The Pirabakaran Phenomenon Part 4 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part4.

htm

The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon

Part 4

Sachi Sri Kantha

[23 May 2001]

Humor in anti-Pirabhakaran Polemics

Once I used to get headache while reading the anti-Pirabhakaran
polemics penned by heavy hitters like Dayan Jayatilleka and
H.L.D.Mahindapala, published in the Lanka Guardian magazine
for which I subscribed and contributed regularly to its vibrant
‘Letters’ section. Then six years ago, after I became a member of
the International Society for Humor Studies [a society for scholars
engaged in humor research], my headaches disappeared when I
realized that one should enjoy the humor in these anti-Pirabhakaran
polemics.

A few months ago, Dayan Jayatilleka [whom I would label as the

wayward son of a worthy father, journalist Mervyn de Silva] was
piqued by Pirabhakaran’s use of ‘flame’ metaphor to pay homage to
his fallen followers. In a commentary entitled, ‘The missing pages
of the Prabhakaran’s messages’, he commented on the Year 2000
Heroes Day speech of Pirabhakaran, as follows:
“...Any student of Nazism would recognize the hypnotic use
of the flame, the torches. ‘When I light the flame in the
memory of our heroes, in these burning flames, in the
unusual fire dance, I see a vision. Shining like the light
thousands of human flames like a river of fire, shedding
light, and leading the way...’ this could have come from a
speech of Adolph Hitler at a torch-light parade in Nuremberg -
the thousands of ‘human flames’ being Prabhakaran’s original
contribution, adverting to the self-immolation by the black
Tiger suicide bomber...” [Island: Weekend Express,
Dec.16-17, 2000]

Dayan Jayatilleka’s gripe was that, Pirabhakaran has used the words
‘flame’ or ‘torch’ in his Heroes Day speech and thus it reflects his
Nazi mentality. Little did this apologist for Premadasa could grasp
in his petty thoughts that the ‘flame’ metaphor is popular in the

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vocabulary of freedom fighters.

An eminent opponent of Nazism who answered to the name of

Charles de Gaulle had used this ‘flame’ metaphor in his famous
resistance speech, delivered in the summer of 1940 in London. Gen.
de Gaulle, who escaped to Britain to organize the Free French
movement and was sentenced to death in absentia by a French
court, rallied his fighters with the words,

“... I, General de Gaulle, now in London, call on all French

officers and men who are present on British soil, or maybe in
the future, with or without their arms; I call on all engineers
and skilled workmen from the armaments factories who are at
present on British soil, or may be in the future, to get in touch
with me. Whatever happens, the flame of French resistance
must not and shall not die.”
[The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches,
ed. by Brian MacArthur, 1993, pp.189-191.]

Also, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s freedom fighter, in his memorable

August 1947 ‘A Tryst with Destiny’ speech, also has used the
‘torch’ metaphor eloquently.
“...On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this
freedom, the Father of our Nation (Gandhi), who, embodying
the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and
lighted up the darkness that surrounded us...We shall never
allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the
wind or stormy the tempest. Our next thoughts must be of the
unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without
praise or reward, have served India even unto death...” [ibid,
pp.234-237]

Not only freedom fighters, even John F.Kennedy, who signaled a

youthful generational switch in American leadership used the
‘torch’ metaphor 40 years ago, in his 1961 Presidential
Inauguration address. Study the following segment of Kennedy’s
speech, written by his speechwriter Ted Sorenson.

“...We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first
revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to
friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new
generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by
war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our
ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow
undoing of these human rights to which this nation has always

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been committed, and to which we are committed today at

home and around the world...” [ibid, pp.300-303]

Then, 30 months later, Martin Luther King Jr. began his

now-famous ‘I have a Dream’ speech, also with the ‘flame’
metaphor as follows:
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic
shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This
momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to
millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of
withering injustice. It came as joyous daybreak to end the long
night of captivity....”[ibid, pp.330-336]

In sum, the above four examples of notable speeches made by de

Gaulle, Nehru, Kennedy and Martin Luther King reveal two facts.
One is the bilious, pseudo-scholarship of analysts like Dayan
Jayatilleka, which pollutes the press in Sri Lanka. Secondly, though
Pirabhakaran is not an orator, his use of ‘flame’ metaphor in
dedicatory speeches has precedence and nothing to be ashamed of.

