The political logic of the Rajapaksa power grab, brief thoughts:-   

The withdrawal of the Attorney General's appeal of the acquittal of the BBS' Gnaanaasaara in the Calvary Church attack case is another expected move under the new (if brief) MR regime. This reversal of the prosecution is as obvious as the attempt to transfer that CID officer off his current cases:- these are all (as anticipated) moves by the Mahinda faction to rollback all threats to MR, his family, his associates and allies/proxies. This is the primary reason for the MR faction of the UPFA to use its revived alliance with the Sirisena faction of the UPFA to seize power at this juncture rather than wait for the RanilW/UNF government to further lose its popularity and political legitimacy. 

Given the naively and narrowly monetarist policies of the UNP-led UNF, the next Budget would certainly have added to its unpopularity and, with its continued anti-social economic programme, weakened its political legitimacy. But there are several criminal prosecutions coming up in December-February involving several key people ranging from MR himself to family and political/bureaucratic associates. This is, partly, what has motivated MR into this grab for power using his revived alliance with Sirisena. It is a programme of roll-back of these cases and probes that is the principal reason for the power grab. 

As to why all of this happened is another whole story of the UNP's naively stupid political strategy within the National Unity government of isolating and undermining the political legitimacy of Sirisena and his faction of the UPFA which is the rival 'SLFP' sharing power with the UNP in the coalition regime. This ridiculously one-dimensional strategy is not only amateurish but also totally party/RW-oriented and, completely betrayed the UNP-UNF's popular mandate to GOVERN IN COALITION (with the SLFP) for this whole term to undertake the mending of the State and the national political dynamics (including war recovery and ethnic peace) after the depredations of the MR regime. Of course that is another story. 

By the time of last February's local govt elections, it was already far too late to change tactics - the outcome was already predictable at the time. Again, the amateurish UNP thought it would wriggle through, but was taught a lesson. Today, the UNP dares not face an election. 

The secretive nature of the power grab may have slightly harmed MR's political legitimacy. Since it had to be done suddenly/rapidly, the MR group could not, at all, do the necessary propaganda build up to legitimise the constitutionally controversial move. This seems to have resulted in a slight weakening of its own (Sinhala) power base. Nevertheless, a future general election is likely to enable the UPFA/SLPP retain its electoral edge. In any case, the MR-UPFA has no other option if it is not to further drain away its political legitimacy. 

There are two other interesting possibilities in relation to the impending general election:- (1) the TNA, ITAK and other Thamil parties as well as the SLMC, do not want elections because (a) the new Viknesvaran combine is likely to overtake (if not decimate) the older Thamil parties and (b) the Bathiurdeen and other new Muslim (Moor) politicians will do the same to the SLMC/NUA; (2) the slight de-legitimising of the UNP, SLFP, SLPP is likely to greatly help the JVP which could, at long last, come into its parliamentary own through a general election. This is because the de-legitimising of the traditional bourgeois political establishment (and their personalities) is opening up a space for the entry of new forces, both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary. 

Further to my 'Thamil...Genocide' remarks made earlier:-

Further to my 'Thamil...Genocide' remarks made earlier:-

What happened in the Vanni in 2008-9 was not 'genocide'! 


The Vanni rhetoric   

I am concerned about the way the term 'genocide' is being bandied about in Sri Lankan political discourses. The popular and political use of this term in Sri Lanka (or, by Sri Lankans) originated in public discourses largely during the military defeat stage of the Thamil Eelam secessionist war - i.e. 2008-9.

'Genocide' has been prominently used in popular discourse to describe large scale casualties of Thamil civilians that occurred in relation to state military offensives in the Vanni region in the final year of the Thamil Eelam War. This usage has resulted in the abuse of an already technically defined term for short term political purposes, namely its use  (a) in public propaganda to curtail or halt the sustained state military offensives and, (b) subsequently, to further weaken Sri Lankan governmental credibility in the face of UN human rights scrutiny.

