{"id":67727,"date":"2017-07-10T18:00:10","date_gmt":"2017-07-11T01:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=67727"},"modified":"2017-07-11T15:53:27","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T22:53:27","slug":"has-prof-laksiri-fernando-a-leg-to-stand-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/07\/10\/has-prof-laksiri-fernando-a-leg-to-stand-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Prof. Laksiri Fernando a leg to stand on?"},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Lenin once said that\u00a0 Bernard Shaw was a good man fallen among\u00a0 the Fabians \u2013 a group of wishy-washy left-wingers whose airy-fairy politics was neither in capitalism nor in any kind of scientific socialism. It was, at best, a shade of state welfarism within the capitalist framework. Prof. Laksiri Fernando (LF) is of the same ilk. I am\u00a0 not referring\u00a0 to his Trotskyite\u00a0 past when\u00a0 he was at Peradeniya university. I am referring to his current anti-Sinhala-Buddhist politics. He, of course, says that his intellectual affinities are with Buddhist\u00a0 philosophy. His objections, as I understand it, are to Sinhala-Buddhist politics which oppose the disproportionate demands manufactured in the thirties and forties by the two intransigent racist gang-leaders, Ponnambalam and Chelvanayakam.<\/p>\n

The Sinhala-Buddhists, I am sure\u00a0 he will concede, have managed to resolve their differences to a great extent with the other two minorities, the Muslims and the Indian Tamils without resorting to excessive and intransigent violence. The main problem has been only with the rabid racists of the North who have been\u00a0 insisting relentlessly on their pound of flesh, irrespective of the consequences\u00a0 to the others. It is their bovine obstinacy that has militated against\u00a0 any peaceful co-existence with other communities. Their position is that peace can\u00a0 be achieved only on their terms. This is the fundamental flaw in any peace-making process, or reconciliation.<\/p>\n

Being habitual whingers the Tamil political leadership have a consistent history of either rejecting the many offers given to them as solutions\u00a0 to their demands, even with\u00a0 international guarantees, or kept on expanding the political goal\u00a0 posts for them to kick as many goals as the want without any restrictions. This is what LF, the the kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> scientist, <\/strong>refuses to see. To be most charitable, I could only say that LF is a good man who has fallen into the dustbin of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist garbage. For piling\u00a0 up the same kind of garbage found\u00a0 in the Tambiah-Seneviratne school of anti-Sinhala-Buddhist muck-rakers he can\u00a0 also be classified as an\u00a0 academic Meetota-mullah\u201d. This kind of academic\u00a0 refuses to see the rubbish\u00a0 they\u00a0 pile up until it crashes on their heads. This is common among\u00a0 the academic Meetota-mullahs\u201d who think that they are the avant-garde<\/strong><\/em> of progressive and lofty thinking when in reality they are sinking in the rubbish dug up initially by Ponnambalam in\u00a0 the\u00a0 thirties and\u00a0 left for Tambiahs, Seneviratnes and Fernandos to build up academic careers on the corpses left behind in the wake of the racist politics of Ponnambalam.<\/p>\n

In this\u00a0 article, I shall deal only with his fanciful notion of the Sangha running a state within state. Out of the blue he suddenly, sus-gala<\/strong><\/em>, sees the Sangha running a state\u00a0 within state. The Sangha is\u00a0 doing\u00a0 what\u00a0 it\u00a0 has been doing\u00a0 throughout\u00a0 its history and for him not to\u00a0 have noticed this, a\u00a0 kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> scientist, he must\u00a0 have migrated, not\u00a0 to Sydney but\u00a0 to a planet\u00a0 near the black hole\u00a0 in the centre of the Milky Way.\u00a0 However, as a political scientist he has an ethical and academic duty to rise above his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist\u00a0 politics and consider the consequences\u00a0 left behind by the non-Sangha activists who have intervened aggressively in obstructing and even reversing state policies. These interventionists have wielded more\u00a0 power in the state than the Sangha and I have not heard a peep\u00a0 coming out of him questioning\u00a0 their unwanted and destructive roles.<\/p>\n

I shall select\u00a0 only three instances to test the validity of\u00a0 his argument :<\/p>\n

Case 1: When the anti-conversion bill was presented the American government\u00a0 of Bush, a committed Evangelist, forced his will on Chandrika Bandaranaike\u2019s government to reject\u00a0 it. The American Ambassador delivered the message of evangelist Bush bluntly to the media. Hey presto, the magic worked and\u00a0 the\u00a0 bill was shelved. Now which state was running CBK\u2019s state?<\/p>\n

