Midweek Review

The Gift of Music:Sons and Fathers

Published

3 years ago

2023/05/10

Sahan Weerasooriya

Kanthi with baby Mala.

a film by Sumathy – Part II

by Laleen Jayamanne

There is a recurrent discussion among the film industry personnel in the film about the desirability of ‘originality’ in Sinhala music and also in films, which translates as the need to abandon copying Indian genre films or anything Indian for that matter. One opposing view interrogates the possibility of originality itself, asking ‘what is originality? Are we original?’ Yet another view is expressed by Upul Shantha Sannasgala, in favour of anything that creates box office success, citing the triangular plot of his new film which describe exactly the outrageously plotted, sexist film, Samiya Birindage Deviyaya (The Husband is the Wife’s God,) with the leading star and singer, Rukmani Devi and its arch villain, Domi Jayawardena. The desirability of nationalising the film industry and the creation of ‘our’ studios (meaning with Sinhala ownership, breaking the Tamil monopoly) is also expressed as the racial tensions outside reaches a critical point, when several army officers are killed by the LTTE near Jaffna and kindling the State terror of July 83. When Rex is put on the spot by friends and asked for his views on politics, he says he doesn’t know anything about politics and all he knows is music, adding that music has no race or country, while Sannasgala comes to his defence with; ‘Master is music, music is master!’

Writing or Drawing a Character

In the world’s oldest film school in the former Soviet Union (USSR), there was a practice of getting the students to first draw their characters and ideas on paper before writing with words. The teachers who devised the practice knew that drawing a line, as in a line drawing, would activate a mental process different from writing using words. Highly experienced mentors like Mikael Romm practiced this pedagogy with his students, one of whom was Andre Tarkovsky. The stimulation of the student’s imagination and extra-linguistic sensory powers was one of their aims. It is said that he urged his students to reach into their ‘darkness’ so that they might be able to find a way to speak, find a ‘language’. He protected his students from the communist thought police. Honouring this process of teaching and learning, as I try to do also in my writing, I like to resist asking a director why s/he did such and such, a sad and intellectually feeble resort. Such blunt questions blunt one’s own imaginative capacity to make multi-sensory connections, especially when it’s about cinema. Lucky’s haunting question ‘Appa, what language?’ requires a critic to become self-reflexive about how she uses linguistic-language in writing on film, which doesn’t behave like language as such. As Pasolini rather impatiently pointed out (to the eminent semiologists, including Roland Barthes, at the Pesaro Film Festival) that unlike language with its denotative, finite number of words, there is no dictionary of images we can draw on for film and nor are words similar to images.

So, it’s best not to ask directors what they meant either, because when trying to write a book on his cinema, I once asked Kumar Shahani why an ‘epic persona’ in his film did something, he said ‘I don’t know.’ Was he being a Zen Master, I wondered, a bit taken aback. But then chatting with him I realised the truth of what he was saying, that sometimes artists make their characters do stuff in such a way that it is fruitless to try to find out the motivation for an action, as though every act is a perfectly rationally explainable response to a stimulus, like Pavlov’s poor dog, salivating at the ring of a bell. Some artists want to be able to sustain a degree of freedom in their thinking, that is, keep that which is barely consciously sayable, especially to themselves (at three o’clock in the morning, as they say in the Blues) in a shadowy subconscious state. They might feel its necessity, without being able to put it into words and not even wanting to do so, as it might kill their evanescent impulses. Artists are creatures who trust their impulses and fluctuating sensations trying to harness them in a disciplined and skilled way, lest they get derailed, overwhelmed by their surfeit. But then, I believe that it’s a critic’s responsibility to think about what one sees and hears and feels by posing questions that might open up a train of thought for oneself at first. This is not like revealing hidden meanings, but rather, understanding how something works or doesn’t, its aesthetic logic and feelings, pulses, and how they might connect with some other thing through a style of writing, hoping that readers themselves might take it yet in another unforeseen direction.

sivamohan’s main characters, Rex, Kanthi, Lucky and the quiet Mala, are created and act in such a way that not all their feelings are transparent, nor are all their motivations explained or even explainable. They have an interiority we can sense but to which we don’t have a privileged access and I suspect that the director also might feel that about the people she has created. This may sound strange as sivamohan has said that she modelled Rex, in part, on Rocksamy’s history in the film industry and that Lucky was modelled on the well-known musician Anthony Surendra, the son of Master Anthony, himself a musician. That they have in various ways suffered greatly as Tamils in the film and music industry is an important fact, which sivamohan builds on, with some of the best dialogue I have ever heard in the Sinhala cinema, for sure. And I am thinking here especially of the serious ‘Civil-War Films’ by some of our most talented, senior filmmakers. Some of them have crafted a new ‘anthropological type’ it would seem, with the silent, traumatised young Tamil women doggedly following former soldiers without uttering a word. Here, I don’t wish to comment on these films except to say that they appear to have constructed ‘The Tamil Woman’ as an enigma in her silence. Why Sinhala male directors are drawn to create such figures is something the Sinhala cinephiles and critics themselves should really take up, making a sustained study of the films, especially because now, sex, whether consensual or coercive as in rape, is permitted on the screen by the National Censorship Board.

