{"id":105576,"date":"2020-08-16T23:39:18","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T05:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=105576"},"modified":"2020-08-16T16:24:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T23:24:27","slug":"majority-verdict-and-bewailing-of-nihilists-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/08\/16\/majority-verdict-and-bewailing-of-nihilists-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority Verdict and bewailing of Nihilists \u2013 Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

By : A.A.M.NIZAM \u2013 MATARA<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Lional Bopage, who\nwas the first General Secretary of the 1971 JVP, who was the first of the 21\nleaders of JVP accused for launching a rebellion to topple the government and\nwho was a close associate of Victor Ivan and who now enjoys a luxury life in\nAustralia and who was also responsible for the untimely death of thousands of\npoor educated village youth in 1971 in an article to foreign sustained NGO\nvulture Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu\u2019s one of the websites, the Groundviews titled\nThe best and the worst \u2013 2020 General Elections\u201d states the general elections\non 5 August turned out to be an outstanding victory for the Rajapaksa Family\nand the Sinhala Buddhist nationalists and ordinary members of the country\u2019s\nmajority community. He says that in his opinion a victory of this magnitude\nprovides a great opportunity which could be used for the benefit of the country\nand its people. It also brings up, he says, a more worrisome scenario where\nmilitarisation of the democratic institutions will continue, concerns of\nminorities will be ignored, and erosion of the rule of law and less\ntransparency and accountability are most likely to occur and this victory has\nopened a new chapter where the government could perform at its best or at its\nworst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claims that w<\/strong>hen the Rajapaksa\nregime led the campaign to defeat the Tamil terrorists (which he calls as a\nTamil militancy and not as terrorism)  solely based on a strategy of war, he was  critical of that approach and after the\nmilitary defeat of the LTTE the regime had a unique opportunity to address the\nissues that caused the  war by developing\na just solution to the Tamil demands and even now these issues remain unresolved\nand keep festering since a historic opportunity was missed. He adds that had\nthis been handled with honesty and statesmanship, it could have paved the way\nfor the regime to stay in power for a long time, with the possibility of\nMahinda Rajapaksa even becoming a Nobel laureate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bopage says that Sri Lanka had several such opportunities\nin the past when different political persuasions were brought to power by the\nelectorate with a two-thirds or even higher majority. Mr S W R D Bandaranaike,\nMrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Mr J R Jayawardena, all had the same opportunity,\nbut they did not rise to the occasion due to their self-centred desire to\nremain in power which they could only do by catering to the partisan needs and\ndemands of their political factions and most of the time, these factions could\nnot see beyond the tunnel vision of a mono-cultural unitary state and their own\ncorrupt financial interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This doomsday pundit states that from 1956 till 2015,\nthe minority parties did not play any major policy determining role as\nconstituent parties of government. Despite this, for nearly 60 years there was\nno constructive solution proposed or implemented to address the numerous issues\nthe minority communities had raised and now that the new government is free\nfrom the elements that the SLPP identified as racist\u201d, there is another great\nopportunity to concretely address the power-sharing issues with minorities and\ncreate a better country for all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This doomsday pundit has completely ignored the\nsolution President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa offered during his first foreign visit,\nduring the visit to India in which when the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\nmentioned about the need to implement the 13th<\/sup> amendment the\nPresident responded that he has been elected as the President of all Sri\nLankans and he is committed to serve all Sri Lankans alike without any ethnic,\nreligious or caste discriminations.  What\nelse we need and why the doomsday pundits cannot understand the real meaning of\nthis noble statement by thevisionary President and commend him for this stance.