28th December, 2003 Volume 10, Issue 24 |
||||||||||||||||
Focus Letters |
Flashback
to last general election It
was a mandate for Ranil DURING
the run-up to the last general election, President Chandrika Kumaratunga
monopolised the state media day in and day out to promote her party,
the PA, notwithstanding the fact that not only was she the President of Sri
Lanka and all her peoples whatever hue or colour but also demonstrated
complete abuse of presidential power. She
was the commander of the forces - all of them, the army, navy, air force and
the police and she had as her deputy none other than her uncle
"General" Ratwatte! Their job paid by us, the general public was
to safeguard us from terrorism and the terrorists but what happened? We, the
public had to defend ourselves from her PSD and her deputy's goon squads. On
election day we were terrified not so much of the LTTE but of her PSD and
her deputy's goon squad. The most pathetic situation being that we went to
the polls risking life and limb but she and her deputy could not and had to
break all election rules by getting the ballot boxes brought to their
residences in order to cast their vote. Think about the irony of it. The C -
in - C and her deputy could not guarantee even their own safety, leave alone
ours!!! Notwithstanding
all this the people voted and voted they did (with all the rigging etc). It
was not only a mandate for the UNF but it was a vote of no confidence in the
President and her party by the people of this country. It
was a clear vote of no-confidence since she led the PA campaign from the
front! Correctly she should have resigned forthwith. She is now trying to
hijack a duly elected government and control it thus and subvert the will of
the people, egged on by some party members and the JVP who seem to be in a
mighty hurry to grab power. We all know that this has nothing to do with the
security of the country - they were planning this from the day the UNF was
voted in and she always tried to put a spoke in Ranil's wheel. The
people should be aware that Hitler too came in without a majority. Marxists
come in and stay on forever with brute force and fear psychosis! Don't we
know better? The three ministries are vital to the PA, if there is to be
another election. This is a subtle way to control. If
the country reaches a stalemate as the duly elected government which still
has the people's mandate is compelled to go in for an election well before
its term of expiry, so can we also go in for a presidential election before
its term of expiry too. Let
us have both elections together at the same time. Let the people decide. If
one method is correct for one, then it ought to be correct for the other as
well Let the people decide if they want a change of government halfway
through its term and let them also decide if they want a change of president
three quarter way into her term as well. We could even go one better and
have a referendum on whether to impeach or not! By
the way, the Oxford Dictionary defines cohabit "To live together as man
and wife (especially of a couple who are not married to each other)."
Cohabitation. What a term to use! Cannot we find a better term? A
citizen who does not see a future for our children Fallen
prey to NSB bait? The
NSB offered an enhanced rate of interest to senior citizens. We were assured
that we were liable to withholding tax only if the annual interest exceeded
a particular amount on a SINGLE deposit and not on all our deposits. Lured
by the extra 1.5% interest, we promptly put all our eggs in the NSB basket
bringing our savings from other banks as well. Now
we are told that we are liable to withholding tax on the total annual
interest from all our deposits in one bank if it exceeds Rs. 108,000 or
Rs. 300,000 as the case may be. I think this is very unfair. We might
have been better off with the lower rates of interest from various banks,
paying heed to the proverb 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket.' It would
seem we have fallen prey to the bait incentive offered by the NSB. Over
to you minister of finance Time
to reveal facts The
deadline for filing tax returns for the year of assessment 2002/2003 was
November 30. The Commissioner General of Inland Revenue should be now in a
position to ascertain the total number of taxpayers as at present. He
already has had the number of tax files one year ago. The increase is the
number of additional tax files that have been opened during this period.
Give the full credit to the minister of finance and attribute this increase
to the success of the much spoken of tax amnesty. He
has stated on many occasions over 40,000 additional tax files will be opened
as a result of the amnesty but had been more realistic with his latest
estimate of 10000 files. Many believe that the amnesty was for the benefit
of the existing taxpayers and not even 5000 additional tax files will be
opened. At least if this number is achieved, the amnesty can be considered a
success. Therefore , it is now left to the minister to disclose to the
public based on facts, the actual number of files opened as a result of the
amnesty. Let's hope he will uphold the government's policy of
accountability. Tax
Consultant Unwarranted
attack on the Ratwattes This
is in reference to a downright racist letter to the editor from someone
purported to be "Pure Sinhalese" in your paper last week.It
was an unwarranted attack on the Ratwattes, because apparently they
have Tamil ancestry. What is
wrong with it? Does this man rather be an inbred who marries his own sister
to be "pure" like they sometimes do in Hill Billy Kentucky?
Or does one have to be blue blooded Aryan to be acceptable to the
pure Sinhalese? I
do not care whether I have Tamil, Chinese, Dutch or African heritage. All
modern man evolved from Africa anyway. Who is to say Sinhalese or these "Pure Sinhalese"
are Aryan or from N.India? I lived in N. India and I have seen how tall and
fair those people are. Very few
Sinhalese from the South or Kandy can be called of N.Indian origin no matter
what our legends say. We are all short and darker than
N.Indians. We are short
and darker and look more like the Biharis and Bengalis. It is most likely
that the Sinhalese are genetically mixed and lot of them share the same
genotype as the Tamils. A lot
of Sinhalese probably are from Bengal and Bihar. I suggest to this man who
was venting his racist beliefs to ask N. Indians what they think of Biharis
and Bengalis before he brags about "purity." Why
not allow scientists to include Sri Lanka in the global gene mapping plan to
see which ethnic group is which to see if indeed the myth of the "pure
Sinhala" or "pure Tamil" is real?