I am not, for a moment, questioning the validity of both 'a' and 'b' endeavours. They are perfectly reasonable, and desirable. It is the misuse of the technical term 'genocide' that concerns me. The use of 'genocide' for the above-mentioned purposes is, actually, a disservice to the cause of Sri Lankan Thamil rights/justice. The usage has been primarily and solely in relation to civilian war casualties occurring en mass, that is, in large groups in a single given episode of military action. The use of 'genocide' solely to describe mass killing in the Vanni war theatre in a single period - i.e. the military defeat stage - certainly helped sensationalise the tragic situation at the time. At the same time, such limited usage then limits the understanding of the nature of the continuous attempts to eradicate the collective identity that comprises the social-political-demographic phenomenon that is the Sri Lankan Thamil community.

'Genocide' practised down the ages 

It is quite likely that the earliest Hominin (not just Homo Sapiens) tribal and clan formations carried out 'genocidal' action against neighbouring communities perceived as threatening their own ecological support area. These 'genocidal' actions would have been the destruction of hunting-gathering environments, physical elimination and expulsion of the targetted community from that region, Subsequent proto-polities and proto-states continued with that practice and many states have done so ever since. Some recent examples are the colonial enterprise of imperial states of Europe (including Russia in Asia). Modern nation-states have been prone to this genocidal behavior as well. The root seems to be a basic self-preservation instinct taken to an extreme logical action. In the context of an over-populated, geo-politically riven, planet and, military capacities for collective extinction, however, this logic is no longer tenable. Rather, negotiation AND ADAPTATION is the pragmatic way forward. And globalised structures are the means.

Despite these larger global-societal imperatives, the Sinhala-controlled Sri Lankan State has served as vehicle for the attempts of the Sinhala political elite to socio-culturally homogenize the Sri Lankan population as an ethnically exclusive 'Sinhala' population. As iconic Sinhala writer and ethno-centric culture ideologue Gunadasa Amarasekara (among many others) argues, the country's demographic evolution should follow a path of 'Sinhalisation' by the natural-organic ethnic absorption of other ethnic groups into the larger Sinhala population, thereby purifying the ethnic identity of the Sri Lankan nation as one that is holistically 'Sinhala'.  This path of State-guided demographic engineering is a crucial element of the dominant ideology of what is explicitly defined as (a legitimate) 'Sinhala nationalism'. Amarasekara has long argued that, other than the Sinhala ethnic community, no other ethnic community has the legitimacy to assert any specific ethnic identity. He argues that only the Sinhala ethnic community has all the attributes that enables it to rightfully claim to be an actual ethnic group - a 'fully fledged ethnicity' (as he puts it). He argues that no other ethnic group in the country has all the necessary attributes to be able to call themselves as fully fledged ethnies. It is this ultra-nationalist discourse that I describe as 'Sinhala ethno-supremacism'. 

'Genocide' in Sri Lanka     

It is this ethno-centric demographic thesis that is the bedrock of Sinhala ethno-supremacism and its State-deployed genocidal tendency. According to this logic, the State (republic) of Sri Lanka, as the instrument of the political association of the island's (Sinhala) human community, has an underlying mission and goal of achieving ethno-cultural wholeness by absorbing (eradication) of all population groups into an ethnic singularity. A 'truly Sinhala Sri Lanka' is the fantasy. As a narrative that continues to enact a historical narrative (idealised in the Mahavansha) of asserting the dominance of Sinhala kingship over the whole island, modern Sinhala ethno-supremacism is a (mediocre) Sinhala fantasy of empire.

Inevitably, the genocide of other, non-Sinhala, Sri Lankan identities/communities is one aspect of the Sri Lankan State's (un-mentioned) mission. It is a goal constantly touted in political arguments, rhetoric, in modern, popular Sinhala historiography, in fiction (print, cinema, radio, poetry, lyrics). 
This holistic understanding of genocide then enable the detailed identification of genocidal action in state policy and politics, in addition to the episodes of social and military violence. The early legislated designation of Hillcountry Thamils as 'stateless' non-citizens (demographically classified as 'Thamils of Indian Descent' as opposed to 'Sri Lankan Thamils'), must be seen as an early act of genocide.

