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The misperception about Canada’s role vis-a-vis the LTTE
By D. B. S. JeyarajJustice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris was in a buoyant mood after his trip to Ottawa some weeks ago. He told newspersons in Colombo that Canadian authorities had told him that they were considering the enactment of new laws on the lines British legislation aimed at curbing terrorist activities. Peiris pointed out that the British legislation would also take cognizance of the funds collected by organisations like the LTTE for various purposes abroad and verify if they were used for the purposes stated or channelled for other purposes such as promoting terrorist violence. The minister’s contention was that if and when Canada did enact such new laws LTTE fund raising in Canada would grind to a halt for fear of retributive punishment by LTTE front organisations.
It is certainly a matter of opinion or interpretation as to whether proposed legislation would be of use in combatting LTTE activity or fund raising in Canada or elsewhere. While the Sri Lankan government takes a simple legalistic view on the question law-enforcement authorities are quite sceptical because of three reasons. Firstly there is no direct LTTE branch or organisation in Canada. Only front organisations. It would be difficult to prove beyond doubt which organisation is doing what. Even if an organisation like the World Tamil Movement is considered a front it would be a difficult task to separate its legitimate functions from that are not. Fund raising for example on the pretext of being sent for refugee relief is quite legitimate. So how does one prove that those are being channelled to the LTTE war chest?
Secondly there is nothing to prevent the LTTE from opening up a number of new front organisations from time to time. They could also manipulate various other organisations that exist amidst the Canadian Tamil Diaspora as their fronts. There are numerous Tamil organisations like old students associations, village welfare associations and even outfits like ex-postal service employees union etc. This will only create new head aches which the Canadian law enforcement authorities world not be able to cope with given their limited manpower resources unless and until the Canadian government decides to treat the LTTE as public enemy number one and unleashes a massive crackdown. That situation is not prevalent now. Thirdly and most importantly it will be a Himalayan task for the law-enforcement authorities to arraign cedible witnesses from the community in a court of law. Very few among Tamil expatriates will be willing to come forward and give credible evidence on this matter. Although Canadian authorities have compiled a data base on fund raising in Canada with particular emphasis on the element of coercion and extortion no effective follow up action has been taken yet. Although the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister has received wide publicity in asking Canada to stop the fund raising the High Commission in Ottawa has been of no practical use to the Canadian officials on this issue. In fact the high Commission cocooned in Ottawa is not very informed about developments in Metro Toronto where 80% of Sri Lankan Tamils live. The Sinhala associations in spite of their fire and brimstone press releases too are not effective in action.
So for these reasons Professor Peiris’s hopes about a Canadian crackdown are very likely to turn into dupes even if Canada passes such envisaged legislation. But the current political reality which the academic politico does not seem to be aware of is that the present Liberal government of Canada is just not going to pass any such legislation in the near future. The simple reason being that a fresh general election is just around the corner next year.
Prof. Peiris is quite accurate when he says that Canadian officials told him that they are considering anti-terrorism legislation. It is correct that on an initiative taken by Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy his Cabinet colleagues in charge for Justice, Law and Order prepared some draft legislation on those lines on those lines. Inspired by the US designation of 30 organisations as terrorist last year Canada too prepared draft legislation. to ban and curtail fund raising by certain shadowy organisations suspected of being fronts for groups indulging in violence in other countries.
A low-profile but high-key investigation was conducted into Tamil affairs too and at least three organisations were identified as LTTE fronts. These three were included in a list of twenty odd organisations identified as fronts and proposals were afoot to get them banned and prevent fund raising by them. This list comprised several ethnic based organisations including those of Irish and other European Nationalities. But when this proposed move went up for discussion within the Liberal Parliamentary caucus of group most MP’s got agitated.
Keeping the next election in mind most were hesitant in supporting such a move for fear of alienating sizeable sections of their voters. As a result the move was shot down. So the reality is that no such legislation is likely to see the light of day until the next election is over. It must be remembered that as in the case of the USA, Canada too will only include LTTE fronts as one of many others and not alone.