sivamohan does assiduous ethnographic research for drawing her characters, but they are not Bio-Pics of these particular artists and nor are they phantasmatic figures, but appear to be composites of several real persons in the film and music industries. Hers is not the problem of ‘Realism in the cinema,’ which codes expression in the three-act drama I referred to earlier, and which Stefan Brecht (cited at the beginning) rejects. Within the known historical discrimination suffered by the Tamils of Lanka, sivamohan (who has lived through civil war years both in Jaffna and the South and lost a sister and close friends to it), has created her characters themselves with a degree of opacity, with regard to their subjectivity (reminiscent of Robert Bresson’s Models) but none of them is enigmatic. For me, this is part of the charm and subtlety of these characters who form a multi-ethnic Lankan family. The different ways in which Kanthi and Lucky sing the same song, his ‘mother’s song’, adds a rich affective density to their characters and the ballad-like song itself. Rex at first seemed the simplest, the most transparent, with his open smile, and yet gradually he too becomes much more complex, dark (as he faces direct racist violence), lashing out at those closest to him in despair as his soul is destroyed.

‘Ammi, did he kill her to stop the music?’

Rex and Kanthi

Shamala Kumar (in her hauntingly personal account in the island), on seeing Sons and Fathers with Malin her thirteen-year-old son, tells us that he kept asking her questions loudly while watching the film, to which she had to say ‘I don’t know.’ She says that about the many incomprehensible events of racialised violence shown, including the burning of the film director Venkat in his car. Later at home Malin had asked his mother, ‘did he kill her to stop the music?’ The mother comments on her child’s thoughtful question saying, it was as though he was pleased to be able to piece together a tentative reason for why Lucky fired that shot in a movie theatre. Lucky had come to a cinema where the film of the opening song and dance sequence is repeated in colour, this time round showing us an utterly absorbed audience in a few shots. Lucky, standing at the back of the theatre appears to take a gun out and point it at the screen. Though no gun is visible, we infer that it is one because we see the familiar gesture (seen in countless Westerns and Gangster films), hear the shot and see the dancer on the screen falling down. Some viewers rise up in consternation, one which we share. The reverse shot cuts to a close-up of the bleeding singer who appears to be ‘real,’ rather than a projected image, but films can wound us, make us cry as in life. The next cut shows a singular image, a painterly shot of a splash of red on a white surface. The entire series of shots are hard to make clear sense of, hence the child’s considered question to his mother. It is a puzzle for me as well, because it doesn’t quite compute as a sensory-motor action, say, as a shot fired in a gangster film would be. Usually such a generic shot is clearly motivated, the gun essential to the action as are the hero and villain. I feel a bit like Malin, baffled and startled by that scene. And each time I try to work out how it works, it slips away but returns to me unwittingly just as I drift off into sleep. I feel I can’t quite compute it. But slowly I was able to see why it’s a scene that troubles the mind in a manner quite different from the horrific sequence of the burning of Venkat in his car.

Through this comparison, it dawned on me that sivamohan shifts planes of action and composition (in all three of her films), at certain critical violent moments. She plays with fire; there is the burning tea bush in Ingirunthu which does not turn to ash, and in A Single Tumbler, the single metal tumbler catches fire in the microwave, a truly disturbing, scary image. The fire power of Lucky’s gun shot is slightly different, but all three instances shift gear, so to speak. They do something which impels our minds (if receptive like that of a child), to return to the scene repeatedly. What is it about these sivamohan scenes that make our minds to return to them irresistibly? They are not played out on a clear realist spatio-temporal plane, though these films have a precise sense of historical space/time.

On a meta-cinematic plane, Sivamohan is paying tribute to the process of Montage which created the magical appearances and disappearances, what Eisenstein called, the defining cinematic act of the medium of film. These singular scenes puzzle the mind because their violence is not like the realistically presented violence of say, burning a man alive or the mass destruction of buildings and property with fire. The violence of shooting at the image of the dancer (but not the flesh and blood actor/dancer), enacts a form of ‘counter-violence,’ as response to the normalised violence of racism, exploitation, torture and murder, which we have become all too familiar with as Lankans (we hear a victim of the pogrom say, ‘last time we lost all’). How many more times will history repeat itself with such horrific violence, one wonders.

A beautiful scene honours actual persons from the film industry, the editor Aliman (a Muslim), with his old editing machine to cut (the now obsolete) celluloid film, expertly handling the film, searches for the 28 missing shots with the director Siva (a Tamil). These two men from the film industry, with their dry humour, were well known personnel who did pass away quite poor.

Allegory as Counter-Violence

There is a large body of philosophical and programmatic writing on revolutionary- violence in anti-imperialist national struggles, as a form of ‘counter-violence.’ I am trying to use the idea differently though, not by citing chapter and verse from, say Lenin’s What is to be Done, or Che Guevara, beloved of the JVP of the April ‘71 rebellion. Rather, I want to understand the precise imaginative ways in which the shooting of the dancer has been staged allegorically, rather than realistically, which I would argue to be an ethico-aesthetic decision by sumathy in her film, which is also about the State sponsored pogrom against the Tamils in July 83.

sumathy’s allegorical scenes are not cliches that she whips up to resolve her films when the situation becomes unendurable, when the violence reaches a level of horror and ‘The Scream’ appears to be the only expression available. It’s the internal dynamics of the fascist violence of the State and of reactive terrorism of the LTTE which is displaced in the movie theatre, with an allegory of cinematic violence, countering the sure-fire ingredients of ‘Action, Sex and Violence’ (mentioned as desirable by a producer in the film), as ingredients of exciting marketable films now. The process of countering these violent logics of actions and reactions is linked to how the theatre scene is constructed as an allegory, what I am calling an enactment of ‘counter-violence’ through a film-allegory.