For the past few years, projecting Pirabhakaran as a ‘Hitler’ in the

Sri Lankan media has become a pastime for Dayan Jayatilleka (and
his colleagues like H.L.D.Mahindapala). But in haste, he has been
convoluting logic by no small proportions. Here is another excerpt
of Jayatilleka’s bile, from a sermon entitled, ‘The Tamil National
Question Revisited: The Package and Globalisation’.

“... In science, we draw certain conclusions if an experiment

repeatedly failed, with disastrous results. Negotiations were
not the answer to Adolf Hitler. Then why should it be the
answer to South Asia’s Hitler, Velupillai Prabhakaran?...The
convergence of Zionism and Eelamism constitutes a vital link.
It was V.Karalasingham in his ‘The Way Out for the Tamil
Speaking People’ who first alerted us to this tendency.
Twenty years later, the MOSSAD dissident Viktor Ostrovsky
unveiled the operational links between the Zionist
military/intelligence apparat and the LTTE. It has often been
reported that the Boston’s Tamil Brahmins gained entree to
Washington’s Beltway through the good offices of the famed
Zionist organization the B’nai Brith...” [Lanka Guardian,
Feb.-Mar. 1998, pp.11-15 & 30-33]

Being a professional scientist, that pretentious, imperial ‘we’ in his

passage irked me - especially as it came from a phony, who
probably cannot distinguish Archimedes and Arrhenius or tell the

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difference between a frog and a toad. I wrote a letter to him, dated

March 26, 1998. At that time, Jayatilleka was functioning as the
editor of the Lanka Guardian. I provide excerpts of this letter,
since it deals with his Hitler imagery.
“Mr.Dayan Jayatilleka,
Editor, Lanka Guardian.
I read from cover to cover the recent Lanka Guardian issue
(Feb-March 1998) and wish to comment on items which
carried your by-line.
I’m amused by your comment on V.Prabhakaran as ‘South
Asia’s Hitler’. In the same feature, you tag the Tamils who live
beyond the Sri Lankan borders as ‘Tamil Zionist’ lobby. Can’t
you grasp the irony of this illogical, oxymoronic comparison?
In my reading of the world history, Hitler and Zionists were
opposed to each other in their goals. Boy! There is no doubt
that you can write polemics and you have a passion and skill
for this type of verbal pyrotechnics. Sad to say, you are a
pauper in logic.
The name ‘Hitler’ has become a putty in the hands of paranoid
politicians and petty journalists to throw on their opponents.
George Bush used it effectively on Saddam Hussein, while
killing innocent 200,000 Iraq citizens to satisfy his ego. The
mere fact that Prabhakaran did not give false promises to win a
nation-wide election to elevate himself as a leader show’s that
the comparison of him to Hitler is inappropriate. On the
contrary, your political mentor Premadasa, or for that matter
his bete noire Sirimavo Bandaranaike behaved like Hitler in
killing thousands of civilians (Sinhalese and Tamils) after
winning the general elections with false premises.
As far as non-Sinhalese citizens of Sri Lanka are concerned,
the Gestapo state exists in reality in the southern Sri Lanka.
Recent experience of journalist Iqbal Aththas highlighted in
the international press (or for that matter what happened to
Richard de Zoysa) are examples of Gestapo style attacks on
the human rights of Sri Lankan civilians. Unknown to elites
like you, thousands of non-Sinhalese civilians suffer from this
type of humiliation...
You are entitled to your views on Eelam. But if you read
widely and think it pragmatically, you will comprehend that
the global trend is for self-determination and separation of
oppressed ethnic groups, and not toward integration with their
perceived oppressors. This happens in Tibet (against Chinese

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domination), Chechen (against Russian domination), Kashmir

(against Indian domination), Quebec (against Canadian
domination), Scotland (against English domination), Palestine
(against Israeli domination), Kurdistan (against Iraq-Iran-
Turkey domination) and East Timor (against Indonesian
domination)...”

Since I had analyzed the errors of interpretation presented by

Viktor Ostrovsky, in my review of his book By Way of Deception
[originally written for Tamil Nation, March 1992], I didn’t reiterate
on this aspect of Jayatilleka’s distortion in this particular letter. As I
expected, this letter went unpublished.

