| The Rajpal Abeynayake Column By Rajpal Abeynayake | ||||||
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Why Moragoda cheers for Uncle Sam He says it was not seen in perspective. Apparently Milinda Moragoda, even though he said that he wants the US to be a 'hegemon' at a lecture a few weeks back in Honalulu, in fact said that the superpower 'should be more sensitive in seeking to impose this hegemony over other cultures.' When asked at a public lecture last week, about his rationale for cheerleading for US domination over the world (what else is hegemony but domination?) Moragoda shuffled around the issue and finally allowed that only the 'hegemon' part got reported, but not the rest of his speech which calls for 'sensitivity.' "Please read my speech, it will be on my website,'' he said. But since then Moragoda further defended his speech at the Athulathmudali Memorial lecture and wanted everybody to go and get themselves enlightened about it in his website. I feel my fellow columnist has been too kind. For instance, he had not dealt with the possible motives behind Moragoda's calling for American domination and hegemony over world affairs, and his hopes for Uncle Sam. ( "if the United States should be willing to lead, to be in fact, the hegemon'' he enthuses.) Obviously Milinda
Moragoda seeks to be the next puppet to be installed in Sri Lanka
by the government of the United States. There is no other way to
state that truth than to preface it by saying 'obviously' - because
his unctuousness towards the US is so mawkish that it is obvious. He quotes Margaret
Thatcher to say "The modern world began in earnest on July
4th, 1776. That was the moment when rebellious colonists put pen
to parchment and pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their
sacred honour in defense of truths they held to be self-evident:
"that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain inalienable rights… and that to secure
these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed". Oh really?
Hasn't Moragoda and the Baroness (no wonder she is responsible for
such ridiculously barren thought) heard of slavery, of slave auctions,
of shackles, thumb-screws, mouth-openers, and other instruments
of torture used on American slave ships - all after modern civilization
began in earnest on June 4th 1776? This speech
has to go down in history as one of the world's monumental bloopers,
along the lines of James Watt ex US Secretary of Agriculture's "a
black, a woman two Jews and a cripple," speech made some years
ago. There was a huge public outcry over his reference. Watt broke
all records for political incorrectness, when he said "I have
a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple…and we have talent''
in a speech that described his staff. He succeeded
in insulting all four groups in one stroke, and had to tender his
resignation. Milinda Moragoda's
speech certainly is in that order of lunacy. But it is entirely
reasonable from Moragoda's point of view if he is going to utter
this kind of sycophantic drivel about Uncle Sam. His website contains
more than enough evidence to support this Moragoda as Marcos picture.
He says 'Today, the United States is the world's undisputed - and
I dare to use the word- "hegemon". ' Gush gush gush gush
gush. Not that this
gushing really ends at any point. "As a world leader, wielding
the widest influence of any single country, and with access to substantial
resources, the United States is particularly well placed to propagate
those values.'' What exactly are these values? Democracy market
economy and peace? Peace, he says! The US is going to foster values
of peace, when even a majority of the citizens of UK said, in a
recent Sky News survey, that George Bush is a greater threat to
peace than Saddam Hussein! But the fact
is that if one wants to be installed Sri Lanka's next tin-pot dictator
courtesy Uncle Sam, one needs to say these things. I think Moragoda
is both clueless and is disingenuous. Clueless because he seems
to be genuinely ignorant about the record of the US as the worst
rogue state - the most potent disruptive force against democracy
and peace, by its history of installing puppet dictators…..
But Moragoda is also disingenuous because he covers up what little
he knows about the US - because he wants precisely one thing - for
the US to propel him into the seats of power in this country, using
the 'peace process' as the springboard. The writing, as they say,
is already on the wall. But if Moragoda
doesn't know, he should know that his darling democratic hegemon
recently apologized to the people of Guatemala for the deaths of
200,000 peasant Indians at the hands of the CIA and US sponsored
right wing death squads? (President Clinton did.) Somoza a US installed
puppet in Nicaragua, fled to the US with around $900 million in
his pocket leaving a poverty stricken country and people. Also,
check this quote: 'The Apartheid police state of South Africa was
far more brutal and repressive than Cuba ever was under Castro,
yet the US opposed at every turn any kind of sanction or restraining
measure against them. The following is just some of the US voting
record on apartheid at the UN: Strengthening
arms embargo against South Africa Dec. 12
34/93D - 132-3 (US and 2 others.) Assistance to the oppressed people
of South Africa and their liberation movement. Dec. 12 34/93I -
134-3 (US and 2 others,) Huh? Maybe this article just won't
end here |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Well,
now I have read it. Having read it, and not just a report of it,
I am even more shocked than I was. A fellow columnist dealt with
his 'hegemon' foot-in-the-mouth oration, in one of The Sunday Times
pieces written two weeks ago.
