Malinda Seneviratne
Reading Dayan Jayatilleka's harangue against me in The Island of October 7, reminded me of a post card sent by some final year students at Peradeniya to Quadri Ismail in response to his caustic attacks on the English Department in the Lanka Guardian, the magazine that Dayan's father edited. The postcard had a sketch of a man on a little island throwing mud out of it with the following caption: "Those who sling mud, lose ground".

I do not know Dayan personally and he does not know me. My article, to which Dayan has responded, was motivated principally by Dayan's virulent attacks against the Sinhala Buddhists, tirades which he has coated with a liberal and utterly inappropriate usage of Gramsci.

Take away all the spurious linguistic theatrics in Dayan's article and a couple of issues emerge. First. He does talk about the alleged Sinhala Buddhist hegemonism and what he chooses to call "the new global reality". However, he has failed to counter my main argument, viz, the principal contradiction in the proposed"new" [Federal] Constitution. In other words, the mismatch between the decreasing importance of the State in the context of the current push for 'globalization,' and the supreme faith placed by the advocates of these changes in the structure of the State as the panacea for the 'resolution' of a purported "ethnic" conflict.

Dayan says, "the notion of 'hegemony' is the central and the most famous category in the Gramscian conceptual structure." Then he says, "If a person has not understood that concept, he or she is totally incapable of comprehending anything at all of Gramsci". Dayan should have taken that piece of advice himself, for he has demonstrated that he is completely clueless about the notion of "hegemony," both in his reply to me and in the original piece about "Sinhala Buddhist Hegemonism". It should be obvious that a State that has killed tens of thousands of Buddhists including hundreds of Buddhist monks can hardly be called one over which "Buddhist hegemony" holds sway. To refute my point, Dayan states that Jewish settlers being regularly (meaning, in his language, very rarely), clubbed by the Isreali police and army does not mean that Zionism is not hegemonic in Isreali society. He also argues that just because Aideed's followers are alleged to have dragged the body of a US Marine through the streets of Mogadishu does not mean that the US was not the hegemonic world power. I agree. But surely, there should be a sense of proportion in these things. When did the Israeli State torture and kill hundreds of rabbis? And one killing of a US Marine is hardly analogous to the "Sinhala Buddhist" State murdering 60,000 plus unarmed Sinhala Buddhists, is it? So much for Dayan's expertise about Gramsci and the notion of hegemony!

Dayan is fearful about what would happen if there was a "Saffron Ocean", which I suggested might not be a bad idea if that is what would take to destroy 'Eelamist' myth-making.

And why is Dayan so nervous? He thinks [hopes?], that if "a hardline Sinhala-Buddhist profile surfaces" then the "new global reality" would result in us getting isolated in the international arena, and our soldiers being denied the arms needed to fight the LTTE. I would like to refer him to a comment made by Lakshman Kadirgamar recently with respect to the "support" we are getting from the all important Big Boys of this "new global reality": "They only send us get-well cards!" That from the Minister for Foreign Affairs of a government that is fighting shy of whispering the words "Sinhala" and "Buddhist" to describe our society. It must be mentioned that conflicts (ethnic or otherwise) are sometimes created and often encouraged by these countries whose economies often depend on the arms industry.

Quite apart from all that, we need not be slaves to the mindset that cries "Aaaaaaargh, the New Global Reality is coming! Let's grovel at its feet and do as it commands". The very inclusion of the qualifier "new" implies the relative character of "reality," global or otherwise. In other words, they are not cast in stone.

What has happened, most likely, is that Ben Gilman, Madeline Albright and Teresita Schaeffer, among others, have swallowed the Eelam line hook line and sinker. It is not news that Eelam propaganda is quite widespread over the West. However, it is not something that cannot be countered. The LTTE was named a terrorist organisation in the USA primarily due to the work of Jayantha Dhanapala and Sri Lankan expatriates who briefed their Congressmen on the true picture here. There are Congressmen, Senators, ex-Ambassadors and such who have been brain-washed by the Eelam lobbyists, and our SSAs, MIRJEs, Margas and the writers they fund are cogs in the wheel of a kind of Millennium Dome - which is shortly to be dismantled. If the Foreign Ministry is really interested, it is not too difficult to deconstruct the Eelam Bubble. Similarly, the government can crack down on all the little Eelam dens that operate under cover of 'intellectual' discourse in Colombo.

What the USA decides to do is not at all dependent on the egalitarian or secular character of the dominant ideology of a particular nation. I recommend Chomsky's "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" to all those who still believe that the USA's foreign policy is driven by humanitarian concerns or some kind of love for democracy.