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing further Bopage states that at the\nelection, the plea of the SLPP leadership was to grant them a two-thirds\nmajority to change the constitution to rearrange the power relationships\nbetween the parliament and the president. Yet, under the current constitutional\narrangements, the brothers, Gotabhaya and Mahinda continue to enjoy the\ntotality of presidential and prime ministerial powers between them. Whatever\nthe changes that would be made in the future, the totality of constitutional\npower shared between the two brothers will remain the same and only the checks\nand balances that scrutinize their activities by parliament and independent\ncommissions are open to manipulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having received an overwhelming majority and not at\nthe mercy of the so-called minority racist and extremist parties he says that\nthe SLPP and the Rajapaksas have now got an opportunity to carry out their\nlong-term political intentions unhindered. What they proposed he says was to\nmodify the constitution by abolishing the 19th<\/sup> and 13th<\/sup> amendments\nand discarding these (oppressive) safeguards will abolish the devolutionary\nnature of the governance established under those amendments and debilitate the\nindependence of the institutions that were established to scrutinize (dominate)\nthe process of governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only the 13th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> the\n15th<\/sup> amendment which reduced the original percentage of votes\nrequired by a political party to become eligible for parliamentary sear from\n12.5% to 5% should also be repealed. \nThis amendment was adopted 48 hours before the 1988 presidential\nelection on the commandeering of Ashroff to Premadasa to get Eastern province\nMuslim votes in the 1988 highly manipulated and rigged presidential\nelection.  If it was not for this\npolitical bribe to Ashroff, Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike would have won the\npresidential election in 1988. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bopage claims that these amendments were adopted with\nthe intent of addressing certain fundamental issues that prevailed for many\nlong years and that that intent was wantonly diluted from the drafting stage\nonwards, and even before the bill was presented to the cabinet for approval, it\nwas further diluted by last minute amendments made during the final\nparliamentary proceedings. Some of those responsible for such dilution later\nbecame leaders of parties like the Samagi Jana Balawegaya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referring to 1970s Bopage states that the\nConstitutions of 1972 and 1978 were imposed upon the people without any\nconsultation and the constitution making process was neither participatory nor\ninclusive. This claim applies only to 1978 constitution whereas in respect of\n1972 constitution it was formulated by Parliament for which the National State\nAssembly constituted itself as a Constitution assembly in which all parties\nincluding the then major Tamil party TULF participated and this constitution\nwas not unilaterally imposed on the people as the bizarre 1978 constitution\nwell known as the Bahubootha Vyawasthawa. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He warns that the Nationalist extremists in the new\nregime could negatively influence the chances for justice, democracy, human rights\nand economic opportunities, except for a select few. This may lead to\nescalating corrupt practices, disempowerment of the judicial and parliamentary\nprocesses, ignoring legislative responsibilities (was there legislative\nresponsibilities during the last five years?), sidelining non-majoritarian\ncommunities (was not the Sirisena\/Ranil government over appeasing TNA diktats\nand neglecting its duty and responsibility to the majority community?),\nethno-religious discrimination in policy and decision making, adopting\nantagonistic foreign policy positions, and introducing repressive legislative\nand constitutional arrangements. This doomsday pundit who confined his JVP in\n1971 only to rural Sinhala youth and pontificated against Tamils in their 5\npolitical orientation classes now states that here could be protests and\nstrikes by the disillusioned electorate, who would be forced to rethink about\nwho they have brought into power and it could also lead to bloodshed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says that the election results also reflect a\nclass divide between the intelligentsia and the ordinary people of the country.