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Selected Writings
Brian Senewiratne, Australia
Adrian Wijemanne � an Appreciation
by a fellow Sinhalese
28 July 2006
[see also Fr. Chandiravarman Sinnathurai -
In Gratitude: Adrian Wijemanne
and Selected Writings - Adrian
Wijemanne ]
This is not an obituary. There are more informed people who can
write one. This is just a �Thank You� to a fellow Sinhalese who has risen
above the ethnic chauvinism that has consumed my people. A �Thank you� for being
a shining light in the darkness of Sinhalese ignorance, and for the example and
encouragement to those of us who have supported the struggle of the Tamil people
to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth. A
�Thank you� for trying to save Sri Lanka from physical and economic destruction.
I once wrote, �It makes me proud to be a Sinhalese because it is the ethnic
group to which Adrian Wijemanne belongs�.
My knowledge of him is meagre.
He graduated in the University of Ceylon (in European, Indian and Ceylon
History) and then passed the examination of the prestigious Ceylon Civil
Service, where he worked for 14 years, the last five as Deputy Land
Commissioner. After a varied career in both the public and the private sectors,
he worked in Switzerland and the Netherlands in charitable foundations,
financial institutions and the World Council of Churches. He retired to
Cambridge, UK.
I know little else of the man whom I met just once, in
2001, when I was invited to London to address the International Tamil Foundation
on The Abuse of Democracy in Sri Lanka. Adrian had addressed this group twice.
The organizers offered to pay my passage from Australia but I said it would not
be necessary as long as someone took me to see Adrian.
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l to r: Brian Senewiratne, Jeyam Thamotheram,
Adrian Wijemanne and S.Sivanayagam |
So, three of us, the late
Jeyam
Thamotheram, the doyen of expatriate Tamils in the UK,
Subramanium
Sivanayagam, one of the finest and most courageous journalists Sri Lanka has
produced, and I, were driven to Cambridge. A photograph of this unique meeting
of two Sinhalese and two Tamils, all working for the same cause, has been
published in Siva�s monumental work,
Witness to History. (I am ashamed of the shirt I wore. It was not meant for
publication!) Adrian had an enormous advantage over us, lesser
mortals, because of his extensive knowledge of History. While I struggled with a
background in Medicine, Adrian could see the problem in Sri Lanka from an
enlightened perspective. In an article I wrote for his 80 birthday, I said that
he �has written more sense than any Sinhalese I know�. His observations and
suggestions vis a vis the problems in Sri Lanka and their solution, have been
outstanding.
While those of us with inadequate knowledge struggled to
come up with a solution to problems in a country with two separate armies,
Adrian had the answer, which he set out in his Unitary State, Federation,
Confederation and Union � A personal experience. He summarized his life and wide
experience in several countries.
The first 23years were in the colonial
state, Ceylon, under imperial rule. He ��cannot recall any sense of oppression
during that time though towards the end of that period I did desire independence
in the sure and certain conviction that life would be better if we were
independent.�
The next 25 years were in independent Ceylon. He describes
the �mounting sense of disillusionment on the poor quality governance and the
rising tide of physical violence in affairs of state. The newly independent
State attempted to function like the former colonial state by exercising State
power by military means. No one, myself include, seemed to understand that the
new State needed to be founded upon the freely given consent of the governed
rather than coercion.�
The next three years were spent in the world�s only Confederation,
Switzerland. �The classical difference between a Federation and a Confederation
is that in the latter all power vested in the constituent States of the
Confederation except those ceded by the constituent States to the Federal
central government�.
The next 10 years (from 1977) were in one type of Union � the Benelux Union,
of three independent sovereign countries � Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxemburg . He pointed out that ��.this Union differed from other forms of
government (Unitary, Federal and Confederal) in that it had no unified military
force under a central command. On the contrary, each country has its own
independent military force under the control; and direction of each government.�
He finally moved to another form of Union, the European Union, made up of
the Benelux countries and 12 other countries. �The EU, as it exists today,
illustrates the possibility of having an economic, social, judicial, and
monetary union without military unification.�
He concluded, �Now for the
lesson I wish to draw from this experience. It is quite simply this. Where
military unification is not possible, it is still possible to have a viable,
social, economic and monetary union between each State, each of which has its
own independent military structure. I am convinced that this is the only
practical basis on which peace and prosperity can be founded in Sri Lanka.�
Since Sri Lankan Governments are too dumb to appreciate this, Adrian forecast
the future.� In Sri Lanka, he stage is set for a long-drawn-out guerilla war,
the total impoverishment of both nations (the Sinhalese nation and the Tamil
nation), the demise of civil government among the Sinhala people and the
essential establishment of the State of Eelam. The best efforts of the Sinhala
State can only postpone this sequence of events � they cannot avert the final
outcome.�
In an article War and the New Realities (October 2002), Adrian
drew attention to the fundamental changes brought about by war � irrespective of
who �wins�.
