Professor Hoole was said to be the keynote speaker at a meeting organized by Canadians for Peace in Toronto, on August 17, 2008. At the very outset, he named Jehan Perera and few others that we all know are stooges of the west as moderates who seek peace but are being vilified. Professor Hoole compared himself to them.
[ad#200×200] Professor Hoole is said to have said; “Simply implement the thirteenth amendment and the reasonable use of Tamil law, and the cry for Elam will for the large part vanish”. Sinhalese protested the thirteenth amendment, but they could not sabotage it. Then who sabotaged it? Learned Professor himself answered that question. He said, “we Tamils made a grave error in sabotaging the Indo-Lanka Accord and that if we had accepted it; we will not be in this sorry plight today?”
On the one hand, learned professor told his audience that Sri Lanka government must implement the thirteenth amendment to wither Elam, and then on the other hand regrets for Tamils not accepting it. This is typical of the speech by Professor Hoole.
Hoole said, “we Tamils made a grave error… ” As far as we know, only LTTE rejected the Indo-Lanka Accord, all other groups accepted it. If that is so, Hoole’s careful phrasing gives rise to an acclamation of what LTTE says. Moreover, Hoole himself consider LTTE is sole the representative of all Tamils.
Hoole’ tiger stripes are visible through out his speech. However, if one grasps only one part and particularly the reasonable part of it, it may well sound as the voice of a peace loving moderate Tamil.
Moderate as he is, he wanted to have separate geographical units for Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims as a way to pursue their own well-being. I thought ghetto type of living had been rejected long time ago as being cruel. Now this man is promoting that discarded ghetto mentality as good for Tamils because he sees that is one way to divide this country.
When he said, “It is clear to me that some form of separation is the only answer,” He made the cat jumped out of his bag. He had confirmed his idea of separation when he said, “We need our own territories where we can decide our matters by ourselves. Such territorial division is good for all of us, be it through federalism or outright separation.”
Right through his sermon, he carried on his lecture with this kind of double talk. The moment some people heard Hoole says, 13th amendment is a good enough solution to vanish the cry for Elam; they had given him the benefit of doubt and assumed he is much like or represents all the peace loving moderate Tamils. When Hoole said, the 13th amendment is a good-enough solution to vanish the cry for Elam; reading just that part of the speech, some people and thought Hoole is for unitary Sri Lanka. Worst, if only sections of Hoole’s discourse are presented to the public. It would induce the reader to believe that Hoole is deemed to have given up his demand for Federalism. That is the way ‘Sunday Lankadeepa’ dated 25 December 2008 had portrayed the lecture by Hoole.
Hoole had done innumerable double talk during his speech, not to condemn LTTE for all its atrocities but to reach the same goal in a different way. Hoole follows Balasingham’s theory; take what you are offered now and ask for more, later. So, he seemed to have induced his audience to lament for not accepting Indian peace accord. He wished Tamils had accepted something that could lead to separation, not for the sake of peace.
It is very doubtful whether Hoole desires peace for Sri Lanka. This is clear from the questions he paused the audience. He asked; “Of what good are we when we take no risks for what we believe in?” What risks he is asking for his fellow Tamils to take that he does but they do not? Though he had not elaborated, we could visualize his longing when we read his speech one sentence by one.
For instance, he says that some ‘good people’ told him that he had been targeted by ‘Urumaya’ meaning JHU or SU. He moans; “But of what good are ‘good people’ when they are powerless against evil?” He dare name one person maimed or killed by Urumaya for him to castigate them as evil. If he cannot, his effort to put JHU and SU side by side with LTTE is at hoax.
Anyway, he is said to have named some of the good people at the start of his speech, Elmore Perera, Rohan Edirisinghe, Jayadeva Uyangoda and Jehan Perera. For us they are all NGO vultures that support terrorism and division of Sri Lanka.
As for the Evil’ people, there might have been so many of them listening to Hoole’s speech on that day. People world over knew that the Tamil Diaspora that support LTTE are ‘Evil’. Tamils were up to their neck with all things that you call illegal. There is nothing that you call bad that they haven’t got their hands. Yet, all this time Hoole had pretended not to know any of it. He thought Tamil Diaspora is innocent backers of LTTE freedom fighters or at least that is what he says.
