Federalism,
Nationalism and Realism
19 December 2001
The 20th Century has seen to triumph of nationalism over
ideologies, especially internationalist ideologies. Five years after
the October Revolution of 1917, Irish nationalism broke in two, the
state which was then the mother-country of the largest empire on
earth, a state which had emerged victorious from World War I, and
was then the foremost industrial country in the world - Great
Britain. Seventy years later nationalism caused the relatively
peaceful unraveling of the Soviet Empire. It has dissolved
Yugoslavia into 5 ethnic states in a welter of fighting. It has
broken the Czech federation, quite peacefully, into two independent
states. Nationalism is at the heart of most of the world's conflicts
today. Is it nationalism that is to blame or those who oppose it? As
just mentioned, nationalism has given rise to many peaceful
separations. Nationalism is not a structured political philosophy
that can be expressed in measured, objective categories capable of
analytical dissection. It is an emotion grounded in the hearts of
men and women (even children) and it propels them into attitudes and
actions which are either heroic or repulsive, depending on the eye
of the beholder. It is not a "project" (in the intriguing language
of social anthropology); it is more like a "happening" in pop
culture. People do not bid it farewell either formally or informally
- it wears off after the object of its heart's desire is achieved.
While it lasts it is very vital, pumping a lot of adrenaline into
the body politic. It is unquestionably the most potent social and
political force in Sri Lanka and in the purported state of Eelam
today. It is Tamil nationalism that fuels the fire of the LTTE. It
is Sinhala nationalism that spews up the Jathika Chinthanaya, the
Hela Urumaya, the Bhumi Puthras, the Maw Bima Arakshakas, the
Sinhala Arakshaka Sanvidanaya et al. These are the most vital
elements of Sinhala politics today and they have an in-built
immunity to the vitriolic scorn poured upon them by what they regard
as "thuppahi" critics. They will not go away and leave the political
arena to the tired, old, rather long-in-the-tooth political parties
of the first three decades of independence all of whom have their
noses firmly in the pork-barrel and cannot see, and choose not to
see, anything above their heads.
The nationalist movements among the Sinhala people are acutely aware
of a Sinhala nation for which they desire an un-contested
nation-state. The LTTE is acutely aware of a Tamil nation for which
it desires a nation-state. These are birds of the same feather. Both
deny the existence of a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual,
multi-religious, multi-cultural nation. They impliedly deny there is
a single nation-state as the home of that fictitious nation. These
are vigorous, realistic positions - there is nothing hypothetical or
theoretical about them. Admittedly the Sinhala nationalist movements
regard the whole island as the corpus of their nation-state. That,
however, is becoming increasingly divergent from reality. Also it is
becoming clear, in slow degrees no doubt, that the seven
Sinhala-occupied provinces are an uncontested area in which the
Sinhala nation can engage in its own welfare and improvement - and,
indeed, does so in ever increasing measure. The Sinhala nationalist
movements have a higher propensity for change and for grasping
existential reality than the old political parties which are
afflicted with a rampant mediaevalism and are sunk in a folie de
grandeur.
To a keen observer of the Shri Lankan political scene from this
distance - and distance not only lends enchantment to the view but
also adds a satellite-like penetration of the local smog! - there is
absolutely no hope from the old political parties which are in a
permanent political gridlock. The only movement can come from the
new nationalist groups who have no hangers-on to be fed from the
pork-barrel and who empathize with a wide spectrum of Sinhala
society. To them I say in a classic "thuppahi" greeting "AVE" rather
than "VALE".
