The following article, which is a commentary on HLD Mahindapala’s speech given recently at the BMICH, arrived in my inbox earlier today.

It was sent to be by someone who had received it from someone else. Googling the title suggests the commentary was originally produced by a Janaka Perera  and published at the Lanka Herald.

I normally wouldn’t cut and paste such a text - but I feel the commentary below raises some interesting issues, some of which we may be familiar with, but worth revisiting and reconsidering again.

Western baloney on ‘human rights’
Written by Janaka Perera
Saturday, 01 December 2007

In a scathing attack on Western double standards on human rights, veteran Journalist and Editorial Adviser Asian Tribune, H.L.D. Mahindapala last week accused Western Powers of pulling the wool over the eyes of the world on human rights. He charged them with jettisoning their HR proclamations as an when the necessity arose for them to defend their nations, their interests and their way of life.

” Their double standards not only give human rights a bad name but also placed the future of human rights in jeopardy.  Their arrogant actions, riding rough shod over the human rights of others whom they seek to subdue from time to time, give credence to the claim that the place for human rights in contemporary human affairs has been exaggerated and the abuses of institutions set up to safeguard human rights – including the UN – have devalued the promise held out to guide and serve the larger interests of humanity”

Mahindapala was delivering the D.A. Rajapaksa Commemorative Oration titled, ‘Man does not live by rights alone’ at the BMICH, Colombo on November 29.

He further said, “”The sophisticated theories they tout to push their agendas have come under fire from countries selectively targeted by their think tanks, academia, NGOs and above all, Western media who have a tendency to demonize nations ear-marked for condemnation by the foreign offices in Western capitals,”

Mahindapala attributed the crisis facing human rights to Western leaders debasing the credibility and the viability of human rights by using these selectively to serve their interest.

“Whatever their high-sounding theories and principles may be, in practice, the universality and indivisibility of human rights tend to disappear when the Big Brothers use it as a stick to bring the little ones to heel.”

He noted that the United States with its commitment to “life, liberty and happiness” had not hesitated to destroy the life, liberty and happiness of selected segments of American society (Afro-Americans and Native Americans) as well as other nations when it suited their interests.   He recalled the murder of Salvador Allende -the first democratically elected socialist leader of Chile (1970-73) and the destruction of Chilean democracy - did not confirm to any known principles of “life, liberty and happiness” let alone basic human rights.   The U.S. while creating an image of itself as the most powerful and voice defender of human rights, argued vehemently to exclude its citizens from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.   Washington had feared that it generals and its commander-in-chief, the President, could be tried like Slobodan Milosevic for violations of human rights.

Referring to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of a Western naval cordon around Iraq with United Nations approval, Mahindapala said:

“What the 500,000 Iraqi children would never know is that the very institution set up to protect their rights turned against them, under cover of multilateral consensus, and starved them to death. Mercifully, they would never know that the rich and the mighty used the citadel of human rights to violate their right to live. If the UN lends its seal of approval to kill children in their cots why should Kofi Annan, Bush, Blair and their allies be left off the hook of committing this crime against the innocent children of Iraq?   When you consider the scale of crime committed in Iraq under UN approval, Idi Amin looks more respectable than Kofi Annan.”

Asked Mahindapala “who is there to take these culprits to the International Criminal Court or cut off aid? Certainly, not the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, which is exceedingly busy looking for small fry!”

He recalled that the overall trend points to the dismal fact that the dispossessed and the powerless have not been the primary beneficiaries of any set of rights throughout history. Whatever the benefits they had received came to them like the crumbs that fell off the tables of those who had the power to draft, interpret and dictate either the extent or the limits of rights.

Mahindapala observed: “The history of Western ideologies is studded with the artificial glitter of manufactured theories – from Nazism, Communism, and Apartheid to exploitative liberalism – to justify and/or to cover-up the crimes committed against humanity. Mankind has paid dearly not only to give birth and sustain these theories but also to bring down the institutions built on those theories each time they fail to live up to their promises.”

Recalling the past roles of today’s human rights champions in the West he said that during World War II when British and American interest were threatened Britain had fire-bombed Dresden to rubble and the U.S. reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders. In Hiroshima , 140,000 died instantly and 80,000 died later. The worst of was it was that the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes knew that these were no military targets and the people were non-combatant civilians.

And these were the very people, he said derisively, who had the gall to condemn the Sri Lankan state for the violent deaths of some 60,000 persons in an internal conflict that has continued for the past 25 years.

“The West seems to claim and act as if they are the sole guardians of human rights. This also implies that they own the monopoly to interpret and dictate terms to the rest primarily with the aim of pushing their political and economic agendas. Of course, they have the resources and the power to dominate and dictate which country should have their blessings to get away with violations of human rights and which should be pressured to obey their diktats.   They even hire a global army of NGO policemen to monitor the conduct of others who do not confirm to the political standards stipulated by them. Some of the reports are cooked up to suit the agendas of the funding masters abroad as seen in the case of Iraq.”

