SOWING THE SEEDS OF RACISM

The Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council, Wigneswaran, has done it again.  It appears that in spite of his educational achievements and the high judicial position he had held, he seems not to be learning any lessons from the past. 

It is obvious that his intentions are to capture the power of the TNA by deposing its leader – who interestingly brought Vigneswaran to the fore and promoted him to be the Chief Minister – in fact, a case of biting the fingers which fed him.  If that is his real intention, then there are other ways and means of doing so, rather than ignite the fires of racism and bring misery to his people who have just recovered from a thirty year old war, which was again due to the intransigence of another Megolomaniac called Prabhakaran.

It is downright stupidity to make public statements to the effect that Sinhalese and Muslims should not be relocated to where they originally belonged to in the North until they were banished from the area by the Tigers.  Just like the Tamils who had lived in the North for ages, these Sinhalese and Muslims too owned land and property and it is nothing but right to restore their status-quo.  If one takes that argument further, what will happen if another crazy Vigneswaran from the South comes up with the same theory that Tamils must leave the areas where they had lived for ages and go back to the North. Such stupidity and ignorance!  The Constitution guarantees every citizen to live in any part of the country and being an ex-Judge, it is rather strange that Vigneswaran seems to be unaware of that legal right. His other demands too are very childish indeed, such as the one not to erect Buddha  statues in the North whilst there are statues and religious places of other religions all over the South for his people to worship.

Another of his ridiculous demands is the re-merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces which again, if he has a good memory, he should have known that the two provinces were demerged on a court order and the people of this country would never allow a re-merger. 

With such a irresponsible and racist Chief Minister at the helm, even to think of granting Police and Land powers to the Council should not be a subject one should even deliberate because it smacks of real danger to the country.

If history has a knack for repeating itself, then the authorities should seriously consider removing the current Chief Minister from his position or even dissolve the Northern Provincial Council and hold fresh elections after declaring Vigneswaran persona non grata – just like the fate that befell one time Chief Minister Varadharaja Perumal who grew too big for his shoes and declared a unilateral independence to the North.

“Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason”. Abraham Joshua Heschel