|
||||||||||||
|
|
|
| ||||||||||
The diplomacy Sri Lanka needs at this hour of crisis is neither barking Rottweiler nor liking Pomeranian!Our quest for a foreign policy matching 21st century world order. Part IKeerthi Godayaya
There were two articles, appeared on electronic media recently that
hastily grabbed our attention. One was based on a speech of Dr Palitha
Kohona, the secretary of foreign affairs of Sri Lanka and the other
was of Dr. Dayan Jayathilaka, the Ambassador to the SL permanent mission
for UN in Geneva. The article, "Terrorism and the Challenge to
Diplomacy in Sri Lanka" of Dr. Kohona appeared on http://www.asiantribune.com
and the "Reversal in NY and our foreign policy challenges"
of Dayan Jayathilaka appeared on http://www.lankamission.org, must be
considered as timely attempts to add much needed insights to our quest
in identifying present and future challenges of our diplomacy; and also
formulating a steady future foreign policy that can address current
global challenges and perhaps prepare us to deal with the changing phase
and the face of 21st century world order. Both articles were written by people who are holding high profiles in the bureaucracy of the current government of Sri Lanka, so obviously they deserved to be taken seriously. It was pretty evident that both writers had agreed upon one thing in common; they both believed that there is a challenge ahead of our foreign policy. But the question of the nation is if our traditional post independence foreign policy can handle this challenge or not. Dr.Jayathilaka had brilliantly summarized and given a concise profile
of the current crisis of Sri Lanka and the global aspect central to
it. To my personal assessment, Dr. Jayathilaka is in the top line among
those who have a good grasp about the immediate and distant relations
and the far reaching consequences of Sri Lankan separatist struggle
within the apparatus of global capital. Before the aftertaste of above articles faded away from our memories,
another article was appeared on the web for our consumption authored
by Prof. Rajeeva Wijesinha, another vital role storming across the hollowness
of ideological strongholds of the west. His article titled "A
QUARTERLY REFLECTION: Pragmatism or hypocrisy?" however indicated
the change in the vision in upper echelons and the readiness of Sri
Lanka to abandon our archaic dependency neurosis to traditionally dominant
western powers in our foreign affairs, but only if the circumstances
are compelling us to do so. We really need more people in the caliber
of Prof. Wijesinghe to handle the aspect of 'media' in our struggle
for peace, as the growing legacy of the 21st century armed conflicts
has already proven elsewhere, that media+military combo is the only
recipe that can handle current postmodern warfare. However, in all fairness
to the service rendered by Prof. Wijesinha, I must say that our nation
must be grateful to this individual for everything he does for the country
right now in Geneva, including using media extremely effective manner.
After all, to the amount of writings currently published per week
by this magnificent man, single handedly tackling all sorts of negative
propaganda coming from all directions, makes us to wonder if he really
is a member of our typically lethargic Sri Lankan society or coming
from a different planet. That is also despite the risk of being branded this article as another bogus attempt of Dr. Jayathilaka to glorify his own brand of diplomacy, described by those who denounced it comparing to 'waving a club violently from a cave" or as Rottweiler type. The intended implication of this comparison is that 'silent diplomacy,' the much boasted brand of Colombo compradors, is more civilized whereas the brand of diplomacy which is more direct, more current, time and event specific, advocated by a section of society and practiced by Dr. Jayathilake and even ferociously employed by Prf. Wijesinghe through his media interventions as uncivilized or 'savage.' (By the way, they had suspected that Dayan himself was writing articles under my name. What a clever discovery?) Nonetheless, now we have two brands of diplomacy that we can use to save our nation from the onslaught of well orchestrated western diplomatic thrust. One type is 'civilized' and the other is 'uncivilized,' according to the 'theatrical' characterization of the writer Deepak Sharma, the latter is 'savage' like 'waving a club violently from a cave.' However, leaving aside these insinuations related to prevailing notions of 'civility' along with its dialectical relationship with the civilized and the uncivilized, it also seems essential to mention that this idiotic parade of 'borrowed civility' indeed a symptom of a mental disorder typically appeared among the colonized folks in Colombo after their 'loss of self.' (Although they consider this loss as a great achievement) Furthermore, as an academic discipline, 'postcolonial studies' has produced enormous amount of knowledge about colonial civility and the western mission of civilizing the 'Other', from which I think, our compradors can learn a lot about their foolhardy 'corny' civility. In fairness to this writer Sharma and his clients, the mentally sick Colombo ruling class, I would suggest them to start from "Black Skin White Mask" of Frantz Fanon, in which they can see the disparities and deformities of their own colonial portrait, and enjoy their own freak show. Therefore, I hope to leave it for another day and I rather focus on the main points of our discussion. Good luck! Coming back to our main point, the failure of our post independent diplomacy, its inability to address core international issues with dignity due to its self centered political lineages, its inherited submissive nature derived from the very fundamental principles and ethics of Colombo post colonial ruling class, their archaic tendency toward worshiping the west at any cost, has brought our nation to current crisis. Now it has proven beyond any doubt that glorified "Silent diplomacy," a synonym of the hereditarily meek timidity of comprador class of Colombo, is indeed impotent and outdated to handle the complexities of our case! In fact, there is no 'silent diplomacy' or 'savage diplomacy' as such in foreign affairs. To our moral standards, it is meddling into problems of others and taking advantage of them is indeed what is savage for us. In fact, diplomacy of the west is certainly full of savagery to the standards of ours. To our understanding, the brand of diplomacy of a nation will be emerged according to the decisive factors and conditions of given time of crisis. The type of diplomacy of such time would be event specific, could be silent or aggressive at times according to the affairs they grappling with. A Classic Example of the failure of 'Silent Diplomacy" A classic example for the failure of 'Silent Diplomacy' in resent history
comes from a person considered as the supreme product of the Colombo
comprador bourgeoisie class, J.R Jayawardene. JR was the ultimate product