\nConfirming he still holds his allegiance to the JVP he says that the low vote\nfor the National People\u2019s Power (the camouflaged JVP) and similar organisations\nrepresents the mismatch of the thinking patterns between the people at the\ngrassroots level and those of the intelligentsia. The necessity of the\ntraditional organisational patterns at the grass roots level and the urban\nintelligentsia, mostly professionals, want a regime for good governance, rule\nof law, and an economic model that would cater for the increasing profitability\nof a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bopage says that the working people, both rural and\nurban, however, want to elect a regime that would provide them with work\nopportunities that satisfy their basic needs, such as shelter and food for the\nsurvival of their families and in any political and economic endeavour, both\nthese needs need to be catered for and this can only be done by analysing the\nprevailing issues based on evidence and their causes. Only then can these\nissues be addressed and polices developed that address these issues at the\nground level. Otherwise the election results for progressive parties (Do we\nhave anyparty that can be branded as a progressive party other than the\nSLPP.  Bopage\u2019s colleagues the JVP is now\nan utter reactionary party prepared to do any scavenge for monetary benefits)\nwill continue to be abysmal, as has been the trend for at least two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a form of ridiculing the high literacy rate in Sri\nLanka, this doomsday pundit says that it refers only to those who have the actual\nability to read and write and such a literacy level has not developed the\nability at a societal level or the capability at an individual level to develop\npolitical empathy in understanding the differences between a mono-cultural\nsociety and a multicultural one with its attendant advantages for long-term\npeace and prosperity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is unfortunately a global trend in which a\nstrong segment of nationalist intelligentsia does not focus on the betterment\nof society and the long-term future of the generations to come. Instead, they,\nlike \u2018Viyath Maga\u2019 in Sri Lanka and their collaborators, appear to focus on\ndeveloping better ways for duping people, promoting individual self-greed with\nshort-term emphasis, he says and adds that even during the 1920s in Germany,\nsimilar intellectual groupings helped Hitler to gain and sustain power, while\nthe media similarly played the role of providing publicity only to Hitlerite\nNazi views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ordinary people will attend a meeting; listen to\nleaders and go back home, later to be trapped by the political and idealist\ninfluences of the mass media and the organisational networks that largely serve\nthe interests of the privileged and the ultra-nationalists. Without\norganisational networks at the grass roots level to mobilize people and counter\nsuch influences, the efforts of the intelligentsia will fail as attested by the\ncurrent elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bopage, who still persists in his original JVP ideology\nstates that in addition, ordinary people who had been previously politically\nactive may have perceived those trying to influence them from the top as\nleaders, intellectuals or outsiders as a threat rather than working for the\ncollective benefit of all and it had become increasingly difficult to expose\nthe misleading positions presented by the nationalist intelligentsia to the\npeople at the grassroots level due to the barrage of misinformation spread via\nstrong media campaigns. He says the election results confirm the success of the\nnationalist intelligentsia and a notable failure of the efforts of the more\npluralist orientated approach of the intelligentsia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting about the future he asserts that the\ndisastrous failure of the political forces that value plurality, diversity,\nequity, fairness and social justice to get political traction compels Sri\nLankans to rethink, re-strategize, regroup and reorganize and such an effort\ncannot be made by daydreaming or being an armchair critic.    He says that Sri Lanka\u2019s most urgent priority\nis to connect with the ordinary working people both rural and urban and enter\ninto a dialogue with them, learn about the issues that concern them most and\nthen produce evidence based and consensually agreed solutions on issues that\naffect their lives.(If it is so, why did his acolytes, the JVP functioned as\nloyal stooges of Sirisena\/Ranil dispensation during the last five years?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He predicts that such actions will provide the\nopportunity to critically examine the previous approaches and re-strategize for\nthe future, and only then  Sri Lanka could\nwork towards an alliance that is open to all people travelling in the same\ndirection, who are taking diverse paths for achieving the same goals of\nprosperity, human rights, rule of law and good governance, that will benefit\nall members of Sri Lankan society as a whole and not just a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again focusing attention on two thirds majority he\nasserts that Sri Lanka\u2019s post-independence history has witnessed on several\noccasions, regimes coming to power with a two-thirds or a higher majority but\nthey failed, and failed abysmally, leading the country into three major\nrebellions. Afterwards, the regimes that led to such situations