Eric the Viking and Susantha the Vikingslayer
While doing some research online today, I came across the conference material (pdf) from WAPS' (World Alliance for Peace in Sri Lanka) Road Maps to Peace in Sri Lanka-conference, held in Oslo, August last year. You may not be familiar with WAPS. Despite a benign sounding name, WAPS is a organization full of phlegm and bile, spewing out anti-Tamil propaganda and reeking of post-colonial paranoia. Their roadmaps to peace all follow the path of anihillation of the LTTE.
What particularily caught my attention was the article eloquently named "Eric the Viking - Deconstructing Solheim", written by Dr. Susantha Goonatilake, previously printed in The Sunday Times. In this piece Dr. Goonatilake reveals how our Norwegian messenger of peace is nothing but the devil in disguise. And how does he manage this? Never underestimate the power of googling!
The text is short, but if you don't have the bandwith to download the whole pdf-file which includes all the texts from the conference, let me repeat some of the golden nuggets.
After revealing that Solheim supported military action against Milosevic and condemned Kissinger and Pinochet, who he makes seem like girl scouts compared to Prabhakaran (founder and head of the LTTE), he brings to our attention that "Solheim is also concerned about the spread of a racist party in Norway and wants to isolate it" (I assume he is referring to FrP), BUT "in Sri Lanka he befriends the most racist party, the LTTE". You can call LTTE a lot of things, i.e. ruthless and war hungry, but when it comes to racism they fall considerably short of matching the Sinhalese chauvenist JVP.
Here is my favourite paragraph, though: "Solheim has also been against Norway joining the European Union (EU). He campaigned heavily against Norwegian entry when a referendum was held on it. But the EU today backs this political enemy of the European Union in his intervention in Sri Lanka. They consider him their representative. Apparently it is not his ideas that count for EU support but like the colonialists of yore, him being European. Europe uber alles, Hitler might have echoed" (emphasize added by me).
How about that!
Goonatilake goes on showing how the man has no morals, refering to Solheim's autobiography where he admits having used his children to obtain positive media coverage, and even worse, that he sold the details of his divorce to the gutter press. "In Sri Lanka, the practise of the sensationalist press does not exist. So Sri Lankans might not fully understand this act of prostitution", he comments. Hmm.. I have yet to discover press in Sri Lanka that is not sensationalist.
Did I say that that previous bit was my favourite paragraph? I changed my mind, this is my favourite part- this is where it gets hysterical: "The Norwegian constitution demands that all its officials know the Norwegian language (!), forbid their citizens to change their religion from Lutheranism (!!) and its government restricts the economic rights of the Saami people. Sri Lanka has no equivalent for these discriminatory acts. But now Norway wants to interfere in our country. For our good they say, in their missionary zeal. 'White man, he talk with forked tounge'." I wonder if he is aware that Norway has a federal system with regard to the Saamis, similar to what the Tamils want in the north and the east of Sri Lanka. And as for discriminatory acts: what about making Sinhala the only national language? What about "the standardisation" of university admissions, imposed to cut back the number of Tamils in the universities? What about irrigating land along the Mahaweli River, lands that Tamils claim as their traditional homelands, and giving it solely to Sinhalese colonists? What about covertly supporting the communal riots against Tamils in 1983 and never even appologize to, let alone compensate, the thousands of Tamils in the south that lost everything? No, I suppose Sri Lanka has no equivalent to those discriminatory acts.
So who is this Susantha Goonatilake? Let's google back!
This biography reveals that "Dr. Susantha Goonatilake was first trained in electrical engineering in Sri Lanka, Germany and Britain and later in sociology in Sri lanka and Britain." According to this he is currently employed in America and has previously taught at several research institutes in Asia, Europe and America. Still, his literature is flagrantly post-colonial and anti-imperialistic. For someone so antagonistic to western culture and academia he sure seems to be enjoying being a part of it. And electrical engineering and sociology? Geez.. he must have a waivering personality and is obviously wholly incapable of sticking to his decissions.
