The Curse Of The Hero
“The returning hero risks carrying the seed of violence into the very heart of his city”.
René Girard (Violence and the Sacred)
By Tisaranee Gunasekara
Heroes are like double-edged swords. Sane nations use them, with caution, and send them into honourable retirement once their deeds are done. The nation, which is seduced by the hero into giving him an endless carte blanche, places its present and its future in jeopardy.
Vellupillai Pirapaharan was a hero to millions of Tamils, as the man who restored to a bowed and beaten people a sense of self-respect, after the horror of Black July. All too many Tamils became so psychologically imprisoned in that memory of redemption that even after Mr. Pirapaharan graduated into full-fledged barbarism they continued to support/excuse him. Their consciences were quietened and their tongues were silenced by the Tiger Supremo’s undoubted military prowess which generated the hope that he will (somehow, someday) deliver the promised-land of Eelam. Enamoured of an illusion, snared by a dream they ignored the many omens bespeaking the monster.
The notion of what constitutes heroism depends on place, time and circumstances. As Victor Klemperer pointed out, “If someone replaces the words ‘heroic’ and ‘virtuous’ with ‘fanatical’ for long enough, he will come to believe that a fanatic really is a virtuous hero and that no one can be a hero without fanaticism” (The Language of the Third Reich).
The marriage of heroism and fanaticism to the point that one morphs into the other is not an exclusively Nazi phenomenon. It happened to the Tamils, under Tiger rule.
It can happen to us under Rajapaksa rule, as the omens warn.
Angered at losing several cricket matches to India, some Lankan spectators ensconced in the Minister’s Box reportedly threw things and mouthed obscenities at Indian supporters. Since not everyone would have entrée to the Minister’s Box, the obvious assumption is that the perpetrators of these ugly deeds were people with political connections. The fact that they were able to insult the supporters of the visiting team with total impunity establishes this point beyond doubt. When Indian fans in the President’s Box sought help “no Sri Lankan from the President’s box moved. An Army officer… moved away when he was requested to intervene… Police personnel, whose help was requisitioned, merely vanished from the scene… Similar incidents were witnessed at R. Premadasa… after the fourth ODI, where India wrapped up the series, Indian supporters faced the wrath of the Sri Lankan fans” (The Hindu – 8.8.2012).
Unruly sports-fans are hardly news; but unruly sports-fans enjoying political patronage and impunity are hot-news; they are also a worrying sign that Sinhala-fanaticism is becoming enthroned at the very heart of the state.
On August 6th a mob reportedly snatched an ancient statue of God Pillaiyar from the Sithi Vinayagar kovil in Panama, in broad daylight, and took it to the Buddhist temple in Panama. The mob comprised “thugs, homeguards and members of the armed forces in civil attire. The entire operation was masterminded and commanded by a Buddhist Priest” (dbsjeyaraj.com).
Sinhala-Buddhist fanatics are even more plentiful than unruly sports-fans; what renders political gravitas to the Panama incident is the reported involvement of servicemen and homeguards in it.
Politically protected Sinhala-fanatics invading the sports arena; armed forces joining Buddhist-fanatics against Hindus in the fragile East: they indicate a nation that is not only losing its bearings but also its sanity. And a leadership consciously using racial and religious fanaticism to ensure the success of its dynastic project.
Fanaticism as Cloak and Dagger
The Rajapaksas won the war. This is their only solid achievement. Their record in every other realm is abysmal. Just last week, the newly built Norochcholai power-plant broke-down, again; and two serious errors in the 2012 AL papers were discovered. Of course, neither of the subject-ministers (both virtuosos in verbosity) resigned. Malaises are so ubiquitous under Rajapaksa Rule, if ministers started resigning whenever colossal errors were discovered in their areas of responsibility, the obese Rajapaksa cabinet will become as thin as a reed.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa lectures to the world about Lankan successes in resettlement. According to the extremely anti-Tiger V Anandasangaree, “The resettled IDPs are virtually starving. They were given dry provisions for six months only and some money. With limited scope for employment, there is hunger and famine prevailing in the Vanni District… (The Island – 23.7.2012). Under Rajapaksa Rule, everything is a smoke-and-mirrors show, sans substance. The National Olympic Committee reportedly bought tickets worth Rs. 7 million for London 2012, and sent our entrants without a single coach! The sports sector received a massive allocation of Rs. 1,923million in 2011, not to develop Lankan sports but to hold as many international sports extravaganzas as possible (ideally in Hambantota) for the greater glory of the Rajapaksas.