The Lens as A Brush

Godard, when asked once why there is so much blood smeared liberally on his characters, in one of his polemical post 68 experimental films famously snapped back, ‘It’s not Blood, its Red!’ Similarly, the striking splash of red on a white surface (which appears soon after the dancer is shot down bleeding profusely on the floor), punctuates the scene emphatically and calls attention to its minimalist painterly gesture. Why is this striking singular painterly shot inserted there between shots of the bleeding dancer on the ground? A white surface, whether a wall or the screen itself is not visible there in the theatre. We have heard Lucky being repeatedly called a ‘tiger cub,’ even by his best friend and the other Sinhala musicians refuse to work with him as the suspicion against all Tamil young men as potential terrorists intensifies in the South.

This trend reaches a peak when his ‘girl-friend’ Champa, on hearing Lucky sing his ‘mother’s song (Tharaka Hanga) at the club, asks him what it is and if he would teach it to her. Like the sweetly naive person he is, he agrees gladly. But instead of waiting, Champa goes to Lucky’s house and learns the song directly from his mother herself. As he returns home they meet unexpectedly at his door and sees her guile when she tells him that she is off to India to be trained as a singer. As she walks away Lucky shouts out her; ‘My father is not a Terrorist. I am a Terrorist. I will carry the Tamil newspaper gladly.’ His mother has previously warned Rex not to be seen carrying a Tamil newspaper. The sense of the crescendo of Lucky’s surprising outburst is muted as it’s a Tamil newspaper which he thinks to carry, not a weapon of choice for a terrorist of any ethnicity! It’s the repeated branding of Lucky as a terrorist by his peers which makes his persona as a ‘terrorist’ in the movie theatre credible. There, Lucky is presented as an actor in the ‘film within the film,’ who acts out an allegorical scene of shooting at an image. Because, if he is an actor playing a Terrorist, then his sole imperative is that he must kill. But if it’s an allegorical action, then the question as to motivation can have no realist answer. The splash of blood-red on the pristine white screen is a sensuous abstract image of ‘pure’ violence, enabled by Lucky’s equally abstracted gesture of shooting an image with an imaginary gun, in the film within the film Sons and Fathers that we have been watching for over an hour by then. So, I read the entire scene of Lucky shooting the dancer and the audience watching it, as a film-within-a-film (a meta-film) crystalising, in an abstract image of violence, the discussions on the need for racial and cultural purity, also encoded in the song Jaya Pita Deas. The sonic montage, the contradiction between the hybrid image and sound, and between images themselves, is the kind of sequence which Eisenstein called ‘Intellectual-Montage.’ They cut across the compartmentalised brain. These conceptually sophisticated audio-visual montage techniques, stimulating feelings and thoughts all at once, would have been why Sons and Fathers received the prize for music, at the Jaipur International Film Festival in 2019.

The different views expressed about Sinhala cinema and the desirability of ‘cultural purity’ appears as an open question here. Historically, these questions were resolved in favour of the Nationalisation of the film industry according to the recommendation of the Royal Commission into the Lankan Film Industry in the 1960s. The examination of the successes and problems of that policy, in the creation of a ‘truly national (Sinhala) cinema’ by instituting the State Film Corporation of Lanka, is best left to historians. But the question of whether the significant new national cinema, created in its wake, also ignored Lanka’s ethnic minorities from the desired national identity, is also one for our film critics to worry over. The allegorical gesture of Lucky, shooting down the film image, in the guise of a Sinhala persona allegorised as a Tamil Terrorist, still remains tantalising to my mind despite what I’ve written here. But we Sinhala critics will learn much, I believe, through serious scholarship and critical writing on Lankan cinema and exploring how sumathy’s cinematic project might be theorised within its dynamics. Such work will require interrogating the long-standing (taken for granted) Sinhala idea of sanguine ‘generational change’ among talented men, because ‘history’ is not a natural event.

The Mother’s Song and its Loss

Towards the very end of the film we see Rex, Kanthi and their daughter absorbed in something on their TV. For the first time we see them in large close-ups (rare in this film), while the camera tracks between them, bringing each of them very close to us. A cut to the TV reveals Champa singing Lucky’s ‘mother’s song’ with orchestration, in a polished, well trained, sweet voice, dressed tastefully in a matching sari and blouse, producing the requisite well-rehearsed gestures and artfully-wistful smiles for the camera. What we have heard and seen so far is of this song’s unusual circulation from a mother to a son whose childhood was nourished by his mother singing it often. We see its social circulation when Kanthi is invited to sing a song by her guests who appreciate her voice and the song. She sings with ease and grace, dressed now in an Indian sari, wearing a pottu and her knee length hair in a single braid. But we also hear the song at intense moments of fear and sadness, as when Kanthi sings it to herself after having looked at a photo album. But on the television it appears as a song ‘stolen’ from the family by Champa, without a thought for royalties, having violated something above and beyond the provenance of a song. As the threesome watch Champa’s polished performance of their own song, Kanthi begins to mouth it silently, while Rex looks on utterly bereft but still beating time to the song he composed for his beloved wife, while the camera rests on Mala who looks straight at us for the first time, as the shot ends. Was she angry I wondered, trying to read her contained intense expression. The careless, cool ease with which Champa becomes a professional singer and sings the song publicly contrasts starkly with a singular rendition of it by Lucky. While in his bedroom (with a blurred poster of John Lennon on his wall), Lucky spits out a snatch of Rock music, but in the club, he sings his mother’s song almost to himself, in a caressing whisper, before the band has to strike a ‘Happy Birthday’ with the sound of breaking glass in the distance; a complex sequence in montage.

