Restarting Independence once again

We celebrate 60 years of Independence on February 4. More than half of that time, over 35 years, we have spent trying to keep that Independence, fighting a half-hearted war for our territorial integrity. The war was militarily begun in 1972 when 20,000 detonators were found smuggled to Jaffna for 20,000 explosions, preparations for a large-scale war. A few years later in 1976, the infamous Vaddukoddai resolution calling for a separate state made the formal call for separatism. But the Tamil racist cry had been made much earlier, in fact shortly after the country's independence; the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kachchu ITAK "Sri Lanka Tamil State Party" was formed and misleadingly called the "Federal Party" in English.

Since then, it has been one of heavy bloodletting and turbulence preventing us from reaching our potential. (The blood letting of the two JVP insurrections and their suppression were not to challenge the territorial integrity of the country). Recent events may signal that we're about to turn the tide and that a prosperous multicultural independent country may be around the corner.

These recent events include the cancelling of the humiliating CFA and determined military actions which are leading to the crumbling, like a so-much overblown papadam, of the LTTE. A cloud of misinformation, spread by interested parties, prevents us seeing some obvious facts.

The threat to Independence was not only from Tamil racists, but from outside forces. Sections of Tamil racism had believed that exporting their goals to the outside world to intervene would be a suitable means. During the Soulbury Commission, they had appealed to the white masters to undemocratically give 50% of the parliamentary seats to the Tamil minority only to see them rejected as being a means to artificially create the majority out of a minority. Tamil racists especially the ITAK ("FP") had developed close relations with the then separatist DMK in South India, but while the DMK gave up separatism, Sri Lankan Tamil racism went on its separatist path including propagating false propaganda.

The first external attack on Sri Lankan Independence came from India which in an act of proxy invasion trained, armed and dispatched all the Tamil separatist groups. This was before the 1980s. The second wave of intervention was through Western proxies in the form of that phony civil society, the unrepresentative NGOs that they funded and which continued to cheer not only Indian intervention but also to call for further intervention from other countries. They were playing out the role missionaries played during the colonial period who cheered and encouraged the takeover of the country. In fact, if one analyses the leading lights of this NGO industry, one would easily find them to be mostly from those groups who lost colonial privileges after Independence. These FGOs (Foreign Government Organisations) cheered and facilitated the entry of the next round of would-be colonizers, the so-called international community led by the LTTE proxy Norway. Our political leaders, the then Prime Minister and the then President, signed for a CFA that had been pre-prepared by the LTTE and Norway. Words like "de facto mini state" now came into the international vocabulary to describe an illegal LTTE entity demarcated by the ceasefire in which the Sri Lankan government was debarred from having its sway.

It is instructive to see how, as they lecture to us, this international community's arrangements compare with ours. Two countries, Norway and Britain, have not made the formal transition from a kingdom, their heads of state are royals. In both these countries the royals must be of a particular Christian sect and are designated legal guardians of that religion. By law, key members of the administration in Norway should belong to that Christian sect and in fact, should also speak Norwegian.

During its Enlightenment and Revolution, France went through an anti-Christian cleansing and loosened the Christian hold. France has a highly centralized system centered around Paris. So has Japan, which has a unitary constitution. Germany was forced to get rid of racism by the occupying powers and has strict anti-Nazi laws that ban groups with ideologies like the LTTE. Canada is still accused of genocide by its former native population who want the country tried for war crimes.

The US, a country invented after the genocide of the local population by Christians fleeing Europe, has a nominal separation of state and religion. Yet Christianity is smuggled in at every phase from swearing in of officials to the dollar note proclaiming "In God we trust". The United States has federal arrangements but not based on ethnic boundaries. These are not the arrangements that these colonial worthies have been trying to thrust upon us.

One rule for them; another for us. It all seemed like the Christian powers of colonial times handing the Bible to the natives while stealing their lands. The missionary role was taken over by NGO/FGOs, many of whom were actually run by Christians. The role of colonial overseers was taken over by the SLMM who stood judging over us.

Part of this sordid saga was the role of some commentators especially in the English media. Specializing in anti-Sri Lankan analyses, many of them came from those very groups who lost their colonial privileges after Independence. Others got financial handouts from foreign governments or NGO/FGOs, while Indian commentators writing in our newspapers either had a RAW background or had been active in the Indian incursion into Sri Lanka.

The long road to regain Independence continued for half our post-Independence period. One reason could be that the pseudo ruling class brought by 500 years of colonial rule was continuously hankering after colonial times. As the LTTE crumbles before our very eyes, we must see that this situation of fighting for our territory for half the time of Independence should never, ever occur again. We can take easy-to-adopt cues from other countries.

Like in the United States, we must not have ethnic enclaves. The whole country must be turned into what Western province today is – a multicultural mélange. Taking a leaf from Germany's anti-Nazi laws we must have laws that will detoxify the LTTE poison from our society.

We must continue to build up the armed forces; a small entity like Singapore has credible Armed Forces. For the foreseeable future, even after eliminating the LTTE, our current troop strengths must be maintained. And like in China we should have industris owned by defence authorities. Like in India, and other countries, we must banish NGO/FGOs which interfere in our affairs. Like the post-World War II Marshall Plan we must have a massive transfer of resources to rapidly build up the North and East as a multicultural entity.