There is also a continuing misperception among Sri Lankan politicians as well as the media that Canada has proscribed the LTTE. That impression is not correct. Unlike the USA or India, Canada has not explicitly proscribed the LTTE. That is not the Canadian way. What has happened in Canada is that the executive has taken certain action against people suspected of having LTTE connections and the Judiciary has upheld them. This action was taken with the objective of preserving Canada’s National security. The most striking example has been the Suresh Manickavasagar case.
Suresh the chief of the LTTE front in Canada was perceived as a security threat to Canada by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Acting on its recommendation the Canadian minister of immigration and Solicitor-General signed the national security certificate rendering him inadmissible to Canada. Thereafter a Canadian Federal Judge upheld the reasonableness and validity of the order after a protracted trial and ordered him deported. Now Suresh has appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court against the imposition of the certificate. His deportation has been stayed until the outcome of that appeal. Importantly Suresh was declared inadmissible on the grounds that he was a member of a terrorist organisation. The LTTE was stated as the terrorist organisation.
On the same lines the CSIS also prevented another LTTE fund-raiser from Norway from entering Canada by stopping him at the Pearson Airport in Toronto itself. After a few days of detention he opted to return to Norway. Likewise Dindigual Leoni and Indian artistes from Tamil Nadu was denied a Canadian visa as he was the chief guest designate for the annual fund-raising dinner of the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT) also Lawrence Thilagar one time international chief of the LTTE was denied a Canadian visa on the basis that he was linked to a terrorist organisations at a time when the US State Department met Thilagar officially in Washington.
If all these incidents point to a very hard line by Canadian officials towards LTTE activity there are other confusingly negative signals too. Indian politicians and activists like Nedumaran, Dr. Ramadoss, Theeran, Sethuraman, Subha Veerapandiyan, Janarthasnam, Veeramani etc. have been to Canada on legal visas and participated in open LTTE functions and activity. "Thenisai" Chellappa has been here to conduct musical fund raising programmes for the Tigers. Sri Lankan politicians like Joseph Pararajasingham and Kumar Ponnambalam too have been to Canada and associated openly with pro-LTTE activity here.
So there is visibly a very great contradiction in Canadian official action by Canada towards the LTTE or its activists and supporters. Some persons are denied visas so as to prevent their participation in LTTE activities while others are allowed "Carte Blanche" to do so. The apparent chief of Tiger operations at one time Suresh Manickavasagar was arrested and detained. The Canadian mainstream media quoting Canadian officials described him as the "chief fund raiser of the LTTE".
The wings of Suresh may be clipped now but his erstwhile henchmen are merrily collecting money albeit for refugee relief and no action is being taken against them now. Even on the question of Suresh’s deportation the Canadian judiciary too displayed a "contradictory" attitude. The Federal Court ruled that he could be deported to Sri Lanka. The Provincial Court stayed the deportation order.
There was quite a flurry of excitement some weeks ago when Nadarajah Muraleetharan the LTTE chief of operations in Switzerland was arrested in Toronto. Muraleetharan had entered Canada from the US and made a refugee claim in Montreal. He later moved to Toronto and was arrested in his wife’s home at Scarborough. There was a lot of publicity in Canadian newspapers and TV over the netting of a big Tiger "Terrorist". Three charges were laid against him namely possession of false documents impersonation and obstruction of justice. The first two were related to the fact that Muraleetharan’s passport was in the name of Shanmugam Sivaguru. The third was over his resisting arrest. Muraleetharan maintained that Shanmugam Sivaguru was the name of his grandfather after whom he was named and that those names were on his birth certificate.
Murali was held without bail and produced a few times in Court. Finally there was a plea bargain between his lawyers and the Crown. The state dropped two charges while Muraleetharan pleaded guilty to the charge of obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to six weeks time served plus one day in jail. By this Muraleetharan became a person convinced in a Canadian Court on a criminal charge. Interestingly the joint submission made by crown and Muraleetharan’s lawyer did not refer in any way to his LTTE antecedents.