It took one good a sarcastic comment for Hoole to realize sheer pretence has no value. I quote Hoole’s very words he uttered at that very harangue. He said, “On hearing that we are Tamil, my wife’s professor remarked ‘Ah so you are the naughty ones!’” Mind you, Hoole had not lamented about the evil acts of naughty ones before 9/11 but only now because they are no more considered as victims but perpetrators.
We have heard of or seen very many so-called moderates like Professor Hoole; Arunachalam and Chelvernayagam are two just to name a few of his precursors. These people had put the entire Sri Lankan Tamil population in this desperate position. They impelled ordinary Tamils to go berserk and demand much more than a fair share of Sri Lanka cake.
During the British Raj, both Tamils and Sinhala Christians were the privileged people. They were the civil servants, Doctors, Lawyers, accountants and so on. Sinhala Buddhists were content for being assigned to lesser jobs. So much so, they were of the opinion that Tamils and Christians were smarter than they were. Tamil leaders knew their folks were having such an unfair share of jobs and privileges they realized it could not go on after the independence under one vote per person system.
Therefore, Ponnambalam had demanded the British to allocate 50% of the seats to NE Tamils in the parliament to just 12% of the population. Mind you, nothing for Estate Tamils, for they were disfranchised with the support of Ponnambalam. Long before that, Arunachalam had sought to separate NE from the rest of Sri Lanka for NE Tamils. For that purpose, Tamil leaders had made up a bogus history and thought it to their folks.
Scholars say; there are no historical facts to establish that there had been Tamil dynasties or continuous Tamil kingdoms in the island of Sri Lanka. According to archeological scholar, Venerable Maidananda he has not seen any Tamil rock inscriptions. Writings by Ananda Koomaraswamy prove that Tamils were here as invaders and not settlers or colonists. Invariably when the invaders were chased out, all those that remain in the island had been assimilated to the Sinhala nation and that had been the case right through. All the learned people like Hoole knew these facts but they allowed the fallacy to brew.
Hoole could not hide his hatred towards Sinhala Buddhists. Following is what Hoole has to say about dislodging LTTE from the East. “The Sinhalese ruling clique’s mood is to crush the LTTE. Then, upon crushing the LTTE, they say, that all will be right and we Tamils will enjoy democracy. The kind of democracy we will enjoy can be seen in what is happening in the East – more colonization, new Buddhist temples sprouting up everywhere, vote-rigging, more Sinhalesization, etc.”
Hoole should read few books written by a fellow Tamil, Ananda Koomaraswamy and learn the history of the East and how many Buddhist Temples were there just few hundred years back. Had he knew that, he has no course to grumble.
Hoole may not know that there are Hindu idols inside most Buddhist Temples, and he may not know Sinhalese venerate them as well. He may also not know that Buddhist also visit Hindu temples to venerate and ask for favors from Hindu Gods. How could he, Hoole is an anglophile to his tooth and nail and hate the Sinhala Buddhist culture. As for Hindu Tamils, they are a different kettle of fish altogether. Just like the olden times, Hindus can be assimilated to Sinhala Buddhist culture with easy because there remain a lot of common factors between us.
Anyway, as far back as August last year Hoole knew LTTE will be defeated. He saw only two possibilities after that defeat. “Either we Tamils lose out and in the long term are assimilated …” said he. Hoole prays not to get assimilated but for Diaspora to woo the International Community, particularly India, into imposing a just settlement. Hoole is trying to lead ordinary Tamils once again in to the garden path.
If they be gullible once again and start a rift with the Sinhalese they will have to take the burnt. As the army commander says, Sinhala Buddhists should support the forces to increase their numbers and establish new bases such that no new Peripharan will ever see the day again. That is how we could defend Sri Lanka from dangerous people like Hoole who blows hot and cold at the same time.
No matter what, we should not devolve any power that could lead to separation.
Herold Leelawardena
source:Lankaweb