“Right is on the side of might.
Legal phrases are on the side of impotence.” 1
Rays of fire, glow on thick red facades… like a ruby in Adam’s ale placed on the plinth of damned Earth… Sun sends its tears with mixed feelings, a split in the sky paves its way on to the fourth world; them tears mingle with meadows of warm red, its tears dance above them dark crimson flowing so slowly on the long standing high ways of Colombo, joining its way in the neighborhood of Kandy. It was broadcasted live as well as edited, via print and electronic drawings. This is territorial blood which is spilling not that of any species. Media paints its territorial images on the Sinhalese heads. Blood of the Northern Tamils are out on a limb; nor do they flow on the streets of Colombo. For the Sinhalese, neither were they spilled in Killinochchi by the Sinhalese State murdering twenty nine people, few days before the balancing effect triggered in Colombo and Kandy, and buried its cause on the television sets of Southern mass…
Four months above we were stressing nothing but on this single phrase written nearly a century ago by a revolutionary, shot to death by the German State. In 1915 she said, ‘When my neighbor’s home burns, my own is in danger…’2 Are we not feeding on our own limbs, drawing blood with best of intentions…? Is it true that the way to Hell is paved with nothing but good intentions…?3 Yes or No..? Upon this plain inquiry, the great pearl of the Indian Ocean shall split its crust in to two halves which are nothing but hostile to the other. We have to remind what we had to say few months ago and how those positions have intensified themselves on the Sri Lankan political veneer with some more unforeseen changes.
We wrote: ‘The political solution to the conflict has walked hand in hand from the military barracks, and resided on the banks of the public life. The cause of this is non other than this; the Southern petty-bourgeois and the peasantry have become ‘the outer protective shell’ of the Sinhalese State, therefore they have become a politico-ideological force superseding its epicenter of political will, the state. In North, the oppressed mass has no milder bearings, it equals itself with the LTTE’s regime. This short phase of infinite murder means that politics of war has withdrawn itself from the battlefield between the defense lines of the Government Forces and the LTTE, and deposited itself in the more luxurious political accounts of the general public. The final solution will be written with public’s blood, on the streets and highways of South and on the jungle roads of the North.’3 The number of Government soldiers or the LTTE carders nor the amount of civilians murdered in the North and East in the midst of fierce battle shall in any way alter or affect the final solution of the conflict nor it shall bring about any general political changes in the country. But the murder of the non-soldiers, i.e. the systematic murder of the civilians in the South by the LTTE shall lead to a major political transformation which is fundamentally twofold (the particular incidents as such, bear the power to dismantle and about ship the general whole);
1. It shall ultimately decide the general militaristic strategy implemented by both sides. The public sphere have to be more militaristically concentrated; it requires further planning, shifts in resources –soldiers and ammunition- and absolute increases in the military spending. Moreover this whole set up shall give the military an autonomous existence, an absolute power over and above everything that formerly existed over and above the latter. The cabinet approval for the establishment of six separate bodies to monitor and implement military strategies for the purpose of maintaining public security is a material manifestation of this argument.
2. It shall speed up the process of settling in to a final solution for the conflict as more and more civilians are murdered in South. Therefore the frequency of the murder of the civilians of the South, rather than the soldiers, and the North and East civilians themselves, is directly proportional with the hastening of the political settlements. This notion reveals us two further important points.
First, that no matter how brutal these attacks may appear to the public, these attacks resemble a positive drive towards an end, if only they are focused upon the masses of the Western Province (who fundamentally occupy a parasitic existence in relation with other more rural provinces) and the masses dwelling in the remaining cities of the country (e.g.: Kandy, Galle, Kalutara etc) who have become the outer protective shell of the State, the idea is to destroy in to sand this exact shell.