After his sentence of 24 hours in jail was over he was taken into immigration custody on the grounds that he was inadmissible to Canada because of his alleged LTTE connections. He is presently awaiting both a deportation order hearing as well as the outcome of his original refugee claim. Muralieetharan has also appealed that his detention order be reviewed and that he be released pending hearings into both the deportation and refugee determination cases. A preliminary hearing was held on this and the matter postponed for seven days.
Interestingly Muraleetharan too has retained some top immigration lawyers in Canada. Also unlike the Suresh instance Muraleetharan has not been served with a national certificate order. So his deportation hearing would be under ordinary immigration law. Since Suresh Manickavasagam arrested first on Oct. 18, 1995 is still fighting it out legally and residing in Canada with every chance of being here for quite a while the Canadian authorities may have decided against using the security certificate instrument against Muraleetharan until the Suresh issue is resolved permanently.
This means that the lawyers defending Muraleetharan may be at greater advantage as proceedings will be under normal law and not the draconian provisions of the security certificate. Thus Muraleetharan will have the right to know the evidence against him, the opportunity to challenge and cross examine witnesses etc. The burden of proof lies heavily upon the crown unlike the Suresh case.
There is also the question of where Muraleetharan could be deported if hypothetically he loses his case. Although incarcerated in Sri Lanka for years he was not wanted for any terrorist activity in his motherland. In Switzerland charges against him could not be proved for want of incriminating evidence. Besides it is a moot point as to whether Swiss authorities want him back. There is also the humanitarian aspect of his wife and four young children being in Canada. Another point is whether he has indeed parted ways with the Tigers. If that is true then he may be sorely in need of Canadian asylum.
The end result of all this could be that like Suresh Manickavasagam, Nadarajah Muraleetharan too may not be able to leave Canada for the reason that no country would be willing to take him and that deporting to Sri Lanka would be ruled out legally. If that happens both may be staying indefinitely on in Canada without a clear immigration status perhaps. If and when that happens all the media hype in Sri Lanka about Canada cracking down on LTTE "terrorists" would just evaporate.
So it would be prudent for politicians and opinion makers in Sri Lanka to refrain from "cracking and crowing" about Canada’s crackdown on the LTTE and note the ambuguity and confusion regarding Canada’s role vis-a-vis the Tigers. While Canada has certainly taken some action against the Tigers that has been done in its own self-interest. More importantly there has been no official crackdown against the LTTE while Tiger fund raising is likely to go on unchecked for quite some time.
Perspective
Why Prejudge the Issue? Wait for D-day!
By C. A. ChandrapremaI read Ms Tisaranee Gunasekera’s "rejoinder" to me in last Wednesday’s Midweek Review. I was wondering why the Premadasa Centre was unusually civil towards me... no personal attacks and all that... After reading Tisaranee’s article last week it suddenly dawned on me why the Premadasa Centre was so extraordinarily polite - I was not their target this time. On the pretext of having a "debate" with me they were slinging mud at the leader of the UNP! Haw haw! After reading Tisaranee’s article I am driven once again to the most fundamental point.
Why is the Premadasa Centre trying to prejudge the issue? Why are they desperately trying to depict Ranil as an ineffectual leader? Let the matter be resolved at an election and then we can see what can be done about it afterwards. The readership of "The Island" are not like the hoi polloi on the streets. I am sure they will make a rational decision at a future election. What the readers of this newspaper will have to decide is whether or not they like the situation that has prevailed in this country for the past few years. They can think back and compare the present situation with that which prevailed in the country when DBW was President and Ranil was Prime Minister.
