{"id":41545,"date":"2015-02-15T21:33:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T03:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=41545"},"modified":"2015-02-15T09:45:34","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T16:45:34","slug":"the-writing-is-on-the-wall-how-sri-lanka-is-to-be-dismantled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/02\/15\/the-writing-is-on-the-wall-how-sri-lanka-is-to-be-dismantled\/","title":{"rendered":"The Writing Is On The Wall: How Sri Lanka Is To Be Dismantled"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dayan Jayatilleka<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

If a woman files a formal complaint or publicly accuses a man of repeated conjugal rape, attempted murder and the serial killing of her children over the years, it is hardly likely that she plans to reconcile with him and remain within the marriage. On the contrary it is a sure sign that she is intent on leaving him and wants the authorities to intervene.<\/p>\n

If the charges are untrue, then we would conclude that the woman is wittingly maligning the husband and causing damage to his image and harm to his standing in society, to the maximum extent possible.<\/p>\n

So it is with an elected body which passes a resolution claiming historic and recent genocide\u201d. That is not a step taken by any group that wishes to say within a single sovereign state or envisages itself doing so. It is a step on a roadmap to political exit from the state.<\/p>\n

To those like my critic and friend\u00a0Sarath de Alwis\u00a0who not merely see nothing wrong with Chief Minister\u00a0C.V. Wigneswaran\u2019s political behavior and indeed admire him (\u2018Justice Wigneswaran-Smarter Than The Smart Patriot\u2019), I would commend the opening paragraph of the Editorial of the respected newspaper\u00a0The Hindu<\/em>, which summarizes the recent \u2018Genocide\u2019 resolution of the Northern Provincial Council and its implications, thus:<\/p>\n

\u2018The Tamil question has been brought centre-stage with the elected council of Sri Lanka\u2019s Northern Province passing a resolution accusing successive governments in Colombo of carrying out genocide against the minority community over six decades. Moved by Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran in the Provincial Council, the resolution demands that the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights investigate historical\u201d and recent\u201d instances of genocide and submit its report at the session of the Human Rights Council next month. It also asks the UN Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court. Thirdly, it asks courts in countries with universal jurisdiction over the alleged events and perpetrators, including but not limited to the United States\u201d, to prosecute the crimes. The resolution roundly rejects any domestic investigations.\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0(\u2018Playing Poker in Sri Lanka\u2019, Editorial,\u00a0The Hindu<\/em>, Feb 13, 2015).<\/p>\n

Mr. de Alwis remonstrates that I have not debated him directly and have not engaged with the points he has made, including the one in which he invokes Immanuel Kant. I plead guilty. Many of Mr. de Alwis\u2019 points are speculative ones about my motivation, evolution etc. while the rest are intellectual digressions. A reply to those would mean venturing into autobiography and the history of ideas. In the words of a movie hero addressing a leading lady, which were often quoted with a chuckle by his former editor and mentor -and my father-\u00a0Mervyn de Silva, I have both the ability and the inclination, but sad to say,\u00a0not\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>the time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Though the product is assembled from planks of my political and polemical platforms of over twenty years, my urging of a\u00a0Smart Patriotism<\/strong>\u00a0centered on a\u00a0New Nationalism<\/strong>\u00a0takes place in the context of \u2018a clear and present danger\u2019 to the Sri Lankan state, the project of a Sri Lankan nation and the Sinhala community. Dumb patriotism and the old nationalism have lost; have been beaten, and inevitably, perhaps deservedly so. I have already practiced with success, most conspicuously in Geneva, the\u00a0Smart Patriotism and New Nationalism<\/em>that I preach. It has passed the test of competition in the global arena. It is by no means an ethnic chauvinism and I regard a great exemplar of smart patriotism to have been the late Lakshman Kadirgamar. (As for nationalism, readers might recollect that Mr. Kadirgamar thought better of Wimal Weerawansa than of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s CFA, and appeared on the same platform as the former at the Town Hall grounds, addressing an audience in Sinhala, against the Wickremesinghe government).<\/p>\n

I refuse to be diverted by my intellectual ego, from the task of warning the nation and fulfilling my duty to my country and the state. Thus I shall not play Mr. de Alwis\u2019 game.<\/p>\n

I am not enough of an egoist and far too much of a political scientist, not to connect the dots of what\u2019s happening and discern the bigger picture.<\/p>\n