Second, the irrelevant nature of death of a soldier, politically as well as militaristically, reveals the nature of the function bestowed by the civil society to the children in arms. They are the direct opposite of civilization, the machines mutilated out of man flesh to guard the same civilization who begot them with pride, from whose bowels they see the light of day; the night has certainly conquered the sun with its thick immovable shadow, appear as if it is sown on to their mechanic flesh with threads of steal, the chains are here to stay, till the end. In to the pale day light we see. War is not perceived by the civil society as a continuation and an extension of a certain form of a social relationship with a definite ideological content, but, it is absorbed as an object existing outside them, therefore as a thing which can be demolished if certain objects are demolished forever, the latter objects are analogues with the members of the LTTE, therefore war is perceived as a thing sitting out side them which is formed by the integration of thousands of separate pest-like objects. Never they perceive that social relationships which invariably possess a definite form with a specific ideological content can not be destroyed by means of war unless they become obsolete in relation to the general whole. This ‘false consciousness’ we would call the Fetishism of war in Ceylon. This fact can be clearly seen by the nature of media coverage given to the war… where the television viewers are transformed in to an audience who are made to enjoy the action and all the thrills of war nor less than an action movie; all this make us remind the film ‘Thrill Seekers’ (telecasted more than twice on ETV) where agents from the future are sent in to the past to execute specific large scale human disasters, which are then broadcasted live for the audience sitting in front of television sets in the realm of the future, the audience of the future spend their wealth to watch the men of the past slain in herds.
The Epilogue of the East – February, 1948 and May ‘08
The declaration of independence and sovereignty of Ceylon in 1948 by the British colonizers and the restoration of freedom and democracy in the Eastern province by the Government of Sri Lanka in May 2008 resemble developments as well as analogies when the two incidents are measured while placing them in the same dimension.
The declaration of independence in 1948 contains two main aspects which would be worth mentioning on this regard.
a. the transformation of the colonial state, Ceylon, in to a neo-colony which is politically as well as economically dependent on the metropolitan center of the capitalist system; the investment patterns and political measures implemented in the dependent country is largely dominated by the interests and motives of the metropolitan economy.
b. the political power of Ceylon was bestowed to the comprador bourgeois class who were perfect class allies of the metropolitan center. By the time of the declaration of the independence in 1948 various mass movements were mobilized mostly by the leftists politicians and trade unions against the entire apparatus of the declaration of independence and there was a state of political unrest during that period in Ceylon. But the absenteeism of an armed insurrection against the system of rule made it possible to saturate the ill political and economic nuances in to the public sphere without much resistance by the masses and therefore a general settlement over the matter was made.
We perceive the restoration of freedom and democracy in the Eastern province in comparison with the above two points respectively.
a. Democracy and freedom to the East is quite analogues with the declaration of the independence by the British colonizers to the Ceylon. In the same way that transformed the colonial state of Ceylon in to a mere neocolonial atoll, the Sri Lankan Government shall ‘reorganize’ the system of control to a such a degree that the Eastern administration is politically as well as economically dependent on the Sinhala Government. Therefore there is an overall overlapping of the point a. of the former and the point a. of the latter.
b. the political power of the East is not bestowed to a comprador bourgeois class as such it was done in 1948 by the British, but is dealt out among three major armed factions; the break away faction of the LTTE, the Jihad movement of the Muslims and the Sinhalese Government. Therefore this is a further development of the situation which existed in 1948; a spiral movement of the proceedings of power is evident herewith. The antagonistic relationship which is evident in the East, between the Muslims and the Eastern Tamils and between the latter two factions and the Sinhalese state and also a possible re-intervention of the LTTE among the ranks of the Eastern shell with the aid of Muslim Jihad movement and the breakaway party of the LTTE shall recreate the Eastern soil in to a state of political unsavory. The East will turn out to be a major military blockade far more extensive than when it was under the control of the LTTE.
The fact that the LTTE is having firm links with the Muslim armed movement in the East is unmistakable; the TNA parliamentarian who was murdered few months ago in Mannar was replaced by a Muslim representative, a clear sign of the political and further military unification with the Muslim armed movement despite the treacherous incidents which took place in the early 1990’s between the two races. Further more, the LTTE shall not enter in to a peace deal with the Southern Government unless 2002 Memorandum of Understanding is re-initiated, which is impossible on behalf of the government since it would mean the evacuation of its armed forces from the North as well as from the East. Therefore on LTTE’s behalf, they made a serious error in 2005 November presidential elections when they chose to block the votes of the North East Tamils, which led the way to the SLFP to overthrow the rule of the United National Party and wage a devastating war against the North East. The LTTE have partially dug their own grave by this severe mistake, they did not foresee nor did they predict that an iron military fist led by Ghothabhaya and Basil Rajapakse is following behind the path of the SLFP.
