Midweek Review

The animating presence of folk literature

Published

5 years ago

2021/02/10

By Prof. Wimal Dissanayake

The dialogue between folk literature and classical literature, in many regions of the world, is as complex as it is fascinating. I am a great admirer of the post-modern writings of the distinguished Italian writer Italo Calvino. I have read all his books, creative and critical, translated into English with great interest. I have written critical essays on his works introducing them to the Sinhala reader. The other day as I was re-reading with mounting interest his book Italian Folktales, I was reminded of the urgency of the intersections between folk and elite literatures.

The Italian Folktales is a collection of 200 folk tales prevalent in various regions of Italy. Italo Calvino has rendered them into standard Italian, making adjustments and alterations when and where necessary. It is indeed a re-telling of these stories by Calvino. This book was first published in Italian in 1956 and translated into English in 1962. Since them there have been other English translations of it. In composing this volume, Italo Calvino was influenced by the thinking of the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp. Clearly, this is a book intended for the general reader in a way that Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale is not.

The folktales gathered in this volume are full of kings, peasants, ogres, as well as strange animals and plants as indeed in most folktales the world over. Many discerning critics have claimed that Italo Calvino did for Italian folktales what Brothers Grimm did for German folktales. This collection of stories was extremely well received outside of Italy as well. The New York Times Book Review said, ‘This collection stands with the finest folktale collections in the world.’ The Times called it ‘a magic book and a classic to boot.’

The impulse of Italian peasants for collective self-representation and the subtle literary sensibility of Italo Calvino meet in these pages with remarkable results infusing the stories with a vibrant and seductive glow. Indeed, what Brothers Grimm did for German folktales, Calvino did for Italian folk tales. These stories are activated by various dualisms such as reality and fantasy, conventionality and originality, simple and complex, local and universal which discerning literary critics with a deconstructive bent of mind would find extremely attractive and will persuade them to harness their analytical impulses in diverse ways seeking to annul the facile dualisms.

The Colombian Nobel laureate Garcia Marquez is an equally talented writer; but he is very different from Calvino as a literary artist. However, he too was deeply attracted to folk art and folk literature. He has often observed that his narrative impulse and skills were stimulated and nurtured by the folktales that his grandmother told him. He was also profoundly stirred by the Colombian folk music form vallenato. It is a popular folk music genre that is highly lyrical and expressive of a vigorous folk imagination. Garcia Marquez was not only enticed by this musical genre, but he also promoted vallenato concerts. His literary sensibility was memorably penetrated by this musical genre. He once remarked that, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude, his magnum opus, was a 250-page vallenato. As with Calvino, Garcia Marquez too displayed a great partiality for folk art and literature and the distinctive imagination of folk artists.

When discussing the power of folk art and folk literature, another distinguished writer that springs into mind is the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. Tragically, this highly talented writer was assassinated at a relatively young age. His work can best be understood as representing the intersection of folk literature and modern literary sensibility. His work the Gypsy Ballads exemplifies this aspect admirably. He deployed the traditional ballad meter with eight-syllable lines and traditional symbols with remarkable ingenuity. He made use of the self-protective symbolism of Spanish folk poetry to escape the nervous intimacies of personal anguish. Lorca was interested in uncovering the hidden contours of Andalusian imagination. A passage of poetry like the following taken from his Ballad of the Moon illustrates this facet of his work convincingly.

How the night heron sings

How it sings in the trees

Moon crosses the sky

With a boy by the hand

At the forge the gypsies

Cry and then scream

The wind watches

The wind watches the moon

Here Garcia Lorca deploys traditional symbols such as night, moon, sky and wind with new and at times Freudian valences. The ballads appear to be simple, but they conceal a sophisticated art.

The visionary Irish poet and playwright and Nobel laureate W.B.Yeats is another brilliant writer whose imagination was profoundly stimulated by folk art and literature. From the beginning he was attracted to folklore, myths, legends, ballads and so on. He once remarked that legends are the mothers of nations. He also said that, ‘all folk literature, and all literature that keeps the folk tradition, delights in unbounded and immortal things.’ Yeats was not, to be sure, enforcing a simple duality between folk literature and elitist literature; he was referencing a much more complex interaction.

Earlier, I referred to the collection of Italian folk tales by Italo Calvino. Similarly, Yeats published in 1888 a collection of folk tales and poems titled Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. It consists of 65 tales and poems that lead us to the vibrancy of the Irish folk imagination. They introduce us to a fascinating world peopled by kings, witches, ghosts, priests, saints, fairies, demons and peasants. Italo Calvino was interested in uncovering the hidden powers of the Italian folk imagination. Similarly, W.B. Yeats was interested in demonstrating the hidden powers of Irish sensibility. It was his conviction that ‘the very voice of the people, the very pulse of the people’ could be happily recovered through folk literature. Yeats was closely associated the famous Irish Literary Revival and his interest in folk literature constitutes one aspect of it. A well-known literary critic once observed that, ‘Yeats turned to folk sources to give his work the grain of ordinary humanity and the direct appeal of ballads and other traditional forms.’

