HOW THE PROPAGANDA IS CRANKED UP

The propaganda aimed against the Sri Lankan state and the Sinhala people in particular is now being done almost to the level of an exact science. The agit-prop machinery against the Sri Lankan state has reached levels that seek to be far more effective than before George W. Bush's war on terror, when Sri Lanka's campaign against the terrorist LTTE was similarly attacked by the usual suspects.

Few would forget that time. The Sri Lankan government could not do anything right those days, as the entire war effort had been declared a suppressive campaign against a 'legitimate rebel group fighting for their just rights'. Terrorist carnage did not create a blip in the international radar and deaths of small children in Claymore bus bomb attacks etc., meant nothing.

But then came 9/11 and George W. Bush's global war on terror. The U.S declared a no holds barred campaign on the global terror network, and nobody could possibly ignore the LTTE's lurid terrorist face.

The former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgarmar also made capital of a good situation, and Sri Lanka gained the respect the country deserved with an army that was determined to root out a terrorist menace that had national and international repercussions.

But now, several years later, the propaganda against Sri Lanka is being calibrated to the earlier levels. There is a single minded determination to put Sri Lanka in the international doghouse, and demonize the Sri Lankan state and particularly the Sinhala majority army -- and the Sinhala people.

It is time that this propaganda effort is studied scientifically and a resistance effort mounted against it in an organized and effective manner.

There are tried tested and certified propaganda methods that are proven Gobbles prototype narrative formation techniques. Sloganeering, giving testimonials, using virtue words, scapegoating -- there are all of the techniques that are being used these days to maximum effect against the country, and the majority race -- and of course the regime and the army.

Scapegoating is being used effectively, to make sure that the Prabhakaran who was the primary cause of all of the problems of the Tamil people in the north is forgotten, and the lingering issues of northern Tamils, rescued from the clutches of the fascist terrorist, are fathered on the Armed Forces and the government.

For example a former moonlighting 'journalist' has hopped around to Geneva, and screened a video at a so called side event, and in an accompanying speech said that the women in the north are mostly single and are having an uphill talks surviving without the support of the menfolk.

He proceeds to say that the army is 'prying' into these women's lives.

Not a word is being said however of the manner in which these men came to be widowed - that primarily it was because they were dragooned into the war machine of Velupillai Prabhakaran.

So this then is a prime example of scapegoating. There is then, in addition, the more bombastic propaganda tactic of the testimonial.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu shares a panel for instance in Canada, with one John Argue a man representing Amnesty International, and mouths the same inanities about the lack of freedom and good governance in this country.

This is a textbook example of the propaganda tactic of using 'value words' such as freedom, and 'good governance' and trying to back up these resonant sentiments with testimonials from people who appear to be authorities in their subjects. At this particular seminar Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu is introduced as a person who works in the field of human rights and has won an award presented by the National Peace Council - - which only we Sri Lankan know, is not an organization with anything national in character, but is just another a hole on the wall NGO.

What's important in all of this is to remember that the anti Sri Lanka propaganda effort is well calibrated and developed into an organized campaign that almost approaches the rigour of a hard science. The quicker we decipher these methods and debunk and deconstruct this propaganda for what it is, the better - as we need to be pro-active this time, in dispelling the mythology being written for this country by the assorted detractors and their propagandizing cabal.