Mapping the contours of a good year
The metal on metal sound of kotthu rotti being made is hardly appetizing, but from Mannar to Horowapathana to Batticoloa it is one sound that conveys the country's attitude.

Conflict resolution specialists will never talk of kotthu rotti, even though Kumar Rupesinghe is now getting ready to fire some salvoes on the issue of caste. But the sounds of kotthu rotti making cannot be understood by the diapora -- the Tamil diaspora, and what has now come to be known as the Sinhala diaspora in locations as far flung as Perth and San Francisco. Kotthu rotti making is the soul of the nation. Long after Prabhakaran is gone, and there are gargantuan trees that grow on the plot of land under which he is buried, kotthu rotti makers will ply their high decibel trade. When they think of Prabhakaran they will smirk, remembering someone who ran a losing fight agaist kotthu rotti to be most people’s favourite picker-upper when they were down and out and depressed.

The lay of the land is something conflict resolution specialists may understand, but they know nothing about the organic connectivity of life such as kotthu rotti brings to a people. Some people may kill each other on the basis of ethnicity, on the basis of religion and if Kumar Rupesinghe is right, now they are angling for a bit of sideward conflict on the basis of caste also -- but the vast majority still love their kotthu rotti, and if the other, the enemy, gobbles kotthu rotti as they do, they will see that as a sign all should be forgiven.

All this sounds gobbledygook no doubt but there is something I'm trying to get at here - - which is that there is too much gloom and doom scenarios being painted at the beginning of this year. They say the gathering intifada in Jaffna is going to get us - - and one British Guardian correspondent has suggested that aid should be suspended and an arms embargo clapped down on the Sri Lankan state and the Tigers to get both parties to avoid going to war.

Almost everybody agrees that the LTTE wants war. The simple corollary to that should be that if the LTTE wants war there is no point on earth punishing the Sri Lankan government and the people for the LTTE's gnawing inadequacy which is the inability to live for long periods without shedding any blood.

Did the Guardian writer state any of these things by accident?
That's as likely as Eric Solheim deciding to let go of the Sri Lankan peace process of his own choice.

Capitalizing on the perception that was likely to be created by the international media that Mahinda Rajapakse is hardline, the LTTE planned to regain international sympathy. Before doing that, Kadirgamar was assassinated to remove the one last line of defense against that shrewd campaign.

Nobody connects this series of events and sees a plan behind them -- and such a connection is seen least of all by the Sri Lankan strategists. Sri Lankan strategists? That's a breed that has yet to be invented; its still only a good idea.

It's the Americans and the co-chairs that let it slip that the people want peace and the LTTE does not. The relationship between the people of the south and the north-east is organic; it will be organic as long as kotthu rotti lasts, for example, as the staple evening diet on both sides of the geographical divide.

This way, Prabhakaran is only an interregnum. He and the LTTE have created the hard edges that grate between the Sinhala and the Tamil communities. Whoever said these are military strategists?

In the ultimate analysis, Prabhakaran and Thamilchelvan are politicians - - and politicians need enemies, that being true for politicians on both sides of the geographical divide.

The lexicon for the coming year is already being created, even though against all odds it’s still going to be a good year for us. Here are some of the words and concepts that are being invented:

The intifada: The Guardian says there is an intifada brewing in Jaffna. Some intifada. An intifada imposed with claymore mines? But the word intifada being crept into the vocabulary -- now that's the real sinister effort, more potent that the soulless 'intifada' that's being brewed in the Jaffna peninsula ….

Better to go to Oslo than to war: This is the slimiest, most disgraceful but transparent apology entered on behalf of the LTTE, by a well-known NGO collaborator. Solheim thinks that talks should not necessarily be held in Oslo - - but this NGO miserablist does’t thik so. Other than being rewarded for brazenly supporting the LTTE, there is an expected fringe benefit for this citizen Perera here: a free trip to Oslo if and when talks materialize there. They have the best caviar in that city also.

The final assault: The LTTE is said to be on its final assault mode. To the Tamil people in the Wanni, it does begin frighteningly to look like one. More economic hardships, and more patronizing trips by foreign diplomats and fair-haired NGO patrons. If one of these doesn't finish off the spirit of the Tamil people, the other will.

Here is a proposed new lexicon to counter the above evolving one:
Suave internationalism: After an election campaign perceived as anti Norway and sometimes erroneously therefore as anti peace, Mahinda Rajapakse has to walk the tightrope. He can also call Finland to help. The Aech example, particularly after one year’s tsunami commemoration is too glittering a propaganda opportunity to miss.

But Sri Lanka does not have international propaganda effort due to the lack of passable talent in this area. Rajapakse can start by saying that there would have been a repeat Aceh here in Sri Lanka except that the LTTE made use of the tsunami -- to dig deeper into the war effort and not the other way around.

Make political terror equal to terror: Rafiq Hariri's assassination is being investigated as an act of terror. But Lakshman Kadirgamar's is looked upon sometimes as a political killing.

Whose fault is that? Perhaps Jayantha Dhanapala can campaign on the plank that terror is terror. If he does so, he is bound to get all the support from Indonesia. Perhaps even the Thais, facing terrorism in the South of Thailand will throw in their lot with him!

Concretization: If the Sri Lankan state had a strategy, it's decided in ten places. The first realization, that the state had not understood the enemy, can now belatedly dawn on the local strategists. Nothing works in the LTTE's scheme of things by accident, and half of its strategy is trumped up, for instance the creation of a psychosis that a hard-line Sinhala President calls for a war.

In the first place the Sinhala President is hugging the middle ground -- in the second place, the war is beginning to look not like a war at all but like the attacks on the London trains. A twelve-year-old boy detonated a claymore mine. It's not a hard-line President then, and this is not a war either. Can the Sri Lankan state inject that message cohesively into the international mainstream media??

Back to Top

Back to Columns

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.