Moment of truth

The countdown to midnight has begun at the time of writing. The big question yesterday was whether the JVP would quit the UPFA Government as it threatened to do at the stroke of midnight.

Although our readership would probably be knowing the answer to this crucial poser, perhaps even before this newspaper hits the streets, it would be necessary to place the JVP's actions in the correct perspective. For, it is necessary that the people distinguish their friends and allies from those whose policies and practices bode ill for the whole of Sri Lanka.

Although the JVP could be said to be in the democratic fold today, it was committed to violently overthrowing the State until a few years ago.

It is not news any longer that brutal violence has been the JVP's speciality - something which it shared warmly with the Khmer Rouge regime of Kampuchea, headed by that ruthless, feared and hated dictator Pol Pot. The JVP's ideological base is really ethnic chauvinism although it tries to hide behind a veneer of Marxism.

One may argue that all this applies mostly to the JVP's past and that today it is a party completely transformed. In short, the tiger has changed its stripes.

Fine, but does it possess the credentials to even pretend to lead the country?

In a democratic polity even narrow, ethnic chauvinists have a right to exist. This we do not deny but do they possess the mindset and policies appropriate for a Sri Lanka of the 21st century?

Today, we are in a position to see where the poison of racial and religious bigotry has taken Sri Lanka. It is a country in a shambles which is crying out for rebuilding and rejuvenation, in more senses than one.

Sri Lanka's decline could be attributed - broadly - to the fires of ultra-nationalism which have been burning on both sides of the ethnic divide in this country. While the LTTE has been contributing substantially to Tamil ultra-nationalism in the North, one of its counterparts in Southern Sri Lanka has been the JVP.

In fact it is the ultra-nationalistic forces in Southern Sri Lanka which - ironically - strengthen Tamil chauvinism and thereby continually sustain Northern separatism.

Clearly, ultra-nationalism of any kind has to be transcended, if Sri Lanka is to survive as a united, geographically-intact state. Power devolution from Sri Lanka's centre to the regions is one effective way of defeating separatism and keeping the country whole. From this point of view, it is clear that parties such as the JVP are an ossified relic of the past which are totally irrelevant in contemporary Sri Lanka.

So, it is best that the JVP is allowed to lose its way in the political wilderness. It can serve no useful purpose as long as it doesn't see beyond the narrow categories of one "race", one religion and one language.

Besides, the JVP needs to completely eschew violence and brutality.

The recent violent demonstrations in the heart of Colombo against the 'Joint Mechanism' proposal are proof that the JVP has not completely abandoned its policy of violent confrontation which reduced almost the whole of Sri Lanka to an eerie graveyard and won for it the alarming epithet, the "Killing Fields" of South Asia. The time is ripe for all progressive, secular political forces in this country to close ranks against narrow bigotry.