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JVP:The gift to speak in tongues
By C.N.S.
Who says that a command of English or even a modicum of it (the kaduwa) is necessary to achieve political power? Nobody. At least not the hundreds of thousands who cast their preference votes for JVP candidates on April 2. The JVP stole the show in what they themselves ridiculed as the manapa poraya. The comrades with roots in a rural ‘English-less’ culture, captured the imagination of the populace and their preference votes. How much more could the JVP have achieved with a mastery of English, which they appear to lack now!

Getting the point across
Read the following slowly and enjoy the feel of its unsophisticated style, syntax, idiom and punctuation. They are unedited extracts from ‘a special statement’ issued by JVP Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa about "a reply given by me to a question asked by one of the readers of the Lanka Irida Sangrahaya newspaper." This statement published in an English newspaper on February 17, 2004 had the headline: "Don't be misled by false media reports -Weerawansa".

"United National Party government and its allies using local and foreign media, are engaged in a campaign to create an unnecessary misunderstanding among general public…

To accept or reject, today there is no such a ceasefire agreement. From the day the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe refused to go along with the ceasefire agreement no such agreement prevails. But we stand for an actual peace. In that case the people must not get afraid that the war is coming back. We have also included in our alliance agreement that the possibility of holding talks with Tiger organization based on reasonable and correct foundation.

The other thing is, even the 'ceasefire agreement' signed between UNP and Tiger organisation was limited to the documents itself. Officers of military intelligence members of the parties those against Tigers and the members of general public altogether hundreds of opponents were killed by the Tigers organisation during the time when ceasefire agreement was active.

Meanwhile, the UNP government is also planning to publicise false news that Alliance Government is going to curb imports. We insist this as a baseless allegation.

We appeal all the people of this country those who still have wisdom to understand the intentions of their malicious and false allegations not to get misled."

In the public interest
Then, on election eve there was a full-page advertisement in a daily newspaper with a banner title in red "WHO IS RESPONCIBLE FOR THIS? and pictures of bloodshed and of assassinated "persons of Army intelligence units". This too should be read slowly with a feel for the solecisms and the liberties the People's Liberation Movement has taken (and, why not?) with the colonial language. The opening statement read: "Peace brought by this UNP government was disowned eyes and ears of security forces."

The page ended with the rhetorical question a la Weerawansa: "Can you possibly hand over not even the country but at least an institution to a group people who think in this type of treacherous and irresponsible manner?" Below it were the words: "A governance not to betray the country but to protect it with sacrifice…A reminder by JVP for the public interest."

We heard JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe being interviewed on CNN. He performed not too badly, they say. He was the first JVPer in recent times to use "Spoken English" for public consumption.

When the time is right
Although a leader of the SLFP has said that their JVP allies in the Sandanaya have an inferiority complex (heena mannaya), no impartial observer sees such a complex in them when they hold forth in the mother tongue. Part of the reason for such a complex, if any exists, must surely be their lack of English. This is their Achilles' heel.

But sometimes it makes one wonder if the JVPers now in power through the ballot and not (mercifully) the bullet are really deficient (heena) in English. Are they hiding their proficiency in English to display it when the proper time arrives? Is their reluctance to use English just a mask, "a face to meet the faces that (they) meet"?

Their English newspaper advertisements and press communiqués show that they are managing satisfactorily with written English. And, who knows, in the fullness of time they will be using Spoken English as effectively and as forcefully as they do Spoken Sinhala. Wimal Weerawansa screams (unnecessarily) and orates grandiloquently in his mother tongue. Will the day not be too far away when he does the same in the foreign tongue but not, one wishes, with the same venom and hate? It's somehow easier to curse and rave, vituperate and revile, and abuse and rant, in Sinhala than in English.

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