Under the DBW-Ranil regime there was an economic boom - the stock market went through the roof and kept climbing during the entire duration of the regime. Despite the "jathiwaadi" President’s direct challenge to the LTTE; there were no bombs in Colombo - which implies that the security of the Capital at least was properly attended to. Then again the East was almost normal and was contributing its share to the economic upsurge of the time. Nor did planes simply drop out of the sky for no reason nor did ships sink of their own accord as has been happenning in recent years. Was this just luck or was it the outcome of somewhat better administration? I think it was due to better administration. So let people decide for themselves and vote for the party they think best. The PA government itself has much to recommend itself - despite the downturn in the economy as compared to the UNP era; the present regime is still the most economically successful SLFP regime ever.... If people are happy and satisfied with the performance of the SLFP at its best then they will vote for the SLFP. But if they are not satisfied with the SLFP they will vote for the UNP. Many people still remember that things were somehow better during the UNP era... People have got used to something more than what the SLFP is dishing out to them at present. And however much we say that this is the most successful SLFP led government ever; still people are not satisfied with the SLFP having improved upon its past performance - They actually expected the SLFP to improve upon the UNP’s performance. - NO LESS! In a situation where that much sought after improvement has not manifested itself; people are hopping mad. It is now only four years since the UNP was voted out of office. But what do we hear from the people? do we hear them cursing the UNP and saying; "serves the buggers right! Let them stay in the opposition for the next twenty years?" No! On the contrary; we hear the people grumbling that the UNP is not doing something to get the PA government out even BEFORE its official term ends.The fundamental issue on which the voting pattern at a future election will be decided will be whether the people want the PA government to stay on or not. Hence there is no point in getting flustered over something which will be decided in the future.
And anyway all this talk of "strong" leadership is all rubish. How do we decide what "strength" is in the case of a party leader or President? There is no doubt about the fact that Chandrika is a "stronger" leader than DBW; but of what use is that strength to the people of this country? Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike was a stronger leader than both Dudley and JRJ. But what benefit did the people of this country derive from the fact that Mrs Bandaranaike was a strong leader? One might argue that though Mrs Bandaranaike was strong her policies were hopeless and therefore she couldnt deliver the goods. But then Chandrika is a strong leader and her policies are correct but still things are not right. How does one explain that? The criteria should be whether a leader can deliver the goods; not whether he is "strong". I think the people of this country from the highest levels of the business world down to the lowliest day labourer have by now learnt a lesson they will never forget. In 1994 they kicked out what they saw as a "weak old man" brought instead a younger and stronger leader. How do they feel about that decision now? Haw Haw! The fact is that all these charismatic leaders (not only in Sri Lanka but the world over) of the past have given people the spiritual satisfaction of "having a strong and charismatic" leader but not much else besides. The people of this country are materialistic buggers. They know they cant "eat" the leader’s charisma or "wear" his strength. They might be temporarily taken for a ride with a bit of fire and thunder; but they recover their wits soon enough. Even the 1994 debacle was mainly due to the votes of a new generation who had no memory of what the SLFP was like (socialist dogma without rice and clothes!). Now even that cohort has lost faith in the PA.
The question I know is not whether Ranil will RULE effectively - I dont think there will be any dispute about that. The question is how to wrest power from the PA. For this the answer is simple. It is the people who will wrest power from the PA and it is the people who will give it to the UNP. Mr Sirisena Cooray would have realised this when he crossed the Bentota bridge at 100 kmph in April 1994 after the Southern Provincial Council election. With all the money; the power; the Pajeros and Sotthi Upali at his command he couldnt stop the UNP from being defeated. When the time comes the same will apply to the PA. So why prejudge anything? Just bite your nails and wait.
Poppy Day, Suriyamal and nuclear disarmament
Today, November 11th, celebrated worldwide as Armistice or Veteran’s Day means different things to different people. The origin was the end of the First World War and the signing of the Peace Treaty between the Allies and Germany on November 11th, 1914. In subsequent years funds were collected for the war veterans on this day which came to be known as Poppy Day after the red flower that bloomed on the bloody battle fields of Flanders, where terrific carnage took place; as the poet John McCrae wrote in 1915
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
We shall not sleep though poppies grow
In Flander’s fields"November 11th is now celebrated as a commemoration of all soldiers who died in the two World Wars and, in the case of the USA, the Vietnam war. In Sri Lanka, we have included those who have died in the civil war in the North and East.
