The Rajpal Abeynayake Column

The Rajpal Abeynayake Column By Rajpal Abeynayake

Advocating the flat earth theory - again
Tony Blair is supposed to be in a big soup because no WMD's were discovered in Iraq, but there is no real way in this world that Tony Blair can get into a soup. The world is a stage.

In Tokyo, when the Tigers do their non- event number, it will be a stage. When George.W. Bush takes his rather gauche strides onto that helicopter from wherever he is on the map, he is on stage.

Tony Blair is also on stage, and it will be difficult for any politician to upstage him as long has he has agreed to hog that stage, jointly with George. W. Bush. These two political cultures do not bisect, they say -- the world political culture and the Sri Lankan political culture. Therefore analysts strictly keep these two things apart - when they want to bash Saddam Hussein they will take a separate page for it, and when they want to bash Prabhakaran they will take another two pages for its somewhere else, preferably in a different edition.

But what's the use sanitising realpolitik? The Sri Lankan conflict is an internationally played farce, and so is all the humbuggery that goes on by the name of post war Iraqi reconstruction etc etc., Two humbugs should fit together, eminently.

On the Sri Lankan issue, the conflict necessarily has to be seen within the Sri Lankan context. Says who? Says all the political analysts who will get up on the podium on command, and give a comprehensive analysis, quips barbs pot-shots and all. The Sri Lankan problem they say is home-grown, and has to fit into a Sri Lankan compartment.

But this is as linear a view of politics as there can be - - and to see the Sri Lankan conflict in these linear terms is as absurd as advocating a flat earth theory with a in-your-face satellite picture of the globe right before your eyes.

But the media, and various political analysts of all assortments, for one reason or the other have to take this linear view of politics, and this goes for that whole Saddam rumpus as it does for the Prabhakaran kollopan.

A lot of the analysts for instance cannot talk of the oil factor in the politics of the Middle East, at least not in concrete terms with facts figures and historical dimension to boot. For instance, there has been a history of US governments toppling foreign regimes, for the sake of oil, and this is acknowledged now even in an elementary rendition of recent US history. Case in point was in Iran, when the Shah was installed.

But this fact cannot be talked about in making a real assessment of the situation in the Middle East, in connection with the war on terror and the war that was waged to oust Saddam Hussein. Talking about these things normally violate the rules of the media game, which are pre arranged, even though they may be unwritten.

The rules of the game say that all analysis of the Middle Eastern political scenario, and the war on terror and all that is associated, has to be done within what is given and what meets the eye. Talking of the former US proclivity to oust regimes for the sake of vast oil reserves does not qualify. You talk about these things, and you will be relegated to the lunatic fringe, where no serious political analyst worth his research grant will ever tread.

So it is with the Sri Lankan problem. The current analysis will be that the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE are engaged in a protracted wrangle over the matter of an Interim Administration for the North and the East. The truth of course -- and the fact that the LTTE will not participate in the donor conference in Japan is also the truth.

But the greater truths are that the international community is willing to go only some distance in forcing the hand of the LTTE, and that the international community is not all that it appears to be, either to the Sri Lankan government or to the LTTE. These days for instance, there is a sideward reference to the fact that India did not want the Sri Lankan government to offer a substantial Interim Administration to the LTTE.

The issue here in this article is not whether India did or did not bring its influence to bear upon the Sri Lankan leadership - the issue rather is why this so called Indian influence gets only marginal treatment in the news.

It is because of the unwritten covenant that news needs to be analysed within the agreed parameters. Now, this is not to say that no political analyst is going to talk of India and its influence on the issue of the Interim Administration now or in the future. Analysts may talk about that issue until all the cows come home including the holy cows around the South Bloc, but the fact is that all this analysis will be within the confines of a separate space that is assigned for this discourse.

Meanwhile, the day to day political reporting will go on as if the international community is only a benevolent bystander in the whole Sri Lankan issue --- a dispassionate giver of aid and largesse.

The linear analysis on the whole peace issue is that the Tigers will erupt, declare war and do the whole repeat performance, because of instant displeasure over the Interim Administration and the whole Tokyo situation.

The Tigers may burn some boats no doubt, and that can be taken both literally and figuratively. The rest of the story however, is not part of the linear political dimension, that is news commentary or regular political analysis.

There is no need for abstraction. There is no telling who is backing the Tigers, who among the international community want the Tigers to declare war or hold their horses. Even if the Tigers take that decision on their own, the Tigers may know a lot of things that the average political analyst or news commentator will not know - - and will not even begin to discuss.

For instance, the Tigers may know, definitely, that the US will never annihilate them. Take that 'may' to be heavily underlined. But the real history between the United States and the Tigers for instance, no political analyst will know, even if his name was as famous as Mervyn De Silva, or J. N. Dixit.

So, back to the recent Americanism, being as we are on this runaway train of today's great political imponderables. Sometimes, we are, as some American potentate said quite idiotically, 'in the region of unknown unknowns.'

No political analyst will be able to tell you exactly what America will do with regard to the Tigers, for instance, and that just for starters. But the problem is that just because that is so - most political analysts talk about the whole Sri Lankan issue as if the Americans do not even count, and it is all about what Prabhakaran and Wickremesinghe decide in that Interim document. For those who want to see it that way, here is wishing luck.

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