As a polemicist, Jayatilleka is fond of using the clichés Hitler and

Zionists to smear Pirabhakaran and Tamils in the diaspora
respectively. Even at the end of 1999, he was dangling both the
‘Hitler’s fan’ and ‘Zionist’ clichés to Pirabhakaran. In his diatribe,
‘The time of the Tiger’, Jayatilleka wrote that according to,
“iyekkam oldsters (such as Nithyanandans), Mein Kampf is
also on Prabhakaran’s short list of favourite texts...What must
also be borne in mind is that Mr. Prabhakaran’s nationalism is
far from the mainstream Zionism of the Haganah and the
Palmach; of Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Abba Eban and
Yitshak Rabin...His is the equivalent of the other Zionism, that
of the Irgun Zwei Leumi and the Stern Gang; of Jabotinsky,
Menahem Begin, Yitshak Shamir and Ariel Sharon...” [Island
Weekend Express, Colombo, Dec.11-12, 1999]

Jayatilleka’s comparison of Tamils in diaspora to Zionists can

convince only the gullibles who are ignorant of the military links
forged by the oppressive Sri Lankan cabinets of Jayewardene and
Chandrika Kumaratunga with the Israeli army and intelligence-
wallahs. I refrain from commenting on Jayatilleka’s observation that
the veteran Tamil leftist V. Karalasingham was the first to point out
the convergence of Eelamism and Zionism, since I have yet to read
Karalasingham’s 52-page tract The Way Out for the Tamil
Speaking People, which originally appeared in 1963, and was
republished in 1978 - with a postscript in 1977 and an addition of
another 35 pages.

What is funny about Jayatilleka’s polemics is that, even other

Pirabhakaran-haters among the Sinhalese do not take his thoughts
seriously. During the general election campaign last year, a
hilarious exposé on Jayatilleka’s career was authored by Malinda
Seneviratne of Sihala Urumaya group, with the caption, ‘Some mild

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thoughts on Dayan Jayatilleka’. I present an excerpt of this

commentary which summarises the record of Premadasa, one of the
two Hitler imitation type (HIT) leaders Sri Lanka had in the recent
past.
“Being a sycophant of Ranasinghe Premadasa, I suppose
Dayan is obliged to say nice things about the man. Premadasa
was the architect of the most violent period of our
post-independence history. True the JVP is not as innocent as
their spokesmen claim. I don’t know from which piece of
Marxist literature Dayan found solace (if he was a sincere
Marxist) during those times of defending Premadasa, but
60,000 people being tortured and killed during a person’s
tenure as head of state is a far cry from a positive experience...
For the record, not a single Sinhalese is contesting from Jaffna
from either the PA, the UNP or the JVP. If Prabhakaran
proposed and carried out ethnic cleansing in Jaffna, these
parties have effectively condoned it! The Sihala Urumaya did
not only ‘pop up’ in Jaffna, we also campaigned. Which is a
lot more than his old boss Varadarajah Perumal does in those
areas, armed and under heavy guard though he is!...” [Island,
Colombo, Oct.9, 2000]

Pirabhakaran - the ‘power buster’

As a country, Ceylon and its transmuted apparition, ‘Sri Lanka
1972’ had a lively existence from 1833 to 1983 - a total of 150
years. This was a creation of British colonialism, and the
independent Ceylon [and later Sri Lanka] could hold only for 35
years. Since 1983, Sri Lanka as a country is in a comatose
condition, near death. This state was induced partly due to inept
leadership skills of the nominal power holders. But Pirabhakaran’s
role as a power buster in the nominal post-independent Sri Lanka is
nonetheless a marked one.

To comprehend what I mean as ‘power buster’, I introduce the

concept of power, as analyzed by Bertrand Russell. His 1938 book
named ‘Power: A New Social Analysis’ is what I consider now as
my favorite book. I bought this book in 1988 - 50 years after he
wrote it - when I was residing in Tokyo. That was the year,
Pirabhakaran was out-smarting the nominal power holders in Sri
Lanka and India [J.R.Jayewardene and Rajiv Gandhi] by
challenging the accepted status-quo in the power equation. This is
what Bertrand Russell had written in his introductory chapter, ‘The
impulse to Power’.

