It ain’t over till the fat laddie swings

It ain’t over till it’s over, or as the Americans put it, in a reference to the opera, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. The Mahaveera Day 2008 speech by Velupillai Prabhakaran, one of the world’s most notorious and certainly tubbiest terrorist leaders, demonstrates that there can be no solution to Sri Lanka’s conflict so long as he remains alive and active, and has not been brought to justice. In our case it ain’t over till the fat laddie swings.

In the first place the man is an outrageously unrepentant liar and assumes that everyone suffers from amnesia. In his speech he says that “It may be noted that during the long …

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The first film I was taken to – even before I began schooling– was an Elvis movie, so I welcome the news that the best performing single in the history of the US charts is Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation A Little More Action”. Not only would this hold as regards the global economic crisis, a slightly revised version would constitute sound advice as regards terrorism in the volatile South Asian region: “A little less of double standards, a little more action”.

South Asia is correctly regarded as the most dangerous area on earth. It is the point of origin of the terror attack of 9/11 upon the United States. It is the scene of terrorist movements which launch attacks …

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History sometimes hits a high note, sweet and soaring, clean and clear, as if from Satchmo’s horn. The most intelligent, interesting and inspirational of contemporary political personalities is about to be the President of the most powerful nation on the planet.

Reading Obama
The publisher’s notes on the back cover of his second book sketch him with bare adequacy: “A Senator and a lawyer, a professor and a father, a Christian and a skeptic…” By his words, ye shall know him. To understand him, you have to encounter his words, written and spoken. Three layers of Barack Obama are revealed almost archeologically or geologically in his two books and recent speeches.

The first book written in his mid-thirties is the most …

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“All along the watchtower, princes kept the view”
Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

 
Though it may seem otherwise at first blush, the agitation in Tamil Nadu is not helping the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. It is hardening majority opinion on the island and serves as a reminder of the existential threat posed to the Sinhalese from across the narrow Palk Straits. It is likely to make the Sinhala majority warier about the degree of autonomy granted to the Tamil majority Northern periphery, susceptible as it may be to the pull factor of Tamil Nadu sentiment given the extreme physical proximity.    

While Colombo’s political commentariat had concluded that the agitation in Tamil Nadu was the avoidable result of Sinhala chauvinism stimulated or tolerated by …

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Fascists launch a final surge before they lose wars. The Kamikaze pilots were a last card against the US fleet. The Nazis developed the Tiger tank, launched the V-1 and V-2 rockets and fought the Battle of the Bulge in the closing stages of the war, when they had already lost in the strategic sense. The battle of Iwo Jima is the classic model of a fanatical, suicidal, dug-in fighting force defending its home turf against a final onslaught. It was the toughest possible going but the US Marines won.

It is only to be expected that the Tigers would offer the stiffest possible resistance in their Ithiyabhoomi or ‘heartland’. In their best case scenario they would turn Kilinochchi-Mullaitivu into a …

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Just as it did at the moment of decolonization and independence, the visible post-war moment provides a rare historic opportunity for nation building and the construction of national identity. We missed the first chance, but must not miss the second.

In his nationally televised dialogue with audiences in several areas on Tuesday August 19th, President Rajapakse, speaking in Sinhala to largely Sinhala rural crowds, pledged to hold elections to the Northern Provincial Council within a year of its liberation just as he had held election to the Eastern Provincial Council. He added that he was considering elections to the local authorities in Jaffna very much earlier.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Defence Secretary, had already indicated the goal in his response to The Times online, …

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The devolution debate has been sharpened by the highly interesting and significant results of the public opinion poll recently conducted in Tamil Nadu, with regard to Sri Lanka’s ethnic issue and its internal arrangements.

The poll has had the effect of strengthening both pro and anti-devolution camps in their chosen opinions.

I suggest that a realist reading should result in a more nuanced approach to devolution, which escapes the trap of overreaction in either direction, namely allergic rejection and imitative appeasement. With or without the new data from Tamil Nadu, the debate on devolution in Sri Lanka reveals roughly seven and possibly eight points of view or “lines”. These are:

1. Zero or small unit devolution: Abolition of the 13th amendment and Provincial Councils, …
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This is a year beaded as a necklace with anniversaries. Some are past us, some ahead. Some are international, the others national. Some are of heroism, others of tragedy and darkness. All are significant. All teach us something, provide occasions for reflection.

Internationally it was the 40th commemoration of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the student uprisings of May 1968 most significantly in Paris, the 80th birth anniversary of Ernesto Che Guevara, and the 55th anniversary of the Moncada uprising which initiated the Cuban revolutionary process.

Nationally, it is the 60th anniversary year of Sri Lanka’s Independence and the 50th and 25th anniversary year of two large blots on that existence as an independent country: 1958 and 1983.

This year also contains triple …

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“The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew, cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down”.  

- Barack Obama, Berlin, July 24

We must not settle for a draw in a game we can win and are winning. As we draw closer to victory, those who wish to deny it to us will intensify their efforts.

Let us do everything that can help us win the war, and desist from anything that may prevent or divert us. We also need a vision for winning the peace. Our vision for winning the peace will play a part in helping or hindering the winning of the war. Our postwar program will affect the outcome of the …

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