He charged professional rights activists in NGOs with pocketing heaps of money by living off the plight of the poor, women, and even victims of war.

“Theirs is a money-making business. Rival NGOs compete with each others to grab the dollars pouring out of the Western cornucopia.   These NGO activists are mercenaries posing as rights activists to make themselves a name and win some awards while making pots of money on the side.”
Mahindapala stressed the need for reviewing the reporting mechanism comprehensively to prevent the abuse of human rights in the hands of these questionable political activists.

“Reporting human rights violations should not be left in the hands of those handpicked from Western nations with a biased agenda or the local NGOs funded by these nations.   Some of the UN rapporteurs fly in and out of war-torn countries picking up only the bits and pieces that are useful to their prejudices or their agendas.”

On the issue of genuine human rights and duties he drew attention to Mahatma Gandhi’s illiterate mother as a universal figure who made history, anonymously and unobtrusively, and remarked:

“She did not write applications in triplicate to funding agencies pushing her claim for funding, most of which goes in this age of rights to maintain the luxury life-style of NGO bosses. Without romanticizing the humble but noble services of Gandhi’ smother, it can be averred that in the age of duties the moral sense reigned supreme.”

Mahindapala emphasized:

“No one has a monopoly on human rights. It is part of the human heritage which must be shared in common by all. Maximizing the universality and the indivisibility of human rights is the primary task of those who champion human rights. And this can be achieved only by balancing human rights with traditional duties”

The Sunday Times (Wijeya Newspapers) has a children’s section titled FUNDAY. The December 9th FUNDAY carried a continuing series from the Mahavamsa titled The Defeat of the Cholas.

The article has some choice bits of FUN storytelling such as: “the Sinhala soldiers fought bravely. Most of the Chola soldiers died in the fighting and the rest fled.” No children’s story is complete without lots of FUN images and this story doesn’t disappoint: three beautiful illustrations of soldiers killing each other. The soldiers in red sarongs seem to be getting the upper hand on the soldiers in blue sarongs (who seem to have duskier complexions)—one guy is even getting speared in the back (a Chola getting what he deserves?).

For those of you who may not know, the Cholas were a Tamil Dynasty that ruled Southern India and also annexed parts of Sri Lanka (I’m not going to say which parts—take a wild guess). One other point, the Mahavamsa has been a bit of a thorny issue: something about it being used to justify Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism.

But who cares? Let’s just teach our children the FUN in communal hagiography that erases Sri Lanka’s ethnic diversity.

Read The Defeat of the Cholas here.

The TMVP is organizing a big protest at the Weber stadium in Batticaloa today. According to the Pillayan-led TMVP, it is against LTTE atrocities in the East and the TNA.

The TMVP also wants solutions to problems faced by people being resettled in the East, for example in terms of lack of jobs, all of which will go into a signed letter to be delivered to the President.

TMVP Spokesman Azad Moulana says they expect 25,000 people from three regions of the east to voice their protest and gather at the stadium, which is scheduled to start at 9.30am.

They may also try to bring together Karuna supporters to show their support for the above cause whether voluntarily or by some degree of force.

The Karuna-Pillayan struggle is unfolding quite rapidly, as readers are no doubt aware, and the latest I have gathered, which I thought I would put down here, is that Karuna cadres are restricted to Ampara, while Pillayan seems to have control of Trincomalee and Batticaloa areas and of the TMVP.

A few Karuna cadres are also in the Kiran areas, which is the hometown of Karuna. (TMVP has a council which Pillayan now apparently has control of).
A reporter friend from the East estimates there to be about a couple of hundred Karuna cadres and a couple of thousand Pillayan cadres, but that info is sketchy.
Given that elections are in the offing early next year, there is a complex power struggle going on ahead of the polls. The military and government in the East will likely support the above protest which shows opposition to the LTTE.

On the day of the budget vote, after the second reading, last month, the TMVP (Pillaiyan) said they were in discussions with the TNA to work for the public good in the east. They said they would make an announcement depending on the way the TNA voted on the budget.

TNA MPs denied they held such talks and voted against the budget, very likely going counter to the wishes of the TMVP.

Today’s protest could reveal more of what is going on. It will be good if readers with more information can post their material here.

In 1982 the cattle population in Sri Lanka had been 6.7 million, Athuraliye Rathana Thero has said while participating in budget debate in the Parliament. Out of this, normal cattle had constituted 1.3-million while the rest were buffaloes. But by 2000, this cattle population had decreased by 114000, Thero had sadly pointed out.