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“...The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the

same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in
physics. Like energy, power has many forms, such as wealth,
armaments, civil authority, influence on opinion. No one of
these can be regarded as subordinate to any other, and there is
no one form from which the others are derivative. The attempt
to treat one form of power, say wealth, in isolation, can only
be partially successful, just as the study of one form of energy
will be defective at certain points, unless other forms are taken
into account. Wealth may result from military power or from
influence over opinion, just as either of these may result from
wealth. The laws of social dynamics are laws which can only
be stated in terms of power, not in terms of this or that form of
power... Power, like energy, must be regarded as continually
passing from any one of its forms into any other, and it should
be the business of social science to seek the laws of such
transformations. The attempt to isolate any one form of power,
more especially, in our day, the economic form, has been, and
still is, a source of errors of great practical importance...”

After reading Bertrand Russell’s interpretation of power, I realized

that the concept of caste can be (and need to be) looked through
the functional paradigm of power. This led to the following
thoughts.

Classification of Power-based Casteism

Pirabhakaran remains the only individual to produce a sustained,
vehement challenge to the existing power-based casteism of the Sri
Lankan society. By casteism, I do not mean the structural caste
differentiation of Hindus and Buddhists, as anointed in birth. In a
short correspondence to the Tamil Times six years ago, I have
described the functional paradigm of power-based casteism.
Excerpts are as follows:
“When one views the human society in anthropological terms
related to power distribution, it becomes apparent that the
division of four varunas [the original Hindu term for caste]
existed and still exists in all the human societies of five
continents. In terms of power distribution, the members of any
human society can be categorized under four groups, which
are roughly equivalent to the four varunas of Hindus. These
are,

(1) Power Holders (royalty in good old days, but heads of

state and their coterie)

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(2) Power Sharers (military commanders and members of the

Intelligence Agency of every nation)
(3) Power Peddlers (bureaucrats, media moguls, chief
executive officers of business enterprises and mafia bosses)
(4) Powerless (ordinary citizens)

These four castes exist in almost all nations, irrespective of the

political system (democratic or socialist or dictatorial) that is
practised. Even in the so-called ‘classless societies’
promulgated by Lenin and Mao, these four castes existed. The
Politburo members, who owned dachas, were the power
holders. The generals representing the armed forces and the
top echelon officers of the KGB belonged to the power
sharing caste. The editors of the now-disgraced Pravda
newspaper represented the power peddling caste. Majority of
the peasants represented the powerless caste. Power holders,
when pushed from their pedestals (due to palace plotting)
become power peddlers. Thatcher and Gorbachev are good
examples of this transformed caste, who join the lecture circuit
and earn a quick buck by other deals such as syndicated
columns and book publishing...” [Tamil Times- London, May
1995]

One can illustrate the functional paradigm of caste classification in

Sri Lanka as follows:

Power-holding caste
Taken as a whole, the power-based four-caste system has prevailed
and still prevails in Sri Lanka. Those who belonged (and belong) to
the power-holding caste, which nominally switches between the
UNP and SLFP, have come to realize the damage Pirabhakaran has
caused as a power buster. Within 15 years, the ‘Sri Lanka’ has been
separated into ‘cleared zone’ and ‘non-cleared zone’. Pirabhakaran,
by raising an army to challenge the existing status quo, has
dissected the power base held by the power-holding caste. Now,
the writ of the nominal power holder doesn’t float in the
‘non-cleared zone’ of Sri Lanka. For this, the power-holding caste
places the blame covertly on the power-sharing caste - the military.

Power-sharing caste
As one would expect, the power-sharing caste (military hierarchy in
Sri Lanka) has a professional antipathy to Pirabhakaran. During the
past 25 years, the list of Sri Lankan army commanders who have
tried to capture Pirabhakaran ‘alive or dead’ is long indeed -
D.S.Attygalle, J.E.D.Perera, T.I.Weeratunge, G.D.G.N.Seneviratne,

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H.Wanasinghe, L.D.C.E.Waidyaratne, G.H. De Silva, R.de

S.Daluwatte, C.S.Weerasooriya, and now L.P.Balagalle. The
tenures of each of these honchos at the top military hierarchy have
been relatively brief. Why they have failed in their prime mission
(as of now) should tell something about the strength of
Pirabhakaran.

