Financial Times

The most recent chairman’s statement of John Keells Holdings (JKH) beseeched all stakeholders to the conflict that is plaguing the country to arrive at a negotiated solution.

Such public expressions of indignation at the frustratingly detrimental effects of the nation’s political and social ills on the economy have become a routine quarterly drill with some of the better businesses here.

Yet some will see nothing but hypocrisy in this drill, pointing out that businesses habitually exploit political malfunction and corruption for their own narrow gain.

However, the “nothing but” attitude is invariably an oversimplification of things. Besides, in this case, it is difficult to deny the strong possibility that it is because many of the leading businesses have made genuine progress towards modernity that they are now indignant at having to function in an environment of rampant political and social ills.

It might be an extravagance to suggest that our leading businesses have come upon the perception that business success is sharply limited even in a capitalistic economy, when its environment is plagued by the difficulties of assimilating the Western traditions of political liberalism, scientific rationalism and philosophic naturalism.

Yet business is seen to be crying out for modernity, even if modernity is partially perceived –as merely the practices of good governance. Moreover, it does not take away from these achievements of business to suggest that the recent JKH comment on the conflict is harmful.

Plainly, there are just three approaches to ending a conflict. Of these, the notion of containment receives very little attention here.

We are often told that we must either negotiate a solution with the terrorist Prabhakaran, or resort to the use of violence against the terrorists in a war of annihilation. If this was in fact the choice facing us, JKH might seem sensible in urging us all to negotiate.

Even then, it would seem sensible, not because wars of annihilation are inherently immoral, but because obviously our larger social, economic, political, and cultural practices do not lend themselves easily to the idea of shock or decisive battles, involving disciplined courage, morale, individual initiative, sheer technological expertise and democratic accountability. And wars are the sum of such decisive battles. Our culture might lend itself readily to hit and run wars of attrition, to the use of violence for terrorization rather than for decisiveness. But we are politically, economically, technologically, morally and spiritually unfit to take “a sustained industrial and democratically accountable approach to the slaughter of enemies.”

Are we then left with the sole option of negotiating a solution with the terrorist Prabhakaran?

The elemental problem involved in doing negotiations is best seen in the activism of Tamil and Sinhala intellectuals who are dabbling in the issue of grievance, and whose activism typically transcends the democratic process, while seeking to impose change from above with the connivance of multilateral agencies and donor countries.

Press them hard enough and they will admit that they have no interest whatsoever in nation building. They are not striving after “a more perfect union,” not even a less imperfect one.

Some might even go so far as to suggest that the nation-state itself is a freakish artefact. But most would admit, when pressed, that they have no feeling of reverence for the Sri Lankan nation-state from which we have derived our being and our sense of a common future for over a century at least.

Why might this be so? Perhaps, the weight of grievances experienced by minorities is felt to be unprecedented for a young democracy; or, there is an ardent attachment to the lessons of the European experience that only common traditions, common prejudices and common grievance could unite people. Or, again, perhaps the nation-state is felt to be an oppressive convention that deserves contempt.

At any rate, our grievance-mongers have been led to reject the lessons of the American experience that a “more perfect union” could be built by a common future, a common education, a common language, and a common method of getting along with each other.

We may face backwards to shared memories, and work towards building many nations within Sri Lanka. Or, we may face forward to a shared task and work towards “a more perfect union”. But in trying to effect a final settlement undemocratically and by rooting for terrorism, it is well to remember that no democratic government will have the willpower to negotiate with separatist thugs as long as those who regard the nation reverentially as a source of their being are numerically and morally superior to the thugs and their apologists.

The philosopher Santayana says piety is the sense of reverence for the sources of one’s being, and spirituality is the devotion to ideal ends. By that measure, it would be absurd to think that an enduring peace could be achieved by terrorising men into trespassing against the elemental forces of life.

Terrorism must first be defeated, before we can have any hope of arriving at either a common method or separate methods of getting along with each other. That is why in the unlikelihood of a direct war, the notion of containment deserves serious discussion.

A policy of containment is what the US had in place to defeat the socialistic despotism of the Soviets for over forty years, because a direct war would have resulted in mutual destruction.

A policy of containment would naturally be countered by the terrorist with a hit and run war of attrition. This is why the retaliatory use of violence must be included in any policy of containment – with the use of violence subject to democratic audit.

In the meantime, we must never let our successes, blunders and excesses obscure the fact that containment ultimately rests on an act, not of knowledge, but of faith – that “over the long run the course of providence is towards justice”, that “an evil empire will end on the ash heap of history”.