Lucky is presented as a tender, generous and most vulnerable young man, and through his allegorisation as The Terrorist, at the movie theatre, we might be able to see how even such a person may become a ‘terrorist,’ cornered, crushed, with avenues for professional movement all blocked for him and his family. In doing this the director makes an exemplary figure of a Lankan artist whose cultural heritage is mixed, hybrid, not monoculturally pure. It’s nothing to do with his ‘pure blood’ (Sinha-ley,) but rather a matter of access to learning, fair opportunity and a shared understanding of a rich multi-cultural world (including India), open to the outside world. That it is a Sinhala actor who is personified as a Tamil Terrorist (who in his actual life sings in Tamil), is significant, because some of that brutalising process is ‘demonstrated’ through the political device of allegory. There is no ‘conversion’ of Lucky into a Terrorist because we see both Lucky and the persona of the Terrorist in his gesture of shooting at an image, with an invisible gun. In the movie theatre, he is not a symbol or a metaphor, but functions as an allegorical body. Allegory makes us see double, and stays with the unresolved duality, and lets it trouble us, as it did Malin and me. That splattered red on white appears as both blood and some red paint, and the white background both a movie screen and a pure white surface, both at once. Such a mode of allegorical viewing goes against our habitual and ingrained ways of consuming films.

Some of us, who have spent all our working lives teaching film and have also grown-up watching lots of all kinds of films (in a long-ago vanished Ceylon in my case) believe that when it’s time to take leave, the Angel of Death will arrive and give us a chance to see just two film clips one last time. Now, I will unhesitatingly choose Dharmasena Pathiraja’s film Ponmani, made with his Tamil friends, while he was teaching Sinhala literature and Media Studies at the Jaffna University in the ‘70. It’s the haunting funeral procession of Ponmani, with her coffin in a horse-drawn glass carriage, led by a slender man in shorts, filmed in a formal long-shot against a lagoon and an expanse of sky, with her father walking alone some distance away from the mourners, as his Vellala family was estranged from her. For having violated caste taboos, she was shot dead by a killer hired by her betrothed, as she came out of a church with her new kin group. The Karnataka song we had heard sung repeatedly, by a group of seated female singers (about longing for Krishna to appear), plays across this desolate shot one last time.

The other clip is of the seemingly every-day banal high-angle-shot of the family of three walking towards us on a railway platform. In long to medium shots from Sons and Fathers, we see Rex, Kanthi and Lucky as a boy, walking between them carrying small suitcases of their possessions. The couple has just got married at a registry (with minimal formality, with just four smiling in-laws) and are coming home to live with Rex. Kanthi is dressed in a Kandyan sari and Rex has long curly hair tied at the back. Seeing that shot of the threesome, who are being observed by an adult Lucky leaning on a railway bridge (a pensive ‘recollection image’), it becomes an iconic shot for Sinhala cinema, suggestive in its promise of rich potential for our art and much else. Variations of this shot, of them climbing the long steps of the station, are repeated several times like the refrain of Lucky’s beloved mother’s song.

sumathy wrote the lyrics for two of the four songs in the film. Vantharu Vanthachu (‘He is coming’ with apocalyptic events of bombs destroying the earth, elephants in trees, wrapped in a love song), is sung in Tamil. The Mother’s Song, written in English, is translated for the film by Amarakeerthi Liyanage, a Professor of Sinhala and a specialist in Comparative Literature. Anthony Surendra, the Tamil music director of the film, wrote, composed and sang My Heart (Ma Hade) in the film at a recording studio and is the song Kanthi hums to Rex’s accompaniment at the keyboard (and also to an infant Kamala), in a most unusual romantic scene. When asked, sumathy said that she was thinking of Desdemona’s Willow Song while writing what she calls ‘The Mother’s Song’ for the film. The Shakespearean ballad was given to Desdemona by her mother who had received it from her maid. She makes a significant change in her song, the ‘betrayal’ there is no longer sexual as in the original folk ballad sung by Desdemona before Othello kills her in a fit of jealousy. But in the film, it becomes Champa’s thoughtless, cunning betrayal of Lucky and his mother.

The way Sumathy presents Rex Periyasami, Mudiyanselage Kanthilatha, Lakshman and Mala as a multi-ethnic family, makes one feel that they will survive the fire that set Lanka ablaze then, stronger in the essential values that bind them together, but no doubt at great cost to their livelihoods and futures, in creating the hybrid music, their very life-blood, which Kanthi says emphatically, ‘saved them’. Sumathy’s Sons and Fathers is her poetic tribute to those values that bind that family and the ethnically diverse Lankan popular film and music industry where those values also flourished, once.