It is not clear whether his sadness is caused because the cattle population is being dwindled as an economic resource or because he is upholding the cattle’s right to life as a supreme principle. As he is a Buddhist monk, drawing on the Bhuddist tradition and going by the spiritual values of Bhuddism, we can safely presume that it was his pure compassion for animal life that had inspired him in bringing this matter up in the Parliament. If that is the case, we would further expect him to stand up for the cause of other animals’ rights as well, like cocks, pigs, sheep, fish etc, for in Buddhism no animal is to be deprived of life for whatever reason.

Brigitte Bardo, a popular actress up to 70’s and today very old, who is spearheading an animals’ rights organization in France had a poster campaign some time back to sensitize her society to the plight of animals at the cruel hand of the so-called civilized Man. In that poster I can remember some of the animals depicted like dog, cat, seal fish and horse. One thing, I vividly remember: there was no animal that is taken as a delicacy in the western menu!

Brigitte Bardo does not subscribe to the Buddhist creed. Hence she has the right of preferential compassion towards the animal kingdom. That is why there was not a single animal that she liked to eat in this list of so-called “poor creatures” depicted in the poster.

But Athuraliye Thero being a Buddhist monk cannot claim to have the same right. As long as he is in a saffron robe he is duty bound to protect not only cattle but also all other animals, including chicken, goat, pig etc that are voraciously consumed in Sri Lanka.

This special compassion for cattle is to be generally seen in our society, which I suspect to be a Hindu influence. Those who don’t eat beef but eat other meat always rationalize the discrepancy by pointing out to the usefulness of a cow in our daily life. So, as a mark of respect to the service a cow had rendered to man in the agrarian society, we should refrain from eating its meat, argument goes. Usefulness may be a strong ground for Brigite Bardo to use a discriminative yardstick to love animals and eat animals at the same time according to her palatable desires, but Buddhism has no place for such discrimination.

On Poya Days all butcheries are closed in this virtuous Sri Lanka. Even in super markets meat is not available but fish is in plenty. Not only that, by-products of meat like sausages can be bought. Once I asked a salesgirl jokingly whether it was not a lesser sin to sell one bullock’s meat than selling thousands of sprats on a Poya Day. How the flesh of a fish is not considered as meat is beyond my comprehension.

Such contradictions are abound when a country is going to be governed by pseudo ethos no one seriously adheres to. The prohibition of showing scenes of smoking and taking of alcohol even if such scenes constitute an integral artistic part of the film is laughable, to say the least. In some films, while the scene where the offending bottle of Arrack is discernible is ruthlessly censored, its follow-up, namely the same drunken man staggering towards his home and beating his wife or killing someone under intoxication is shown with no qualms!

Cattle population (9 million) in New Zealand is double that of human population (4.5 million), our Thero pointed out. The fact that a country where there are more cattle than human beings happens to be more developed than Sri Lanka is interesting material for some academic research, I suppose.

It is true that environment friendly political thinking is firmly taking root in the developed world. We can see green parties exercising immense power in Australia, New Zealand and Europe. But one thing is certain: that these people have ventured into rights of the animal kingdom only after ensuring – not only in legal terms but also in social conventions- the basic rights of human beings. Before the 70s when human rights were not firmly codified and faithfully adhered to, there were no Greens as such in politics.

Now, what is the principled stand of the political party that Athuraliye Rathana Thero represents in Parliament on this point? According to them, there is no ethnic problem but a terrorist problem in Sri Lanka, which has to be crushed militarily. What instantly comes to my mind is the ancient story of Angulimala who was a bloody terrorist to whom Buddha preached Dhamma.

Before protecting the cattle population, we as laymen in general and they as Buddhist monks in particular, should strive to protect human beings. If President or any other minister campaigns for war and asks for blood of the enemy, as Bhikkus who are coalition partners in the government should discourage that destructive tendency and make some concerted efforts to seek a peaceful solution. Under no circumstances are they permitted to condone violence, directly or indirectly.

Last week, the parcel bomb at Nugegoda took 19 innocent lives including that of a little school girl. LTTE is alleged to be the perpetrator of this heinous crime. Three days prior to that, 11 school girls traveling in a bus near Kilinochchi were killed by a claymore bomb alleged to have been masterminded by government security forces or their paramilitary groups. Now, is there any difference in the value of life between that of the girl killed in the south (Nugegoda) and the girls killed in the north (Kilinochchi)? We witness this type of killings in Iraq on a daily basis. Even today (7th) a female suicide bomber has exploded herself in killing 16 people and injuring 27 in Iraq. There, rather than accusing those human bombs we tend to hold George W Bush as culpable for making Iraq a killing field. The picture of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that George W Bush tried to portray as a menace of terrorism at the beginning of the invasion is in tatters today even in his own camp.

