Double-tongued 'bleeding hearts'
Violence and the
taking of life is almost universally condemned but what is
astounding about Sri Lanka's experience of the terrorist
violence which plagued her for 30 long years is that it was
never emphatically or cogently condemned by those sections of
the West which are today trying to pillory this country in the
eyes of the world. Instead, a studied silence was the order of
the day, although words of token condemnation were offered, now
and then.
Yesterday, we put the spotlight on the feelings of the Muslim
community with regard to the horrors they suffered, mostly in
silence, at the hands of the marauding LTTE, and we fully
subscribe to the position that the grievances of this community
too must be quickly resolved. They too bore the brunt of LTTE
atrocities and it goes without saying that any political
solution that aims at being comprehensive needs to take the
grievances of the Muslim community into account.
But we would be only labouring the obvious by saying that
LTTE terror spared no one. While there is no doubt that sections
of our communities suffer from grievances that call for
resolution, this does not justify any group in taking up arms
against the state. The sacred injunction, 'Thou shalt not kill',
holds for all time and should be scrupulously practised by every
society that lays claim to humanity. However, the West, for whom
this saying must be very familiar, chose to maintain a stony
silence in the face of LTTE atrocities, while the Lankan state's
efforts to maintain law and order were most often then not
criticized.
LTTE terror was inhumanity at its worst. No amount of lives
was too great for the LTTE in the pursuit of its maniacal
'cause' and the hundreds of mind-numbing massacres of innocent
lives carried out by the Tigers are garish proof of this. Yet,
the 'bleeding hearts' of the West and the do-gooders of numerous
kinds chose to be very restrained in the words of criticism they
uttered about the Tigers, if at all they voiced their opinions
on these horrific happenings. Looking back, we could argue that
this 'culture of silence' encouraged the LTTE to increasingly
indulge in the savagery it mercilessly unleashed.
If those sections of the West which are today trying to sit
in judgment over Sri Lanka in the 'councils of the world', had
denounced Tiger terror clearly, loudly and unambiguously, and
also cooperated wholeheartedly with the Lankan state in
crippling the operations of the LTTE overseas and in bringing
LTTErs to justice, the LTTE would not have degenerated into the
gargantuan Frankenstein Monster it finally turned out to be. It
is our decided opinion that even the application of moral
pressure by the West to the desired degree would have acted as a
restraint on the Tigers and prevented them from plunging to the
wild extremes which utterly shocked the world.
So, the 'bleeding hearts of the West' have really let the
'moral majority' of the world down very badly and the least they
could do to rectify the damage is to refrain from calumniating
Sri Lanka for doing what is right. That is, for upholding the
Rule of Law and exercising its sovereign right to free itself of
criminal elements who make life impossible for the majority of
the citizenry.
However, one of the most glaring ironies of the present times
is that the very same double-faced sections of the West are
attempting to bring pressure on Sri Lanka to get along with
implementing the LLRC recommendations. Where could be located
the moral justification for such posturing? Those international
sections which simply did not pull their weight on the issue of
bringing the LTTE to heel in those times when terror was an
everyday reality in this country are making so bold as to
pontificate to the Lankan state on the importance of pushing
through the LLRC recommendations. This is double-think and
double-talk of the worst kind.
Sri Lanka could do well without their sanctimonious
sermonizing. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is on record that he
would be going ahead, come what may, with his plans for this
country. This is the way to go and the majority of the people
are likely to be with him. Sri Lanka is not in need of pious
injunctions of any kind from any quarter. It has set its sights
on what is right and this virtue would see it through. |