However, Malin’s singular question to his mother, and Mala’s last look to the camera, perhaps of anger, make an old critic like me imagine that they must be big by now. And in so doing, I hear faintly Rukmani Devi singing, ‘mavila penevi rupe hade …swapneya chaya …’ (in my heart emerges a dream-image … of life) as I fall asleep, perchance to dream. (Concluded)

All News Advertisement

Related Topics:film by Sumathy Sons and Fathers The Gift of Music

Up Next

The Eve Eruption

Don't Miss

Crisis Time Historian

Click to comment

Midweek Review

Israeli-US aggression won’t go unanswered -Iranian Ambassador

Published

7 days ago

2026/05/27

Sahan Weerasooriya

Dr. Alireza Delkhosh responds to The Island queries

Iranian Ambassador in Colombo Dr. Alireza Delkhosh says the Islamic Republic of Iran remains fully prepared to face US-Israeli aggression.

In an interview with The Island at the Iranian Embassy, in Colombo, Dr. Delkhosh emphasised that in case of a fresh outbreak of hostilities, the aggressors, as well as those who provided bases for unprovoked military campaign ,should be prepared to face the consequences.

Excerpts of the interview:

The Island: Did Iran anticipate Israel-US launching unprovoked attacks in the midst of indirect nuclear talks between Iran and US in Geneva, mediated by Oman?

Ambassador: Iran’s wall of mistrust towards the US is rooted in decades of hostile policies and, specifically, Washington’s dark record of broken promises. We always welcomed diplomacy in good faith and serious intent, entering diplomatic channels accordingly; yet, we have repeatedly witnessed the US chose the path of betraying diplomacy in the midst of negotiations.

We do not build our foreign policy on optimism toward the US, as we fundamentally do not view the current US administration as a trustworthy party. The recurrence of provocative patterns and coordination with the Zionist regime’s actions during sensitive negotiations indicate a systematic approach to discredit diplomacy.

From our perspective;

“Any coercive or military action taken alongside mediation efforts serves as further evidence of Washington’s lack of sincere will for diplomacy and its attempt to exert pressure under the guise of dialogue—an approach that will not go unanswered.”

The Island: Do you think the latest war and regional developments, such as the UAE pulling out of OPEC, should be examined, taking into consideration the Oct0ber 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Ambassador: Allow me to rephrase your question: Is there a link between the attacks carried out by the US and Israel against Iran and the Zionist regime’s warmongering policies? My answer is a definitive “yes”.

Any serious analysis of the current regional dynamics must be placed within the broader historical and structural context of the Palestinian question and the continuation of occupation and blockade. Iran has consistently maintained that the developments of October 7, 2023, did not emerge in a vacuum, but are rooted in decades of unresolved injustice, the denial of legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, and the absence of a credible political horizon.

From this perspective, the subsequent escalation in the region reflects a chain of reactions shaped by long-standing structural tensions, rather than isolated incidents. Iran has repeatedly emphasised that sustainable stability can only be achieved through ending occupation, addressing the root causes of the crisis, and upholding the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

Thus, it is important not to reduce complex geopolitical developments to a single starting point. Energy market decisions, alliance shifts, and military escalations are influenced by a broader set of strategic, economic, and political factors.

The Island: What is the status of talks mediated by Pakistan?

Ambassador: A high-ranking Iranian delegation attended an intense day of negotiations, with American negotiators, in Pakistan, on 12th of April, to permanently end a US-Israeli aggression against the country. Iran agreed to participate in the negotiations after US authorities indicated they had accepted Iran’s general conditions as a baseline for peace deal discussions. However, during 20 hours’ intense talks, the US changed its position.

The main sticking point in the talks was the US reluctance to agree to Iran’s legitimate rights to have a peaceful nuclear programme, which Iran has insisted on for years and just before entering the talks, based on the UNSC resolution and the relevant laws.

Iran’s foreign policy is firmly grounded in the principles of dignity, mutual respect, and rejection of coercion or imposed negotiations. Within this framework, Iran has consistently stated that it remains open to indirect diplomatic engagement through mediators, including regional partners, such as Pakistan, provided that diplomacy is conducted in a balanced and credible environment. At the same time, Iran has repeatedly emphasised that the effectiveness of any negotiating track is directly undermined by the US coercive measures, unilateral sanctions, and pressure-based policies.

Sustainable diplomacy necessitates a complete decoupling from pressure tactics; it must be grounded in genuine reciprocity and respect for national rights and interests. Guided by this principled approach, Iran continues to engage in mediation efforts, in good faith, while resolutely safeguarding its sovereign rights and rejecting any framework that resembles ‘dictation under pressure’.”

The Island: The UN has pathetically failed to intervene in the current West Asia conflict. Both Israel and the US simply ignored the UN and the world body seems irrelevant. As a seasoned diplomat what is your opinion on the UN? What is wrong with the global body”

Ambassador: Iran views the UN as an important multilateral institution established to safeguard international peace and security; however, its effectiveness has increasingly been constrained by the selective application of its Charter and the politicisation of decision-making, particularly within the Security Council.