All of them are incredibly naive and want a military victory over
the LTTE; they are confident of being able to get the LTTE to the
point at which it sues for peace and, as a quid pro quo for peace,
surrenders its arms; and then a return to the status quo ante bellum
followed by the descent of universal benevolence from on high. It is
the business of all thinking and informed people to demonstrate that
this is a fanciful chimaera from beginning to end. The facts of the
military situation, in comparable form with other theatres of such
conflict, must be given wide publicity. The Sinhala people must come
to know that not only is the current 10 to 1 ratio of troops to
guerrillas absurdly insufficient but also that even 100 to 1 will be
of no avail as proven by the British army's experience in Northern
Ireland. The unarmed, rock-throwing intifada of the Palestinians has
lasted for 3 years against a battle-tested Israeli army and there is
no sign of it weakening. No nationalist guerrilla war has ever ended
other than by the establishment of its separate state.
The back page of PRAVADA's issue in question has the Liberal Party
urging a "genuine federalism". Implied, though not explicitly
stated, is the hope that this will be a sufficient quid pro quo for
the LTTE to surrender its arms and quit the armed struggle for a
separate state. This is the wishful thinking of people who do not
have the red blood of nationalism coursing through their veins. It
demonstrates what little understanding they have of people in what
is now de facto a foreign country.
Let us examine the federalism proposition politically rather than
constitutionally - by politically I mean from the point of view of
realpolitik. There cannot be a federation (or any state for that
matter) with two armies in it. So one of the two must needs be
disbanded (and its weapons surrendered) or absorbed into the other.
Either way one must disappear. The LTTE is not a beaten force - it
has proved invincible against both the Indian and Sri Lankan armies.
A federation cannot be imposed - it has to be constructed by a joint
effort of the participants. To expect one party to enter the
federation armed and the other unarmed negates the putative equality
of the participants. Of course, if the Shri Lankan army is disbanded
simultaneously with the forces of the LTTE - "balanced force
reduction to zero" in the disarmament jargon - the formation of a
federation is theoretically possible. (There is one state in the
world without an army - the Central American Republic of Costa Rica)
The sense of outrage and provocation that arises in our breasts at
the mere mention of such a thought is palpable. It should teach us
what the LTTE leaders feel at our oft repeated and unctuous requests
to them to "lay down their weapons" - a risible euphemism for
surrender.
It seems to take us much longer than most other peoples to grasp the
obvious. It is perfectly obvious, and has been proven in case after
case without a single exception in the world's history that once the
armed struggle commences for a state of their own, no form on
constitutional tinkering, including federalism, can buy them off.
The Irish were given successive doses of Home Rule which far from
quenching their desire for total sovereign independence fanned the
flames of that desire. In India, with the Irish experience fresh to
mind and hoping to avoid an armed struggle, successive British
government gave ever-increasing degrees of independence to local
elected politicians by a series of constitutional reforms in the
first four decades of this century only to find that they had
whetted the Indian appetite for sovereign independence. It was
exactly the same in the colony of Ceylon. The proposition that some
kind, any kind, of devolution of power to some form of local
legislative and executive bodies in the north-east will buy off the
LTTE and wean it away from their armed struggle for a separate,
sovereign state of their own is pure, undiluted delusion. There is
not an atom of rational possibility in it.
The very nature and language of the Sinhala discourse on the subject
shows how far we have gotten ourselves from reality. There is a
constant talk of "giving" something to the Tamil people - one-third
of the land and two-thirds of the coastline is a favourite
formulation ignoring the fact that the Tamil people have had them
centuries and have them to this day; at other times we want to
"devolve" some powers to them ignoring the fact that they have
resolved to rule themselves in the homeland in which they live and
do not require any powers "devolved" on them for that matter. At
still other times we declare fervently that we desire to meet
"legitimate" Tamil aspirations by which we mean such of their
aspirations as we regard to be "legitimate". There never is the
slightest hint of an understanding on our part that there is another
party to all this who wants nothing from us but has decided,
unilaterally, to rule themselves in what they regard to be their
homeland and do not require either our permission or consent. These
simple facts utterly defy our comprehension - reality has become a
terra incognita.
There are occasional calls for a return to righteousness. Far more
important and urgent is the return to reality - to a clear-eyed
perception of our best interests in the light of the manifest
reality of the existence of a neighboring state on the island, with
which we must come to terms and live in peace.
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