CORRECTING A DISTORTION BY PROF SAVITHRI GOONASEKERE

November 5, 2011, 6:23 pm


Dr Dayan Jayatilleka

I write with extreme dismay at a reference to me in Prof Goonasekere’s article last Sunday entitled ‘Creating ‘Knowledge Hubs and Destroying University Autonomy’ (Sunday Island, October 30, 2011). She writes as follows:

"Drs. Dayan Jayatillake and Rajiva Wijesinha who were academics in the national universities have publicly supported the militarised leadership training programme. Dr. Jayatillake sees in the leadership programme an excellent model for creating what in effect will be a "para military" youth corp "trained in the use of weapons" that could "bleed to death with a thousand cuts" any outside force or puppet regime seeking to destabilise the country. [Island 31 August 2011.] Rajiva Wijesinha reinforces this view point, apparently for different reasons." (‘Creating ‘Knowledge Hubs and Destroying University Autonomy’ by Savitri Goonesekere, Sunday Island, October 30, 2011)

She should know that if one uses a phrase within inverted commas, and ends the passage with a source, i.e. citing an article, it is an indication that the phrase within inverts derives from the article. If instead, one is merely paraphrasing, one does not use inverted commas. If one uses inverts around a phrase that DOES NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE IN THE TEXT THAT IS REFERRED TO, it is, to put it mildly, misleading and is not a practice encouraged in journalism, let alone academia.

Prof Goonasekere uses within inverts, the term "para military" and says it is something that I have advocated. This is a sleight of hand. The word ‘paramilitary’ appears nowhere in my article. Furthermore, a Google search will show that I have never advocated a ‘paramilitary’ anywhere, in over three decades of published political writings.

For purposes of record, let me reproduce what I did write:

"Our deterrent capacity cannot depend upon a vastly expanded army of almost half a million, as a former commander mistakenly called for, because the economic costs would sink the country. Nor should anyone envisage compulsory national service in the form of a draft because the USA itself learnt to its bitter social cost that the best army is an all-volunteer army. However, a recent successful experiment has been conducted in Sri Lanka with the armed forces’ support, for an orientation course of university entrants. In preparation for a worst case scenario, that model could be expanded to provide a huge youth/student populace, including women, trained in the use of weapons, and which could make any invader, secessionist or irredentist puppet regime (and its army’) bleed from death by a thousand cuts. As Fidel Castro once said when Cuba was under threat of intervention, "we shall arm even the cats!"

Sri Lanka must protect itself against two erroneous schools of thought, both of which sin against Realism. One fails to comprehend the basic conflict of interest between Sri Lanka’s national interests and those states that call for so-called accountability hearings. These states are driven by Tamil Diaspora lobbies, contempt for national sovereignty (except for their own) and an emerging Cold War competition with China. The pseudo-pragmatic school of ‘professional’ capitulationists and appeasers fails to perceive the threat from this quarter and the requirement of global resistance. The other school of thought is that of those who fail to understand the imperative need for compromises and concessions on the secondary and the tactical, so that a strong protective ring can be reconstructed on our perimeter, i.e., our neighborhood, thereby protecting that which is essential: Sri Lanka’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and the gains of the historic military victory.

The most durable defense against interventionism is by simultaneously changing our ‘target profile’ and ‘target hardening’. This can be done only by repairing our internal fragility; removing the discontent and disaffection of the minority at our strategically sensitive Northern periphery. But can that be done and how can it be done? The best answer is in The Fear of Barbarians by Tzventan Todorov, Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique (CNRS), Paris. In this book, described by the great scholar of international relations, Prof Stanley Hoffman of Harvard and Science Po, as "more than a masterpiece, [it is] a treasure", Prof Todorov speaks of the need to replace or transform an ethnocracy into a modern democracy: "a modern democracy is to be distinguished from an ethnocracy, i.e., a state in which belonging to a particular ethnic group ensures you of privileges over the other inhabitants of a country; in a democracy, all citizens, whatever their origin, language, religion or customs enjoy the same rights." (p 67)

(‘Libyan Lessons for Lanka’, Dayan Jayatilleka, The Island, Aug 31st, 2011)

Intellectual and scholarly standards require that both ‘text’ and ‘context’ be carefully taken into account in the practice of critique. In distorting what I had written Prof Goonesekere has been unfair, lapsing on both counts.