Science will hold the key to dispelling centuries of racism and
racist beliefs in superiority. Whether
one is a Fernando, Perera, Silva, Ratwatte or Bandaranaike is totally
irrelevant in society today. And they should not be treated as royalty by
anyone either. In my upbringing as a Ratwatte whose grandfather was
Gopallawa, (I am sure Karandeniya can do a genetic study and map the genomes
to see if they too were impure) never were we ever told or expected to
receive special treatment by virtue of our name.
At school we were slapped and caned by the same teachers who then
came to my father for favours. That was how it was.
So why does this Karandeniya have this enormous hang-up to bring
racism to the table? Never have I heard a member of my family talk about
"superior" races or "pure races." This
sort of talk is found in those with inferiority complexes and lack of
achievement on their own part.. And
on the other hand no Ratwatte or Bandaranaike should ever think that they
are born to rule or misrule or that the nation owes them anything. If anyone
believes that, then they too are guilty of what I just said.
I can only speak for the ones I know and love. My father was a doctor
and hence I would say he had achieved something on his own intellect whether
he was 'pure or not' is irrelevant to his achievements.
Similarly Karandeniya probably achieved a lot in his life too. Who
gives a cowpie as to what our ancestry was 300 years ago? How about all the
Pereras, Fernandos, De Silvas and De Zoysas?
Are they some Aryan genetically pure Sinhala race? How did some of
them get all their wealth and power in the colonial days? In the same
goddamned manner as the ones your paper and this "pure Sinhala"
man denigrates; through the hand-outs of the colonials and before that
through the feudal hierarchical structure of ancient societies.
How does Britain have a queen? By the same kind of society and its
structures as ours which favours certain kinships and feudal clans in Sri
Lanka or India. In
a nation where even a sect of Buddhist monks segregate themselves by caste,
it is ridiculous to target just the Ratwattes or Bandaranaikes without
examining the concept of caste and bigotry. Tamils
and Sinhalese are all the same. One race is not superior to the other.
I know a lot of Sinhalese who have this characteristic of kissing ass
so to speak to people in power be they Bandas, Rats, Jayas, Wicks or any
other family. They say one thing to their faces and another behind their
backs. A lot of people who
praised CBK for instance were sending out profanity laden emails after your
story on the Bandas. I
will be happy to see Karandeniya's racially superior "pure Sinhala"
achievements against anyone in my immediate family by way of business,
professional, educational and academic achievement.
Then I will be glad to take a series of standardised IQ tests with
the pure Sinhalese. After that we can all submit ourselves to a DNA test and
have our genomes mapped to see if there is such a thing as a pure Sinhalese. Perhaps
Karandeniya will then find the amazing discovery that he is indeed that
perfect Aryan specimen of human that Adolf Hitler and Josef Mengele were
seeking all these years. Mano
Ratwatte Military
aid pacts vital at this time Prophet
Mohammed had said. "Trust in God, but
tie your camel well." Velupillai Prabhakaran has taken this
advice to the very letter and is, in spite of the MoU, recruiting child
soldiers, smuggling sophisticated arms and ammunition, levying
taxes and extorting money, inter alia. But
what has our Prime Minister done ? He was until recently
going all over the world and entering into trade pacts, economic
pacts and cultural pacts and
not military pacts, which are a sine qua non to defeat the LTTE, as for the
last two decades our soldiers were unable to do so without assistance from
foreign forces. It
will be recalled that in the beginning of 1990, we would have attained
complete victory, but for the fact that the late President Ranasinghe
Premadasa foolishly asked the IPKF, which was doing the dirty work for us,
to go away. Let
our President do what our Prime Minister has not done, that is, go to all
our friendly foreign nations, not forgetting mighty India, our closest
neighbour, and enter into military pacts, so that in case Eelam War IV
starts - God forbid, peace keeping forces may come from all parts of the
world to assist our soldiers. To
drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, America sought the assistance of 13 nations,
and even with regard to its war against Afghanistan and recent war against
Iraq, it got military aid from Britain and other nations. Therefore, we
should not think it infra dig to get military assistance from others. To
those who say that when foreign troops come, they would remain here forever,
I wish to point out, as one example, the departure of the IPKF from Sri
Lanka, even though its work was not completed. Thereafter, India refused to
give any military assistance to us. Since
writing this letter, it was encouraging to read in the newspapers that Army
Chief Major Gen. Balagalle's mission to India to negotiate for military
assistance from that country has been successful. G.P. Take
over of the three ministries A
so called Federation of Joint Trade Unions, apparently a get-together of
blue and pale red friendly and politically placed trade union leaders have
expressed their solidarity with the President's move in taking over three
ministries. The
President's move, no doubt, is constitutionally correct but democratically
incorrect. The people at the last hustings gave a mandate to the UNF led by
Ranil Wickremesinghe to run the country, defeating the PA led by the
President, the numbers in parliament, proving it. The federation of trade
union leaders who could be more sympathetic towards one party systems of
government are invariably unable to understand the democratic aspects of
democracy. Perhaps that answers for the pathetic behaviour of these trade
union leaders. Though
the President's move does not suggest that, dictators in their move to
establish dictatorships suppress or take control of the armed services, the
police and the media. Hence, the take over of the ministries by the
President cannot be endorsed. On
the other hand, it the President is convinced that the UNF is not governing
the country correctly, she should dissolve parliament and go to the people
for a decision. If the decision is again against the PA, led by her she
should gracefully step down or if the verdict of the people is in favour of
the PA coalition, then she could run the country according to the policies
of the PA. The UNF cannot run the country according to PA policies. Upali
S. Jayasekera Caste,
not ethnicity main factor S.