Coming closer to home, the distinguished Nobel Prize winning writer Rabindranath Tagore also displayed a remarkable interest in folk art, music and literature. Yeats, of course, played a significant role in gaining a reputation for Tagore in the West. His poetry manifests a memorable amalgamation of folk, classical and Western influences. The spatial and temporal structures in his poetic compositions can be usefully understood in terms of folk art and literature. The foundational alphabet of his poems’ codes are traceable to folk roots. He was deeply sensitive to the interesting ways in which the folk imagination left its imprint in the vicissitudes of language. His poetic and lyric texts are marked by a pulse of folk-musicality.

Tagore was undoubtedly one of the greatest Indian writers of the modern age. His myriad talents moved in diverse directions. He earned a wide reputation as a poet, lyricist, novelist, playwright, short story writer, painter, musician, cultural critic and educationist. He was the author of some 60 collections of poetry and a great body of prose writings. He was a gifted musician who composed over ten thousand songs. As a painter, his work was exhibited in New York, Paris, Moscow, Berlin and Birmingham. In all these manifold endeavors one can identify the animating presence of folk art and literature. The rhetorical frameworks guiding his literary creations make audible a dialogue between the folk and elite traditions.

Among the Sri Lankan writers who have assiduously sought out the nurturing presence of folk literature, Gunadasa Amarasekera merits close study. His book of poetry, Amal Biso constitutes a landmark in the evolution of modern Sinhala poetry. In it, he has drawn heavily on the vitality of Sinhala folk poetry. The challenging equation of sense and sound, content and form, logic and syntax, the polyphonic achievements, the musically-patterned complex articulations that one discerns in this poetry book display a deep allegiance to the folk tradition. He combined the power and possibilities of folk poetry with an evolving cotemporary sensibility to produce poetry of a high order.

Let us, for example, consider a poem like Mal Yahanavata Vadinna, which I consider to be one of the finest Sinhala poems of the twentieth century. It recaptures the struggle between carnal love and romantic love drawing on all the available resources of folk poetry – diction, spatial and temporal structures, registers of discourse and rhetorical frameworks. It reconfigures a world fissured by complexity. He annuls easy disjunctions between binarisms of purity and impurity physicality and ideality. As Calvino, Garcia Marquez, Yeats, Garcia Lorca and Tagore had amply demonstrated, to draw on folk literature is not to romanticize it but to make it a vital contemporary presence, poignantly relevant to modern times. Gunadasa Amarasekera, too, has drawn attention to this important fact. It is interesting to observe the ways in which he allows the poem to rediscover the sense of its own textuality. Broadly speaking, a number of other outstanding Sinhala writers have been sensitive to this conjunction of folk and elite literature. In my book Enabling Traditions: Four Sinhala Cultural Intellectuals’ I have drawn attention to this point.

So far, I have discussed how highly gifted and consequential writers from different regions of the world have drawn on the vigor of folk literature to enhance the power and reach of their own work. Another facet of the influence of folk poetry is the diverse ways in which the discourse of the folk tradition has inflected the main tradition of literature. If we take the example of the Sinhala poetic tradition, we can observe how from the beginning the folk tradition has played a pivotal role in shaping the visage of the main tradition. For example, among the Sigiri poems, some of the earliest poetic compositions we have, we see representations and exemplifications of the classical as well as folk traditions.

Most literary historians are inclined to regard the folk tradition and the elite tradition as running along parallel tracks. At a superficial level, one can appreciate the legitimacy of such as approach. However, when we pause to inquire into this topic more deeply we would realize that throughout history there has been a constant and mutually fructifying interaction between the two traditions. Discerning literary critics like Martin Wickremasinghe and Gunadasa Amarasekera have established this fact. If we consider a highly esteemed and popular poem like the Guttila Kavya we would realize how the two traditions fruitfully meet in its pages. Gunadasa Amarasekera in his Sinhala Kavya Sampradaya has drawn attention to this fact. Srinath Ganewatte and I, in our book on Sinhala meter titled Viritha ha Arutha have demonstrated how folk literature has played a determinative role in the growth of Sinhala meters.

As we seek to explore in depth the power and resourcefulness of the folk tradition we need to bear in mind its diverse heuristic possibilities and the need to interpret it from fresh angles.

For example, some products of folk poets lend themselves to a form of subaltern approach. What I seek to highlight by this is the way folk poets foreground their agency, give voice to their predicaments and offer, through their texts, a kind of counter-tradition. Sinhala folk poets have demonstrated the fact that subalterns indeed can speak through their poems of deprivation and loss. This is an attempt to unsettle conventional structures of feeling and upend taken for granted viewpoints. This is indeed a subject area that invites further analysis. It requires elaborate theoretical equipage.

When we begin to unpack the creative and critical possibilities of the folk tradition, we should pay attention to the notion of the performative. Folk poems are nothing if not performative. It is not only in the case of oral poetry but also on the later written poetry, the idea of performance is supreme. Performativity should not be confined to folk poetry alone. All poetry, whether ancient or modern, folk or elite is performative. We do not seem to pay adequate attention to this important fact. By regarding modern poems as a performative events we can open new doors to their many-layered meanings and complex structures.