So as disaster follows debacle, the Rajapaksas will have no choice but to cling to their heroic status, as the sole raison d’être for their rule. But ‘heroes’ need ‘enemies’ and ‘threats’ to remain relevant. Thus the rationale for the Rajapaksa-narrative, which interprets nation-building as a ceaseless struggle between the majority and the minorities (plus their foreign backers). If the Sinhala South can be flattered into thinking that they are overlords of Sri Lanka and frightened into believing that every minority (including Sinhala-Christians) is an enemy-alien trying to undermine this Mahawamsa-mandated dominance, the Rajapaksas would be able to rule supreme, despite economic calamities and administrative unravelling.
The Tamils allowed Vellupillai Pirapaharan to delude and denude them. From sports-personalities who worship politicians to artists who debase their talent to curry favour with rulers, we are contributing lavishly for our own debasement. According to an article by ‘A concerned music lover’ in Groundviews, the Chief Guest at the annual Sri Lanka Festival of Music, Dance and Speech organised by the International Institute of Music, Speech and Drama was neophyte-parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa. Why should an independent institution degrade itself by honouring as its chief guest a cub-politico whose sole achievement is his birth? Are we not hastening our downfall by opting to conduct ourselves not as citizens but as subjects?
Vellupillai Pirapaharan created the LTTE and nurtured it. In the end, he sacrificed it on the Alter of his unquenchable megalomania, because the only Eelam he wanted was an Eelam in total thrall to him. His unwillingness to depart even an inch from this fanatical vision resulted in the imposition of an unending war not only on the Lankan state, but also on the Tamils.
When a creator turns destroyer, he imposes a tragedy of Wagnerian proportions on the nation he was supposed to lead and the people he was supposed to protect. Though Mr. Pirapaharan’s commitment to his nation was total, his vision of what that nation should be damaged the Tamils far more than the ‘Sinhala enemy’ ever did. The Tamils, by ignoring the warning signs, contributed lavishly to their own downfall.
The Rajapaksas saved Sri Lanka from the Tiger threat; but their megalomania is driving the country and the people down the low road towards an economic, administrative, societal and moral abyss.
Will we heed the omens?
Or lost in a racist fantasy, will we follow the heroes, sleepwalker-like, to debasement and devastation?
Tissaranne’s point of President Rajapakse saving SL from LTTE threat is perfectly correct.
But considering the nature of what is now taking place in the country, let us at least hope, that the Rajapakses in their mad frenzy will NOT one day decide to privatise the public water supply and drainage system of the country and the people face police bullets. .
Your last line is the line that the Sinhala Buddhist masses will follow
Yes, of course at any cost.
1970 – 2008 -Sinhalese are getting killed- serves them right for being racists
2009 -Sinhalese defend them selves by destroying the tigers- blaahh they killed innocent tamil civilians
2009- 2012 -Sinhalese support Rajapakse government for saving them – Sinhalese Buddhists racists supporting a tyrant
they just cant win can they?
0000 – toDate Sinhalease Lie. That is their culture.
Many have seen my comments in this great newspaper. I am a Tamil and from Jaffna now living abroad. But I have to defend majority of the Sinhalese who mean well for the country. But then there is a handful of low life elements on all sides of the country.Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese who are hell bent on destroying this beautiful land of ours. To start with I can name a few……………Rajapakses, then a massive list exists.
Dilshan, Your a hopeless idiot if you call lump all Sinhalese together as racists, just as much as if someone called all Tamils chauvenist racists. Neither are true, only a few, sometimes those in power give the whole race a bad name. That mind set needs to stop today if the country is to unite. Those of you who generalize in such gross terms are destined to nothing less than the bigotry you profess.
Dilshan:
You are dead right: they can’t win because they are monumental losers and maybe Kuveni’s curse which they EARNED has something to do with it!
The funny thing is that ask most people and they will say appi chande dunne ne me anduwata. So then the question is who did. The realization that a megalomaniac is in power is slowly dawning on most people. The problem is how to get rid of him. The tentacles of power maybe too hard to break since most of the checks and balances have been destroyed thru out the post independence era of governance by both political parties. That is another lesson our masses will have to finally realize and appreciate the value of what was gifted to them by the para suddha.
As the author correctly points out Pirapaharan, the megalomaniac, gained the support of the majority of Lankan Tamils by fighting back and restoring their self-respect. But he was unable to gain the sympathy or support for his cause of any one else.