have also been\ndefeated. If the new government traverses a path creating better opportunities\nfor all and a rule-based society that values individual life, treats everyone\nwith dignity and respect, ensures a guaranteed minimum standard of living, and\nempowers people so they may develop their full potential \u2013 then we have a duty\nand responsibility to support such moves and otherwise, it would not be too\nlong before the disillusioned voters take to the streets demanding\nimplementation of the many pledges made to them, in particular the improvement\nof their socio-economic conditions, in an organised and democratic manner, he\nconcludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime the notorious Tamil servile traitor\nDayan Jayatilleke who is obsessed with the craze of devolution of power to\nTamils even in excess of what is outlined in the despicable 13th<\/sup>\namendment enforced by hegemonic India and who was a Minister in the\nVaradaperumal\u2019s Eastern Provincial Council and associated Perumal in his\nunilateral and illegal declaration of indepemdemce for the Eastern province and\nlater became a close associate and shameless advisor to former President\nPremadasa and who unsuccessfully attempted to infiltrate Viyathmaga to create\ninternal dissensions and got kicked out from that patriotic organization and\nnow reported to be functioning as a political advisor to imbecile Sajith\nPremadasa in an article titled Understanding the unipolar\nmoment of Sinhala nationalism\u201d states that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa\nrepeatedly made two requests to voters during his electioneering walkabouts and\none was that they had given him 69 lakhs (6.9 million) of votes at the\nPresidential Election but now he wanted 79 lakhs (7.9 million) votes and the\nother was that he wanted a two-thirds majority. He didn\u2019t get his first wish,\nbut has surely got his second and strategically more significant.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing his anti-Sinhala rhetoric\nhe says that one cannot comprehend the 2019-2020 steamroller majority without\nunderstanding who and what it rolled over; who and what the voters chose to\nbury \u2013 and why one could not understand its precursors 1956, 1970 and 2010\nwithout understanding the target profile the UNP presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dayan asserts that the new\nhyper-majority, which unprecedentedly empowers the Rajapaksa clan and the\nSinhala supremacist agenda, can be traced to clusters of factors and tracked\nthrough specific periods and states that the most proximate was \u2018Yahapalanaya\u2019\nwhich contained within itself a grand asymmetry: it had not won the majority of\nthe majority which happened to be Sinhala-Buddhist. It should have been mindful\nthat in the Sinhala heartland it was on very thin ice indeed. Instead of\nconsolidating and expanding its Sinhala base in concentric waves, it adopted a\npronouncedly minoritarian profile starting with Ranil\u2019s appointment of the\nexpatriate Central Bank Chairman and the top appointee of Mangala Samaraweera\nto ICTA, and ending with the outline documents of a new constitution which\ndropped the definition \u2018unitary\u2019 in English and substituted \u2018orumittanadu\u2019\ninstead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Mahinda was defeated in January\n2015, the Sinhala nation was in shock. The Sinhala people felt that Mahinda was\ntheir hero and he had not been displaced by their collective electoral consent.\nThey felt it occurred without their warrant. This translated into a sense of\nconspiracy. It manifested itself in a spontaneous surge of Sinhala solidarity\nwith Mahinda. Sinhala angst, guilt and outrage were the springboard of the\nrapid revival and resistance, starting with the Nugegoda \u2018Mahinda Sulanga\u2019 rally\nof February 2015 and culminating in MR\u2019s triumphant re-election last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2015 Yahapalana experiment does\nnot, by itself, explain the volume and velocity of Sinhala nationalism that\nmade the two-thirds majority possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018driver\u2019 was the mismatch\nbetween the military defeat of Tamil separatism in May 2009 and the adventurist\nover-assertiveness of Tamil nationalism after and despite that defeat, the\nTamil Diaspora was in denial about the defeat and that state of denial took the\nform, backstopped by inflows of funds, of encouragement of Tamil political\npersonalities and parties to go on a permanent political offensive, abandoning\nthe framework of and pressing beyond the 13th Amendment in talks with President\nMR in 2011. This was mightily compounded after 2013 by Chief Minister\nWigneswaran\u2019s provocative political discourse and behavior, which swung the\nbalance of opinion in Sinhala society, from settling Tamil grievances by\nnegotiated political accommodation based on devolution, to unilateral\nimposition of a post-war order. 