The very designation of the larger Thamil community as 'Sri Lankan Thamil' is also an exclusionary demographic nomenclature that serves to distance the identity of Thamils from direct ownership of Sri Lankanness. The logic of the designation 'Sri Lankan Thamil' is that there is also a Thamil ethnie in India as well. But why is it necessary to reference an external linkage for the description of an indigenous (internal) demographic phenomenon? After all, the Sinhalas are not identified as 'Sri Lankan Sinhalas' but simply as 'Sinhalas' although, ethnologically, the Sinhalas are also of 'Indian descent'. But for the Sinhalas, that external ethnic linkage is not inserted into the formal demographic naming of the Sinhala community, thereby giving the Sinhalas the exclusive direct ownership of 'Sri Lankanness'.

The logic of such official demographic nomenclature is one that then systematically erases all non-Sinhala identities from the official demography of the Sri Lankan nation-state. Again, the precise 'Sri Lankan Nation' is one that is purely 'Sinhala'. Everything else is a demographic add-on to the 'core' Sinhala identity of nationhood. This erasure of identities is, demographically speaking, the erasure of ethnic genera - hence, genocide.

In formal demographic terms, Sri Lankans of different ethnicities should, ideally, be described as Muslim Sri Lankan, Thamil Sri Lankan, Sinhala Sri Lankan (and so forth), rather than the current nomenclature which is Sri Lankan Thamil, Sri Lankan Muslim and (simply) Sinhala (and, significantly, not Sri Lankan Sinhalas).

Ethnic purity of nationhood   

The insistence on 'Sinhala Only' in the politics of official language within a decade of freedom from colonialism is probably the next most significant genocidal action in terms of the established international definition of 'genocide'. 'Sinhala Only' was the explicit Sinhala nationalist political slogan that denied state recognition of the existence of other linguistic communities in the country, specifically, the Thamil. The enormous investment - in state politics, constitutional design and reform, in ethnic mobilisation and, in militarisation and counter-insurgency - to preserve this mono-linguistic State identity are all evidence of the huge importance and priority given to genocidal efforts to preserve the ethnic identity purity of the Sinhala State. 

In the several, repeated, anti-Thamil pogroms by Sinhalas in the 1970s-80s period, a significant theme in the style of the pogrom attacks was the avoidance of plunder of the targetted 'enemy', namely, the Thamils, and the emphasis on eradication-destruction of Thamil life and property. Sinhala attackers were seen warning perpetrators not to plunder but to destroy (usually by burning/killing). In In fact, some Sinhalas who resorted to plunder and extortion against Thamils were harshly criticised by fellow Sinhala attackers for 'betraying the purity of the Sinhala cause' which was eradication of the Thamil 'menace' as against plunder.

Was/is there Genocide against the Sri Lankan Thamil people? 

Thoughts on 'genocide', prompted by the claims in 2009, as the war ended with the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Thamil Eelam (LTTE) insurgent movementm, that there had occurred in the Vanni battlefields, a "genocide" against the Thamil people. This 'genocide' claim referred to the probable deaths of many thousands of Thamil civilians who had been displaced in successive Sri Lanka military offensive and sought refuge behind LTTE lines. The charge was that the Sri Lankan military had carried out sustained bombardments (aerial and ground artillery) of these refugee concentrations behind Tiger lines without regard to casualty risks resulting in many civilian deaths. Thamil anti-government militant sources, especially those abroad, had claimed that at least 45,000 Thamil civilians had been killed in the Vanni battles due to indiscriminate bombardments by government forces and that this 'deliberate' slaughter amounted to a 'genocidal' action.

Two quick points:- 

(a) Whether as much as 45,000 civilians died in the Vanni battles of first half of 2009 has not yet been confirmed statistically (and may never be); and this figure could be more or, less in number. Given the nature of the warfare in the Vanni theatre at the time and, the Sri Lankan military's historic post-colonial proneness to ruthlessly suppress anti-state insurgencies with much emphasis on physical elimination, there is a grave possibility that mass killing could have been meted out by the state military on civilians trapped in the Vanni theatre. Nevertheless, there is also the broadly similar possibility that these casualty figures could have been a lot less given the geography of the threatre, the resilience of the Vanni Thamils and the strength of the Sri Lankan armed forces' discipline.

