6 Wednesday 15th July, 2009 The Island Features by Carlo Fonseka ayan Jayatilleka and Malinda Seneviratne are two extremely Dbright young men I have known for many years. I am very fond of both of them. I have watched them grow up with a sort of avuncular interest. I have argued with both of them in pri- vate and occasionally in public. I think they believe – as bright young people should – that in argument they van- quished me, increasingly regarded nowadays by some as something of a sacred old cow. So be it. Political sci- ence and journalism are not my fields of specialization. It is enough for me that I can still walk a fire-bed scientifi- cally, without any divine aid and with less self damage than they probably can manage to do. Dayan Jayatilleka DJ is the older of the two. When he graduated in political science from the University of Peradeniya with a first class of unsurpassed excellence, I wrote him a congratulatory message. I told him that my future vision of him was as Sri Lanka’s equivalent of Prof. Harold J. Laski, the phenomenal aca- demic of the London School of Economics who was the head, heart and soul of socialist political theory and practice in his country in his time. “Be like Laski” was my message to Dayan. He, however, had other ideas. His father Mervyn de Silva – “the trag- The Black July1983 ic hero of the press”, as I posthumous- ly called him – was his role model, It is mentor and hero. So DJ embarked on a romantic, adventurous and non-aca- true demic mad pursuit and spent some years doing his own thing. At last force 13th Amendment, that for of circumstances put him back on (uni- versity) track. Then he blossomed. 99% of Today he is something of a world authority on the science and philoso- our million or so phy of Fidel Castro’s politics. In the field of international politics he has Dayan & Malinda years on earth, recently done more for our country than any academic I can think of. “ Homo sapiens, the Malinda Seneviratne species of animal measure of self-governance in the the perpetuation of genes promoting areas where their ancestral homes are tribal loyalty. Such loyalty – like family to which we all safely located is understandable and loyalty – often tends to operate inde- justifiable. Because the 13th amend- pendently of what appears to be true belong, lived in ment appeared to fulfill this aspiration and just to others. Respect for human to some degree, I have always support- rights is the modern antidote to tribal- small tribes. At ed it. Recently, however, I felt impelled ism. The core human rights have to do to add the caveat that it should not be with liberty, equality, material welfare that primitive implemented during the life time of and self-determination or self-gover- the self-appointed sole representative nance. I believe that observance of stage tribal loyal- of the Tamil people. human rights is the way to a genuine peace (as opposed to “the quiet” result- ty had a high sur- Reductio ad absurdum ing from the absence of the reverberat- To MS the Tamil people inhabiting ing sound of gun-fire and bomb-blasts.) vival value when the northern parts of Sri Lanka are The implementation of the 13th somehow reducible to the person of amendment I regard as a manifestation nomadic tribes the self-appointed, blood-thirsty psy- of our respect for human rights. MS chopathic sole representative (who seems pathetically incapable of sub- fought for hunting ruthlessly decimated the finest repre- scribing to that modern view. The poor sentatives of the Tamil people). To chap seems to have inherited such a him, therefore, the Tamil problem whopping dose of selfish tribal genes grounds. The which has plagued our country for sev- that their influence prevents him from tribes with a eral decades boils down to a do-or-die allowing our Tamil brethren a measure “ confrontation between the sole self- of self-governance, as the price of a appointed representative of the Tamil genuine peace and the fulfillment of a strong herd people and the Sinhalese. In basic human group right. A massive Tamil tiger bomb in Colombo 1996 internecine person-to-person con- instinct regularly frontations killing one’s opponent is Debate Amiable, Harvard educated Malinda Eastern Province 41% were Tamils. the ultimate act of conflict resolution. In their friendly exchange of views won such fights Seneviratne has cultivated an engaging There is evidence that they had inhab- That decisive act happened in May on the 13th amendment, I find myself English style that I admire. I have told ited the northern parts of the country 2009. MS seems to regard that Hitlerite very much on Dr. DJ’s side — the and acquired terri- him to his face that I read the things he for many centuries. They have pre- “final solution” applied to the sole rep- incredibly erudite political scientist. writes more for their style than for served a language, religion and culture resentative of the Tamil people as But even as Prof. Harold J. Laski was tories. their content. The political stuff he of which they are proud. This has marking the end of the history of in his time, DJ will surely be under- writes is so tribal in spirit and so insu- induced in them a sense of special Sinhala-Tamil conflicts. To me such an stood and appreciated only by a minor- lar in outlook that I find it hard to unity that distinguishes them from the attitude is an exemplification of noth- ity even among the political authority. believe that he had been to Harvard rest of the people in the land of their ing less than “rural idiocy”. Mr. Clement Attlee, a Labor Prime University, even as a tourist, as I have birth. This sense of unity has generat- Minister of the UK, was one of whom (I went to Harvard by appointment to ed in them a feeling of kinship and Evolutionary Explanation Sir Winston Churchill said that “he is saying that sort of thing even about see my favorite economist John oneness. From time to time since 1956 – It is true that for 99% of our million a modest little man with much to be him. That must be why he invariably Kenneth Galbraith). A village school in 1958, 1977, 1979, 1981 and 1983 when or so years on earth, Homo sapiens, the modest about”. Attlee was often exas- declares at the end of each article he education would have amply sufficed to many of them were beaten up, looted, species of animal to which we all perated by Harold Laski’s theories and has written recently that the views generate MS’s political thoughts. killed and some even burnt alive – it is belong, lived in small tribes. At that recommendations. I remember expressed are strictly his personal to their northern haven that those who primitive stage tribal loyalty had a Alistair Cooke saying on the BBC in views. Let me assure Dayan, for what it The Problem survived fled for dear life. (I know from high survival value when nomadic one of his Letters from America that is worth, that his views on the 13th According to the 1981 census, of the personal experience what it feels like tribes fought for hunting grounds. The Atlee, once cried: “Harold! He hasn’t amendment are my views too, though people in the Northern Province 92% to flee from death threats). Therefore, tribes with a strong herd instinct regu- got the hang of politics”. Perhaps DJ for the life of me, I cannot express were Tamils and of the people in to me, the aspiration of Tamils for a larly won such fights and acquired ter- has an inkling that ignorance will not them with his erudition, clarity of ritories. So natural selection favoured prevent some people in authority from thought and felicity of phrase. ! On pushing the President into a political cul-de-sac by Malinda Seneviratne the Sunday Island of the previous extremist ideologues of every com- panders to a mindset that fanatical- There are two clear, day ‘History is a cake you cannot munity make historical and archae- ly trashes the interests of the major- here are two clear, unequivo- have and eat at the same time’. ological claims for territory that ity community. unequivocal state- cal statements that President Reading it, I am reminded of derive from when their respective The 13th Amendment does not ments that President TMahinda Rajapaksa has made Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are community was at the zenith of its have ‘nothing to do with Marxism- to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans with adept at jumping from one verse in power, which is of course hardly the Leninism’ as Dayan asserts. It was a Mahinda Rajapaksa respect to ‘political solution’. First, the bible to another when queried, whole story. If such claims were to product of and a document celebrat- has made to Sri that the ‘solution’ he envisages will exiting context at will. So too, the basis of political solutions and ed and defended by Marxist- Lanka and Sri necessarily be ‘home grown’. Dayan. He alleges that the tradi- settlements the planet’s surface Leninists, their ideological hang- Secondly, he advised all leaders of tions of all dead generations weigh would have to expand at least sever- ups about ‘self-determination’ and Lankans with respect political parties in the ruling coali- like a nightmare on my brain, fol- al times.” Fine.