Focus

The re-writing of history and selective political memory in Sri Lanka

This, being the 26th anniversary of Black July, Sri Lanka’s own Kristallnacht with the Tamils taking the place of the Jews of the then-emerging Nazi Germany, it would seem like an appropriate time to revisit some events that the hyper-nationalists of this country try to “spin” in various ways.

Reading the utterances of various Sri Lankan commentators and politicians who, by virtue of the prominence given them by the local media are considered “important” or “knowledgeable” one is left confused by the clash between one’s own recollection of times past, the recollections of those with no reason to prevaricate or distort and the claims made by these individuals. 

One area that I am bemused by is the consistent line by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/People’s Liberation Front (JVP) that, during the insurrection of the late ’80s which they led, it was only the United National Party (UNP) government of the day that was guilty of atrocities of the most heinous kind.

Guilty of decapitations

Conversations with those with no partisan political axe to grind reveal that the JVP and those acting under cover of that movement were guilty of decapitations, hangings from lamp posts and other acts that were bloodthirsty, cruel and inhuman, to say the least.  That the pro-government forces may have been guilty of more instances of this kind of behaviour than the JVP does not take away from the bestial nature of the JVP’s conduct.

At the same time, the absolutely ruthless manner in which Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) government put down the 1971 insurrection of the same organisation is never referred to by the JVP’s spokesmen. 

While the total numbers of those tortured and killed might not have been as high as in the late ’80s, there was very substantial loss of life in the early ’70s’ uprising.  In fact, if memory serves me right, no accurate figures were ever published and there was speculation that there was a net population loss recorded in some areas when heads were counted sometime after that bout of violence.

Not involved

Having been a witness to what happened in JVP uprising No. 1, I can certainly vouch for the fact that the youth of that insurrection were not involved, to any great extent, in killings and cruelty intended to terrorise the population. 

Notwithstanding this fact, their movement was ruthlessly put down and there were “extra-judicial” killings which organisations such as Amnesty International (a very young organisation at the time) and the international media reported on extensively.

Why then does the JVP persist in letting the SLFP off the hook while pillorying the UNP?  Is it because it is inconvenient to accuse a party of serious human rights violations against one’s own movement/party subsequent to bringing that political configuration to power as the JVP did in the last Sri Lankan General Election?

The 25th anniversary of Black July (1983) last year led to another attempt by apologists for racism and xenophobia to indulge their skills in a similar manner.  The strategy employed here was of a different hue, though not substantially so. 

Racist hordes

They sought, more often than not, to completely ignore the pogrom against the Tamils of Sri Lanka, emphasising the ambush and killing of 13 soldiers and downplaying what followed.  

Any comparison of the unarmed civilian Tamil casualties in their homes with the ambush of soldiers serving away from their homes in what was defined as “alien territory” at the time speaks for itself.  But this attempt to whitewash what the murderous racist hordes did with the implicit (and I am being charitable here in choosing to use the word “implicit”) support of the government of the day is nothing short of obscene.

While on the subject of anniversaries, another similar pogrom — “Emergency 58” — appears to have been missed altogether where the Tamils were subjected to abuse, assault and murder on a scale hitherto unheard of in Sri Lanka. 

This was, so to speak, the dress rehearsal for what followed a quarter century later.  The ’58 “communal riots,” as they were then known bore a couple of other similarities to those of 1983: the Prime Minister of the day, S.W.R.D.Bandranaike, was initially dismissive of the events of murder and mayhem as was J.R. Jayewardene in 1983, describing them “as a few isolated incidents.”  The other similarity was that it took an Indian threat of direct intervention to galvanise the Sri Lankan government into action.

To quell the rabble

Sri Lanka was fortunate that, at that point of time, a no-nonsense Governor General in the person of Sir Oliver Goonetilleke took command of the situation and, under his direction, the armed forces acted in a firm and even-handed manner to quell the rabble.  Those around J.R.J in 1983 chose, essentially, to toe his line and throw the Tamil citizens of this country to the racist rabble that ruled the land.

That political parties and their spokespersons will try to get away with whatever they can, particularly in the area of re-writing history is given.  However, the more relevant question would be, “Why has the media not raised these historical contradictions with those responsible for them when the opportunity has presented itself times without number?”

 Is it just plain laziness or is it that the media in this country is as much a victim of the general dumbing down of the population that appears to have taken place over the last several years, self-censoring to prove their lack of intestinal fortitude? 

If it is in fact the latter, it  is certainly a frightening thought for anyone interested in Sri Lanka surviving as a democratic entity but the facts, unfortunately, appear to speak for themselves.