Adolf Hitler was an animal lover to the extent of being a strict vegetarian. While loving animals like this, he slaughtered 6 million human beings from the Jewish community alone during a short period of 5 years. That Brigitte Bardo, today in her old age is an activist in the extreme right anti-Semitic National Front in France, which denies the historical existence of concentration camps and gas chambers in Europe, does not stop her still fondly loving animals!

It is good to love animals. But better to love human beings first.

Gamini Viyangoda
gviyangoda@hotmail.fr

උවිදු කුරුකුලසූරීය

ඊයෙයි අදයි සිංහල පත්තර බැලූවම පේන දෙයක් තමයි ලංකාවේ මාධ්යවේදීන්ට ළමා අයිතිවාසිකම් හා මාධ්ය භාවිතාව පිළිබද පුඵල් දැනුමක් නෑ කියන එක.

මාකොළ දී බ්රිගේඩියර්වරයෙකුගේ බිරි`ද ඝාතනය කිරීම පිළිබ`ද සිද්ධියේ මහේස්ත්රාත් වාර්තාව ලංකාදීප ,දිවයින හා ලක්බිම පුවත් පත් වල පලවී තිබුණා. ඒ හැම වාර්තාවකටම අනුව පොලීසියෙන් පවසන්නේ මෙය මිනීමැරුමක් බවයි. මීනීමැරුමට සැකපිට තවමත් රිමාන්ඞ් භාරයේ පසුවන්නේ බ්රිගේඩියර්වරයා.

පෙරේදා මහේස්ත්රාත් පරීක්ෂණයේදී ඒ අවස්ථාවේ නිවසේ සිටි බිරි`දගේ සහෝදරයාගෙනුයි, බ්රිගේඩියර්වරයාගේ 15 හැවිරිදි පුතා ගෙනුයි කට උත්තර අරන් තිබ්බා. මේ පත්තර ඔක්කොම අර කට උත්තර අකුරක් නෑර පලකරලා අර දරුවගේ නම,වයස ඔක්කොමත් එක්ක!

අද දිවයින පත්තරෙත් ඒවාගේම සිද්ධියක් වාර්තාවෙලා ‘‘ස්වාමි පුරුෂයාගේ ඝාතනයට සම්බන්ධ නඩුවට සාක්ෂි නොදෙන්නැයි දියණියට බලපෑම් කළ මව රක්ෂිතයට’’ කියලා ඒ වාර්තාවේ තියෙනවා. මේ මිනීමැරුම සිදුවෙලා තියෙන්නේ 2001දී. ඒදා ඒ දියණියගේ වයස අවුරුදු 13යි. අද 18යි. ඒ දියණියගෙත් නම ඔක්කොම දාලා.

මේවා ළමයි ගැන වාර්ථා කරන විට ළමයාගේ සුබසිද්ධිය පිළිබදව ජනමාධ්ය තැකීමක් නොකරන බවට හොදම සාක්ෂි. මම මේ වැරද්ද මාධ්යවේදීන් කිහිප දෙනෙක් එක්ක කතා කළාහම සමහරු කීවේ ප්රශ්ණයක් නෑ ළමය අපයෝනයකට ලක්වෙලා හරි ළමය වැරද්දක් හරි කරලා නැති නිසා කියලා. ඒ වගේම තවත් අය කීවා උසාවියේ කියන ඒවා ලීවාට ප්රශ්නයක් නෑ කියලා. වෙන නීති තිබ්බත් ළමයෙක් සාක්ෂි දීමක් ලියන්න බෑ කියලා ලංකාවේ නීතියේ නැති එක ඇත්ත. ඒත් ළමයාගේ සුභසිද්ධිය කියන ළමා අයිතිවාසිකම් පැත්තෙන් බරපතල වරදක් මෙතන තියෙනවා.

දියුනු මාධ්ය සම්ප්රදැයක් පවතින රටවල මාධ්ය ඇතුලෙම මෙවා තියෙනවා. උදාහරණයක් ලෙස BBC ආයතනයේ මාර්ගෝපදේශ වල තියෙන්නෙ (www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines) වැඩිහිටියෙකුගේ නීති විරෝධී හෝ සමාජ විරෝධී ක්රියාවක් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ඔවුන් සමග සම්මුඛ සාකච්ඡුාවක් පවත්වන විටදී පවා වැඩසටහන් නිෂ්පාදකයින් අපරාධකරුගේ ළමයින් සම්බන්ධ කර ගැනීම, පෙන්වීම හෝ අනන්යතාවය හෙලිකිරීම පිළිබදව වැඩසටහන් නිෂ්පාදකයින් සිතා බැලිය යුතු බවයි. එසේ පෙන්වන්නේනම් එය ළමයාගේ පොදු සුභ සිද්ධියට හේතුවන බවට සංස්කාරක මණ්ඩලයේ සාධාරණීය කරණයක් අවශ්ය බවයි.

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