Colonial Poppy Day
In British colonies, including Sri Lanka Poppy Day used to be celebrated by the government, British residents and local flunkeys with much pomp and ceremony, military parades, church services and banquets. Funds were collected on the streets of Colombo by the sale of poppies for British ex-servicemen but this jingoistic annual event caused resentment among local nationalists. As early as 1926, James Rutnam, Valentine Perera, D. N. W. de Silva, C. Ponnambalam and Harry Gunewardena (Philip’s brother) who belonged to the Cosmopolitan Crew organized a public meeting to protest Poppy Day; Rutnam wrote a letter to the press complaining that the country was poor and could ill afford money sent to Britain to support ex-servicemen.By 1931 feelings on this issue had increased and the Ceylon Ex-Servicemen’s Association led by Aelian Pereira launched a rival fund called after a local yellow flower - the Suriya Mal, to collect money for local ex-servicemen and local charities. This movement became more anti-British when it was supported by the Youth Leagues comprising of nationalist and socialist students and other young people who were the nucleus of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, formed in 1935.
The sale of the Suriya Mal on the sacrosanct Poppy Day caused a stir, for it was an open defiance of British rule which took the authorities by surprise. Even the Ex-Servicemen’s Association became alarmed at its political implications and abandoned the movement to the Youth Leagues in 1932.
The Left and the Suriya Mala
So it was in 1933 - sixty five years ago - that the subversion of Poppy Day on November 11th was carried out by the Left. The Colombo Central Youth League organized the event; Doreen Young (later Mrs. S. A. Wickremasinghe) the Principal of Ananda Balika was the President and the young socialists, N. M. Perera, Colvin R. de Silva , S. A. Wicremasinghe, Leslie Gunawardena and Philip Gunewardena were active in the campaign along with S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, Wilmot Perera and the staff and students of Ananda Balika where the Suriya Mal flowers were made. The teachers, included notably Helen de Alwis, Eva de Mel, Violet Shirani Gamage, Lilian Bandaranaike and Winifred Silva whose names deserve to be remembered when we recall this anti-imperialist campaign. The funds collected each year were used for the education of a Rodi caste child, Kamala, who studied in Ananda Balika and Visakha Vidyalaya and later became a highly-qualified nurse. The idea behind this move was to lay bare the injustices of the caste system and feudal vestiges in the countryside.The Suriya Mal movement was condemned as "a crude political move... utterly in bad taste" by the Ceylon Independent and Doreen Young (who was English) caused great embarrassment to the local British by her articles in the press and activity in the Suriya Mal campaign. Her official residence, as principal of Ananda Balika, became the headquarters of the Suriya Mal. She wrote an article "Suriya or Poppy"? in which she said "It is useless to sigh as you think of the glorious dead .. and ignore the duty you owe to the living whose inglorious conditions are the responsibility of every citizen".
Two activists Eileen Wirasekera and Helen de Alwis also wrote a pamphlet which stated "Wear the Suriya flower on November 11th and demonstrate... your self-respect and independence ... Register your refusal to encourage participation in Imperialist War. Every Suriya mala is a blow against Imperialism, Fascism and War. Wear the Suriya mala for freedom and peace."
The anti-Poppy day movement also took a stance against war. Terence de Zylva, claimed that it was "definitely anti-war" and urged people to prevent money going out "to help the British Empire wage wars for the purpose of partioning the World." November 11th thus became a moment not for celebrating war "heroes" but for reflection on an anti-war agenda, on imperial rule and on the dangers of fascism that loomed large in the 1930s.
Peoples Power for Peace
The Suriya Mal history reminds us of the killing fields of Sri Lanka. Following the stalemate of the devolution proposals and the carnage of Killinochchi this October, many citizen’s groups have coalesced to agitate for peace and a political settlement to the ethnic conflict. They provide a welcome counterforce to the baying for military solutions which has been a past refrain under both the PA and UNP governments. The businessmen’s initiative which has attracted wide public attention in the media, has opened up a space for a citizen’s forum, not linked to political parties, that other groups such as human rights organizations, the Women’s Coalition for Peace, find timely. The first and foremost issue on the business community’s list of objectives - to find a solution to the ethnic conflict, and that both mainstream parliamentary parties have a duty to set aside political and personal differences in order to work towards a meaningful solution to the problems — has struck a chord with many concerned citizens. Certainly the statement by the Women’s Coalition for Peace which is in consonance with the business community’s statement on the above issues has attracted many inquiries from women keen to be signatories to it.Using the occasion of Armistice Day, there are other groups adding their voices to the imperative for peace. The National Alliance for Peace, comprising delegates ranging from religious institutions to those of education and research and grass-roots development organisations, holds a public rally today (at the Public Library) to launch their campaign under the slogan ‘People’s Power for Peace.’ This alliance has recognised the need for broad-based support and the Women’s Coalition for Peace is one such group invited to attend the proceedings.