Goonatilake has lectured in Norway too, more specifically at the University of Trondheim, where one of his books was reviewed by this man, proving he has an affinity for bold, bearded and bespectacled men (no offence meant Prof Jones). Could it be that it is this pent up homosexual lust that drives him from country to country, from university to university, never giving him peace, forcing him to lash out at whoever or whatever is in his way that makes him feel inferior and insecure? Quite likely, quite likely.
Ah.. the power of Google.
/haakon/
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9 comments:
Dude you gotta be kidding me.
I don't know who Susantha is.I agree with most of the stuff you wrote about Sinhalese and JVP,too.
LTTE is less racist??What have you been smoking ?
And Susantha is gay because he wrote something you don't agree with?heheh ;-))
Clearly Dr. Susantha Goonatilake has hit a nerve here Haakon. Ranting and raving can relieve a lot of stress, but in the end it's not worth it ;)
Are you aware that the LTTE has ethnically cleansed the areas it controls of all Sinhalese and Muslims?
Is it not racism to give 24 hours for Muslims to leave their traditional homes in the north and flee to the south?
It it not racism to demand a separate state based purely on ethnicity and the idea that different ethnic groups cannot live together in peace?
Are you aware that the LTTE is composed entirely of Tamils while the JVP has members of all ethnic groups in it?
Are you aware that the LTTE coducts its affairs only in Tamil while the JVP uses both Sinhalese and Tamil?
Dr. Susantha Goonatilake has written a great article.
Can you point out what in the conference is exactly "anti-Tamil propaganda" as you claim?
You said:
"...never even appologize to, let alone compensate, the thousands of Tamils in the south that lost everything?"
Have you really been following Sri Lankan affairs? Perhaps you should inform yourself better:
Sri Lanka probes claims of ethnic violence that triggered civil war
Sri Lanka on Thursday deployed 59 investigators to probe violence against ethnic minority Tamils in riots that triggered the country's civil war more than 20 years ago.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/050505/ap/d89su9o03.html
[1]The Norwegian constitution demands that all its officials know the Norwegian language
-- Is this true today Haakon?
[2]forbid their citizens to change their religion from Lutheranism
-- is this true today?
[3]government restricts the economic rights of the Saami people
-- is this true today?
If any of these are true, then that is certainly something that Noray ought to look into.
Regardless of how much the LTTE is, sucks. This guy Susantha is racist and flat out wrong. Norwegians are here as friends and he says this:
"Till this war is won, every Norwegian has to be seen as a potential spy. We must treat them politely, but look at them with suspicion."
What the fk is this? This is just racism. People are people, man. Rampant nationalism and xenophobia gets us nowhere. Closer to Burma and North Korea, but fuck that.
I have also heard that this one blonde girl at Clancy's is Norwegian and she is well fit. Honestly, kicking out the Norwegians would be a problem.
The Island
May 6, 2005
The Myth of ‘enforced colonization in the N-E’
by Cecil Dharmasena
(Formerly of the Agriculture Department and Mahaweli Authority)
Under the caption "The ravages of war", Prof. S. R. Hoole comes up with the statement "The colonization schemes of the north-east bring to the fore the choices that face individuals, The government forced Sinhala settlers in the north- east after displacing Tamil villagers through terror" (The Island, 22.04.2005).
Instead of making such irresponsible statements, Prof. Hoole should substantiate his contention with facts to prove that Sinhalese were "forced" to settle in the north and east and that Tamils were actually displaced in the process, especially under the D. S. Senanayake government which undertook most of the irrigation schemes.
For Prof. Hoole’s information, his so-called ‘north-east’ (actually the north and east provinces are yet legally separate entities) was occupied by Sinhalese for thousands of years until the Dutch and later the British introduced cheap South Indian labour for Tobacco cultivation thus gradually displacing the Sinhalese from these regions.
Prof. H. should read H. W. Codrington ("Ancient Land Tenure and Revenue in Ceylon", 1938), Rev. S. Guanaprakasa ("Ceylon Antiquary", Vol. II, 1971), C. W. Nicholas ("Historical Topography of Ancient and Medieval Ceylon" , RAS,’ Vol VI 1963), S. O. Canagaratnam (Monograph of the Batticaloa District, 1921), Prof. G. H. Peiris (An Appraisal of the Concept of a Traditional Tamil Homeland in Sri Lanka, ICES. Vol. IX, No. 1. 1991), and Prof. K. M. De Silva (Separatist Ideology in Sri Lanka- A Historical Appraisal., ICES, 1994) and many others who have written extensively on the north and east -and quite categorically state that these were originally Sinhala areas.