It has become increasingly clear that the discourse of tradition has to be located within the proper historical and cultural contexts and to focus clear-sightedly on the material forces that contribute to the shaping of tradition. In recent times, critics, like Sena Thoradeniya, have sought to underline this fact. The interplay between the folk and elite literature enables us to map more productively the dynamics of literary tradition. An exploration into the nature and significance of folk literature would permit us to engage in a more focused analysis of the constructedness of literary tradition.

Literary traditions are the outcome of the interaction between language power and nationality. We normally tend to discuss the evolution of literary traditions in linear terms. But it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to adopt a more complex vision which does justice to periods of intense activity and those marked by relative dormancy. Instead of linearity we need to foreground complex re-configurations. Traditions are not innocent of politics in the broader sense of the term. Questions of exclusivity and repressiveness and resistance loom large. We need to reimagine literary traditions as sites of conflict and challenging negotiations where an incessant struggle for meaning and truth takes place. A serious engagement with folk literature as instances of collective self-representations enable us to appreciate the importance of this move. We have been led to believe that literary traditions are transparent and free from the exercising of hidden power. The rhetorical strategies that go to form the discourse of literary traditions, along with the promoted hierarchical truths, have to be patiently mapped.

When we investigate into topics such as literary traditions, literary history and folk literatures our inescapable reference point and the guiding framework become the nation. Our desire to adopt a national framework in the evaluation of tradition is understandable. However, owing to the increasing impact of globalization the inevitability of the concept of nationhood is being challenged. We are asked to come up with a broader frames of intelligibility. The supra-national perspective has several implications. Let us consider a poem like Mal Yahanavata Vadinna by Amarasekera that I alluded to earlier. It is securely located in the folk tradition thematically, structurally and rhetorically. However, readers familiar with the respective writings and visions of Sigmund Freud and D.H. Lawrence would almost certainly find additional layers of meaning in the poem. The need to locate the poem in a larger horizon of meaning becomes apparent. What this highlights is that we need to be aware of both the metaphors of globalism and metonymies of localism. This awareness has a way of mitigating the anxieties of recognition.

On the basis of the preceding discussion, it can plausibly be argued that folk-literature can become a useful point of departure for the deconstruction of literary tradition and literary theory. Traditions are sites of the confluence of language, power and knowledge. This entails choices and preferences which result in exclusions and marginalizations. We have to think about traditions and literary history in new ways in the light of newer theoretical developments in the humanities and the social sciences.

The focus on literary traditions should pave the way to newer explorations of literary history. Literary history is not linear and transparent as is commonly believed, but circulatory and multi-layered. Our focus should be on reconfigurations and parallel assemblages obeying the dictates of Bakhtinian chronotopes (space-time formations). Such an approach will facilitate a more comprehensive view of literary history. An inquiry into folk-literature will expedite this hermeneutic process.

This short article consists of some reflections triggered by my re-reading of Calvino’s Italian Folktales. This re-reading brought to mind the works of Garcia Marquez, Garcia Lorca, Yeats, Tagore and Gunadasa Amarasekera, all of whom in their diverse ways, drew upon the power of folk literary forms. This discussion, I am persuaded, points to the importance of deconstructing literary traditions and literary history and demonstrating their constructed nature and the power plays involved. This article has, inevitably, taken the form of scattered reflections rather than a tightly constructed argument. Given the vast scope of the subject under consideration, and the limited space available, this is only to be expected.

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Midweek Review

2019 Easter Sunday carnage in retrospect

Published

1 week ago

2026/04/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

November 21, 2019: President Gotabaya Rajapaksa meets Archbishop of Colombo, His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith at the Bishop House where he requested the Church to nominate a representative for the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) probing the Easter Sunday carnage.

Coordinated suicide attacks targeted three churches—St. Anthony’s in Colombo, St. Sebastian’s at Katuwapitiya and Zion Church in Batticaloa—along with popular tourist hotels Shangri-La, Kingsbury, and Cinnamon Grand. No less a person than His Eminence Archbishop of Colombo Rt. Rev. Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith is on record as having said that the carnage could have been averted if the Yahapalana government shared the available Indian intelligence warning with him. Yahapalana Minister Harin Fernando publicly admitted that his family was aware of the impending attack and the warning issued to senior police officers in charge of VVIP/VIP security is evidence that all those who represented Parliament at the time knew of the mass murder plot. Against the backdrop of Indian intelligence warning and our collective failure to act on it, it would be pertinent to ask the Indians whether they knew the Easter Sunday operation was to facilitate Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s victory at the 2019 presidential poll. Perhaps, a key to the Easter Sunday conspiracy is enigma Sara Jasmin (Tamil girl from Batticaloa converted to Islam) whose husband Atchchi Muhammadu Hasthun carried out the attack on St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) leader Udaya Gammanpila’s Pasku Praharaye Mahamolakaru Soya Yema (Searching for the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday attacks) inquired into the 2019 April 21 Easter Sunday carnage. The former Minister and Attorney-at-Law quite confidently argued that the mastermind of the only major post-war attack was Zahran Hashim, one of the two suicide bombers who targeted Shangri-la, Colombo.

Gammanpila launched his painstaking work recently at the Sambuddhathva Jayanthi Mandiraya at Thummulla, with the participation of former Presidents Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who had been accused of being the beneficiary of the Easter Sunday carnage at the November 2019 presidential election, and Maithripala Sirisena faulted by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (PCoI) that probed the heinous crime. Rajapaksa and Sirisena sat next to each other, in the first row, and were among those who received copies of the controversial book.