Karandeniya is his letter of December 21 titled "Radalas are of South
Indian Tamil stock" is apparently annoyed that the Ratwattes and
Bandaranaikes descended from Tamils. He does not mention the Senanayakes or
the Kotelawalas, who were descended from a Tamil chaplain in the service of
the Church of England. The
fact is that all 'radalas', whether up-country or low-country, were mixed
with Tamils (and for that matter, Portuguese). The main differentiator
before the 20th century was not ethnicity or 'race', but caste. The 'radalas'
and the 'nanayakkaras' were in fact a stratum of aristocracy (note: NOT
nobility) drawn from amongst the dominant Vellala (Goigama) caste. This
caste was pan-Lankan, with both 'Sinhalese' and 'Tamil' families belonging
to it. It was basically an administrative elite, comprised of village
headmen, arachchis, korales, mohandirams, mudaliyars, dissawes, etc. It
absorbed chetties and Portuguese 'thuppahis' quite promiscuously; for
example, Hettiarachchi is a good chetty name! It
was only with the Sinhala-Buddhist revival of the late 19th century, and
especially with Anagarika Dharmapala's pan-Sinhalese appeal, that the
Sinhalese ethnicity began to overhaul caste in importance. This was
primarily because the new Buddhist leadership was drawn essentially from
amongst the non-Walauwa classes, especially from amongst the KSDs, the
newly-arisen Karawa, Salagama and Durawe elites. What
is appalling is that Sinhalese Buddhists are worried about questions of
worth by birth, when the Buddha clearly stated that a person was not a
Brahmin or a slave by birth, but by action. Whether the Bandaranaikes and
Ratwattes are of Tamil descent should be no measure of their relative worth,
or lack of it. Vinod
Munasinghe
I
have learnt of the sad news of the passing away in Australia of K.S. Sivam,
former chief legal officer of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. Indeed
his sudden demise is a great loss to those who had the good fortune to know
him intimately. Sivam
joined the corporation in 1962 during its formative years, having obtained
first class passes in each law examination. As time went by, he ascended the
rose strewn path of promise and expectation and was promoted as its chief
legal officer in 1976 and later as its deputy general manager, corporate
affairs. He
was closely associated with the major flagship projects of the corporation
which are now well under way. His omnipresent and proactive manner made him
an elder statesman at the corporation and he was always willing to assist
those who sought his advice on legal matters which was invaluable. Given
a vexed problem, he had an uncanny knack of sifting through a mass of
verbiage, with a logical and sequential progression of thought and by sheer
force of logic and argument and in one fell sweep emerge therefrom with the
right practical commonsense solution. In an arbitration he got the better of
a leading silk equipped with a formidable arsenal of legal skills. Such was
his prowess. He
was a colossal bridge builder in understanding and his efforts went a long
way to establish new relationships or contribute towards existing ones. A
devoted Hindu, moments of leisure stirred him to a spiritual search to
attend discourses on philosophical subjects and expositions of the Bagavad
Gita from some visiting savant. Often times he was seen at the Kathiresan
Kovil immacutlately dressed in yellow laced silken white draperies,
participating in the poojas to the deities. Though
seemingly unaffected by the events of Black July 1983 he never let the
winter of his discontent, chill the warm friendship
he enjoyed amongst his Sinhala brethren. A
raconteur par excellence, he could relate his various anecedotes and
encounters with an authentic ring. He
was always on guard against the slings and arrows of outrageous detractors,
but he bore no illwill towards them. To
his immediate family he was a fount of knowledge and comfort. He was a
steadfast and loving husband, a kind and understanding father to his three
daughters now well settled in Australia. Though he is no more with us, I
hope he will be with them in some way as an invisible guide. "And
what does the Lord require of thee?" asks the prophet Micah in the
Bible in the Old Testament, "to do justly and to love mercy and to walk
humbly with thy God." K.S.
Sivam was such a man. Ranjan
Abeyesekera
|
|
||||||||||||||
| ©Leader
Publication (Pvt) Ltd. 410/27, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 07 Tel : +94-75-365891,2 Fax : +94-75-365891 email : editor@thesundayleader.lk |
||||||||||||||||
