From hardline radicalism to moderate statesmanship

6 August 2015 07:30 pm Views - 2126

I was watching an interview featuring Patali Champika Ranawaka on a private television channel on Wednesday night and it made me realise the extent of change that had happened to this one-time ultra nationalist hardliner. 

With his erudite arguments and thoughtful opinions, Patali Champika proved  that he has converted from ultra-nationalism, or rather hardline radicalism to moderate statesmanship. 

If one analyses the journey from the Janatha Mithuro to the present day Jathika Hela Urumaya, this change is a paradigm shift. Together with his “Sansara-buddy” Athuraliye Rathana Thera, Champika, to my mind, rewrote the definitions of Sinhala nationalism while successfully engaging in changing the political history of Sri Lanka on January 8. 

During long conversations I used to have with him in the early 90s over endless cups of plain tea at the Open University canteen where he was a visiting lecturer, I realised this ‘rubber-slippered loner’ had a long way to go. I also got an idea that he had a better understanding of politics than the engineering related subjects he taught at the university. 

Nationalism is not a bad connotation. Neither is radicalism. Only radicals who would think and act differently would come up in life and make a change in society. If you google for the definition of radicalism, it would provide plenty of results but the most common one would be: ‘radicalism is a noun that means political orientation of those favouring revolutionary change’. In political science, the term radicalism is the belief that society needs to be changed, and that such changes are only possible through revolutionary means.” 

Radicalism has now become a menace mainly in the Muslim world but now, it is slowly spreading to Buddhist societies as well. The emergence of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) in Sri Lanka could not be considered in isolation where the ‘969 Movement’ in Myanmar led by the radical monk Wirathu who was identified as the Bin Laden of contemporary Buddhism by the Times magazine and several other similar institutions in Thailand. The commonality in many of these radical movements is the direct or indirect blessings from the state.

Strategically Champika – Rathana led JHU moved away from this ethno-religious radicalism mainly after the completion of the war in May 2009. One could argue that the emergence of the BBS was to target the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka in the absence of Tamil militarism as the then political leadership sought a path to become the sole saviour of Sinhala Buddhists. Though it was a strong coalition partner of  former UPFA regime, JHU was tactical in moving out of this trap and emerging as an acceptable force in a multi-dimensional political platform – mainly in the rainbow coalition. 

This should be discussed in the context where federalism has again entered into the Sri Lankan political discourse. Many hardliners are of the view that this is the revival of Tamil terrorism and the Mahinda Rajapaksa camp especially, is strongly advocating the opinion it is a sign of the LTTE raising its head. 
But I was happy to see one-time hardliner Champika explaining it as an election strategy of the TNA.But the irony of it is that the TNA is still playing its own nationalism card for elections, which could be justified from their own political point of view. 

On the other hand the ultra-nationalist camp of Mahinda Rajapaksa is also spreading similar sentiments in its election campaign. Saving the country from an emerging Tiger threat has become the main slogan, not only of Rajapaksa, but his supporters as well. At a meeting the Buddhist clergy had with Rajapaksa last week, a leading monk in his speech claimed that not only Tamil extremism, Muslim fundamentalism too is raising its head in Sri Lanka and urged the Sinhalese to be vigilant. 

Champika had a solid argument to this issue. He compared the Tamils in the North with those in the Upcountry. He said; “The effects of the war had made the once academically and socially thriving North into a vacuum whereas the Upcountry Tamils gained much development through political means during the past thirty years. And that the ultra-nationalist political leadership of both sides should understand this reality and unite to develop the war-affected Sri Lanka as one nation.” 

Nationalism is commonly viewed as a double-edged sword: it can unite or fragment a country, says Pakistani writer Dr Moonis Ahmer. Nationalism seeks to identify a behavioral entity i.e. the nation and then to pursue certain political and cultural ethos, goals on its behalf, according to Dr Ahmer. 

Pakistan is considered one of the leading breeding grounds for Islamic Fundamentalism that led to Islamic radicalism and terrorism. But Jinnah’s Pakistan never had any features of fundamentalism; it was totally opposite. It was a secular state and a thriving nation with multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious landscapes. His successor Zulficar Ali Bhutto, too, continued on the same path, but it was military dictator General Zia Ul Haq who changed the Pakistani doctrine into religious fundamentalism. Having captured power in a military coup and hanging Bhutto through a kangaroo court, General Zia wanted to become the saviour of Islam for his own political survival. Thus he changed the entire country from secularism to Islamic fundamentalism even through changing school text books. Sri Lanka just escaped from a dictatorship; otherwise we would have followed the same path, probably in the name of Buddhism. 

Politically incompetent leaders use religion or ethnicity for their own survival. We have seen it in many parts of the world. Hitler tops that list. There are some here, too.