Later, the central hills were forcibly colonized with South Indian Tamil labour by the British. In both above waves of enforced colonization, it was the Sinhalese who were forcibly evicted from their traditional homelands in the north, the east and subsequently in the central hills. Nobody seems to acknowledge this horrendous injustice caused to the Sinhalese in their own ancestral lands.
Prof. K. Indrapala, who is incidentally a Tamil Professor of History of Jaffna University, writing on "Early Tamil Settlements in Ceylon" (RAS, Vol. XIII) categorically states that the Sinhalese predated the Tamils in the Jaffna ‘a peninsula. S. O. Canagartnam in his "Monograph of the Batticaloa District" (1921) states that the whole of Batticaloa was part of the Kandyan Kingdom with populous Sinhala villages and Batticaloa was called "Puliyanduwa" (not the Tamilized "Mattakalappoo" which was coined recently during the British rule).
F. D. A. Vincent of the Indian Forest Service, -writing on the "Administration of Crown Forests in Ceylon" (Sessional Paper XLIII 1882) mentions that settlement of Tamils gradually spread down the east coast, thus displacing the Sinhalese who were forced to migrate to the interior and earn a precarious existence through chena cultivation and hunting. He further states that the settlers form only coastal settlements. Mind you, this was barely 125 years ago. So much for traditional "Tamil homelands" in the east!
I mention the above facts to prove that 200 years ago there were hardly any Tamils in the Wanni and in the east and that the vast majority of the present day Tamil population in these regions are descended from the South Indian Tamils who were settled by the Dutch and the British for Tobacco cultivations, jungle clearing and road building. The main agencies responsible for ‘import of this labour were the Dutch East India Co., the British East India Co. and the Jaffna Agricultural Co.
Colonial records are very clear on this issue. Therefore, we see that all settlement schemes under renovated and even newly designed irrigation tanks are on ancient Sinhala occupied lands where tanks had been built by Sinhala Kings. There is no record of any such tank or irrigation scheme having been built under any Tamil ruler anywhere in the north or east. The one-inch-to-a-mile topographical maps of the north, and east show thousands of ‘abandoned ancient irrigation tanks’ which indicate the industry of Sinhala Kings and also establish the fact that these were thousands of Sinhala villages,
The above facts also show that settlement of Sinhalese under renovated or newly designed irrigation projects did not displace a single Tamil. On the contrary, large numbers of Tamils and Muslims had been settled during colonial times under the Gantalwa tank rehabilitation scheme (later Tamilized to "Kantalai"), under Rugama scheme (later Tamilized to "Rukam") and Unnichchiya scheme (Tamilized to "Unnichchil") etc., in the east.
Even D.S.Senanayake’s Gal Oya scheme accommodated more Tamil and Muslim settlers (i.e., 28.2% and 46.6% respectively) than Sinhala settlers (only 25.2%). And all Sinhalese were settled only in the fully Sinhala Wewagain Pattu of Ampara districts Thus, not a single Tamil was displaced, On the contrary, far more Tamils and Muslims (together 74.8% of the settlers) benefited from the Gal Oya project. Another little known fact was that the Gal-Oya reservoir (Senanayake Samudra) lies fully in the Moneragala district and its waters inundated hundreds of ancient Sinhala villages while this water benefited mostly Tamils and Muslims downstream.
Around Padawiya, Wahalkada, Weli Oya, Morawewa, Gomarankadawela and other such irrigations schemes and settlements close to Trinco and Mullativu, not a single Tamil was displaced since there were no Tamils in these areas to begin with. Even in colonial times these were totally Sinhala areas.