�The changes wrought by war are, generally irreversible. At
the end of a war a new era commences for the societies and nations that join
to make the peace that ends the war. Deplorable as war is, it is war that
marks the great watersheds of human history. The status quo ante bellum is
wiped away and gone for ever, utterly beyond recall. This is the case
irrespective of whether the war ends with the unconditional surrender of one
of the protagonists (e.g. the Axis powers of World War II) or by a stalemate
between two undefeated adversaries left with their forces intact (e.g. the
end of the war of Irish Independence in 1922)�
He goes on to deal with some crucial issues regarding the war in
Sri Lanka - the �End of the single all-island State�, the �Rise of the Eelam
Tamil diaspora�, �The vain hopes (of the Sri Lankan government) of international
help�, �the increasing costs of the military hardware� and �the implications of
these realities for policy�.
He concluded,
�The political parties of the Sinhala nation, old and new
alike, must now evolve new, rational, credible, viable policies based on the
se new realities, policies which offer hope of ending war and delivering a
lasting peace�.
In March 2005, with Adrian desperately ill with a pneumonia
complicating myeloma, a type of bone-marrow cancer,
I called for world-wide prayers. Whoever listens to these summed to have
acted, since Adrian recovered and went on to celebrate his 80th birthday (29 May
2005). I wrote
another article
calling for �good wishes to be sent to this extraordinary man�
Adrian
is one of only a handful of Sinhalese who have freed themselves from the
shackles of Sinhalese chauvinism to campaign for the Tamil people. It is not a
fight between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. It is a fight between injustice and
justice. It is not a question of who wins the war between Sinhalese chauvinism
and justice for the Tamil people; it is a question of defining where one stands.
Adrian has clearly defined where he stood. In a recent article I defined where I
stood and why. I suggest you do the same. If you stand with a brutal government
determined to force the Tamils to be second-class citizens, say so and justify
your stance. If you cannot, then join us � there is plenty of room on our side.
It is too important an issue to have no opinion, to sit on the fence and be on
no side.
At a recent TV interview in London, I was questioned by a
listener who started, �As an impartial person �.� I stopped the questioner in
his tracts by saying that I was not impartial. I was very partial, being heavily
biased in favour of the oppressed Tamil minority.
There have been, (and
are), Sinhalese such as Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe (Ranil�s uncle), Edmund
Samarakkody (my uncle), Merryl Fernando (a close associate of my uncle), Nanda
Wickremesinghe, Kumar Rupasinghe, Victor Ivan and others, who, despite
ostracization, vilification, and even threats to their lives , have had the
courage and integrity to stand with the Tamil people and/or their struggle. The
pity is that they are few and far between.
Adrian, like all of us who
have stood with the Tamil people e.g. Professor Peter Schalk of Uppsala
University, Sweden, has had his fair share of insults � being called, completely
inappropriately, a �Tamil Tiger Terrorist�. (For the record, this �terrorist�
was, for some 11 years, a senior executive in the World Council of Churches and
Prof. Schalk is the Professor of the History of Religions!) While such a �title�
is expected from Sinhalese chauvinists and hoodlums, it is not expected from
those who profess to be Christians. I learnt this the hard way � at no small
cost.
There is a long-standing quarterly, The Christian Worker, published
in Sri Lanka. It had championed the working classes and had the support of
people like Bishop Lakshman Wickremesinghe and my uncle, Edmund Samarakkody (who
introduced me to it). In 2001, I was told that the publication would have to
cease if funds were not found for a computer and printer. I offered to send both
from Australia to prevent the closure of what, I thought at the time, was a
reasonable publication. The management said that it would be �better� to
purchase them in Sri Lanka. I got the bill � nearly A$10,000.
I sent the
money and then contacted the Manager to make sure that he got the money.
I said I was leaving for London to address the International
Tamil Foundation, and also to see Adrian Wijemanne. The response, �Why do you
want to see that Tamil Tiger terrorist?� It was later that I realised that the
Christian Church in the Sinhalese South is more Sinhalese than Christian. This
extends well beyond the Christian Worker, into the Church establishment itself.
If there is a need for a revival of Buddhism , there is an equally important
need for a revival of Christianity, in the Sri Lankan Sinhalese South.
If there is any doubt about this, may I suggest that you contact the Christian
hierarchy in Colombo and ask whether any of them have voiced their concern at
the massacres of Tamil civilians in the North (many of them Christians, not that
that matters), now reaching alarming proportions. Let me be specific.
