Are we true in our tributes?

[Our gallant Security Forces]

* Won a battle which was considered unwinnable

* Helped restore our long lost security

* Paid heavy price for our security

* Saved this country

* Make us proud to be Sri Lankan

The post war period in Sri Lanka has been the period of the ‘ordinary soldier’. Various functions, felicitations and even musical events have been held in his honour. Statues have been erected and the Government has been very benevolent in recognizing the role the soldier played in a battle that was considered ‘impossible’ by many.

All that is being done in the correct spirit and to say that the ‘soldier deserves all that and more’ may even sound a discounted eulogy. After all national security is the security of each and every one in this country and when our security is endangered everything else stands threatened. Because in an uncertain state of mind no business and commerce would prosper; no education could enlighten us and above all we simply do not have any hope in life.

However the real accomplishment of our soldier is not in just restoring our long lost security but in overcoming the many obstacles placed in his path by our own ‘national leaders’. For years we had leaders who doubted the courage and valour of our soldier and continued to sap their morale by stating that this is an ‘un-winnable’ war and that the only solution was ‘political’ meaning bifurcation. They enacted ‘peace caravans’, ‘Peace Tamashas’, ‘Peace agreements’ and ‘Peace Talks’ which were putative to the core and the net result of all that was death and destruction to the soldier and humiliation to the nation. Thus the soldiers have paid many a price yesterday for our security today and ironically most of it had been because we had leaders who had a questionable sense of sagacity on war and peace.

Thus every time those ‘leaders’ bungled it was the ordinary soldier who was asked to pay in life and limb. Finally under a Government that entertained no putative ‘isms’ the soldier triumphed. Therefore the lesson is, had our past leaders allowed our soldiers do their duty without indulging in their asinine pet theories, this country would have been free of terror long time ago! Who then, is this ordinary soldier and why was he different in thinking and aspirations from our ‘putative peace’ leaders? The reality is that this ordinary soldier is the marginalized youth from our village hamlets who could not find employment in any other place other than in the Sri Lanka Army.

Village folk

Fortunately their thinking was not polluted by international ‘isms’ and their philosophy was rustic but simple.

If somebody is attacking you, you have to defend yourself with all your might.

No outsider will love you more than you do yourself and hence it is naive to rely on others for your own security.

People will not brutalize and decimate us because they lack power and have ‘grievances’ but because they are more powerful than us and they aspire to subjugate us.

The security and wellbeing of this country is our own security and wellbeing and hence we either save it and live or lose it and perish.

It is with such simple logic and reasoning that our soldiers saved this country while our suave past leaders in their ‘internationally briefed up minds’ vacillated and writhed. But the irony is, in the Sri Lankan social paradigm these village folk are considered philistines (Goadyas) with a limited horizon. They are not considered good enough for employment in the Mercantile sector because their English knowledge is not adequate. Do we need any more English to work in a soft drink company than to save this country from terrorism?

Even if the villager learns English he still would not be suitable for employment in reputed organizations because he had no ‘old school tie’. Maha Vidyalayas are not considered capable of imbibing discipline and imparting education and it is only the ex missionary suave schools which are considered capable of such feats. It is indeed an irony that the Maha Vidyalaya education that was good enough to liberate the country is not good enough for employment in the Mercantile sector.

On the other hand those past leaders who betrayed the nation at every turn advocating putative peace are held high because they were ‘good in the English’ and said to have an ‘internationalized horizon’. The nation therefore followed their theories but under their tutelage peace became more elusive and the nation’s misery increased with no hope in sight.

Parenthetically, our only Olympic medallist Susanthika Jayasinghe hailed from remote Uduwaka in the Kegalle district and almost all the members of that World Cup winning cricket team of 1996 were from Maha Vidylayas. Thus we have a situation where our accepted social paradigms standing in the way of people who brings honour and pride to our nation.

Colonial outlook

This is a nationally disastrous situation where merit is overlooked for putative notions of social acceptability. A nation or sector which treats those who are good to win Olympic medals and the World Cup in cricket as ‘unsuitable for employment’ is bound to be mired in its own standards. A nation can neither be more destructive nor hopeful than the values it uphold and the standards it sets for itself. We have an obsession in holding every thing international high and viewing what is local with a discounted perception.

This self-defeating notion has made us more dependent on what is foreign, including advice and has prevented what is indigenous from blooming.

This time however, the village boys in the forces have proved their metal beyond doubt and it is therefore time that the nation questions its conventional wisdom.

This may be difficult in the light of our colonial outlook cultivated over a period of 400 years but it nevertheless is necessary to realize the nation’s true potential. Then and then alone can we say that we have truly paid tributes to the heroes in the forces.

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