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It was the night that Britain’s fight to promote free speech died in the Oxonian and Camrian dust. The night bells tolled for a spirit fled, an indomitable spirit that had doggedly remained in residence within both unions’ debating halls.

Why the spirit – whose ancestry can be traced back to the 1820s – took flight from its hallowed shrines was its unwillingness to reside in either of the union’s halls, since it had yielded its time-honoured principle to promote free speech at the first whiff of a grapeshot.

Depressed and disgusted at this unbecoming conduct of these two unions strongly linked and limited exclusively by membership to the ancient academic groves of Oxford and Cambridge, it had departed rather than remain inside a sanctum so disgraced.

AN UNDERDOG IN LONDON: Shunned by Oxford and Cambridge Unions after inviting him to England and dropping him like a hot potato when things turned too hot to handle, Namal and his wife Lahiri share a happy moment with his father’s old friend, Lord Naseby

The Cambridge Union had been the first to have fallen victim to the coward’s disease now rampant in the sceptred isle, ready to bend its willing knee to every diaspora group’s raised placard and pathetic whine.

The despicable fall from its dignified state – the exalted status of a nation before whose conquering sword enslaved races once bowed and obeyed – emerged after it was publicly revealed that the letter of invite issued to a Lankan opposition MP, Namal Rajapaksa, was suddenly cancelled without notice on the eve of his planned flight to London to deliver his speech and answer questions during the debate.

But is Cambridge Union’s decision to cancel its invite in haste, justified in the least? Especially considering the union proudly boasting its heraldry in the invitation letter to assure the Lankan politician, Namal Rajapaksa, that no shadow of any perverse hate he may be accused of bearing towards any race, creed or sex shall be let to fall on its union halls to darken its proceedings or bar his speech?

If cancelling an invite once issued was – as upper-class toffs would call it – in bad form by the Cambridge Union, at least they did it while the invited guest, Namal Rajapaksa, was still packing his bags at home.

But if that was not good enough to mitigate Namal’s profound grief and the ambitious hopes that he might have harboured in his breast, then what Oxford Union did, following in the wayward steps of its lesser-known counterpart, was in utmost bad faith or uberrimae mala fide. Falling victim to the same cowardly Cambridgian fate, it abruptly cancelled the invitation issued to Namal Rajapaksa, not while he was at home but in London itself and virtually standing on the union doorstep.

Consider a few excerpts of Oxford Union’s letter of invitation:

Once the formal pleasantries are done with, it proudly flaunts its 200-year-old ancestry to add a subtle touch of its historical pedigree when it states, ‘The Oxford Union was founded in 1823 by a group of students,’ and declares the Union’s historical purpose by casually saying it was founded for the specific historical purpose of fighting ‘against the University’s restrictive free speech policies.’

Furthermore, it adds the weight of history when it unblushingly boasts its heraldry and says, ‘We are proud to have hosted an incredible range of speakers: from’ global icons Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Albert Einstein to political pioneers Sir Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton, and Henry Kissinger.’

What up-and-coming young leader – as Namal Rajapaksa obviously is – would fail to be spellbound and refuse such an honour extended by the world-renowned Oxford Union’s letter of invitation, which says, ‘We would like to extend the same invitation to you as we endeavour to continue this legacy, allowing our members to hear from, speak to and challenge internationally prominent individuals.’

What young leader wouldn’t like to read his qualities extolled in such glowing terms as the Oxford Union did when it piled the praise with a trowel and laid it thick when its letter of invite said:

‘As the heir to one of South Asia’s most prominent political dynasties and the youngest presidential candidate in Sri Lanka’s 2024 election, you represent a new generation of leadership in the region. Your experience as Minister of Youth and Sports and your continued advocacy for young people would resonate deeply with our members, and we believe your insights on governance, political transitions, and the future of Sri Lanka would make for a compelling address.’

When, as a double treat, the Cambridge Union similarly invited him to lend his voice to mingle and echo with the immortal echoes of the great, who wouldn’t do a double flip to express his incredible joy?

Pray say, why was the man, so encouraged with a surfeit of platitudes laid at his feet, so enticed to grace its union hall with a garland of fulsome praise condescendingly placed around his neck, and why was the young man – hitting 40 next month – held aloft as the emerging voice on South Asia’s landscape brusquely dumped from the high heavens to which both unions had raised the man, as if he were the Epstein of the region, and peremptorily snubbed by cancelling the letters of invitation both unions had voluntarily issued to him, after they had been accepted and duly acted upon by him in utmost good faith?