On the other hand Mahinda, the megalomaniac, have earned the support of not only the Sinhala masses by eliminating LTTE but also of India and China with populations of billions each but also several other nations
Yes, Mahinda earned the support of the Sinhala Buddhist masses for two reasons : 1. By endorsing the ‘war on terror’ of George Bush Jnr. agreed to by his very illustrious predecessor who waged a ‘war of horror’ in the north and east from 1996 to 2001 behind a ‘wall of silence’ where Reporters, even local ones, were banned with killing tens of thousands civilians-men, women, and children- through incessant indiscriminate round-the-clock aerial bombardments and shellings to which the Tigers responded with suicide bombings, also killing several thousands in the south which got the widest publicity locally and abroad. This period also saw the creation of the largest number of mass graves of Tamils in the north and east starting with the first one at Chemmani in the north, What has happened to the Chemmani court case about which there is a stony silence? 2. By promising to wage war against the Tamil Terrorists if elected in the run up to the 2005 elections in concert with the JVP under the United Front and reneging on the so-called 2002 Peace Process with the LTTE , which he did later unilaterlaly to rekindle the war, his party naturally got majority support at that election,also given Tamils abstaining from voting for whatever reasons. It has to be remembered that the support of arms and ammunition from 30 countries to the government was not free but at tremendous cost of multi-billions of tax payers money. Thus Sri lanka helped all those countries from the hard earned foreign exchange of ordinary Sri Lankan people, all because the political parties want majoriatrian votes and outdo each other to climb into power at any cost over the past 64 years, especially after Sept. 1956 onwards. In the process and after at least 8 major race riots until July 1983, including unelashing of the 1983 July pogrom the state declared a no-holds barred war until 2009, it thus created the Tamil Terrorists led by the LTTE , some of whom are now in government.! Under the PTA the state continues to do the people in under a highly flawed unilateral constitution which has abandoned the precious separation of powers for a combined “all-in-one functional Head of State” ! How tragic can it get?
Sri
It can get as tragic as your double negative rubbish posting. PTA’s or other forms of the same legislation are active in many countries all over the world. India and the USA to name two prominent ones… and why not ? The state takes every action to protect itself
I doubt whether you raised these tearful objections on behalf of the Tamils oppressed by the LTTE in the good old days, right ?
What the heck is a “unilateral constitution” anyway ?
Boiling a tar barrel and immersing a hindu priest into it and dancing around with music and celbrating is not barbarism but Buddhism is it Tisaranee Gunasekara.
Well do you know howmany barbarians celebrated the death of Lasntha. Well you are worse than Goata looks like a buffalo talking. Better not to use the words that you dont know the meaning of. You you apply the same yard stick there is nothing wrong in calling you a journalist barbarian. Not too late to rehabilitate get some assistance sooner the better
SELF-RESPECT can’t be given to you, nor can it be taken away. That is why its called ‘self’-respect. When people start respective themselves, instead of looking to others for it, people of all backgrounds will come together. Its when you think you deserve more than anybody else in the country that problems arise. This happened on both sides of the fence (lets tear it down) in the past. Like the Berlin wall, tear down racial centric notions and get on with life, you waste your time looking outside for something that is unattainable from anybody but yourself.
It seems the detractors are still smarting for their inability to effect a regime change despite all their efforts. They seems to have lost as to why the majority of Sri Lankans (other than the Colombians, their idols the West, Ngo and the LTTE rump) love their leader. Sri Lankans love a strong leader who stands by them and who shall have the capacity to protect the country and lead it to development!
The buzz words of the West of accountability, Human rights investigations don’t count domestically when it comes to votes (As the people knows such things are not practiced in other theatres of war like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya etc, and they know these are invented to punish those regimes who has not towed the white masters line)
One can understand the agony and pain of mind of those who were languishing for decades under a people’s government despite petty things which doesn’t affect their day to day lives. The majority knows who should be its leaders and that was amply demonstrated in huge wins. It will not change in the future too with thriving rapid infrastructure development etc.
This is the reality the doomsday folks have to bear up, perhaps they can indulge in a fairy tale fantasy of a Arab style rose spring with their former General (Incidently the combined opposition lost by 1.8 Miilion votes at the height of his popularity!) Viva Sri Lanka lets march on
NO LEADER IS PERPETUAL AND NEW STRONG LEADERS SHOULD DEVELOP FOR ANY ORGANISATION TO PROGRESS. THE SOCIAL CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY SHOULD DEVELOP LEADERS, AND PEOPLE AT THE TOP MUST ENCOURAGE THESE . AS SAID LEADERS SHOULD BE DECISION MAKERS WITHOUT BIAS AND LOVE THE PEOPLE AND NOT THE POSITIONS. THAT IS THE SUCCESS STORY OF MAHINDA.