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The strange evolution of D S Senanayaka's United National Party into RaWick's Disunited Anti-National Party

R Chandrasoma

According to the customary lexical or dictionary understanding of the word 'nation', it is surely apparent that a 'National Party' must, first and foremost, defend the interests of the nation - upholding its honour and vigorously combating the efforts of unfriendly outsiders to dilute its sovereignty. On this basis, is the United National Party of Sri Lanka a 'national party' in its proper and meaningful sense? Consider the following points that together constitute an 'advisory' in this regard -

1. The UNP considers the 'Unitary' state of Sri Lanka to be an unworkable constitutional aberration, It canvasses for a kind of 'federalism' or 'confederalism' that seriously diminishes the central power of the state

2. It believes that the terrorist rebellion of the tyrant Prabhakaran is a justified reaction to the over-dominance (and abusive use of power) of the Sinhala majority in a racially mixed and polyglottal society

3. It upholds the view that the Tamils of the North and East inhabit historic homelands that must be restored to them in a constitutional settlement that is fair and just.

4. It is a strong article of faith within the leadership that the battle against Prbhakaran can never be won. Battles against an ideologically committed enemy are a waste of money and lives. Hence, appeasement and parley must be indefatigably pursued despite the depredations of a scornful enemy.

5. It humbly accepts that foreign intervention is a fact of life given the piddling size of our country and our dependence on the goodwill of the political giants that bestride our trouble-ridden world.

6. It follows that foreign mediation is the sure way of settling our politico-military broils with Prabhakaran. The paradoxical rule that the UNP accepts is that our soldiers should be sent to oversee disputes in distant lands while foreigners do business as peace-makers in our own country.

7. The UNP sees the 'racist' JHU and the JVP as the root cause of the of our discontents and is deeply offended by the rise of a militant Sinhala Nationalism that seeks to beat back Northern Terrorism through the free exercise of the coercive power of the State.

8. A second paradoxical thesis unashamedly adopted by the UNP is that minority truculence is a reaction to social injustice while the majority race is deemed 'extremist' and 'socially dangerous' if it attempts to assert its rights and dues in the context of its demographic pre-eminence.

9. This strange principle of equity is translated into the maxim that only the minorities have rights of constitutional assertion - a 'law' that is embraced not only by the UNP but also by the hordes of 'peaceniks' and NGO parasites that currently infest our society.

10. Autochthonal primacy - the sense of the historical roots of the major group that inhabits this country - is studiously ignored. It is replaced by a machiavellian strategy of wooing the minorities on the one hand and a fawning openness to Western power and blandishments on the other. Either way, the interests of the true indigenes are sacrificed by a sankara elite that has muscled its way into the leadership of a party that has seen better days.

It would be grossly unfair to hold that the entire membership of the UNP subscribes to the polity encompassed by the ten points given above. This is the reason for speaking of the current UNP as a 'disunited' party. Many of its stalwarts would be ashamed to be associated with this agenda that has the depreciation of national worth as its prime focus. They have been ousted by a coterie of Western infatuated (and, denationalized) fanatics who by a quirk of history dominate the party.

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