The answer lies in what the Oxford Union unwittingly wrote of Namal Rajapaksa, describing him as ‘the heir to one of South Asia’s most prominent political dynasties’.

Little did the union realise that this apt description contained the seed of inflamed hate, so potent in its imagined fury that it would lead them to take the dramatic step of abandoning their fight for free speech, forcing them to cancel the invitation and the event in toto, and driving them to remorselessly betray the invited guest speaker, Namal Rajapaksa, who had naively swallowed all the hyperbole they could muster to showcase – in their invitation letter – the quaint grandeur of their halls, with a touch of ancient mystique.

Perhaps they already knew of the mantle that had fallen upon Namal Rajapaksa’s head as the dynasty’s eldest son and heir to his sire’s political throne, but had restrained from trumpeting the fact – that otherwise may have generated greater graduate interest – out of a new alien fear that it may trample upon the tender sensitivities of a handful of Tamil students, claiming to represent the entire Lankan-born Tamil diaspora – nearly 150,000 according to 2021/22 census records – and make them merely threaten to make their protests heard on the busy high streets of London, and running the risk of calling the whole thing off was enough for the unions to surrender their fight for free speech for a while and revive it again when a non-controversial guest speaker came along.

Did not the ranks of Brittainy weep, watching the way the Oxbridge cookie crumbles under the reign of politically correct terror?

The Cambridge Union, having been the first to invite Namal, became the first to cancel the invite.

In a statement issued by its Communications Representative, the Cambridge Union confirmed that it had cancelled the event after “urgent and serious discussions”. A spokesperson said, “At the present moment, we don’t believe it’s possible to have a balanced and open discussion on this subject, and thus our Standing Committee made the decision to cancel this event.’’

‘At the present moment, we don’t believe it’s possible to have a balanced and open discussion on this subject.’ Balderdash!

What is a present moment ripe for debate? Is it one far removed from the hustle and bustle of the cacophonous reality of life? Is it one in a comfortable shady grove beneath a sturdy oak where nothing disturbs save the occasional rustle of the leaves blown by a gentle breeze and one’s thoughts pensively turn to discuss competing viewpoints quietly expressed to stand and fall on their own merits alone?

As for the religious appeal to the explanation, ‘We don’t believe it’s possible,’ isn’t it possible, on the contrary, to seek refuge in a personal fanatical faith and believe the impossible is possible?

As for resorting to the last refuge of those tied up in knots by the long and entangling string of different reasons put forward to conceal their academic cowardice beneath a cloak of scholarship, the cut and thrust of verbal swords is the stuff of vibrant debates; not the balanced and open discussions that start with the premise, ‘much can be said on both sides,’ and end with the conclusion that ‘much can be said on both sides.’

In the exhalated debating halls of both Unions of Oxford and Cambridge, the spirit of free speech must dwell incarnate in an air of untrammelled freedom; not exorcised and banished out of earthly existence by a satanic group of revellers dancing upon the graves of all who fell in the killing fields of Lanka during a 30-year-long senseless internecine war for separatism.

In the midst of both Oxford and Cambridge Unions getting their knickers in a scholarly twist, Namal Rajapaksa, who never asked nor paid nor ever expected in his wildest dreams to be invited to deliver a speech from the same podium that Kadirgamar stood at some 25 odd years ago, should have wondered upon receiving the invitation whether it was a divine instance of Heaven’s malice granting his ambitious prayers.

Firstly, see the unbidden fate that befell him while in London over letters inviting him to deliver speeches at both Oxford and Cambridge and Oxford Unions’ debating halls?

And secondly, he has never been accused of violating human rights nor suspected of any war crimes. That pillory is occupied by his father, Sri Lanka’s celebrated war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Thirdly, if the sins of the parents visit the children, it can be legitimately asked if there is any justice in a world that permits an innocent individual to pay – and even lose his liberty, even his head – for the alleged crimes of another, albeit his sire?

Hadn’t both Oxford and Cambridge – for all the highfalutin esoteric air they feign to liberally breathe – callously cast aside all the injustices meted out to the underdog who had arrived in England at their behest and, while focusing their attention solely on pacifying the agitating minute mob of the Tamil diaspora, shabbily left Namal Rajapaksa to the werewolves of London at midnight on as virtual moonlit night.

Not done, old boy.

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa should make careful note of the events unfolding in London, events which have left Namal Rajapaksa to emerge as one made a martyr in the avenging fires of racial hatred. He should keep track of the man History has clearly marked as one who will prominently figure at the climax of the next election in Sri Lanka.