Case 2: Whenever the Muslims feels that they are threatened they round up all the diplomats of Muslim states stationed in Colombo and put\u00a0 maximum pressure on the Sri Lankan state to rein in. Now\u00a0 can Professori Fernando name the outsiders who are stepping in to run the Sri Lankan state? Here I\u2019m not being\u00a0 judgmental on the Muslims and their political reactions. I\u2019m only focussing on the role of other states interfering in the domestic affairs\u00a0 of Sri Lanka \u2013 something\u00a0 which they\u00a0 would resent and even retaliate against if it\u00a0 happens to\u00a0 them.<\/p>\n

Case 3: Worst of all, according to the Maha Sangha the NGOs are physically present at government proceedings influencing\/directing policy on constitutional changes. No one has heard a whimper from\u00a0 kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> Fernando on\u00a0 this intervention by hired agents of foreign powers using NGO apparatchiks as the soft power\u201d to push their foreign policies.<\/p>\n

But he has come out firing\u00a0 on all four\u00a0 cylinders against the Sangha, the traditional guardians of the nation who have sacrificed their lives at times, to serve the people. Of the two who has the legitimate right, to intervene on a critical issue like the making\u00a0 of constitution? If, as pointed above, foreigners and agents of foreigners are given\u00a0 the silent nod by kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> Fernando why is it wrong for the Sangha to do their bit in\u00a0 opposing foreigners with their anti-national and anti-Sinhala-Buddhist agenda?<\/p>\n

He is contesting\u00a0 the legitimacy of the Sangha which laid the foundations for this nation. The Sangha also can be considered as a vital part of the home grown civil society (unlike the foreign-funded NGOs who represent foreign governments). If they can\u2019t raise their voices in critical national affairs who else can? But the overwhelming trend in the post-Ponnambalam \/Chelvanayakam period has been to delegitimise the Sangha on the spurious argument that their place is in the caves. The entire political thrust of these kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> scientists and\u00a0 historians is aimed relentlessly at debilitating \u2013 and\u00a0 if\u00a0 possible\u00a0 eliminating —\u00a0 the\u00a0 power\u00a0 of the Sangha and strengthening\u00a0 the\u00a0 power of the anti-national forces as a means of imposing their political\u00a0 agenda on the nation. This line\u00a0 of action is\u00a0 pursued on the bogus assumption that it is the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist NGOs, academics, diplomats, paid\u00a0 hacks of the UN, and other interventionists who have the answer to the issues threatening national security, peace and prosperity.<\/p>\n

The Sangha is very clear in its\u00a0 mission. The Sangha says categorically that it\u00a0 opposes the militant rhetoric and activities of the Bodhy Bala Sena. But\u00a0 it is\u00a0 urging\u00a0 the government to look\u00a0 into the grievances expressed by the Bodhu Bala Sena. It has also expressed opposition to the current moves of the government to change the constitution which seems to be a Sisyphean process : each time\u00a0 the constitution is\u00a0 rolled up the mountain to the top it comes down and the constitution-makers have to do\u00a0 it all over again. This futile process is done not because the people are yearning\u00a0 for new\u00a0\u00a0 constitutions as if\u00a0 it is some dirty underwear which needs changing every day but to satisfy the insatiable\u00a0 political appetites of one intransigent minority which continues\u00a0 to pursue the phantasmagorial nightmares of breaking up the nation. The argument for and against this political ambition has been tireless and inexhaustible. But\u00a0 I would like to ask kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> Fernando one question : can he name one significant solution that has been worked out by the NGO pundits and their likes for the national crisis since the Tamil leadership declared war against the nation at Batakotte (Vadukoddai) in 1976? Where has their interventions led the nation, except, of course, to Nandikadal?<\/p>\n

Every peace-maker providing solutions \u2013 Rajiv Gandhi, President Premadasa, Neelan Tiruchelvam, etc \u2013 was killed. The more they killed the more\u00a0 the NGO, INGOs and other academic and foreign interventionists clamoured for more concessions. Most of those concessions were given with international guarantees because the Sinhala governments\u201d were said to be unreliable. What happened? All their bogus theories sank in\u00a0 the\u00a0 murky waters of Nandikadal.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it time for kalatipol<\/strong><\/em> Fernando to take a running dive into the cold waters Nandikadal which may \u2013 I hope \u2013 help him to regain some common sense which is invariably uncommon among his kind?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala Lenin once said that\u00a0 Bernard Shaw was a good man fallen among\u00a0 the Fabians \u2013 a group of wishy-washy left-wingers whose airy-fairy politics was neither in capitalism nor in any kind of scientific socialism. It was, at best, a shade of state welfarism within the capitalist framework. Prof. Laksiri Fernando (LF) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67727","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=67727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}