Currently, the international community is witnessing highly dangerous interpretations of ‘peace,’ ‘rights,’ and ‘aggression’ by the US and the Israeli regime. In their lexicon, if they attack a country, it is labelled a ‘peace operation’ or ‘legitimate defence’; yet, if a nation defends itself, it is branded as ‘warmongering.’

“When the innocent people of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Iraq are stripped of their fundamental human and humanitarian rights and endure profound suffering due to attacks, genocides, and inhumane sanctions, it is as if—in the prevailing international discourse—’human rights’ are not being violated at all.”

The world witnessed, on many occasions, that when certain permanent members are directly involved, or aligned with one side of a conflict, the UN’s ability to act impartially is significantly weakened.

From this perspective, the current situation does not reflect irrelevance of the United Nations itself, but rather highlights the structural imbalance in the international order, where enforcement mechanisms are often subject to geopolitical considerations. Iran has, therefore, consistently called for fundamental reform of global governance structures, including democratisation of the Security Council and strengthening of multilateralism, based on justice, equality, and respect for sovereignty.

The Islamic Republic of Iran supports a United Nations that truly represents the rights of nations and establishes justice. The current state of global affairs reflects the failure of certain powers to adhere to the fundamental principles of the UN Charter.

While emphasising the necessity of effective multilateralism to guarantee international peace and security, the Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently reaffirmed its commitment to an international order, based on international law and the principles of the UN Charter.

In conclusion, I must state that: “Unilateralism negates the essential and fundamental principles of the United Nations. Unilateralism is an invitation to injustice, confrontation, and war.”

The Island: In spite of sustained US pressure, its NATO allies declined to join military action against Iran or commit forces to Hormuz Strait. The British and French positions caused an unprecedented rift between them and the US. Do you think NATO countries’ split position on Iran war caused irreparable damage to the largest military organisation in the world?

Ambassador: Differences among NATO members on the use of force in external theatres are not unprecedented. Divergent approaches to specific regional conflicts can place strain on political unity and strategic messaging within this alliance. Whether such differences translate into long-term structural damage depends on how effectively members manage internal consultation and reaffirm shared principles.

Let’s not forget that NATO is fundamentally a military alliance shaped by the strategic priorities of the United States, and differences among its members often reflect not a principled divergence, but rather varying degrees of alignment with Washington’s regional policies.

What is presented as “internal consultation” within NATO is frequently constrained by asymmetric influence, where key decisions on the use of force are effectively driven by the US agenda.

In this context, disagreements among NATO members on external military actions are seen in Tehran less as an institutional safeguard and more as evidence of the alliance’s limited strategic autonomy, particularly in relation to West Asia. Therefore, these divergences do not merely represent tactical differences, but highlight a deeper structural issue: the growing questioning of interventionist policies and the sustainability of military blocs in addressing complex regional crises.

The Island: When did you first hear about the unprovoked US attack on Iran frigate off Galle? (The date and time, please). Who told you about the unfortunate incident? What was your first reaction?

Ambassador: What was particularly concerning was that the IRIS Dena was understood to be undertaking a routine passage in the region, returning from an official visit to India, and was not engaged in any combat or hostile activity. Any incident involving a naval vessel, under such circumstances, is naturally a matter of serious concern and a war crime, especially when it raises questions about maritime safety and the protection of unarmed or non-combat assets.

My immediate priority, upon receiving credible confirmation about this attack, would have been the safety of personnel and the prevention of any escalation. From the first moments of receiving this information, I have been in direct talks and consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka and other relevant government authorities, while ensuring that no conclusions are drawn until all facts are verified.

The Island: Did you visit the Iranian vessel and sailors now at Trincomalee?

Ambassador: At this stage, I would like to state that the primary responsibility of the mission has been to maintain continuous contact with the relevant Sri Lankan authorities and ensure the safety, welfare, and proper handling of Iranian personnel and assets involved. In this regard, we have been in close and ongoing coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka and other competent government institutions to follow up on all necessary arrangements.

Our focus has been on ensuring that all matters are addressed through official diplomatic channels in accordance with international maritime and humanitarian procedures. The well-being of our personnel and the proper management of the situation remain our highest priority.

The Island: Ambassador, you presented your credentials to the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe in late October, 2023. What were the previous diplomatic stations you served before taking over the Colombo mission?

Ambassador: Prior to my mission in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, I served in various diplomatic capacities in Turkey, Sweden, and Uzbekistan.”

The Island:Would you mind stating Iranian red lines about issues that Iran would never give up such as the right to use nuclear power for civilian purposes and control over Hormuz Strait?

Ambassador: Iran’s foreign policy is based on the principles of sovereignty, deterrence, and the rejection of coercion and unilateral pressure, while simultaneously affirming its commitments under international law. In this framework, we have consistently emphasised that the Islamic Republic will never relinquish its inalienable right to peaceful nuclear energy, including enrichment for civilian purposes, such as energy production, medical applications, and scientific development. As we continually maintained, this right is fully consistent with the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

At the same time, Iran regards the security and management of the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic national responsibility, given that it lies within Iran’s sovereign waters and is one of the world’s most sensitive maritime corridors. Our officials have repeatedly stated that the security of the Persian Gulf and Hormuz must be maintained by regional states themselves, without external militarisation or domination.