of a class that historically allied and inclined to colonial powers
to maintain colonial influence upon our lives even in post independent
politics. His failure to grasp the emerging new realities in the world
politics of his time of reign, especially at a moment when his contemporaries
in the west were busy in restructuring the global relations of Trans
national capital via Reganism in the US and Thatcherism in the UK left
him in utter failure in terms of foreign policy of our country. Even
though he maintained a close relationship with the west, he couldn't
grasp what was going on in the west that in turn will affect us. I would like to ask Mr. Sharma to find out answers for the question 'Why such a powerful military force just left Sri Lanka like that, having their tail between legs just fearing a 'waving of a club violently from a cave by President Premadasa'. Answer is simple, the 'Elimination the element of deception from his diplomacy' I will come to that later. Why silent diplomacy wouldn't work in the Sri Lankan
context? Silent diplomacy, supposedly believing in persuading an ill-informed, misguided IC into right vision. That kind of diplomacy was good in 50s and 60s at a time when colonial powers loosening their grip over colonies and trying to maintain relations through goodwill with nations once they plundered. The notion behind these assumptions of 'Silent Diplomacy" are even more naïve. Which implies that the west is misguided and ill informed about our issues. Therefore, if we can persuade them with the truth, they will react with their natural tendency of taking right side, doing right thing and bring justice to our problems. According to these beliefs, if the West is behaving unfavorable to us, then again we have to blame ourselves for not telling our part of the story effectively enough, and not following the advice of the west to achieve a lasting peace and prosperity. Listening to the west is the only way out since they have the remedy for our liberation. But antagonizing them will be a definite disaster and will be denied us to progress. Behind the curtain diplomacy would be successful at least in two ways namely, either through persuasion or pressurizing in terms of arm-twisting. If any of our diplomatic counterparts is unaware of our country's prevailing situation; in such event, of course we can achieve certain diplomatic successes through persuasion using our cordial relations. But in the case of the relations with the west, it is different; the west is overly involved into our affairs and is in the position of having an opinion on our problems. To the amount of their historical and current engagement in our internal issues, it has been proved beyond any doubt that the west has become a part of the problem rather than an observer. So there is no room for behind the curtain persuasions in such situation due to the extended engagement in their own agendas in our internal affairs. Behind the curtain diplomacy, the "Silent diplomacy," will be successful on the other hand if we possess arm twisting diplomatic tools such as economical, political or military leverages that can be used against our diplomatic counterparts. In dealing with the west we do not posses any of such tools, but in contrary, they hold all of them and even not hesitant to use them against us at any given time. These are the reasons why when our honorable 'silent diplomats' go into negotiation rooms to discuss matters with the west, more frequently come out with twisted arms and at times, with wet pants; then usually declare that the discussions were cordial and friendly. But history revels that our compradors had used one leverage effectively in discussion with the west throughout the history. That is none but betrayal of the nation. Betrayal was fundamental, the scale was negotiable. There is no argument about the fact that Hon. Lakshaman Kadiragamer was successful in getting the LTTE proscribed through silent diplomacy. But he was successful at a moment when terrorism in general and LTTE terror in particular could not be justified in the post 9-11world. The proscription of LTTE in public and maneuvering all other political and diplomatic leverages to support its existence is a classic example of the ambivalence of western diplomacy; in which the west maintains its posture as the protector of democracy on the one hand and safeguards their military and political tools of hegemonic agenda such as LTTE, on the other. If the west had not proscribed the LTTE at the request of Kadiragamer at that point, they might have had tarnished their own image before the international community as the guardians of democracy and human rights. The element of media and information in the new regimes of global rule. 21st century information highway including mass media and entertainment
industry with all their technological advancements of communication,
takes the empire (the west) and its authority into every nook and corner
of the remotest places on the earth, and it serves the empire in the
same manner in which rail road served for British empire and the roadways
served for the Roman empire in the efforts of subjugating masses in
distant lands. Nowadays, the media and information are the main tools that have been used in the business of shaping-up and channeling public consciousness, however fake they may be, even constructing public opinions to achieve targeted results world over. In that sense, constructing public opinion means a matter of advertising. As Arundati Roy put it, there is a word conflict, empire just not using media for its advantage, media itself is the empire. When you analyze the scenario of issuing a highly critical Independence Day message to the media by British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Milliband with contents that doesn't have any relevance to our joy of being independent is not a surprise, because the objective of the British establishment was, no doubt, to take the maximum propaganda advantage and exploiting the occasion to further channeling public opinion against Sri Lankan establishment. In such occasion, the right thing to do is to responding the statement immediately in similar manner through media playing the same game to counter it. But the rest of the story was very unfortunate; I do not want to go there again. To be continued…
|
||||||||||||
|
|
Disclaimer: The comments contained
within this website are personal reflection only and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the LankaWeb. LankaWeb.com offers the contents
of this website without charge, but does not necessarily endorse the
views and opinions expressed within. Neither the LankaWeb nor the individual
authors of any material on this Web site accept responsibility for any
loss or damage, however caused (including through negligence), which
you may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of your use of or
reliance on information contained on or accessed through this Web site.
Copyright
© 1997-2004 www.lankaweb.Com
Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved. |
|||||||||||
