CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Ravana's land and 'F' solution: a reply to Michael Roberts

C. Wijeyawickrema cwije7@yahoo.com

Owner of history

Michael Roberts (MR), a product of the history machine of the Peradeniya soap factory, who according to the journalist HLD Mahindapala was later at a place in England where oxen used to cross a ford (stream) has written about history as if he was the owner of history (Island, 4/16/2008). He accuses me of making a "paranoid interpretation [of what]." I did not offer any interpretation other than a summary presentation of facts. Others are free to make their own interpretation in any way they like.

I know MR as the man who once called the French Revolution, a guti keliyak. I know him as a paid worker for at least one Marga Institute book project in which his friend and my high school part-time teacher at Panadura, Chandra de Silva co-authored a booklet on Buddhist fundamentalism. I consider MR, an Adelaide outlier of the professorial network of the anti-Mahavamsa movement in Sri Lanka.

In part-I of his essay he identified me and Nalin Silva for "treatment," as if Sri Lanka is still a colony during which the Lansi people got power and preference as second level sub-agents of a Christian empire. Other than the fact that I was born at Walana, Panadura just like Nalin I have had no contact with Nalin. Apart from Susantha Gunatileke there are no Sinhala Buddhists willing to come forward to challenge the Peradeniya old history and anthropology shops and therefore, MR who shifted into anthropology to avoid unemployment has come out with a new strategy of accusing me of dishonesty. I challenge MR to point out a single line (according to him data) in my original essay which is not true.

Sinhala Buddhist Chauvinists (SBC)

The only ground MR can use against me is that I am a Sinhala Buddhist. Because MR is an expert on the karawa caste I can also tell him that my parents happened to be of the govigama caste. From the days that Visaka Kumari Jayawardena invented the proto-phrase SBC, any time a Sinhala Buddhist says something the black-white agents in Colombo try to label that person as a SBC without calling so! In my original essay, which the Island newspaper did not publish, I referred to a white American (Robert L. Hardgrave) from whom I have copied facts (data?). Yet, instead of accusing Robert MR accuses me of dishonesty! Because it is my wish to be born again in Sri Lanka as a Sinhala Buddhist, I must tell MR that in my numerous writings I always followed an objective-impartial approach to presenting facts. The moral basis for my writings is that I know that the Sinhala Buddhists who suffered ill-treatment and systematic discrimination from 500 years of Christian-dominated Colombo crowd did not discriminate against Tamils, Christians or Muslims. As Buddhists we believe in impermanence and the cyclical nature of life. The Tamil-Sinhala clash was a creation by Tamil Christian and Sinhala Christian Colombo crowd. Only in November 2005 a village Buddhist became the president of Sri Lanka.

Corruption trinity in Ceylon

Colombo political families, their civil service relatives and the Peradeniya professorial soap products acted as an unholy trinity to perpetuate colonialism in Ceylon. Peradeniya was created by Sir Ivor Jennings to produce what Nehru identified as clerks for the colonial master. SWRD thought Peradeniya was a dirty place not a university (ref. Yasmine Gooneratne's book Relative Merits). F. R. Jayasooriya, Ediriweera Sarachchandra and I.D. de S. Weerawardena were the only three names I can think of the old Peradeniya crowd who did not kiss black-white rings. Some in the CCS crowd have become born-again saints after retirement.

MR comes from the machine shop of G. C. Mendis who could not think of history of Ceylon any way other than North India I & II and South India I & II. These historians could not come out of the blinds or did not want to come out of it to see Sri Lankan history from a better realistic perspective. To memorize professors' notes and get a first class in history was difficult but these soap products could not see Sri Lanka's modern history as a mess created by a group of Colombo black-whites. The first person to try that was an American Peace Corp officer-turned historian Patrick Peebles who did research on the Mudaliyar class during1968-1973. Visaka Kumari did something similar only in 2002 with her book, Nobodies to Somebodies.

Patterns and processes

As an undergraduate I had a choice of history, economics or geography. I selected geography. Only at a much later time I came to know that history is actually past geography. I do not know what confusion MR has about facts and interpretation of facts. As a student of law I know that same facts are used by two opposing lawyers to justify each one's arguments. Thus white writers and Indian native writers wrote different theses about the cause and effect of the 1857 Indian Sepoy Mutiny. In my essay I did not provide any interpretation.

As a geography student I see a continuum of time and space. Physical and social processes generate spatial patterns we call landscapes. Human activities on space can be explained from perspectives such as historical, economic or political geography. Geography takes a holistic approach and synergy can make 2+2 more than 4. When Alfred Wegener was talking about the Continental Drift in 1912 fellow geologists and other scientists rejected it as fancy talk while geographers had no difficulty accepting it by observing two simple facts: the outline of South America fits with Western Africa and if freshwater fish fossils are found in both lands they must have been together sometime in the past. Geography students do not have to be a Toynbee or a Tolstoy to understand simple facts of life and living.

The purpose of my original essay was to suggest to people like LSSP minister Tissa Vitharana and TULF leader Anandasangaaree to give up race-based devolution and to select language-blind spatial units of administration (Island, 10/25/2006). If the desire is to empower people it can be done without facing a future threat from Tamil Nad. On the other hand if it is a politicians' game to placate a new set of Tamil politicians my essay provides a warning sign. If MR considers this as an interpretation then so be it. If that essay has even a single fact which can be branded as "spurious" or "questionable" then MR must be able to point it out or present a list.

Tamil Nadu geopolitics

My essay was the first of its kind to look at the link between separatist movements in Tamil Nad and a Christian group of Colombo Tamils since 1917. It was not published in Sri Lanka but was on several websites including some Tamil websites. MR has a professional responsibility to explain why he thinks my conclusions based on facts are "paranoid." How can MR ignore the appearance of news items almost on a daily basis on the role played by some Tamil Nadu politicians as providers of oxygen to Prabakaran?

Based on historical and political geographies of Sri Lanka and Tamil Nad, I reiterate that the life sacrificing dedication of village boys and girls of Sri Lanka to liberate the island from Tamil terrorism will go waste if politicians allow any 'F' element to crepe into any new arrangement of devolution of powers. 'F' is asked by politicians and what people want is local empowerment and just like the Panchayathi Raj Institutes in India it can be done in a language-blind and ecologically sound basis starting at the village level. Each village can be a spatial aspiration unit for Tamils, Muslims and Sinhala communities respectively. In any such plan an express rejection of any type of regional homelands must be constitutionally recorded. Minister Vitharana should also know that Scotland is only one election away from democratic UDI.

In order for the readers to understand my side of the story I hope the Island will re-consider publishing my original essay.

C. Wijeyawickrema
cwije7@yahoo.com

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