Yet another group - the Sri Lanka Forum for Nuclear Disarmament - also uses Armistice Day to call for a nuclear-free South Asia. The recent nuclear tests of both India and Pakistan have posed new and dangerous levels of security, environmental and economic instability in the region. The dangers of nuclearisation of the Indian Subcontinent has yet to be widely understood by many people in Sri Lanka. Cat’s Eye has been one of the few columns in the media calling attention to the nuclear danger on Sri Lanka’s doorstep. We endorse the Forum’s statement on the issue, given below.
Call for a nuclear-free South Asia
"The Sri Lanka Forum for Nuclear Disarmament views with grave concern the failure of India and Pakistan to defuse mutual nuclear tensions fully six months after their governments carried out nuclear test explosions and exposed the region to new and serious levels of militarism, environmental destruction, political and economic instability and nuclear holocaust. The Forum is also concerned about proposed new installations of nuclear reactors such as the one of Chernobyl vintage in Kundakulum, Tamil Nadu, which poses an immediate and serious security and environmental threat to Sri Lanka.On World Armistice Day (November 11th) which commemorates the veterans of war, The Forum calls for the dismantling of the tools of war. It is a timely occasion to remind ourselves of the urgent need for universal nuclear disarmament and global peace, and the special responsibility that devolves in this regard on the five recognised nuclear weapons-states as well as India and Pakistan. The imperative to keep South Asia a nuclear weapons-free zone has never been more pressing.
The Forum strongly deplores the governments of India and Pakistan for embarking on their nuclear misadventure and destabilising security in the region and the Asian continent as a whole. It will spell a runaway arms face, and enormous increases in already high military spending - to the detriment of development and programmes to alleviate the poverity and deprivation in which large numbers of their citizens live. It will detract from the priorities of health care, education, food security, and housing to which their peoples have an inalienable right.
The Forum calls upon the governments of India and Pakistan to heed their own people - and those of the rest of South Asia - who object to nuclearisation as an affront to humanity. We call for disarmament and an immediate freeze on all nuclear weapons and missile-related developments in the region."
Book Review
A hammer that strikes its fill
By Carl Muller"Navasilu" 15 & 16
Journal of the English Association of Sri Lanka (Jubilee Issue commemorating 50 years of Independence)
Ed. S. W. Perera, pp. 140
Tharanjee Prints, Maharagama. September 1998. Price Rs. 100/-There is a couplet written by John Florio in 1591 which, with beautiful economy, expresses a deep truth:
When you are an anvil, hold you" still,
When you are a hammer, strike your fill.
These lines kept turning in my head when I began to read "Navasilu" and I asked myself why. Surely it would have been more appropriate to think of the flame motif on the cover - the candle "I" with its traditional gini-dalu; the flame that could well represent the free trade in ideas... and this is just what "Navasilu" promises. Yet, the couplet prevailed and I’ll tell you why: because somehow I found a balanced quality of both anvil and hammer moment; some contributions full of power and singleness of purpose, others expressing a kind of patience, a sort of bracing as if for the shock to come. Two qualities, related and finely balanced and, as editor Walter Perera comments, the Journal itself has been as both anvil and hammer. For one thing, Walter reminds, "Navasilu" is the island’s oldest existing literary journal in English. Its anvil moments may have been, as Walter says, that after its establishing not long after the insurgency of 1971, it "survived two communal riots’ a second JVP uprising, assassinations, bombings, political transformations and the demoralizing ethnic conflicts that still continue."
