorialists who celebrated, lauded, championed and supported the Galle Face Protesters saw these students as savages in Universities”. All of them condemned this attack unreservedly and preached about the virtues of discipline. This is how they began to feel the rage of the whirlwind. FUTA had to ask the police to arrest the group of students accused of assaulting the former V.C.  PAFTA decided to observe a complete work stoppage for five days from December 14, 2022. The statement issued by it says, this decision has been taken over the Peradeniya University administrators’ failure to protect the University staff”. Protection from whom? From the very same people whom they had suckled a few months ago.  A bourgeois-liberal academic who pays lip service to Gramsci, Althusser and other Marxist Revisionists were happy to write that the university academics supported the former V.C. making a statement denouncing the attackers.  TheseLord Shehs had to hide behind press statements!

Then came the So-called Porattam” of unshaven, saffron- robed marauders at Pali and Buddhist University. One saffron- robed student was audacious enough to state at a press conference that he was ready to become its V.C. and solve the problems immediately. This is a sign of the caliber of people going to man top institutions after capturing political power in their Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The worst happened when a pro-JVP/NPP You Tuber, a Galle Face activist made sacrilegious remarks about the sacred Dhanta Dhatu, insulting the sacred relic as a Labba” (literary a bottle gourd, metaphorically male genitalia). This is the culmination of debasing Buddhism in general and Vesak in particular by the Galle Face Protesters. (For how the Galle Face Protesters celebrated” Vesak making Veask a multi-religious masala, please read my article, Culture of Galle Face Protesters” posted on September 3, 2022). Some saffron- robed pretenders commenced a false Was at Galle Face Green against Vinaya rules.

All these activities took place under the shadow of a political monk who visited the Galle Face Green at crucial times accompanied by the Cardinal with the sole intention of making   press statements. Now the same Ayatollah in saffron robes urges the government to enforce law against those who make blasphemous statements against Buddhism and regulate unobstructed social media usage.  Did not this monk understand how the Galle Face Protesters abused social media when he was acting as their patron-saint along with other religious leaders?  Now all have realised how dangerous the morphed Frankenstein which they all have jointly created.

Time has come for all of these Shehs to run for their lives!  

Bourgeois liberal press in Colombo described the above-mentioned You Tuber as a freethinker, a non-believer and outspoken man”, well-known for his unorthodox views that challenge what he claims are parochial tradition and customs”, famous for his biting, unfiltered political commentary”. What more they have to say about the Frankenstein they have created other than giving him kid glove treatment, joining him to debase Dalada as an object associated with parochial tradition and custom”?

As a person who knows about this person as an acquaintance of his parents, from the day he came to the big city from Sabaragamuwa as a tiny tot winning a fifth standard Shishyathwa scholarship until his metamorphism as a You Tuber vilifying every target, better not to reveal the sick mind and unsavory reputation of a psychopath.

A big mistake done by various columnists and people who have domiciled in foreign countries who do not know the ground realities here except what they have experienced a few decades ago is branding these people as Marxists. It’s the biggest insult they can make to Marxism-Leninism. Even the saffron- robed marauders of Pali and Buddhist University were painted as Leninists by some! One basic question they should ask from these marauders is how many volumes of Collected Works of Lenin are available in print form published by the former Soviet Union and name at least the title of a single article authored by Lenin.

Similarly, naming JVPers as Rathu Sahodarayas” has become an occupational disease of media men and women. How they have metamorphosised from an ultra-left, adventurous, roving rebel” killing squad into a petty-bourgeois, liberal grouping with a penchant for sartorial elegance displaying best of designer wear, haute couture for their unsuspecting listeners    should be a case study for political and cultural analysts. (I repeat here what I have stated in 2015 at a press interview).

A woman writer reminiscing 2022 stated that Aragalaya” opened their eyes, ears and more importantly their mouths. Now see with open eyes, ears, mouths and more importantly with bleeding hearts and dissected body parts what your (P)aragalaya” has brought to Sri Lanka!

Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera, the elder statesman of Sinhala literature told the writer recently that economic or political disasters can be remedied within a few years. But the cultural disasters and devastations cannot be rectified even after generations. South Korea, the Philippines, many Latin American countries and US Protectorates provide ample evidences to this conjecture.  Western powers, INGOs and their bogeymen here have understood this very well.