by Nalin de Silva
We in south Asia have to learn a lot from our ancient cultures. Perhaps due to a colonial history that we inherit for more than five centuries some of us might be prepared to learn from our colonial masters. While we are talking of eradication of terrorism the west has already taken steps to defeat terrorism against their cultures. We have failed in many respects and as another SAARC summit ends we should take stocks of our situation and try to find out why we have failed. (However, it is not my intention to do that and I would confine myself to some aspects of the terrorist problem.) While the SAARC leaders were on their way to Katmandu, the European union took another step towards a united Europe by formally switching over to Euro the new common currency. How long will it take for South Asia to achieve something similar. Dr. Samuel Huntington in his clash of civilisations makes the remark that SAARC is not going to be a success as there is no single civilisation common to all the countries in the South Asian region. According to him European Union is working because all the countries in western Europe belong to the same Christian civilisation, though they may be having different cultures. If not for the special Anglo American relationship the European Union would be in a much stronger position by now and the Euro would have emerged as a formidable challenge to the Dollar. Is Dr. Huntington correct when he states that there is no common civilisation in the South Asian region? In this region there are countries that belong to the Hindu civilisation, the Islamic civilisation and Buddhist civilisation, and to make it worse according to Toynbee the Theravada Buddhist civilisation is a fossilised civilisation. Do we have to be guided by what the intellectuals in the western Kristhuthva (Yudev -Kristhuthva to be more specific) world have to say. I think our biggest mistake has been this. We run after the intellectuals of the western Kristhuthva civilisation whenever we come across a problem. Instead of formulating the problems the way we see according to our histories and cultures and then try to solve them we always take the cue from the western Kristhuthva intellectuals. As a result instead of solving problems we have been creating more and more problems.

The western Kristhuthva intellectuals appear to be objective but they are subjective as anybody else for the simple reason that nobody with minds could be objective. All human subjects have minds and as such their thinking, their knowledge etc., are relative to their minds which are not independent of their respective cultures. (In countries such as Sri Lanka the minds of the so-called intellectuals are trained by the western Kristhuthva cultures and not by the cultures to which they are born and hence for all "academic" purposes they could be categorised as western Kristhuthva "intellectuals" or "golayas" of the western Kristhuthva intellectuals.) Most of the western Kristhuthva intellectuals are sophisticated and over the years with the aid of European languages they have developed a way of communicating to the others to convey the impression that they are objective. Very often they write in the third person and refer to themselves as the author thus hiding the "I" who has written the article or the book. Statements like "the considered view of the author is such and such" appear when it means "my arrogant opinion is such and such". This is only a trivial example and in general they have developed this "objective writing" to such an extent not only to cover the "I" who writes the article but to camouflage the culture in which the article is produced. However there are unsophisticated academics like Dr. Peter Schalk, the spokesperson for Tamil racism at the University of Uppsala in Sweden neighbouring Norway of Solheim and others where Anton Balasingham goes for his operations both medical and un medical, when the Norwegians do not come to London to meet him, the so-called theoretician of the LTTE supposed to be proscribed in UK, who expose the humbug of objectivity of the western Kristhuthva intellectuals. I (the author!) give below two specimens of Dr. Schalk’s contributions to the latest editions of the website circle digest of Tamil racism.

"Anput tirut Tankavelu, thank you for your empathic letter. I do not think that we should neglect the aggressiveness of the Simhalatva crowd. We should fully exploit their letters to inform us and others about what Simhalatva is and how it is transformed into verbal and physical action. We should look positively at provocations. They give us an opportunity to react and tell what we think. I save all these letters in my box "Simhalatva". I get several every week. I have 5 gigabytes at my disposal. There you also find Nalin de Silva and many other ex-academics who look for green pastures in communal politics. They are the most aggressive. Furthermore, I think that verbal action is also action. Therefore, letters written by hooligans are not harmless and not different from their beating up of their antagonists physically.

Vannakam. Peter"

"Sri Lanka’s Tamil Media Alliance Saturday (29th December 2001) protested to the Ministry of Mass Communication over the attack on Dharmaratnam Sivaram, a well known defence analyst and journalist, by "persons connected with the security forces." Mr. Sivaram, a Colombo-based contributor to TamilNet, suffered extensive injuries in the attack which occurred at the office of the Thinakathir newspapers in Batticaloa town late on Wednesday night. I regard Sivaram as one of the finest and most important journalists that are active now. What has happened to him is an attack on a fundamental right. I hope that he will recover from his injuries soon. If anybody can reach him please tell him that I and my family, are inviting him to our home in Kuti Yal, also known as Uppsala. There is no mental, but physical peace.

