{"id":41734,"date":"2015-02-22T06:22:12","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T13:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=41734"},"modified":"2015-02-22T06:22:12","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T13:22:12","slug":"strategic-rebalancing-of-global-political-forces-and-the-defeat-of-mr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/02\/22\/strategic-rebalancing-of-global-political-forces-and-the-defeat-of-mr\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Rebalancing of Global Political Forces and the Defeat of MR"},"content":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

It might appear at first that the defeat of MR is the result of the interplay of strictly local forces and agencies arising from discontents and antagonisms that are inevitable at the close of a long and event-filled Presidency\u00a0 – one that excited the envy \u2013 even hate \u2013 of foreigners while charming most of the natives. Let us begin with some hard facts about our neighborhood. \u00a0India was once a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and the thought of being \u2018cozy\u2019 with the Crusading Champion of the so-called \u2018Free World\u2019 \u00a0– the USA \u2013 seemed absurd.<\/p>\n

This \u2018absurdity\u2019 is now \u2018turned on its head\u2019 and the flamboyant new leader of India (Modi) is so enraptured by his new friendship with the old political \u2018honcho\u2019 of the \u2018Free World\u2019 that he flaunts this friendship and works hard for the goodwill of his new patron. Let us expand on this \u2013 it was believed for decades that Sri Lanka being a \u2018friend\u2019 and close neighbor of India. political meddling by outside powers in its internal affairs would be unwelcome if not forcibly resisted. No longer is this the case. We shall try to show that the defeat of MR in Sri Lanka has long connections with the geopolitical re-balancing of forces that now threatens the stability of our world.<\/p>\n

First things first \u2013 the \u2018Superpower\u2019 (the USA) is much troubled by the current \u2018phase shift\u2019 in the state of the world. No\u00a0 longer is its role as the \u2018doyen\u2019 of the rich and powerful assured.\u00a0 Briefly put, there are three principal threats to its current (if shaky) dominance \u2013 a virulent form of globe-girdling Muslim militancy that followed disastrously from its recent neo-colonial military misadventures in West Asia, the decline in global standing of Western Europe and the challenge to NATO by a new and resurgent Russia led by Putin and \u2013 last but not least \u2013 the thrusting commercialism of a New China that seeks to access Africa for the commercial exploitation of its unknown riches.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka lies strategically in the Indian Ocean and the famous Silk Route must hug its shores for the efficient commercial operation of the main-works in China. Let us cut a long story short \u2013 the embattled superpower did cast its troubled eye on the minor player Sri Lanka and found its new-found \u2018intimacy\u2019 with China a troublesome complication in a much larger issue of its relationship with China. Could the New India under Modi help to thwart these moves? Well \u2013 India was already troubled by a rising China and found the new-found fellowship with the one-time denounced global hegemon most useful if not exactly in consonance with the high-falutin moral stance of \u2018Non-Alignment\u2019 adopted by India under Nehru.<\/p>\n

If the Sri Lankan connection with China was to be blunted, then a regime-change was essential as MR was seen as the promoter and protector of Chinese interests in Sri Lanka. The details must be left to historians \u2013 but the brute fact remains unassailable \u2013 that the political campaign against MR had external support and direction with India and the USA\u00a0 working closely with select staff in Western Embassies, Diasporic Tamils and natives of our own land long known to resent Sinhala Nationalism of the kind that MR was supposed\u00a0 to symbolize. Strange thing happened \u2013 unheard of in functional democracies \u2013 a humdrum politico of MR\u2019s party was anointed and publicly celebrated as the future President by a cabal of notorious defeatist in the alien camp.<\/p>\n

A man repeatedly rejected at elections became the all-powerful boss of of the New Movement to overthrow MR and restore what was called \u2018yahapalanaya\u2019 \u2013fairness and justice in politics. The one-time supporters of MR in Parliament became victims of a kind of political ‘castration’ that baffles everybody.\u00a0\u00a0 Were these bizzarre political mutations an instance of democracy at work? The details of this sorry drama are too well known to be recounted here. We end with a Question \u2013 was the great Yahapalayana Movement<\/em> engineered by global champions of Naripalayana? <\/em>More philosophically, justice must have roots in the just pursuit of goals. This did not happen in the last Presidential election where MR became a targeted fugitive from the fury of mobs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

R Chandrasoma It might appear at first that the defeat of MR is the result of the interplay of strictly local forces and agencies arising from discontents and antagonisms that are inevitable at the close of a long and event-filled Presidency\u00a0 – one that excited the envy \u2013 even hate \u2013 of foreigners while charming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41734","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=41734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}