\n
\nThis traitor points out that at the dawn of Yahapalanaya, Sumanthiran trumpeted\nit as proof that the minorities had political weight equal to the majority and\nthe Yahapalanaya state media and supportive \u2018civil society\u2019 lustily\ndisseminated these ideas in an orgy of nihilism towards the war, the Lankan state,\nand the Sinhalese majority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To the collective Sinhala psyche, he\nsays that it appeared as if the fellow-travellers of Prabhakaran, fronted by\nthose Sinhalese who had appeased and collaborated with Prabhakaran, would have\na greater hold on political power and the state than would the Sinhala nation\nthat comprised the overwhelming majority, which had resisted, sacrificed and\ndefeated armed separatism. An effort was underway he says to overturn the\nmilitary victory by political means, demonise and vilify the victorious war and\nthe side that won it, install the losers as political winners, and move towards\ndismantling the unitary state the military fought for \u2013 making for future\nseparatism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He points out that the Sinhalese\nfelt an existential threat and hence turned to Mahinda Rajapaksa who had saved\nthem before. But with his second defeat at the August 2015 Parliamentary\nElection, word travelled on the temple network MR had operated on after his\ndefeat \u2013 and the word was \u2018Gotabaya\u2019. He alone could be guaranteed to generate,\nby taking it the next level, that enhanced Sinhala swing which could offset the\nentrenched minority support for the UNP. It was a Fox News\/Trump candidacy\nmoment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gotabaya succession, he admits,  had been in gestation during MR\u2019s second term,\nhence the launch of the volume with the hyperbolic title Gota\u2019s War\u201d (2012),\nbut it took Ranil-Mangala-Chandrika discourse and policy direction within the\nYahapalanaya administration to give it the traction needed for the candidacy\nand victory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referring to the heroic war heroes,\nthis Tamil acolyte says that the role of the ex-military brass was crucial and\nthey saw in Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader who had called off a Long Range\nRapid Penetration ( LRRP) hit on Prabhakaran, arrested Military Intelligence\nofficers, entered a lopsided ceasefire agreement, allowed the LTTE back into\nJaffna, permitted a Tiger buildup around Trincomalee harbour \u2013 and this time\naround, endorsed a self-hating Geneva resolution and a non-unitary federal and\nsecular draft Constitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He asserts that the confluence of\nthe Sinhala masses of the heartland (represented by Mahinda Rajapaksa), the\nmonks, and the ex-military brass (around Gotabaya), created the hegemonic\nsocial bloc of today which is quite determined never to experience, permit or\nleave room for the humiliating experiences the Sinhala majority was put through\nunder the Sirisena\/Ranil government. He says it will therefore demolish every\nreform \u2018tunnel\u2019 that makes such traumatic incursion possible and build a wall\nand moat around Sinhala political power, promulgating a new Constitution which\nchanges power-relations so that hierarchy is inscribed, full-spectrum\nSinhala-Buddhist domination entrenched and its ideology driven deep, and\nminorities permanently marginalised by the truncation of proportional\nrepresentation, restoration of a high cut-off point, and ethnic gerrymandering\n(\u2018re-demarcation\u2019) of electorates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tamil servile Dayan further states\nthat Wigneswaran\u2019s arrogance and mythology  will cease to be possible once the 13th\nAmendment is castrated, boosting the power of the Governor, ex-military\ngovernors appointed, and devolved land annexed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Referring to ITAK\/TNA\u2019s failed\nconstitutional reformsoverreach and Wigneswaran\u2019s \u2018developmental boycottism\u2019\nhas revived avatars of Chelliah Kumarasuriyar and Alfred Duraiappah in the\nNorth. He says that the regime gleefully believes in the Trump-Jared\nKushner-Netanyahu formula of the trade-off of political self-identity and\nterritorial autonomy claims in return for development funding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This 13th<\/sup> amendment\nmaniac nutty political commentator in conclusion states that the sole salvation\nfor the Tamils is to apply the written advice that Lord Soulbury gave C.\nSunderalingam in 1964, which denotes that all their political representatives\nmust ally with and support Sajith Premadasa and mount a defense of the 13th\nAmendment and boasts that this imbecile and <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ignoramus guy for whom he functions\nas am advisor is the only southern political leader who stands by it while the\nJVP and FSP are non-committal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be continued\u2026\u2026\u2026.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By : A.A.M.NIZAM \u2013 MATARA Lional Bopage, who was the first General Secretary of the 1971 JVP, who was the first of the 21 leaders of JVP accused for launching a rebellion to topple the government and who was a close associate of Victor Ivan and who now enjoys a luxury life in Australia and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aamnizam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105576","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=105576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}