PCoI, appointed by Sirisena in September, 2019, in the run-up to the presidential election, in its report submitted to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in February, 2020, declared that Sirisena’s failure as the President to act on ‘actionable intelligence’ exceeded mere civil negligence. Having declared criminal liability on the part of Sirisena, the PCoI recommended that the Attorney General consider criminal proceedings against former President Sirisena under any suitable provision in the Penal Code.

PCoI’s Chairman Supreme Court Judge Janak de Silva handed over the final report to President Rajapaksa on February 1, 2021 at the Presidential Secretariat. Gotabaya Rajapaksa received the first and second interim reports on 20 December and on 2 March, 2020, respectively.

The Commission consists of the following commissioners: Justice Janak De Silva (Judge of the Supreme Court and Chairman of the Commission), Justice Nissanka Bandula Karunarathna (Judge of the Court of Appeal), Justice Nihal Sunil Rajapakse (Retired Judge of the Court of Appeal), Bandula Kumara Atapattu (Retired Judge of the High Court) and Ms W.M.M.R. Adikari (Retired Ministry Secretary).

H.M.P. Buwaneka Herath functioned as the Secretary to the PCoI.

It would be pertinent to mention that the Archbishop of Colombo Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, declined an opportunity offered by President Rajapaksa to nominate a person for the PCoI. The Church leader asserted such a move would be misconstrued by various interested parties. Both the former President and Archbishop of Colombo confirmed that development soon after the presidential election.

Having declared its faith in the PCoI and received assurance of the new government’s intention to implement its recommendations, the Church was taken aback when the government announced the appointment of a six-member committee, chaired by Minister Chamal Rajapaksa, to examine the PCoI and recommend how to proceed. That Committee included Ministers Johnston Fernando, Udaya Gammanpila, Ramesh Pathirana, Prasanna Ranatunga and Rohitha Abeygunawardena.

The Church cannot deny that their position in respect of the Yahapalana government’s pathetic failure to thwart the Easter Sunday carnage greatly influenced the electorate, and the SLPP presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa directly benefited. Alleging that the Archbishop of Colombo played politics with the Easter Sunday carnage, SJB parliamentarian Harin Fernando, in June 2020, didn’t mince his words when he accused the Church of influencing a decisive 5% of voters to back Gotabaya Rajapaksa. At the time that accusation was made about nine months before the PCoI handed over its report, President Rajapaksa and the Archbishop of Colombo enjoyed a close relationship.

The Church raised the failure on the part of the government to implement the PCoI’s recommendations six months after President Rajapaksa received the final report.

The National Catholic Committee for Justice to Eastern Sunday Attack Victims, in a lengthy letter dated 12 July 2021, demanded the government deal with the following persons for their failure to thwart the attacks. The Committee warned that unless the President addressed their concerns alternative measures would be taken. The government ignored the warning. Instead, the SLPP adopted delaying tactics much to their disappointment and the irate Church finally declared unconditional support for the US-India backed regime change project.

Sirisena and others

On the basis of the 19th Chapter, titled ‘Accountability’ of the final report, the Committee drew President Rajapaksa’s attention to the following persons as listed by the PCoI: (1) President Maithripala Sirisena (2) PM Ranil Wickremesinghe (3) Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando (4) Chief of National Intelligence Sisira Mendis (5) Director State Intelligence Service Nilantha Jayawardena.

The 20th Chapter, titled ‘Failures on the part of law enforcement authorities’ in the Final report (First Volume), identified the following culprits ,namely IGP Pujith Jayasundera, SDIG Nandana Munasinghe (WP), Deshabandu Tennakoon (DIG, Colombo, North), SP Sanjeewa Bandara (Colombo North), SSP Chandana Atukorale, B.E.I. Prasanna (SP, Director, Western province, Intelligence), ASP Sisira Kumara, Chief Inspector R.M. Sarath Kumarasinghe (Acting OIC, Fort), Chief Inspector Sagara Wilegoda Liyanage (OIC, Fort)., Chaminda Nawaratne (OIC, Katana), State Counsel Malik Azeez and Deputy Solicitor General Azad Navaavi.

The PCoI named former Minister and leader of All Ceylon Makkal Congress Rishad Bathiudeen, his brother Riyaj, Dr Muhamad Zulyan Muhamad Zafras and Ahamad Lukman Thalib as persons who facilitated the Easter Sunday conspiracy, while former Minister M.L.A.M. Hisbullah was faulted for spreading extremism in Kattankudy.

Major General (retd) Suresh Sallay, who is now in remand custody, under the CID, for a period of 90 days, in terms of the prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) ,was not among those named by the PCoI. Sallay, who served as the head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI/from 2012 to 2016) was taken into custody on 25 February and named as the third suspect in the high profile investigation. (Interested parties propagated that Sallay was apprehended on the basis of UK’s Channel 4 claim that the officer got in touch with would-be Easter Sunday bombers, including Zahran Hashim, with the help of Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, alias Pilleyan. However, Pilleyan who had been arrested in early April 2025 under PTA was recently remanded by the Mount Lavinia Magistrate’s Court, pending the Attorney General’s recommendations in connection with investigations into the disappearance of a Vice Chancellor in the Eastern Province in 2006. There was absolutely no reference to the Easter Sunday case)

The Church also emphasised the need to investigate the then Attorney General Dappula de Livera’s declaration of a ‘grand conspiracy’ behind the Easter Sunday carnage. The Church sought answers from President Rajapaksa as to the nature of the grand conspiracy claimed by the then AG on the eve of his retirement.