However, Iran has consistently expressed concern over certain regional developments in which neighbouring territories have been utilised for the projection of external military power, including by the United States, which, in Tehran’s view, contributes to heightened tensions and undermines regional stability. From Iran’s perspective, such dynamics are among the key factors affecting and jeopardising the security environment of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

Within this framework, Iran has emphasised that any threat to its sovereignty, territorial integrity, or strategic security interests would be met with firm and proportionate resistance, while at the same time reaffirming its commitment to freedom of navigation in accordance with international law.

Taken together, from a broader perspective: “The overarching framework of Iran’s foreign policy is built upon three primary pillars: countering diplomatic pressures, maintaining autonomy in strategic decision-making while safeguarding national interests and sovereignty, and emphasising the principle of reciprocity. This approach—rooted in the three guiding principles of ‘Dignity, Wisdom, and Expediency’—reflects Tehran’s explicit opposition to unilateralism and bullying in the global arena.”

The Island: Iran proved that it had the strength and the will power to face daunting military challenges and, in spite of civilian protests, influenced by economic hardships, the public stood by the leadership during the hour of crisis. What is Iran’s message to the world?

Ambassador: Iran is the heir to a great civilisation, spanning several millennia. Iran’s message to the world is that national resilience is ultimately rooted in the bond between the state and its nation, particularly, during times of external pressure and security challenges. Despite economic hardships, the Iranian people have demonstrated that in moments of national crisis, priorities converge around the defence of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national security.

From this perspective, the experience of recent years is a clear testimony that external pressure, military threats, or coercive policies do not weaken national cohesion; rather, they reinforce a shared sense of resistance and the bond between the leadership and segments of society around core national principles. It highlights that such domestic economic issues are addressed within the framework of national stability, not through external intervention.

There exists an inviolable principle: “Sustainable national cohesion is achieved only in the light of full sovereignty over internal affairs and the rejection of any intervention or the politicisation of domestic developments by foreign powers.”

The Island:Wishful Israel-US assessment for regime change, following the Supreme Leader’s assassination failed. Against the backdrop of US success in Venezuela, they seemed to have wrongly asserted the situation and Iranian military response. How do you see the next few weeks as the US and Israel maintain a fragile ceasefire, regardless of some isolated incidents?

Ambassador: The assumptions that external pressure, military action, or targeted scenarios, such as the assassination of its leadership, would lead to structural political change in Iran, have repeatedly proven to be a strategic miscalculation. “Iran’s security architecture is not modelled after classic Western patterns that could be brought down, through sanctions or threats; rather, it possesses its own unique design.

Iran’s strategic decision-making is rooted in institutional continuity, national sovereignty, and a well-established defence and command structure—one that cannot be disrupted by external pressures or short-term military developments.”

Regarding the current situation, the existing ceasefire environment looks to be fragile and highly sensitive. As repeatedly stressed by our officials and leadership, stability cannot be sustained through coercive measures, continued military pressure, or selective escalation. Therefore, any lasting calm depends on adherence to commitments, respect for sovereignty, and cessation of hostile actions.

In the coming weeks, the situation will remain volatile, yet manageable, and Iran will continue to maintain its readiness to respond to any potential adventurism.

Iran continues to emphasise that sustainable regional security cannot be built on failed assumptions of regime change or military superiority, but only through recognition of political realities and mutual respect under international law.

The Island: Finally, the senseless killing of over 150 schoolgirls and teachers at an Iranian school, at the onset of the latest conflict, horrified the world. However, the response of Western governments, and various human rights bodies, seemed inadequate. Some refrained from commenting on the incident. The situation in Lebanon, too, is deteriorating. Why do they act differently when the perpetrators happened to be the US or Israel?

Ambassador: I believe that the disparity in reactions reflects a long-standing flaw in the international system: the selective application of international law and humanitarian principles, based on political considerations rather than universal standards.

As you noted, when incidents involve the US or Israel, many international actors—including certain Western governments and institutions—tend to interpret events through the narratives of ‘security,’ ‘self-defence,’ or ‘strategic necessity.’ The brutal attack on the Minab girls’ school, which resulted in the slaughter of over 168 students and teachers, has pulled back the curtain on the double standards of those who claim to champion human rights. While the smallest incidents in other countries trigger immediate global outcries. We witness a response characterised by silence, projection, and brazen falsehoods regarding this blatant crime—as well as the horrific atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon. These tactics aim at nothing but distorting reality and whitewashing the perpetrators of these tragedies. This pattern has undermined the credibility of international law and the global human rights framework, as it ignores the principle of ‘sovereign equality’ and suggests that accountability is not applied equally to all members of the international community.

This is not merely a legal issue but an expression of a structural imbalance in the international order, where political alliances and strategic interests dictate the interpretation and enforcement of norms. Therefore, I maintain that: “The only way to restore trust in the international system is through the consistent and non-selective enforcement of international law, without exceptions or double standards, regardless of the identity of the parties involved.”

As a final word: “Ibn Khaldun 1332-1406, a famous philosopher and historian, believes that ‘politics is the product of geography.’ The essence of this hypothesis is that the temporary presence of extra-regional powers in West Asia and the Persian Gulf must not lead certain small coastal states of the Persian Gulf into a strategic miscalculation.