Dayan complains that my "howl" against globalisation is insincere because I have failed to "acknowledge the positive Sri Lankan experience of 1989/90-1993". Being a sycophant of Ranasinghe Premadasa, I suppose Dayan is obliged to say nice things about the man. Premadasa was the architect of the most violent period of our post-independence history. True the JVP is not as innocent as their spokesmen claim. I don't know from which piece of Marxist literature Dayan found solace (if he was a sincere Marxist) during those times of defending Premadasa, but 60,000 people being tortured and killed during a person's tenure as head of state is a far cry from a "positive experience". This was also a time when malnutrition among children under 5 years of age shot up to 55%, and anemia among pregnant and lactating women was over 60%. Now would that be an indication of relative prosperity? A study carried out by the ARTI at the time for the Janasaviya Commissioner showed that the Jana Saviya was in fact a cover for a Dhana Saviya: the principal beneficiaries were the better-off folk in the village. The World Bank came in with a fresh infusion of funding for Premadasa in the guise of a "Poverty Alleviation program" simply in order to help him continue in power in return for the major, anti-national policy concessions he gave them. How's that for a bit of global reality?

Dayan takes pleasure in putting together a string of blatant lies about my history. I used to think E.A.V. Naganathan was funny. But he pales into significance in the face of Dayan's jokes. Since Dayan has been so interested in telling the readers of the Island about me, allow me to put the record straight.

I was never a supporter of the JVP while at Peradeniya or afterwards, neither in the "most barbaric phase of its violence" nor at other times. I have always been opposed to the JVP and have suffered much violence as a result, both while at Peradeniya and afterwards. For the record, I have always been opposed to those who choose to overcome argument with the use of force, whether it comes from the left, the right, or some lunatic fringe.

I went to the USA on an exchange programme for which I was selected on merit. This did not, however, happen when in Dayan's words "the (JVP) tide mercifully turned". It was in 1987. I didn't have to "hop" Dayan. Never did. Not in my nature, you know. The "tide" as it were, had not "turned" when I went again in 1988 to finish my degree at Harvard University.

I was incarcerated, yes. This was in the time of Premadasa, Dayan's perennial darling. Yes, it was an "unbloody" interrogation in that there was nothing like the rivers of blood that Premadasa's goons unleashed. It was violent, nevertheless. You can read about it in the papers related to the fundamental rights application filed in the Supreme Court sometime in April 1992. The outcome of that is now part of the law in this country. Dr.A.R.B. Amarasinghe's book on Fundamental Rights in Sri Lanka mentions the case several times.

I have never engaged in diatribes, venomous or otherwise, against Vijaya. I remember him as one of the few people who openly condemned the JVP when they murdered Nandana Marasinghe and ordered his family to carry out the final rites according to their particularly obnoxious tastes, i.e. carrying the body below knee level, burying him in a low grave etc. Ossie was a different kettle of fish altogether. He was Premadasa's yes-man and in that he resembles Dayan, but unlike Dayan, Ossie didn't engage in the matter of justifying and buttressing tyranny and corruption ideologically. As such he was "small fry".

Posing as some kind of Subcommandante Marcos? Thanks for the compliment. He writes well, no? As for my poetry, I did include this caveat in the introduction "the reader will make what he/she will, as a reader is wont to do". How you read is your business. Thanks though for taking the trouble.

About Sihala Urumaya. Dayan doesn't explain how "popping up in Jaffna to raise the standard of the Sinhala heritage in the Peninsula at this election" is doing the LTTE a small favour. For the record, not a single Sinhalese is contesting from Jaffna from either the PA, the UNP or the JVP. If Prabhakaran proposed and carried out ethnic cleansing in Jaffna, these parties have effectively condoned it! The Sihala Urumaya did not only "pop up" in Jaffna, we also campaigned. Which is a lot more than his old boss Varadarajah Perumal does in those areas, armed and under heavy guard though he is!

Dayan says that the Sihala Urumaya "is the opposite of smart". If the smart thing to do is to play the tunes of the globalisation of idiocy and touting federalism, then by all means, call me an idiot! There is a difference between being honest and bowing down to nonsense in the name of "strategy," unless one actually has a biblical faith in nonsense. In which case, Dayan, you have no choice, but have my sympathy. No one needs to smart when we take a stab at the Eelam Boys. Now that would be "plain silly," unless you are one of them, right?

About Dayan's history, let me say it all in one line: it includes a particularly funny way of handing over nomination papers, a funny way of popping in and out of the country, offering an abject public apology to J R Jayewardene, not to mention defending the party lines of the various groups in power (nationally and regionally). It would suffice to say "Danno Danithi" at this point.

Dayan must be familiar with the phrase "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". By the same token, rubbish, even if covered by a layer of Marx and Gramsci would still stink. Premadasa remains a tyrant. And apologists for Eelam remain servants of Prabhakaran.

A friend of mine, reading Dayan's article has this to say: "One shouldn't spend too much time worrying about Dayan. He spends his time constructing ideology for the group in power. If the Sihala Urumaya came to power, he would try to do the same thing." That, I believe, is quite in tune with his strategy of "playing smart," wouldn't you agree?