(b) But this constant refrain of 'genocide' with specific reference to the bout of mass killings during the military defeat of the Thamil Eelamist insurgency is actually the incorrect use of terminology and one that could ultimately be self-defeating for the Eelamist cause. This is due to the melodramatisation of the mass civilian casualties by the misuse of the term 'genocide' in a manner that obfuscates the correct meaning of the term and could mislead the public to then dismiss the 'genocide' charge as untrue. This endangers the correct and precise application of the term 'genocide' in relation to the Thamil Eelam struggle.  Since those killed in the Vanni in 2009 were almost exclusively of one ethnic origin, it is possible to legitimately make the charge of genocide. But at most the mass civilians casualties are only the tip of the genocide iceberg. The correct understanding of 'genocide' under international law, is one that acknowledges the mass deaths in 2009 as being just one aspect - the aspect of massacres of civilians - in the international legal definition of 'genocide'.

The term 'genocide' refers to the systematic elimination (cide) of a 'genus' - a type of species - in a manner that the identity of that genus is no longer recognised as extant and deserving to be addressed. Following on from the German Nazi programme for the elimination of various European minority ethnic identities such as the European Jews (the 'Ashkenazi' Jews) and the Roma (Gypsy) first through systematic discrimination and marginalisation and, subsequently through the organised, industrial-scale, physical elimination (killing) of these communities, the United Nations adopted a definition of 'genocide' that defines it as the elimination of a human community (ethnic, religious, caste, clan etc). Under this definition - which is the universally recognised technical definition - the elimination or non-recognition of any human social grouping amounts to 'genocide'. Therefore, it is wrong and misleading to attempt to limit the application of 'genocide' to incidents of physical collective elimination.  Certainly the charge of 'mass killings' is melodramatic and serves to draw attention to war theatre atrocities. It does little else. Doing so in the 2009 Thamil case is to do injustice to the Sri Lankan Thamil people who have been subjected to and continue to be subjected to the slow, long-drawn-out, application of the true, larger, definition of 'genocide' as defined in international law - that is, the sustained and systematic elimination of a community identity. 

Of course, far more sweeping and sustained, systematic and cruel has been the Israeli genocide against the people of Palestine, specifically the non-Jewish peoples (Arab, Druze, Christian, Muslim, etc).

Something worrying in the politics of social communication in Sri Lankan society right now:

There are certain organisations that are not directly organisations of actual communications workers (as journalists, news managers, producers, printers) that are today active and intervening among existing (and barely surviving since the recent political repression) such communications workers organisations and attempting to mobilise these communications workers' organisations in ways that suit those intervening groups' agendas, and, worse, conduct that mobilisation in ways that do not obtain a democratic consensus and, even worse, attempt to impose their content on these manipulated communications workers' organisations.

The main, traditionally existing communications organisations, namely, the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association, Free Media Movement, Federation of Media Employees' Trade Unions, Tamil Media Alliance, Muslim Media Forum, South Asian Free Media Association (Sri Lanka Chapter) and the Sri Lanka Press Institute. Attempts have been made in the past two and more years, by these other intervening groups to manipulate the above-mentioned seven organisations in a most duplicitous and undemocratic manner. Ironically, these intervening groups are attempting to hijack some of the key themes of rights activism of these above-listed seven organisations and then obtain the endorsement of the listed seven organisations for their chosen topics/subjects.

It is clear that these intervening groups are STILL trying these tactics.

THE ABOVE-LISTED SEVEN COMMUNICATIONS WORKERS' ORGANISATIONS WILL NOT BE SUBJECTED TO SUCH MANIPULATIONS AND WILL NOT COOPERATE IN SUCH UNDEMOCRATIC AND DIVISIVE MANOEUVRES.

communication & community

Wednesday, 19th of September, 2018:-    

A first contention: 

'Communication' is the expression of a relationship between two or more entities or selves. Successful communication, therefore, is the celebration of community. Practice (i.e. expression, reception and interpretation), experience and learning are the basis of success of communication. Communicative action, therefore, is a core element in the formation and, sustaining of community. That, that community, itself, has transformed in its evolution from early hominin society to the post-modern, globalised humanity of today, and continues its transformation is something to be acknowledged as a functional dynamic of today's human society and, civilisation.    

A Second:                                                                                           

It is vital that the status and conditions of communication are understood, further explained and sustained, in order that society itself is nurtured, strengthened and, sustained. Hence, the importance of communication. Equally important is the acknowledgement that 'society', i.e. community, itself comprises sets of relations of many qualities, including conflictual and harmonious aspects.