Being a military tactician, Pirabhakaran also knows that, despite all

the outwardly expressed pleasantries, bouquets and medals of
honor, the power-holding caste do not trust the power-sharing caste
completely. Why? Power is such an aphrodisiac according to
Kissinger dictum, that given appropriate inducement and push, the
power-sharing caste may try to dislodge the power-holding caste
from the throne, a la Gen. Zia ul Haq and Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
This could be one reason why the retiring generals of the rump Sri
Lankan state are continuously being posted to other countries as
ambassadors - so that they are kept away from the networks of
power in Colombo. The history according to the Sri Lankan army’s
website, conveniently hides the unsuccessful army coups attempted
by the past uniformed officers in 1962 and 1966. In the Sri Lankan
army’s dictionary, unappetizing truths (even if they have become
part of island’s history) has to be selective and hidden from
exposure.

Power-peddling caste
The role played by the power-peddling caste has been presented by
two insiders of this caste, namely Mervyn de Silva and Ajith
Samaranayake. Here are their observations.
“...When democratic leaders are in trouble, mavericks, rogue-
operators and the covert agencies come into their own. One of
their favourite instruments is the media, to whip up passions,
to create confusion, to send wrong signals to increase tension.
Wittingly or unwittingly, the politician, the journalist and
foreign correspondent, the diplomat and the businessman are
co-opted...” [Mervyn de Silva, Lanka Guardian, Oct.15,
1991, pp.2-6.]

Mervyn de Silva made this observation at the height of the ‘anti-

Premadasa plot’ initiated by Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini
Dissanayake. While Mervyn was subtle and protective of his links
to power, Ajith Samaranayake commenting on the same
phenomenon six years later was more explicit.
“... One of the most striking phenomena of the last two
decades has been the emergence of the mass media, not merely

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in its traditional role as the purveyors of information and

opinion, but in its own right as a player in the political arena...
Those who once reported on the comings and goings of
politicians from behind the footlights have today come to the
centre stage and delight in the narcissistic pleasure of watching
their own images in the columns of newspapers and on the
tube and hearing their own voices over the air... It was for the
Wijewardenes and the Gunasenas to engage in the
self-indulgence of thinking themselves as the kingmakers.
Today, however, at many levels journalists themselves share
the same fantasy... The incestuous nature of the Sri Lankan
elite is such that these families have interlocking political
interests sometimes supported by familial ties...” [Lanka
Guardian, May 1998, pp.11-12]

While reading Samaranayake’s description of ‘delight in the

narcissistic pleasure of watching their own images’, I could easily
think of N.Ram of the Chennai Hindu group publishers, as one
belonging to this power-peddling caste. Those who throw epithets
and clichés on Pirabhakaran such as Dayan Jayatilleka and
Mahindapala are members of this caste who lost their access to
power due to the fall of their power-holding patrons. Once this
happens, the members of this caste re-position themselves to
prostitute their saleable skill to the new power-holders. Not only
journalists, even politicians like M.H.M.Ashraff, Douglas
Devananda and Nilan Tiruchelvam can be included in this caste.

The Route of Mao and Giap

To the pre-Pirabhakaran Tamil political leadership, the Tamil
power meant only the number of constituencies won in the routine
general elections, which could be bargained in the altar of
parliament, which in turn with lapse of time had turned into a
glorified fish market.

Pirabhakaran, in a refreshing bid to challenge the power-holding

caste, which has been throttling the Eelam Tamils since 1956,
followed the route of two Asian masters - Mao and Vo Nguyen
Giap. He actively engaged the power-sharing caste, which by 1970s
had been converted into a 99 percent Sinhala-Buddhist enterprise.
If the Sri Lankan military had reflected the population ratio of the
country, Pirabhakaran would have found it difficult to gather his
recruits and establish his army. Here again, the insecurity of the
power-holding caste following the army coups of 1962 and 1966
turned into costly mistakes which Pirabhakaran was able to exploit

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as a power buster.

The dimwits holding the reins of power in Sri Lanka should have
known that race isn’t an important criterion in an army
professional; ability and attitude are. Isn’t it right if one would state
that the ethnic cleansing practised (since 1962) from a borrowed
Nazi formula by the power-holding caste contributed significantly
to the impotence of Sri Lankan army? [Continued.]

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