The 'international community' and their agenda on Sri Lanka

Palitha Senanayake

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Today we begin serialising excerpts from a forthcoming publication titled "Sri Lanka -

the War fuelled by International Peace" by Palitha Senanayake. These extracts from chapter 16 of the book are published with the kind permission of the author

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This discourse commenced to examine the reasons for the international community's hostility towards Sri Lanka when the country is engaged in a 34-year protracted struggle against the worst terrorist outfit in the world. Especially in an era, where the international community itself, has palpably realized the need to free the world from cross border terrorism.

An oracle

In the first place, part of the problem of Sri Lanka lies in our perception of this international community as some kind of well-intentioned oracle who understands every problem in this world with a solution for same. The fact is that these nations that identify themselves as the 'international community' evincing world power are, apart from their violent colonial history of exploitation and aggrandizement, but a group of people (nations) with their own fallibilities, prejudices, forebodings and interests. When such concerns and interest are not patronized by the actions of other subject nations there is bound to be a divergence in focus leading to a conflict of opinion.

It may be that Sri Lanka is desirous in ridding itself of the scourge of terror, but if such aspirations are not in the interest of the 'international community' then that may just not be the 'thing to do'. Facts may be stubborn but the 'international community' has enough power at its disposal to mellow such facts. It is the interest of the 'international community' and not the facts, that are always sacred.

Mentally servile

We, the people from countries like India and Sri Lanka do not probably see this because we, and our leaders, have been for centuries made mentally servile to the west and the English.

Chandrika and Ranil thought they could never solve the conflict in Sri Lanka without the 'international community'. The sagacity of their thinking would be evident when the conflict reached such unmanageable heights during their tenure from 1994 to 2005 pushing Sri Lanka to the brink of being called a 'failed state' by the year 2005.

Meddling

Never in the history of the independent 60-year history of Sri Lanka had there been so much international meddling as was evident during this period of 11 years and never had this LTTE problem reached such an acute stage, pushing the country to the brink of its territorial, cultural, economical and peaceful existence.

In the 16th Century, the western nations started to straddle the globe looking for 'fortunes'. They took slaves from Africa, conquered much of Asia and colonized America, Australia and New Zealand driving the indigenous populations to extinction. Gun powder was first discovered in China but it was used only for ceremonial purposes to make crackers and fireworks.

The moment the west had access to it, the commercial armament industry was born. Man started killing man for profit and gain. In order to hide their true intentions, they adopted religion as their vanguard.

They claimed that their quest in colonizing other countries was, to 'civilize' the world by propagating the message of compassion and kindness of God. But the methods used to colonize and rule were exactly the opposite of what that holy messenger of God, Jesus Christ, advocated. That was the beginning of western hypocrisy!

Ultimate truth

We in the Eastern part of the world, even then believed that materialism was very temporary in nature and instead the quest of humans should be for the ultimate truth of human existence on a plane beyond mere materialism. The west conquered us with commercial guile and guns; plundered and exploited; killed scores of men, women and children, rendered our fields bare, language consigned to the borrows and education superimposed to suit the needs of chosen.

'Civilizing'

They imported human labour from other countries and introduced 'balanced ethnic representation' to control the rebelling majority. All this, was in the name of 'civilization'. At that time the thinking in the west was that, 'the colonized nations deserved that fate because those nations are inherently inferior' and 'the God created blacks as slaves for the whites'.

Then came the two World Wars, one after the other, costing millions of life and billions worth of property. It is a fact in human history that the first half of the 19th Century was reserved for the blood lust of imperial powers who tried to wrest control of the global affairs from one another for aggrandizement and vanity. But the war never would leave a single victor.

It was a case of fluctuating fortunes and a never ending cycle of perpetual misery.

The west was lost in its own avarice and lust for dominance. Hence, the west was compelled to change gear. From a position of domination and exploitation they swung to the other extreme of human rights and liberalism. But again the west lacked balance, from one extreme to the other, since they know of no middle path.

Asian Emperor

We in Sri Lanka knew this reality all this while, for it was Emperor Ashoka of India who sent us this message of 'never ending horrors of war' when he dispatched his Buddhist missives to neighbouring countries including Sri Lanka in 343 BC: advising them by his own conviction that there never was salvation in violence.

He embraced Buddhism in which the foundation was ahimsa (non violence) and transformed himself as the 'Dharma (righteous) Ashoka' from the previous 'Chanda (Fierce) Ashoka'. Ashoka's kingdom spanned the entire Indian subcontinent, but despite all the glories of victories he was conscientiously more devastated by the agonies, his own victories inflicted, on the innocents.

Hypocritical facades

Ashoka, the greatest King in the history of India, propagated Buddhism through conviction that 'the conquest by Dhamma was more lasting and is the anti thesis of physical domination and devastation'. He had no ulterior motive to buy or serve time under hypocritical facades.

Ashoka edicts, inscribed 2300 years ago in Kalinga, modern day Orissa in India, is today considered a forerunner to the Universal declaration of Human rights.

The analogue cited therein for the relationship between State and its citizenry is that of a father and his children.

It is not just about loving kindness but benevolence based on equanimity and justice; about the positive power of ahimsa; about the eight fold path that avoids the extremes.

The west however, had discarded all this as an advocacy of 'heathens and pagan', until these universal truths dawned on them, the hard way, after the two world wars and 2300 years later.

Hence it took millions of lives and billions worth of property of the two World Wars for the west to realize that the line demarcating superiority and inferiority is so thin and ephemeral that the fight for superiority is a 'wild goose chase'. The desire to dominate, brings about with it the law of the jungle where the roles of predator and prey are desultory.

Elimination

Wars could generate more wars finally leading to the elimination of man from the Earth. The west however took another 2300 years to realize this simple truth about man's unbridled greed, what King Ashoka realized in 343 BC.

The term 'international community', as it is used in the popular jargon is an euphemism for these western capitalist nations.