| The provincial council
election results indicate that Mahinda has achieved his objective of
consolidation of the Sinhala national state. He maintained that the
present task to be carried out by his government was to crush Tamil
resistance at any cost. All other issues are secondary and he will
attend to each issue in the future. Since 1956, Sinhala nationalists in the SLFP have been crying for this political task. But there was a catch. |
Mahinda’s Sinhala chauvinism has attracted the attention of the entire capitalist class. They have nothing to fear from the state that has been strengthened. As an organ of repression it will be nothing but a weapon in their hand to be used against the working masses. Thus the SLFP with its auxiliary apparatus of the UPFA today, has taken the place of the UNP as a solid capitalist party. The UNP is left with the conservative elements and the reluctant Tamil and Muslim bourgeoisie. |
|
Was this state to be a bourgeois one or
not? The
noise made by the leftists involved with the SLFP, some from inside and
others from the outside frightened the capitalists. Property owners
were not prepared to go along with nationalisation and state capitalist
projects. Of course there was no socialism in any of these steps taken
in the name of attacking capitalism. The reality was that there was
state intervention and state capitalism. Nevertheless the capitalists
both big and small were frightened of this programme and hence they
were alienated from the project of a Sinhala nationalist state. The end
result was that the UNP remained the main capitalist party tied to
market economics. All these changed in the recent past.
Even the
Chandrika regime did not do anything substantial to reverse the neo
liberal open economic programme started by the UNP in 1977. Mahinda
became the worst. He simply robbed Ranil of his programme, the main
bourgeois adjutants and also the officials dedicated to global
capitalism. The presence of Milinda Moragoda, Karu Jayasuriya and
Bogollagama can give confidence even to an extremely pro Anglo-Saxon
investor. The presence of P B Jayasundara at the finance ministry with
the iron shield of the president is a delightful happening to any angel
from the modern Trinity - WB/ IMF/WTO. That means Mahinda’s Sinhala chauvinism has attracted the attention of the entire capitalist class. They have nothing to fear from the state that has been strengthened. As an organ of repression it will be nothing but a weapon in their hand to be used against the working masses. Thus the SLFP with its auxiliary apparatus of the UPFA today, has taken the place of the UNP as a solid capitalist party. The UNP is left with the conservative elements and the reluctant Tamil and Muslim bourgeoisie. Obliged In
1956,
Bandaranaike came to power with the help of an independent left. He was
obliged to the left leaders and they often threatened him. There were
strikes and agitations to which he compromised heavily. It was the rule
of the common man! Mass movement was essentially anti capitalist. JR knew that this had to be changed before it became more dangerous to the class he represented. He took the slogans of Sinhala chauvinism and took to the streets to oppose the Chelva-Banda pact. It did the trick. The masses turned against Tamils and their property, instead of capitalism. The left parties and the class conscious workers were isolated. They were pushed out of the stage. Left leaders lost faith in the principles that they had so far believed in. In less than a decade they agreed to go along with Sinhala chauvinism in order to achieve socialism. They lost their prestige, their mass base and their socialist ideology, altogether. Sinhala socialism |
| In 2008, the SLFP-led government has become the instrument for stabilising the Sinhala nationalist bourgeoisie state. Neither the UNP nor the JVP really challenged this project of the government. In fact, they directly and indirectly agreed totally with that project as a necessity for stabilising the capitalist society. The result is the victory of the government. The government used all the power in its hand to cow them down to praise its brutal project weeks before the elections, so that on election day violence was redundant! | So 1970 was a SLFP-led victory for Sinhala socialism. It was a revolution against capitalism and for state property, but it was also anti Tamil and anti minorities in general. Obviously it could not achieve any kind of socialism because quite apart from anything else, there is no socialism in one country. Instead it created a mixed economy with about 70% under state capitalism. In addition, it created a near dictatorship with governance by emergency regulations. Youth, workers and Tamils were repressed. The gigantic mass movement threw this regime away and cleared the path for open economic policies. The left was reduced to a marginal tendency. |
| In
2008, the SLFP-led government has become the instrument for
stabilising the Sinhala nationalist bourgeoisie state. Neither the UNP
nor the JVP really challenged this project of the government. In fact,
they directly and indirectly agreed totally with that project as a
necessity for stabilising the capitalist society. The result is the
victory of the government. The government used all the power in its
hand to cow them down to praise its brutal project weeks before the
elections, so that on election day violence was redundant!
We have to collect all the pieces and work hard against the hegemony of Sinhala chauvinism. The only help is the resistance in the north. |