A Possible Military Coup in the South
In January 2008 we wrote: ‘If the Neoliberal state is facing the general period of declining capitalism and therefore grave economic crises, then what might replace it? What did the government and no less the Bush administration do when they faced the seven signs of Neoliberal chronic economic imbalances?
1. uncontrollable internal budgetary deficits
2. a balance of payment crisis
3. rapid currency depreciation
4. unstable valuation of internal assets
5. rising inflation
6. rising unemployment with falling wages
7. capital flight5
They stepped its gear in to the ‘war on terrorism’, the rise of militaristic means to handle chronic economic crises, in other words it is the emphasis on ‘Religious-Nationalism’ to justify and provoke public support on military acquisitions. This militarization of the public sphere has much to do with asserting domestic control over much divided body of politic. Fear and insecurity were all too easily and in this case successfully manipulated for the construction of power’6.
The current proceedings of Neo-Ceylon have extended its reach than we have observed nearly half a year ago; it is on the verge of developing itself unto its absolute phase. The signs are rearranged in a clear chain on this Great Chinese Wall with no difficulty in grasping the impending sediment. Yet the question which triggers in our mind is ‘are we prepared enough to bring them walls of steel unto the depths of the metal ore..?
What do we comprehend by witnessing journalists being brutalised and hacked to death each hour…? What do we interpret when Poddala Jayantha and Sanath Balasooriya the two journalists who are leaders in the trade union movement of the media workers were verbally threatened by the Defense Secretary, the loyal brother to his Excellency the President Mahinda Rajapakse at his official premise..? What do we perceive when even the protests organized by the major opposition parties the United National Party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peremuna against the rising economic crisis and State led corruption being stroked off with metal sticks and batons by the police and the under world carder (although we know that latter two parties are no more than the false representatives of mere merchants and the petty middle strata in that order.)…? The state is chopping the limbs and lengthy tongues of each and everything which bars its path to retain its supreme power, over and everything on this polluted soil. It is using non other than that sword which is fixed on to the palm of the grand lion…
We are fervent to tell you that the present government under the leadership of the Defense Secretary Ghothabhaya Rajapakse is heading full speed towards a military coup if the political and economic unrest intensifies… What shall be the ultimate result of this coming..? The full scale saturation and absorption of the main opposition in to the ranks of the military government is unmistakably presupposed. The saturation process will come about as armed forces will constantly be preoccupied on the opposition whenever they make sound the alarm bell and the absorption process will be carried out by sucking up members of the opposition in to the ranks of the government… a perfect harmony of the opposites, a functioning unity of absorption and saturation shall be witnessed in the near future.
The most perfect example and the correct political path was given to the revolutionary movement all over the world by the Maoists comrades of Nepal. The positive aspect of this impending military coup by the government is that it shall show the masses the futility of the bourgeois opposition itself and shall paint the only viable path, the correct path towards the liberation of the down trodden humans and invariably the rest of the people as well, is non other than the waging of the armed struggle; and yes ‘a course of true love, never did run smooth…’7. ‘The CPN(Maoist) launched armed struggle on February 13, 1996, in opposition to comrades who urged that the time was not right, "objective" conditions did not exist, and that the electoral path should be pursued. But the leadership insisted that only by making a revolutionary break with pre-existing legality could the ordinary people learn their own strength. In the ten years of People's War a great number of young people of both sexes and all communities, including the most downtrodden, have made themselves into the seeds of the new civilization. Before the oppressed could even imagine defeating the regime in a free election it would be necessary to learn how to defeat its defense in armed struggle.8’
Note: A separate work shall be completed soon, focusing entirely on the specific form of the economic crisis experienced by the country.
References:
1. Marx. K, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels Collected Works Volume 8. p?
2. Luxemburg .R, The Junius Pamphlet – The Crisis in the German Social Democracy. Third Sri Lankan Edition. pp 64
3. Marx. K, Capital Volume 1. p 105?
4. Southern Star Front (SSF), February – National Suicide in the South and North
5. Harvey. David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism. p?
6. SSF, January, The Darfur in the Indian Ocean
7. Quoted by Marx, in Grundrisse. p?
8. Nepal's Revolution: Armed Struggle Made Free and Fair Elections Possibleby Analytical Monthly Review 16/04/08