For the benefit of Tamils in the North, 25 irrigation settlement schemes were developed (e.g. Iranamadu, Muthyankaddu, Akkarayan kulams Vavuni kulam etc.). When applications were called for the Kantale scheme extensions from Tamils, hardly any applied. They had enough lands for themselves. Most of the Muslims in the east (Batticaloa to Pottuvil in the south) are descendents of the Muslims settled there by King Senarath of Kandy in 1626 when they were persecuted and expelled by the Portuguese from the west coast.
The British under their divide and rule policy blatantly discriminated against and persecuted the Sinhalese evicting then and planting more and more Indian Tamils in the north, east and finally in the central hills. It was their way of seeking revenge after the anti British uprisings of 1818/1819 and again in 1848.
Today, the few Sinhalese living in these areas form a discriminated minority in their own ancestral lands and suffer under the jackboot of the LTTE, the. SLMC and the CWC. During the 1970’s. large scale Indian (estate) Tamil settlements were established in the Wanni by Jon Westborg of Redd Barna. This Norwegian operation was hurriedly and illegally carried out as a planned operation to increase the Tamil percentage in the Wanni, About 250,000 Indians (from Galaha and other such estates in the central districts) who were to be repatriated to India under the Srima-Shastri pact were thus clandestinely settled by this NGO. I have personally seen the vast jungle clearing that took place in the Mankulam area (on either side of the A 9 highway) during my official work in the north and Wanni during this time, Today, these vast numbers provide the base for the LTTE ‘army’!
According to Capt. Aitcheson’s report of 1833, Gantalawa (Kantale) village consisted of 20 Sinhala families. There were no Tamils there in 1833, unlike today. A common argument put forth by Eealmists is that there were more Tamils in the Eastern Province in 1827 and they also take the 1921 figures to show the increase of Sinhalese in the EP (ie., 4.5% in 1921 and 24.9% in 1981). This, they argue is due to "Sinhala State-aided colonization) which they consider an "invasion" of their historical homeland.
In 1827, there was no Eastern Province (Provinces and District being formed only in 1833). The census figures for 1827 are for coastal "Collectorates" and "Agencies" which were demarcated areas for revenue collection by the British. Such areas did not include interior Sinhala villages and thus, most Sinhalese were not counted.
Increase of Sinhalese between 1921 and 1981 is not only due to colonization, but also due to migration of Sinhalese to Trinco and Ampara urban areas after independence. But, as shown earlier, the colonization by Sinhalese who had a paucity of lands in the south, and under state funded irrigation projects in areas originally occupied by then and without displacing a single Tamil in the process (as explained in detail above) is a totally justifiable exercise. To say that revered leaders of this country such as D. S. Senanayake "forced" Sinhalese people to settle in the irrigation schemes he built is a sin to say the least.
Whatever Prof. Hoole’s specialty is he certainly does not seem to know basic history of this country. He should be more careful in making such sweeping and misleading statements in future.
yo, anon, don't cite The Island in my presence, and def don't do it anonymously. this is the newspaper that recently printed a two-week-long article about my beloved host institution calling them "intellectual coolies" and "ICE$" because they dared to, gasp, launch a new journal.
The Island is the worst of the sensationalistic Lankan press... you can't even sell your stories to them because as far as I can tell their content stragegy is to get some old guys together, drink a couple bottles of kasippu, head outside, hitch up the ol' sarongs, take a nice long piss and then wake up hungover the next morning and attempt to interpret the withered patterns in the grass.
that was a rather pointless and long-winded and unfunny comment.
anyway haakon, amen, yeah. i eagerly await news of the JVP's magical inclusiveness.
yo, anon, don't cite The Island in my presence, and def don't do it anonymously. this is the newspaper that recently printed a two-week-long article about my beloved host institution calling them "intellectual coolies" and "ICE$" because they dared to, gasp, launch a new journal.
The Island is the worst of the sensationalistic Lankan press... you can't even sell your stories to them because as far as I can tell their content stragegy is to get some old guys together, drink a couple bottles of kasippu, head outside, hitch up the ol' sarongs, take a nice long piss and then wake up hungover the next morning and attempt to interpret the withered patterns in the grass.
that was a rather pointless and long-winded and unfunny comment.
anyway haakon, amen, yeah. i eagerly await news of the JVP's magical inclusiveness.
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