Peter Schalk." I do not want to comment at length but a few words are necessary as a response to this western Kristhuthva academic who unlike many others of his ilk, is not trying to hide his sympathies. In a previous article I have explained my position of "being an ex-academic" and I do not want to go into that again. Dr. Peter Schalk who is unable to meet my arguments in the articles to "The Island" is accusing me of looking for green pastures in communal politics. To the western Kristhuthva academics and intellectuals anybody not in line with their western Kristhuthva political line is a communalist. They define communalism the way they define terrorism. There is only terrorism against the western Christian civilisation and their understanding of communalism is no better. As far as green pastures are concerned there is nothing one gains from being in sympathy with the Sinhalathva politics that is accused of being as communalist by the western Kristhuthva academics. In fact one loses from such work and in Sri Lanka most people know that the green pastures are found by those who follow the western Kristhuthva line which has the backing of the NGOs funded by the western Kristhuthva countries. Dr. Schalk tries to equate articles and verbal arguments with physical attack and that is a dangerous step to say the least. In the university of Colombo where I served sometime ago some "golayas" of the western Kristhuthva academics, who were unable to meet argument with argument did the same with respect to "Jathika Chinthanaya" and tried to project the so-called Jathika Chinthana movement as a violent movement. It has to be emphasised that fascism is a product of western Kristhuthva civilisation and Dr. Schalk’s veiled threats remind me of fascism given by his civilisation to the other movements in the other countries including the LTTE that has been recognised as an (fascist) army of the Church by the Vishva Hindu Parishad in India. We know who this Mr. Sivaram of the Tamil Net is, and while we condemn the physical attack on him in Batticaloa, we remind Dr. Schalk that Mr. Sivaram doesn’t have to go all the way to Uppsala to find physical peace. All that Mr. Sivaram has to do is to come to Colombo!

While Dr. Schalk is contributing to the circle digest the British prime minister Mr. Blair, the self appointed spokesperson for the Anglo American culture within the western Kristhuthva civilisation, is busy in the SAARC region articulating against "terrorism". As reported in "The Island" of 7th January 2002, he has said "There has to be some very clear rules in the situation and the clearest rule of all is that there can’t be any support for terrorist activity". Now I know that concepts are definitions and even a simple word like support could mean different things to different people with different agendas. Is having talks with a terrorist group, that has not been unarmed and that has not given up its political objectives, a support given for that group or not? One does not have to be an intellectual of the western Kristhuthva civilisation to guess the answer that would be given by the man who heads a government that has "proscribed" the LTTE, but allows Anton Balasingham (by the way a Christian who worked in the British high commission in Colombo sometime ago) not only to live in London but to make public speeches on behalf of the LTTE and even to meet a Kristhuthva Norwegian delegation, as the spokesperson of the LTTE. Unlike in Sri Lanka there are ministers in India who refuse to be dictated by western Kristhuthva politics and Mr. Pramod Mahajan, the parliamentary minister has said in reference to Mr. Blair: "People say that you have come to calm us down. We have been calm enough for the past fifty years."

It is unfortunate that in Sri Lanka we are preparing to support the LTTE again. It is well known by now that during the so-called cessation of hostilities period the LTTE has got a shipment of arms without any difficulty. We make a big fuss over the removal of barriers in Colombo saying that they were ineffective and all we have to do is to set up a good intelligence unit and that in any event only the VIPs were given protection and not the common man and now with the opening of some roads the VIPs also have volunteered to become common people and take the same risk as the latter. These are only childish arguments. The barriers would not have been hundred percent efficient but they were a deterrent to the LTTE. Even if they were inefficient only an inefficient government, unless it has some kind of understanding with the LTTE or the western Kristhuthva countries who back the terrorists, would think of removing them without some kind of alternative that is more efficient than the barriers. The LTTE not only has not laid down arms but is in the process of acquiring more arms. It has not given up its objective of establishing an Eelam and has not given up the so-called Thimpu conditions. Prabhakaran on many occasions has said that he is not prepared to give up Eelam. The only "alternative" to an Eelam, according to Prabhakaran, is a confederation, which is nothing but a de facto Eelam which would become a de jure Eelam in no time with the backing of the western Kristhuthva countries. To imagine that our politicians are prepared to take a risk by opening the roads is only day dreaming. The VIPs appear to have some understanding with the LTTE or have some assurance, most probably from the western Kristhuthva countries who back so-called peace talks, while they engage themselves in a war against al Quaeda of bin Laden without talking to him, that nothing would happen to them (VIPs) during the period of so-called peace talks and the period leading to such talks. If the so-called peace talks succeed then a confederation (asymmetrical devolution of legislative power envisaged by Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe amounts to a confederation) and an Eelam would result and the Sinhala people would have to start a war (we don’t have a war at present) in order to win back those provinces. If the talks do not succeed then our army would have to start it all over again with a much more strengthened LTTE. Either way Sinhala people are going to lose simply because they are burdened with a set of leaders who speak the same language as the western Kristhuthva politicians.