NO NARRATIVES ON DEMAND
Churlishly, Dr
Wickremebahu Karunaratne has written against the recent move to
induct Tamil youth in the former Northern theatre of war into
the Armed Forces. Nobody takes the likes of Dr. Bahu seriously
any more, but his type of cynical and unproductive views are a
source of welcome comic relief as they come from a standpoint so
out of touch with reality, from a man so markedly spent.
For instance, he sees some sort of gender based
discrimination in the move to impeach the Chief Justice, which
is so utterly ridiculous in the first place -- but then he caps
it all by saying that this is similar to the forced recruitment
of Tamil women by the Sri Lankan army. Such women he says learnt
that they are being inducted into the army after they reached
the recruiting venue.
He would have probably wanted underage girls to be taken at
gunpoint the way Prabhakaran had these things done, and then
forced to carry weapons that they could hardly wield, but let
that pass...
He sees a demon in every policy decision taken by the
government, but to make trite noises about gender based
discrimination when none exists, and decry recruitment by the
Sri Lankan army of girls who used to be forced to fight by the
fascist Prabhakaran - - why, that kind of reaction can only be
called alarmingly pathological.
In a recent newspaper exchange Dr. Bahu took umbrage over the
description of Prabhakaran as a fascist. It is strange that the
man who sees Prabhakaran as a benign force for good, also sees
recruitment by the Sri Lankan army as some sort of a
bayonet-point pogrom.
It is difficult to find out whether these types of people are
being deliberately irrelevant, or whether they are plain
eccentric, but that too is largely academic. What's more
important is to talk about the issues that interest the ordinary
people, which those such as Dr. Bahu see with perpetually
blinkered glasses, to be charitable about his mental assessment
of current issues.
Take the resettlement programme undertaken by the Sri Lankan
government for instance. This was near perfect under trying
circumstances, but now there are INGO operatives who are writing
papers to say that the INGOs should have walked out when the Sri
Lankan government did not agree to their conditionalities about
post-war detainees and refugees.
This type of retrospective mischief is absolutely ghoulish.
Despite the predictions of most hard-boiled cynics, the Sri
Lankan refugee resettlement operation went so well that those
who made noises about internment camps etc., have had to shut
up, put up and hold their peace.
Only those who have absolutely no place to go, remain in some
of the camps, but there is hardly anybody in the international
community that talks about this good work done by the Sri Lankan
government. They would rather say that recruitment by the Sri
Lankan army of Tamil youth, is something of an occupational
exercise, much the same way that they look at each and every
army skirmish with civilians in the North as some kind of
hegemonic move to maintain armed dominance.
None of those recruited by the army or police have been
forced to join however, but those such as Wickremebahu
Karunaratne do desperately want the narrative to fit into their
preconceived idea that no Tamil would join the Sri Lankan Armed
Forces voluntarily!
It is time that those who insist on this occupation narrative
gave up the idea, because Northern youth have seen opportunity,
and they have grabbed it with both hands. Perhaps not everybody
wants to join the army, but for the young men and women who want
to, it is abundantly clear that this is not some exercise in
indoctrination, or being commandeered at gunpoint.
The women for instance know that gender is not material to
their advancement in the army, just as much as every sane person
is aware that there is no gender bias in the Chief Justice's
impeachment. All that can be said is that even the eccentrics
have to be more realistic and imaginative when they conjure up
bogeys. |