Sensitive as it is to these "burning issues", "Navasilu" has struck out. Every anvil moment gave way to the striking fullness of the hammer - or should I say many hammers in the hands of many writers. A rather strange (uneasy?) contemplation. An anvil that explodes into a myriad hammers! Strike-back sparks!
What is necessary to say also, is that concerns, be they social, political and the consequences of conflict, fundamentalism, the clash of cultures and totalitarianism makes for new offensives in writing, makes poetry enormously popular, makes eyes open wider to the cauldron that seethes and bubbles in this country. In this respect I must first turn to mother and daughter, Jean and Parvathi Arasanayagam because somehow, the messages they convey are not of that honeyed class of English poetry but carry, oh, so insidiously, that note of disillusioned cynicism that immediately appeals to all intelligent people who want to see things as they are.
Jean, as we know, is never found in a rut even of her own making. She continues to break the poetical fashions of the moment with every new piece she produces. She may convey at times that mood of futility, the thought that the wheels of civilization are running down with the application of those savage brakes by those who rise, pompous, in the drought of their vain existence. Well may she question the patterns that exist in social behaviour as Eliot did when he asked:
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish?Parvathi relies, and rightfully so, on fresh experiments and a great release of imaginative energy. In this Journal, her two poems, "The City Breathes Life" and "Morning Walk" (can I say the first of life contained, the other of life in motion?) are as hammer blows on the narrow and stifling conventions of the past. There are no illusions about the nature of the city, no illusions about her place in the real-ness of being humanity’s slave. The lines are picture-perfect and surely sing of the secret feelings of every worker, stepping out, careless of the grasses singing in the dew, only aware of what must be done, however distasteful, because it is the unpleasant that is always the midpoint of survival.
Jean’s mental exploration results in explosions of the reality of the here and now, for, as she asks in her half-angry, half-sorrowful "So My Ancestors Had Names" about the futility of history’s accretions and her own blood that is but "wine from a past inheritance." Is all this of real significance as "the gouging finger of time" gives no sense of belonging and all is changed? This offering conveys, surely, what Wilfred Owen also asked -
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
It is very significant that this Journal also carries three of the late Richard de Zoysa’s hitherto unpublished poems. As: Walter says, {De Zoysa’s presence in these pages not only serves as a grim reminder of what transpired during, perhaps, the darkest period in the country’s history, but the poems themselves demonstrate what he could have achieved as a creative writer had he been allowed a full career "
The poems are taut - as taut as pent-up emotion with neither over-exaggeration nor over-elaboration. What appeals is the central idea behind his art because he demands that there be a disappearance of class, of distinction and a raising of real humanity and a real (not affected) realism. There is nothing of the humbugging nonsense of the fascist theorist. All he wished to do was create atmosphere that cut off the legs of moral hypocrisy and proclaim the richness of ordinary existence. What is so important is the choice of words in the creation of image. In "A Dawning" one sees how the words create their own highly-charged sexual image:
Her rump pale and
Smoothly gleaming,
Magnificent through the open door
Was the first thing
I saw arising.It is the last word of that last line that makes the entire image so complete. Arising. Waking up. What is awoken? What rises? And when the first line is said and that last word is also said, will one dare to take away the first "1" from "arising"?
In "Love’’, too, one is mesmerized by the shock of it all, the zap, the thunderclap, the unreasoned, unquestioned, unconfined collision of real love where gut and groin are the terminals that race the dynamo of sense and passion. It is love again, leopard and leopardess in "Anthropological Treatise", and here the raging is that of yellow and black, a searing desire and the flaming of hide to hide.
Other offerings are from Anne Ranasinghe, Gamini Seneviratne, Alfreda de Silva, Shiromi and Ashley Halpe. It will be hard to devote "equal time", I’m afraid, but Anne has given us two effective distillations, and, alas, another blast from the Wehrmacht. It would be well to remind that the massacre of the Jews was the cumulative result of the Great Depression which, in 1930, spurred support for the Nazis. Hitler came to power in a political deal which combined his forces with those of big business, Junker landowners, nationalist and conservative politicians. It did not take long for the establishment of his reign of terror. Who will write of the broader picture? World War II made sure that 35 million human beings would no longer walk the earth. Yes, six million Jews were exterminated. So were six million Poles and six million Russians. And what happened when it was all over? A new totalitarianism stepped into menace the world!
