{"id":100674,"date":"2020-04-02T16:45:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T23:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=100674"},"modified":"2020-06-26T12:17:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T19:17:55","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-15b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/02\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-15b\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 15B"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

REVISED  26.6.2020 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the Eelam wars started there was great\ncompetition among senor students in schools to join the army as officer cadets,\nsaid Kamal Gunaratne. Those who joined the army as officers during this period\nwere from upper middle class backgrounds. Even the soldiers were from very good\nfamily backgrounds and had good qualifications, said Kamal Gunaratne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But during Eelam war II and III with the\nbattle failures and the huge number of deaths no one wanted to join the\ninfantry. Around 1997, there was hardly any response to the recruitment drive\nto the army.  They shied away from\ninfantry but were ready to join Commando and Special force regiments, observed\nKamal Gunaratne.  Youth from rural\nvillages and lower middle class families came forward to join as officer\ncadets. They were sent to the battle field immediately after training and died\nthere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who did join the infantry came from very\npoor families who were destitute and had no other means of livelihood. They came from remote villages.  The army badly needed recruits, so army took\npeople without qualifications and some who were quite illiterate. Some were at\nthe low end of social stratum. They were village outcasts, with uncouth qualities. Even in their own villages they were\nregarded as inferior without much recognition.\nSo the good name of the soldier got tarnished, said Kamal Gunaratne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were many deserters due to the\ndifficulties of the war. After deserting they resorted to wrong doing to\nsurvive. Wide publicity was  given  when deserters committed crimes. Media\n was ever ready to give publicity to any\nincident involving a soldier or deserter in their columns. . Also to accuse a soldier whenever there was an\nincident in a village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any illegal activity was blamed on soldiers\nand it was customary for police to accuse soldiers whenever things\nhappened.    Whenever a village brawl was\nreported, and a soldier was involved police were quick to take action against\nthe soldier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldiers involved in small disputes were\nbrutally assaulted by the police irrespective of their rank and file. This was\nmeted out even to disabled soldiers. This was mainly at junior level of the\npolice and it was done before the public. When \na soldier was taken into custody on suspicion they were abused,\nharassed,   sometimes tortured. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When such soldiers were produced in courts,\npolice made sure that they were sent to remand prison for at least 14 days. Soldiers\nwho were treated unjustly would appeal to us for help. But that       worked the   opposite way, said Kamal Gunaratne . Military police  also acted with arrogance and impunity towards\nsoldiers. The military police treated the foot soldier like outcasts. Some\ntreated them shabbily. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The army   had to face Insults, humiliation and ridicule\nwhenever peace talks with LTTE took place.  The worst was during the Ceasefire said Kamal\nGunaratne .  This writer thinks that\nthis  may have goaded the soldiers to\nfight strongly in Eelam war IV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The negative attitude of the government toward\nthe army was quite apparent to the public \nand it rubbed off on them.  The\nlevel of acceptance and regard a soldier \ngot in Sri Lanka was shameful, said Kamal Gunaratne .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinhala cinema, very popular in Sri Lanka, was\nused to present a negative picture of the soldier. This was clearly a part of\nthe externally planned modus operandi to ensure that the LTTE won the Eelam\nWar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were\nseveral films made about soldiers fighting the Eelam war. The main ones\nwere  \u2018Me mage sandai\u2019 (2000) by Asoka\nHandagama,  \u2018Purahanda kaluwara\u2019 (2001)\nby Prasanna Vithanage,  \u2018Sudu  kalu saha alu\u2019  (2005) by Sudath Mahadivulwewa, \u2018Ira\nmadiyama\u2019(2005)by Prasanna Vithanage, \u2018Sulanga enu pinisa\u2019  (2006) \nby Vimukthi Jayasundara,  and\n\u2018Igillena Maaluwo\u2019 (2011)  by Sanjeewa\nPushpakumara  . Some of these films were\nshown on the public film circuit and they were well attended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Producing anti-war films seems to have become\na shortcut to easy project funding from the West, international awards,\nand recognition. Every anti-war film produced in Sri Lanka has won\ninternational awards, said contemptuous local critics . Funding for\nlocal productions is an uphill struggle with the securing of bank loans and the\nlike. But Western countries are ever willing to fund anti-war films in Sri\nLanka provided they present the military in an unflattering and insulting\nlight. Of the three films this writer (Kamalika Pieris) saw, two were utterly\nfeeble and did not deserve to win international film awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sulanga, the army detachment is portrayed\nas a drunken lot. There was a fornicating soldier, another soldier on drugs and\ntalk of torture. Mallika Wanigasundera\ncommenting on \u2018Sulanga,\u2019 said the purpose of the film is to cause revulsion\nagainst the army. She\npointed out that at the time the film was shown, the army had not lost the war.