Sallay was taken into custody six years after the PCoI handed over its recommendations to President Rajapaksa and the appointment of a six-member parliamentary committee that examined the recommendations. The author of Pasku Praharaye Mahamolakaru Soya Yema, Gammanpila, the only lawyer in the six-member PCoI, should be able to reveal the circumstances that committee came into being.

Against the backdrop of the PCoI making specific recommendations in respect of the disgraced politicians, civilian officials and law enforcement authorities over accountability and security failures, the SLPP owed an explanation regarding the appointment of a six-member committee of SLPPers. Actually, the SLPP owed an explanation to Sallay whose arrest under the PTA eight years after Easter Sunday carnage has to be discussed taking into consideration the failure to implement the recommendations.

Let me briefly mention PCoI’s recommendations pertaining to two senior police officers. PCoI recommended that the AG consider criminal proceedings against SDIG Nandana Munasinghe under any suitable provision in the Penal Code or Section 82 of the Police Ordinance (Final report, Vol 1, page 312). The PCoI recommended a disciplinary inquiry in respect of DIG Deshabandu Tennakoon. The SLPP simply sat on the PCoI recommendations.

Following the overthrow of President Rajapaksa by a well-organised Aragalaya mob in July 2022, the SLPP and President Ranil Wickremesinghe paved the way for Deshabandu Tennakoon to become the Acting IGP in November 2023. Wickremesinghe went out of his way to secure the Constitutional Council’s approval to confirm the controversial police officer Tennakoon’s status as the IGP.

Some have misconstrued the Supreme Court ruling, given in January 2023, as action taken by the State against those named in the PCoI report. It was not the case. The SC bench, comprising seven judges, ordered Sirisena to pay Rs 100 mn into a compensation fund in response to 12 fundamental rights cases filed by families of the Easter Sunday victims, Catholic clergy and the Bar Association of Sri Lanka. The SC also ordered ex-IGP Pujith Jayasundara and former SIS head Nilantha Jayawardene to pay Rs. 75m rupees each, former Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando Rs. 50 million and former CNI Sisira Mendis Rs. 10 million from their personal money. All of them have been named in the PCoI report. As previously mentioned, Maj. Gen. Sallay, who headed the SIS at the time of the SC ruling that created the largest ever single compensation fund, was not among those faulted by the sitting and former justices.

Initial assertion

The Archbishop of Colombo, in mid-May 2019, declared the Easter Sunday carnage was caused by local youth at the behest of a foreign group. The leader of the Catholic Church said so in response to a query raised by the writer regarding a controversial statement made by TNA MP M. A. Sumanthiran. The Archbishop was joined by Most Ven Ittapane Dhammalankara Nayaka Thera of Kotte Sri Kalyani Samagri Dharma Maha Sangha Sabha of Siyam Maha Nikaya. They responded to media queries at the Bishop’s House, Borella.

The Archbishop contradicted Sumanthiran’s claim that the failure on the part of successive governments to address the grievances of minorities over the past several decades led to the 2019 Easter Sunday massacre.

Sumanthiran made the unsubstantiated claim at an event organised to celebrate the first anniversary of the Sinhala political weekly ‘Annidda,’ edited by Attorney-at-Law K.W. Janaranjana at the BMICH.

The Archbishop alleged that a foreign group used misguided loyal youth to mount the Easter Sunday attacks (‘Cardinal rejects TNA’s interpretation’, with strap line ‘foreign group used misguided local youth’, The Island, May 15, 2019 edition).

Interested parties interpreted the Easter Sunday carnage in line with their thinking. The writer was present at a special media briefing called by President Sirisena on 30 April, 2019 at the President’s House where the then Northern Province Governor Dr. Suren Raghavan called for direct talks with those responsible for the Easter Sunday massacre. One-time Director of the President’s Media Division (PMD) Dr. Raghavan emphasised that direct dialogue was necessary in the absence of an acceptable mechanism to deal with such a situation. Don’t forget Sisisena had no qualms in leaving the country a few days before the attacks and was away in Singapore when extremists struck. Sirisena arrived in Singapore from India.

The NP Governor made the declaration though none of the journalists present sought his views on the post-Easter Sunday developments.

During that briefing, in response to another query raised by the writer, Army Commander Lt. Gen. Mahesh Senanayake disclosed that the CNI refrained from sharing intelligence alerts received by the CNI with the DMI. Brigadier Chula Kodituwakku, who served as Director, DMI, had been present at Sirisena’s briefing and was the first to brief the media with regard to the extremist build-up leading to the Easter Sunday attacks.

The collapse of the Yahapalana arrangement caused a security nightmare. Frequent feuds between Yahapalana partners, the UNP and the SLFP, facilitated the extremists’ project. The top UNP leadership feared to step in, even after Justice Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapaksha issued a warning in Parliament, in late 2016, regarding extremist activities and some Muslim families securing refuge in countries dominated by ISIS. Instead of taking tangible measures to address the growing threat, a section of the UNP parliamentary group pounced on the Minister.