Gamini Seneviratne needs no introduction. His "faceless forces" crawl all over his poem, "Of Guilt", reminding us of our own wooden attitudes, our wooden consciences, a dispassionate, stone-faced disregard of the carnage around us. Musical shows and bicycle races, beauty contests and marketing conferences while the newspapers give us statistics and there is nobody to kick us in the balls!
Shiromi Fernando gives us a rosary of University ills where Los Angeles and Colombo could well compare notes and there is little else but red versus cream and slash versus mush riot versus self-containment, all elegantly shaped, nevertheless.
Ashley Halpe’s "Pasan - A Threnody for Sri Lanka" is too well known to dwell but briefly on and here he does nod to Anne Ranasinghe because when we are engulfed by horror it is evil to forget. Sadly, the horror of times but just passed still haunt us and the spectres gibber at our shoulders and the skulls scream ‘Why!’ even as they lie separated from their blood-slimed bodies.
Of another mood is Kamala Wijeratne with her thoughts of young love, the gossamer kind, and again’ her reflections on the strange class system of the cemetery:
The living had with’ meticulous care
Assured, the dead slept in their disparate places
And did not cohabit even in death.Five pieces of fiction lead off with R. M. S. Menike-Silva’s "The Snake" - 1 a fine study in disparity and a question that cries for an answer. Does the Buddhist wife hold fast to the Christian fear of the snake and the Christian husband wish the creature no harm as he holds to the Buddhistic sanctity of life? It is the wife who kills the snake, a beautiful snake. Again, the snaky evil of the incubus is well told in Chandani Lokuge’s "Mohini", while Punyakante Wijenaike tells of the mind-tearing evil a soldier faces while he wonders whether it would be lucky to be killed first or to kill as is expected of him. Quite startling is "Those Left Behind" by Neil Fernandopulle. What does a wife tell her son about his dead father? She can talk to him, tell him how she resents him but nothing, not love, not hate, not tears, not laughter, can affect the dead. How, then, can she explain herself?
Two dramas by Senaka Abeyratne and Madhubashini Ratnayake give us two sides of, can I say, a collective kind of hatred. The first, "Salim’s Choice" certainly is, but Madhubashini is as subtle as ever, allowing us to piece together the wishful thoughts of a death-wisher. I cannot ignore Alfreda de Silva either who gives us such a contrast of sun-scorched beggar girl and the dark goddess of a heavy ridded museum, making of its darkness a travesty of the grime of a heated city. But there is darkness in the beggar’s eyes too - a museum darkness - and she is the only desperate exhibit.
The articles are superb, especially Chelva Kanagunayakam’s reading of "Funny Boy" and Rajiva Wijesinha’s assessment of Naipaul’s Indian Travelogues. Nothing Ruskin Bondish about Naipaul, certainly. Carmen Wickremage’s review of "The Sandglass" and the Lost Eden motif may give Romesh Gunasekera some unease while Suresh Canagarajah does a sort of serious Sooty Banda with his piece on bilingualism. Also, we have Lakshmi de Silva’s translations from the "Siyabaslakara", the "Virith Vakaya" and the "Dae Vinaya".
As Walter says, any charges of insularity are dismissed with the inclusion of contributions by Richard Vaughan, a Toronto poet, and Kaiser Haq, a poet from Bangladesh. Other reviews in this Journal are of Peter Adamson’s "Facing Out to Sea" by Walter himself and of Regi Siriwardena’s "Among My Souvenirs" by Nihal Fernando.
Quite peculiarly, I think, a certain Carl Muller has been given the works by Dushyanti Mendis and Vasuki Walker and this same peculiar fellow has contributed a short story that is as stilted as a jacana on a lily pad. Oh well!
But this is a truly wonderful Journal that should be in every school library. If the least could be said, it offers an exciting romp through the kammala with the hammer and anvil making for that perfect balance of patience and strength. I wish you good reading.