\nThey had managed to contain the LTTE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said she can understand how army\npersonnel, who have seen the way the soldiers fight, the suffering of their\nfamilies, get angry when they see this film. I can well understand the feelings\nwith which they have criticized this\u2018work\nof art\u2019.  Sulanga is the work of a\nhistory less generation to whom patriotism is a dirty word, added Mallika. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The columnist Nan\nsaid the film degrades the rural women, who unlike in the film possess\ninhibitions.  Facing economic\ndifficulties, and with her men at war, the rural woman will not think of sex,\nsaid Nan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shamindra\nFerdinando said \u2018Sudu, kalu saha alu\u2019 was an outright attack on the Sinhalese in\ngeneral and the Buddhists in particular. The film is on foot soldiers, their\nfamilies and the Buddhist temple.  The\nfilm ridicules the soldiers and also suggests that soldier\u2019s wives sleep with\nothers when their husbands are away at war. The film also implies that the war\nhad disrupted family life and young girls are turned into prostitutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film is\nintended to undermine the soldiers and discourage village youth from joining\nthe police and armed forces, said Shamindra. \nIn the film, an army deserter ridicules sovereignty and territorial\nintegrity.  The film suggests that the\nEelam issue cannot be settled militarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ira Mediyama depicts the Sinhala soldier as a\npoverty stricken wretch and conveys the message that the government forces are\nno match for the enemy. A soldier on leave who visits a brothel in Anuradhapura\nwith some of his colleagues and finds his sister among the prostitutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This writer (Kamalika Pieris) saw one of these\nfilms, (forget which), at a film festival. It started with a person going to an\noutside lavatory, on a hillock, carrying a bucket. There were lots of shots of\ncoming and going from this lavatory, but what struck  me most was the scene  where two army tanks were shown,  going forwards and backwards,  butting each other on a narrow path, far away\nfrom the battle zone. The scene reminded me of environment films where male\nanimals are shown, butting head to head, fighting for territory or a female.\nThe director of the film, (forget name) who was present at the showing had no\nexplanation to offer for this scene, when we asked him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story lines in the anti-war films have\nbecome wilder and wilder until the giddy limit was reached in Igillena Maaluwo\n(Flying Fish) released in 2011 after the war ended. There was a mighty furore\nover the screening of Igillena Maaluwo <\/em>at\nthe   annual French Film Festival held in\nColombo. It was for invitees only, so the rest of us did not get to see it, but\nthe invitees complained loudly to the public the next day. They were shocked\nand angry. The festival itself was halted, probably the first time that such a\nthing happened in Sri Lanka.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though these\nfilms are set in the time of the Eelam wars, the war is only a\nbackdrop. The LTTE is never\nshown. No fighting is ever shown. The focus in these\nfilms is the soldier and the soldier is shown in a negative light.  In\n\u2018Ira madiyama\u2019,   three soldiers on leave\ngo to a brothel in Anuradhapura. In \u2018Sulanga enu pinisa\u2019   the army detachment is portrayed as a\ndrunken lot. They   were taking cannabis,  indulging in fornication   and adultery. They were torturing suspects\ntoo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stories concentrate\non the\nsex lives of home guards,\nsoldiers\nand their wives. It is always the sex lives of armed forces personnel and their\nspouses and other Sinhala villagers that is the main focus, commented\ncritics.  Within the subject of sex, the\nfilms focus mainly on fornicating. These films feature a lot of fornicating but\nno fighting, critics commented.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the films have\nlengthy copulation scenes. The\ncopulation\nis mainly outdoors and\nmostly against trees.There is a copulation scene indoors only in Sudu kalu saha alu.\nIn a slight variation, in the last film Flying Fish, copulation is performed\nstanding against a wall (instead of the customary tree).  