The UNP felt that police/military action against extremists may undermine their voter base. The UNP remained passive even after extremists made an abortive bid to kill Thasleem, Coordinating Secretary to Minister Kabir Hashim, on 8 March 2019. Thasleem earned the wrath of the extremists as he accompanied the CID team that raided the extremists’ facility at Wanathawilluwa. The 16 January 2019 raid indicated the deadly intentions of the extremists but PM Wickremesinghe was unmoved, while President Sirisena appeared clueless as to what was going on.

Let me reproduce the PCoI assessment of PM Wickremesinghe in the run-up to the Easter Sunday massacre. “Upon consideration of evidence, it is the view of the PCoI that the lax approach of Mr. Wickremesinghe towards Islamic extremists as the Prime Minister was one of the primary reasons for the failure on the part of the then government to take proactive steps towards tackling growing extremism. This facilitated the build-up of Islam extremists to the point of the Easter Sunday attack.” (Final report, Vol 1, pages 276 and 277).

The National Catholic Committee for Justice to Easter Sunday Attack Victims, in its letter dated 12 July, 2021, addressed to President Rajapaksa, questioned the failure on the part of the PCoI to make any specific recommendations as regards Wickremesinghe. Accusing Wickremesinghe of a serious act of irresponsibility and neglect of duty, the Church emphasised that there should have been further investigations regarding the UNP leader’s conduct.

SLPP’s shocking failure

The SLPP never made a serious bid to examine all available information as part of an overall effort to counter accusations. If widely propagated lie that the Easter Sunday massacre had been engineered by Sallay to help Gotabaya Rajapaksa win the 2019 presidential poll is accepted, then not only Sirisena and Wickremesinghe but all law enforcement officers and others mentioned in the PCoI must have contributed to that despicable strategy. It would be interesting to see how the conspirators convinced a group of Muslims to sacrifice their lives to help Sinhala Buddhist hardliner Gotabaya Rajapaksa to become the President.

Amidst claims, counter claims and unsubstantiated propaganda all forgotten that a senior member of the JVP/NPP government, in February 2021, when he was in the Opposition directly claimed Indian involvement. The accusation seems unfair as all know that India alerted Sri Lanka on 4 April , 2019, regarding the conspiracy. However, Asanga Abeygoonasekera, in his latest work ‘Winds of Change’ questioned the conduct of the top Indian defence delegation that was in Colombo exactly two weeks before the Easter Sunday carnage. Abeygoonasekera, who had been a member of the Sri Lanka delegation, expressed suspicions over the visiting delegation’s failure to make reference to the warning given on 4 April 2019 regarding the plot.

The SLPP never had or developed a strategy to counter stepped up attacks. The party was overwhelmed by a spate of accusations meant to undermine them, both in and outside Parliament. The JVP/NPP, in spite of accommodating Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim, father of two Easter Sunday suicide bombers Ilham Ahmed Ibrahim (Shangila-la) and Imsath Ahmed Ibrahim (Cinnamon Grand), in its 2015 National List was never really targeted by the SLPP. The SLPP never effectively raised the possibility of the wealthy spice trader funding the JVP to receive a National List slot.

The Catholic Church, too, was strangely silent on this particular issue. The issue is whether Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim had been aware of the conspiracy that involved his sons. Another fact that cannot be ignored is Attorney-at-Law Hejaaz Hizbullah who had been arrested in April 2020 in connection with the Easter Sunday carnage but granted bail in February 2022 had been the Ibrahim family lawyer.

Hejaaz Hizbullah’s arrest received international attention and various interested parties raised the issue.

The father of the two brothers, who detonated suicide bombs, was granted bail in May 2022.

Eric Solheim, who had been involved in the Norwegian-led disastrous peace process here, commented on the Easter Sunday attacks. In spite of the international media naming the suicide bombers responsible for the worst such atrocity Solheim tweeted: “When we watch the horrific pictures from Sri Lanka, it is important to remember that Muslims and Christians are small minorities. Muslims historically were moderate and peaceful. They have been victims of violence in Sri Lanka, not orchestrating it.”

That ill-conceived tweet exposed the mindset of a man who unashamedly pursued a despicable agenda that threatened the country’s unitary status with the connivance of the UNP. Had they succeeded, the LTTE would have emerged as the dominant political-military power in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and a direct threat to the rest of the country.

Midweek Review

War with Iran and unravelling of the global order – I

Published

1 week ago

2026/04/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

At present, the world stands in the midst of a transitional and turbulent phase, characterised by heightened uncertainty and systemic flux, reflecting an ongoing transformation of the modern global order. The existing global order, rooted in the US hegemony, shows unmistakable signs of decay, while a new and uncertain global system struggles to be born. In such moments of profound transformation, as Antonio Gramsci observed, morbid symptoms proliferate across the body politic. From a geopolitical perspective, the intensifying coordinated aggression of the United States and Israel against Iran is not merely a regional crisis, but an acceleration of a deeper structural transformation in the international order. In this context, the conduct of Donald Trump appears less as an aberration and more as a morbid symptom of a declining US-led global order. As Amitav Acharya argues in The Once and Future World Order (2025), the emerging global order may well move beyond Western dominance. However, the pathway to that future is proving anything but orderly, shaped instead by disruption, unilateralism, and the unsettling symptoms of a system in transition.

