Ceylon Today Editorial

The failing of multiculturalism

09 February 2017

In the play The Ivory King who "created a kingdom in the north" we are told that Aava , a saber-toothed tiger, was one of the king's three pets. Some attribute the story as being inspired by Hindu mythology. Aava was one of the seven beasts who served the Ivory King. Each of these beasts was given a specific task. Those who have analyzed the story line contend that "we know of only 3 beasts that remain of the seven : Aava, Lud and Zallen.

Aava's task was to protect the King's 'beloved child' Alsanna who was rescued from a deadly attack that left her near death.

The Aava saber wielding gangs in the north on Monday attacked a trade stall in Nallur with a petrol bomb and used swords to cut off a part of the name board of the Indian Consulate office in Jaffna. Aava has often used swords in their northern attacks , as Aava the Ivory King's pet used his sword-like fangs to rip the life out of his victims. No guns or bombs so far.

According to the script, Lud and Zallen were tasked with the mercy killing of exiles. Since the Ivory King was served by 7 of these beasts, he must have been very powerful, as Prabhakaran was. But at this point any comparison to any of the characters in the story ends. The choice of the name Aava can then be the child of a mere juvenile whim in someone's mind...or it could mean more. In that mind who could be Lud and Zallen ? And who could the exiles in the story represent in the northern context, on the presumption that there is a connection between the former Tigers in the North and Aava of the story ?

Does the attempt to kill TNA MP Sumanthiran tie into this scheme of things? He certainly has acknowledged the 'crimes' committed by the LTTE, a fact played down by the Northern Chief Minister Wigneswaran in his plan to woo Muslims into joining up with his grand plan of a merged North-East Province.

Meanwhile, in the South, there was the attempt to kill or scare the SAITM CEO, by hoodlums on motorcycles. That they failed even at short range would suggest they shot to frighten him...for whatever reason...and not to kill him.

We have consistently been drawing attention to the fact and warning the government that the spate of near-violent protest demonstrations mounted against the government will sooner or later become absolute. Forces of destabilization in the South have always exploited any surge in destabilization in the North. The JVP, broken once as the LTTE was, had no option readily available than to enter the so-called democratic mainstream just as the TNA was broken into that same decision. The more violence-prone elements in the SLFP fall in to that same category. Take the veneer off and what you get are the faces of Aava-like personalities.

What these forces are clamouring for in the South is being exploited by Wigneswaran and his LTTE handlers in the Tamil Diaspora in India and the West, with a stronger attempt to press on for Eelam's euphemism called 'federalism' ...now further refined into an arrangement to deceive the Muslims into closing ranks with "A Tamil Speaking People's Province." That bodes evil because the Muslims, especially the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress led by the shrewd and astute Rauff Hakeem, know that Lud and Zallen in the Ivory King's tale are the Tamil Diaspora led by Nedumaran and Viswanathan Rudrakumaran... The Ivory King here, presumably being the spirit of Prabhakaran, if the story is anything to go by.

The week also saw Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ravindra (Ravi) Wijegunaratne telling the media in India that Chinese nuclear submarines were once again being allowed in Sri Lanka on purely commercial considerations and that the number of their visits will be curtailed unlike in the days of the Rajapaksa regime. There's a vast difference between a sub from a friendly country and a sub that's not from a friendly country, especially when that sub is equipped with nuclear capability and the ability to locate Indian and other subs in the entire Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf seas to which Pakistan has through the Gwandahar Port given China a massive command of the entire western flank of that combined expanse. A sub that calls here in so-called peace at evening, can in a sudden conflict situation the next morning, be translated into a huge weapon of war right at India's footsteps, with a missile range of between 800 to 300 kilometres.

In that context, India can but only scoff at our protestations. Sincere though they may be, they are far too naïve in today's global power shifts.