On 17 June 2006, there was a clash between the Tamil Tigers and
the Sri Lankan Navy in the sea off Pesalai, a largely Catholic community
situated halfway between Mannar and Talaimannar in the northwest. Terrified
civilians, some 3,000, took refuge in the Church of Our Lady of Victories, in
the heart of the town.
Men,
identified as marines from the Sri Lankan Navy, fired at the refugees in the
Church and, for good measure, tossed a grenade into the Church, killing
several. They then moved to the beach and shot Tamil fishermen who happened to
be there, burnt 39 fishing boats and 45 fishing huts. Bishop Rayappu Joseph was
prevented from visiting the beach.
What did his Christian brothers in Colombo do? Did they express
outrage or merely raise their hallowed eyebrows (if they did even that), to
express their Christian concern? I went to London to draw the attention of the
Archbishop of Canterbury (in whose Cathedral I have worshipped), and his Roman
Catholic counterpart (whose earthly �charges� were being massacred). The former
was too busy to see me , the latter did not bother to respond. I might add,
completely irrelevantly, that when the Sri Lankan Armed Forces were on their way
in 1995 to bomb Jaffna to smithereens, the banners of the Armed Forces were
placed on the alter and blessed . As they marched off to inflict their own brand
of terrorism on the half-million Tamil civilians in the Jaffna Peninsula, the
Band struck up Onward Christian soldiers marching as for war. The miracle is
that I am still a Christian, admittedly clinging to my faith with my
fingernails. But I digress.
In my good
wishes for Adrian�s 80th birthday, I said,
�It is a tragedy that there are fewer and fewer Sinhalese
who can see the entirely justifiable cause of the Tamil people, struggling,
not for a separate State or even a Federal State, but for the basic human
right to exist as equals in a multi-ethnic, multireligious, multilingual and
multicultural country.�
I went on to deal with the need to apprise the international
community, �The �ammunition� for this �international assault�, has been supplied
by people like Adrian Wijemanne.� This is the �voice of reason and authority�
that we have just lost.
I ended with a futile hope that if Adrian ��is
spared for a few more years, he might see what he has campaigned for all these
years � justice for the Tamil people.�
At the time I wrote it, I was not
fully aware that the Tamil State, which Adrian had forecast, had already arrived
and was functioning very well, certainly better than the totally corrupt,
incompetent and chaotic regime in the Sinhalese South. Adrian was too ill to
read
Professor
Kristian Stokke�s outstanding paper, recently published, Tamil Eelam � a De
Facto State. Building the Tamil Eelam State: Emerging State Institutions and
Forms of Governance in LTTE-controlled Areas of Sri Lanka. Had he read this he
would have said �I told you so�. It is a pity that he did not live long enough
to see de facto transformed into de jure which will surely happen.
Adrian
has left us a legacy � his opus magnum, "War
and Peace in Post Colonial Ceylon1948-1991�, published in 1996. This is
essential reading for anyone interested in Sri Lanka. He dedicates this, in
typical Adrian-style, to his charming wife, Chitra, (who made asparagus rolls
for us when we visited Adrian!)
�To Chitra, my wife, whose relentless opposition to the
entire project and uncompromising rejection of every salient point herein
have dispelled any lingering doubts as to the need, the urgent need, for
this book�
He has also left behind a large number of very important
articles. When I met him in 2001, I suggested that we publish these as a book.
He said he had left this for his friend, Neville Jayaweera, to do. Neville was a
former Government Agent in Jaffna, and an outstanding one at that. He was the
one who read Adrian�s tribute at
Jeyam Thamotharam�s funeral. His own contribution on that occasion was a
refreshing departure from the usual anti-Tamil stance adopted by most of our
ethnic group. Directing his comments at the packed congregation (mainly of
expatriate Tamils) he said something like this, �I want you to ask yourselves
why it was necessary for all of you, talented people, whom Sri Lanka needs so
much, to leave that country�
When Adrian�s papers are finally published,
I hope that they will be translated to Sinhalese and distributed free, if
necessary, in the Sinhalese South, so that my people will know that they are
being seriously misled by ethno-religious chauvinists and political
opportunists. They will realise that there are solutions to the ethnic problem
that do not involve �crushing� the Tamils and which will result in a situation
that leads them out of grinding poverty. They will then realise that it is
rampant corruption and outrageously poor governance, not Tamil �terrorism�, that
is making Sri Lanka a failed State.
It might be also a fitting tribute to this extraordinary man, to have an
annual memorial lecture, one in Sri Lanka and one in London, The Adrian
Wijemanne Oration, which focuses on a just peace in Sri Lanka.
I am so
very grateful to Adrian for his infectious enthusiasm, courage, leadership,
integrity and persistence, which has been an inspiration to us all. I will
certainly miss him, but it should not be tears and sadness but a celebration of
a life dedicated to a worthy cause, which is already yielding visible and
tangible results.
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