Origins of the Conflict

To begin with, the origins and objectives of the parties to the present armed confrontation require unpacking. In a sense, the current Persian Gulf crisis reflects a convergence of long-standing geopolitical rivalries and evolving security dynamics in the Middle East. The roots of tension between the West and the Middle East can be traced back to earlier historical encounters, from the Persian Wars of classical antiquity to the Crusades of the medieval period. A new phase in the region’s political trajectory commenced in 1948 with the establishment of Israel—widely perceived as a Western enclave within the Arab world—and the concurrent displacement of approximately 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland. Since then, Israel has steadily consolidated and expanded its territory, a process that has remained a persistent source of regional instability. The Iranian Revolution introduced a further layer of complexity, fundamentally reshaping regional alignments and ideological contestations. In recent years, tensions between Israel and the United States on one side and Iran on the other have steadily intensified. The current phase of the conflict, however, was directly triggered by coordinated U.S.–Israeli airstrikes on both civilian and military targets on 28 February 2026, which, as noted in a 2 April 2026 statement by 100 international law experts from leading U.S. universities, constituted a clear violation of the UN Charter and International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

Objectives and Strategic Aims

Israel’s strategic objective appears to be directed toward the systematic and total destruction of Iran’s military, nuclear, and economic capabilities, driven by the perception that Iran remains the principal obstacle to its security and its pursuit of regional primacy. Israel was aware that Iran did not possess a nuclear weapon at the time; however, its nuclear programme remained a subject of international contention, with competing assessments regarding its ultimate intent and potential for weaponisation.

The United States, for its part, appears to be pursuing more targeted political and strategic objectives, including eventual transformation of Iran’s current political regime. Washington has long regarded the Iranian leadership as fundamentally antagonistic to U.S. interests in the Middle East. In this context, the United States may seek to enhance its strategic leverage over Iran, including in relation to its substantial oil and gas resources, a point underscored in recent statements by Donald Trump. It must be noted, however, successive U.S. administrations since 1979 have avoided direct large-scale military confrontation with Iran, preferring instead a combination of sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and indirect military engagement.

The positions of other Arab states in the Persian Gulf are shaped by a combination of security calculations, sectarian considerations, and broader geopolitical alignments. While several Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, notably Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, have expressed tacit support for measures that counter Iranian regional influence, their involvement remains calibrated to avoid direct military confrontation. Their position is informed by the belief that Iran provides backing to militant non-state actors, including Hezbollahs in the West Bank and the Houthis in Southern Yemen, which they view as destabilising forces in the region. These states are balancing competing priorities: the desire to curb Iran’s power projection, maintain strong security and economic ties with the United States, and preserve domestic stability. At the same time, countries such as Oman and Qatar have adopted more neutral or mediating stances, emphasizing diplomatic engagement and conflict de-escalation.

Militarily, Iran is not positioned to match the combined military capabilities of U.S.–Israeli forces. Nevertheless, it retains significant asymmetric leverage, particularly through its capacity to influence global energy flows. Control over critical maritime chokepoints, most notably the Strait of Hormuz, provides Tehran with a potent strategic instrument to disrupt global oil supply. Iranian leadership appears to view this leverage as a key pressure point, designed to compel global economic actors to push Washington and Tel Aviv toward a cessation of hostilities and a negotiated settlement. In this context, attacks on oil and gas infrastructure, shipping routes, and supply lines constitute central components of Iran’s survival strategy. As long as the conflict persists and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted, the resulting instability is likely to generate severe repercussions across the global economy, increasing pressure on the United States to halt military operations against Iran.

Now entering its fifth week, the conflict continues to flare intensely, characterised by sustained and intensive aerial operations. Joint U.S.–Israeli strikes have reportedly destroyed substantial elements of Iran’s air and naval capabilities, as well as critical military and economic infrastructure. Nevertheless, Iran has retained the capacity to conduct guided missile strikes within Israel and against selected U.S. economic, diplomatic, and military assets across the Middle East, including reported long-range attacks on the U.S. facility at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, approximately 4,000 kilometers from Iranian territory. Initial U.S. and Israeli strategic calculations—anticipating that a decisive initial strike and the targeted killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would precipitate regime collapse and popular uprising—have not materialized. On the contrary, the destruction of civilian facilities has strengthened anti-American sentiment and reinforced domestic support for the Iranian leadership. While Iran faced initial setbacks on the battlefield, it has achieved notable success in the international media front, effectively shaping global perceptions and advancing its propaganda objectives. By the fifth week, Tehran’s asymmetric strategy has yielded tangible results, including the downing of two U.S. military aircraft, F15E Strike Eagle fighter jet and A10 Thunderbolt II (“Warthog”) ground-attack aircraft , signaling the resilience and operational efficacy of Iran’s military power.