In every film,\ncopulation is animalistic and frenzied and the wives of armed forces personnel\nare depicted as nymphomaniacs more aggressive than the fornicating soldiers\nthemselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adultery is another key motif. If the wife of a soldier is\nshown copulating, it is never with her legal husband. In fact no copulation takes\nplace between married couples in any of these films. Only extra-marital or\npre-marital sex is shown, commented critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u2018Me mage sandai\u2019, the pregnant wife of a\nsoldier killed in the war, tries to rape another soldier against a tree just\nmoments after leaving the scene of the still smoldering funeral pyre of her\ndead husband. She says she\nconceived the child in her belly under that very tree with her deceased\nhusband.  This means, said the critic that she had been\nhaving sex with her husband under trees and not indoors even though they were\nmarried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admiral Sarath Weerasekera was incensed by\nthese films and worked hard to build public opinion and reverse the damage. In\nhis widely read article in Irida Divaina of September 4, 2005 Sarath\nWeerasekera had accused the directors of \u2018Sulanga\u201d, Sudu\u201d and Ira\u201d of an\noutright attack on Sinhalese and Buddhists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed out that the LTTE, in their\npropaganda, demean the Sinhalese and the Sinhala soldier. The scenes in \u2018\nSulanga\u2019 perfectly match what the \nLTTE  says , he observed. Weerasekera\n  was engaged in a single handed struggle\nagainst these films.  He was silenced by\norders from the  top said Kamal Gunaratne\n.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamal Gunaratne  also commented on three of these films, \u2018Me\nmage sandai\u2019, \u2018Sudu kalu saha alu\u2019, and \u2018Sulanga ena pinisa\u2019. He said these\nfilms were utterly repulsive and despicable. Soldiers are  depicted as an opportunists, rapists and\nsexual deviants. Wives who were\nstruggling to bring up children alone while their husbands were fighting the\nwar, were shown as sex hungry  and\nprostitutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We thought there\nwould be some sort of public outcry about these films but there was\nnone.Instead these films helped to make people believe that such things  really  did happen , said Kamal Gunaratne . These films made soldiers feel utterly\ndepressed and dejected, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Purahanda\nKaluwara\u2019, \u2018Me Mage Sandai\u2019 and<\/em> \u2018Sulanga Enu Pinisa\u2019<\/em>  were banned by the government .Purahanda was\nprohibited by the authorities despite it being given the Certification of\nPerformance by the Public Performances Board as suitable for public exhibition.\nThe authorities claimed that the film would harm the morale of the forces as\nthe country was on a war footing. The director \nsuccessfully claimed a denial of his fundamental rights and the film was\nshown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purahanda\nKaluwara  confirms that these films  are sponsored \nones. Purahanda was a sponsored film where the   theme and content has been decided well\nbeforehand,   clearly not by Withanage.  Withanage says When I was\noffered the sponsorship I was determined to make the best film I could direct\u2019\u201d.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went to Medawachchiya with a completed script that was quite\ndifferent to the final film. At Medawachchiya he was   shocked \nby what he saw there, half-built houses started by the young men who had\njoined the Army and killed in battle, parents waiting the return of their sons.\nMany  of the soldiers  who had joined the Army came  from the areas where there had been no rain\nfor cultivation for three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 This gave Withanage  a\ndifferent insight to the situation. the youths I met in Madawachchiya  were victims of both economy and nature,\nwithout having jobs and water for cultivation. Their only option was to join\nthe army knowing at least they would get compensation after their deaths and\nthis would help their families\u201d. This heart rending story made an impact on me,\nWithanage said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with a\nnew script Prasanna started filming what he saw in  locations in and around\nAnuradhapura. But he was not able to discard the original script\ncompletely. This is clear from the observation the script in his hand had to\nbe interlaced with the tragic and pathetic scenes he saw in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purahanda is a good film. It is  well \nscripted, well acted and well directed. The location is authentic.\nProblem was that the  film emphasized death on the battlefield at a\ntime when a  civil war was going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dramatic\nending where the ageing father digs up the grave  and finds that the coffin  contains, not a corpse, but the trunks of a\nplantain tree,  could be interpreted by\nthe audience as an indication of how deceitful the army was .The  timing of  this film was certainly  wrong from the point of view of the government\n, But it was fine from the point of view of the sponsor. (continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS REVISED  26.6.2020 Before the Eelam wars started there was great competition among senor students in schools to join the army as officer cadets, said Kamal Gunaratne. Those who joined the army as officers during this period were from upper middle class backgrounds. Even the soldiers were from very good family backgrounds and had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}