The Military Industrial Complexes and ProIsrael Lobby

Why did the United States initiate military action against Iran at this particular juncture? Joe Kent, who resigned in protest over the war, stated that available intelligence did not indicate an imminent Iranian capability to produce a nuclear weapon or pose an immediate threat to the United States. This assessment raises important questions about the stated objective of dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, suggesting that it may have served to obscure broader strategic and economic considerations underpinning the intervention. To understand the timing and rationale of the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf, it is therefore necessary to examine the influence of two powerful domestic pressure groups: the military–industrial complex and the pro-Israel lobby.

The influence of the U.S. military–industrial complex on American foreign policy is most clearly manifested through the institutionalized “revolving door” between defense corporations and senior positions within the U.S. administration. Over the past two decades, key figures such as Lloyd Austin (Secretary of Defence, 2021–2025), a former board member of Raytheon Technologies, Mark Esper (Secretary of Defence 2019–2020), who previously served as a senior executive at the same firm, and Patrick Shanahan (2019) from Boeing exemplify the direct movement of personnel from industry into the highest levels of strategic decision-making. This circulation is complemented by influential policy actors such as Michèle Flournoy (Under Secretary of Defence Under President Obama) and Antony Blinken (Secretary of State 2021 to 2025, Deputy Secretary of State 2015 to 2017), whose engagement with consultancies like WestExec Advisors further blurs the boundary between public policy and private defense interests. This pattern appears to persist under the present Trump administration, where the interplay between defense industry interests and strategic policymaking continues to shape procurement priorities and threat perceptions. Consequently, the military–industrial complex operates not merely as an external pressure group but as an internalized component of the policy process, shaping U.S. foreign policy in ways that align strategic objectives with the structural and commercial interests of the defense sector. Armed conflicts may also generate substantial commercial opportunities, as increased military spending often translates into expanded profits for defense contractors.

The influence of the pro-Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy is best understood as a dense network of advocacy organisations, donors, policy institutes, and political actors that shape both elite consensus and decision-making within successive administrations. At the center of this network is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, widely regarded as one of the most effective lobbying organisations in Washington, which works alongside a broader constellation of groups and donors to sustain bipartisan support for Israel. This influence is reinforced through the presence of senior policymakers and advisors with strong ideological or institutional affinities toward Israel, including Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, whose close political alignment has translated into consistent diplomatic and strategic backing. Policy decisions—ranging from the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to continued military assistance—reflect not only geopolitical calculations but also the domestic political salience of pro-Israel advocacy within the United States. Consequently, the pro-Israel lobby operates not merely as an external pressure group but as an embedded force within the policy ecosystem, shaping U.S. foreign policy in ways that sustain a strong and often unconditional commitment to Israeli security and strategic interests. A fuller explanation of U.S. policy toward Iran emerges when the influence of both the military–industrial complex and the pro-Israel lobby is considered together. These two forces, while distinct in composition and motivation, converge in reinforcing a strategic outlook that prioritises the identification of Iran as a central threat and legitimizes the use of coercive military instruments.

Global Economic Fallout

After five weeks of sustained conflict, the trajectory of the war suggests that Iran’s strategy of resilience and asymmetric resistance is yielding tangible effects. While the United States, alongside Israel, has inflicted significant damage on Iran’s economic and military infrastructure, it has not succeeded in eroding Tehran’s capacity—or resolve—to continue the conflict through unconventional means. At the same time, Washington appears to be encountering increasing difficulty in bringing the war to a decisive conclusion, even as signs of strain emerge in its relations with key European allies. Most importantly, the repercussions of the conflict are no longer confined to the battlefield: the unfolding crisis has generated a widening economic shock that is reverberating across global markets and supply chains. It is this broader international economic impact of the war that now warrants closer examination.

The Persian Gulf conflict is rapidly sending shockwaves through the global economy. At the forefront is the energy sector: even partial disruptions to oil and gas exports from the region are driving prices sharply higher, placing severe pressure on energy-importing economies in Europe and Asia and fueling inflation worldwide. Maritime trade is also under strain, as heightened risk prompts longer shipping routes, increased freight rates, and rising war-risk premiums. These disruptions ripple through global supply chains, pushing up the cost of goods far beyond the energy sector.

Insurance costs for shipping and aviation are soaring as large zones are designated high-risk or even excluded from coverage, further elevating transport costs and pricing out smaller operators. Together, these pressures constitute a systemic economic shock: industrial production costs rise, supply chains fragment, and trade volumes contract, stressing manufacturing, logistics, and consumption simultaneously.

The cumulative effect is already slowing global growth. Major economies such as the EU, China, and India face slower expansion, while import-dependent states risk recession. Trade-driven sectors are contracting, reinforcing a scenario of high inflation and stagnating growth. Air travel is also impacted, with restricted airspace, higher fuel prices, and elevated insurance premiums driving up ticket costs and lengthening travel routes. Rising energy prices, logistics bottlenecks, and increased production costs are pushing up food prices and cost-of-living pressures, potentially forcing central banks into tighter monetary policy and slowing growth further.

Finally, global manufacturing—from chemicals and plastics to agriculture—is experiencing ripple effects as supply chain disruptions intensify shortages and price increases. The conflict in the Persian Gulf is thus not only a regional security crisis but also a catalyst for broad, interconnected economic disruptions that are reverberating across markets, trade networks, and everyday life worldwide.

(To be continued)