The time will come when outsiders are expelled from this region, leaving only the neighbours who are destined to coexist. Instead of focusing on Outsourced Security and legitimacy from distant powers, they must return to geographical realities. They ought to study history to recognise which nation has been the source of security and stability in the Persian Gulf for millennia.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

JVP/NPP government and social media

Published

7 days ago

2026/05/27

Sahan Weerasooriya

‘Aragalaya’ betrayed? ‘The treason of the intellectuals’ in the age of populism – Part III

The JVP/NPP government, which relied heavily on social media to come to power, seems to be deeply afraid that it will be overthrown by a second aragalaya fuelled by social media. The government has been accused of organising and directing forces—including pro-government social media activists—from behind the scenes to prevent criticism of the government’s actions from shaping public opinion against the government through social media. Critics say that the aim is to discourage, silence, and drive away critics of the government through ridicule, insults, obscene statements, and intimidation.

Leaving aside these behind-the-scenes manoeuvers, the news that a group of YouTubers, who are identified as “dhobies” or “washers,” recently attended a private press conference at the JVP party headquarters at the invitation of the President and the Minister of Mass Media and Cabinet Media Spokesperson, is a powerful example of the weight the current government places on social media.

“Dhobies”/”washers”

The intelligentsia and intellectuals in democracies play a key role in shaping public opinion, which is traditionally vital in determining the outcome of elections or in building public protests. In the era of social media ubiquity, the primary location of the intelligentsia engaged in politics has shifted to social media. Influencing social media users is now seen as the key to political victory—hence the significance of the phenomenon identified by the term “dhobies”/”washers” (literally laundrymen).

Manifested as a voluntary social media activity—dominated by Facebook and primarily occurring in the Sinhala medium (this article does not cover Tamil social media)—the phenomenon of “washers” is an unprecedented and unique addition to the political process in Sri Lanka. This is an activity of political significance with a certain level of intellectual content that goes beyond the level of mere social media activism, and is carried out by the intelligentsia and intellectuals. These “washers”, alongside the academics who lead them, emphatically state that it is their responsibility to work vigorously to protect this government—one that they brought to power and which aligns with the ideology they believe in.

This group also includes social media journalists who identify themselves as left-wing political activists and as ‘analytical’ discussion presenters via content creation—podcasts and video interviews—as opposed to being mere social media activists.

To achieve their goal, the “washers” understand their role as “cleaning” or “whitewashing” the government in the face of criticism or controversy. They seek to prove the government right by targeting, attacking, and silencing critics through quibbling and intimidation, thereby “protecting” the government.

Although these attacks primarily come in the form of “intellectual” attacks, the range of attacks unleashed under that “intellectual leadership” includes ridicule, insults, and harassment, which are encouraged to be directed at opponents at various levels. Posts are published subtly or directly inviting the “people” who habituate social media as “friends” to post their emojis—likes, dislikes, laughter, ridicule—which may take the form of reaction images, or verbal “comments” against political opponents who publish their views on social media.

In addition to organised “washers,” there are highly credentialed academics who contribute to the “washing” process on their own Facebook pages, either directly or in tacit, subtle ways. Those who do not actively join indicate their support tacitly as “friends” of the organized “washers”—either via emojis or by participating through seemingly innocuous comments that nevertheless get the job done.

They claim this activity of ‘washing’ is the real ground on which politics is determined today. Their stated argument is that in the current era of social media, ridicule, insults, and harassment are inevitable in politics; therefore, those who cannot face them should not be involved in politics. In other words, in this view, politics dominated by social media seems to reenact Hobbes’”state of nature,” which is “nasty, poor, solitary, brutish, and short,” indicating an unprecedented level to which Sri Lanka’s intellectual culture has descended.

Isn’t it an indictment of academia that the practice of “washing” led by academics comes under serious scrutiny from their academic “friends” on social media, especially in relation to the vocation of intellectuals and their role in politics? Notably, the self-identified intellectual leaders of left populism—some of whom are themselves drawn from academia—circulate within these same social media circles.

What they are trying to protect the government from by silencing their rivals and banishing them from the public arena is a second aragalaya that they and the government seem to firmly believe will build on social media operations if criticism of the government is allowed to spread unabated. Hence, there is the need to somehow suppress criticism while giving the act a veneer of intellectual activity. They are participating in this effort, rallying as both organisations and individuals at different levels.

It needs to be added that while these “washing” activities take place mainly in the medium of Sinhala, related “higher” intellectual content is aired in the English medium as well, mainly in the form of interviews with academics.

Criticising the government from a left political perspective

What has come to be expressed as the essence of this “washing” process is the idea, presented in the form of a theoretical formulation, that when criticising the current government from a leftist political perspective, one should first consider who benefits from it. What it means is that if the current government is criticised from a leftist perspective, it could result in a second aragalaya, leading to the return of those who are currently out of power.

A related question that critics are often asked is this; whom do they see as the leaders of a government that could replace the current government? It is as if citizens should only criticise a government that affects their lives if they have a clear alternative to replace it. It is as if criticism is not something that can be done with the intention of correcting something, or a way to develop an alternative.

This argument rejects the traditional liberal political science argument about bourgeois democracy, which considers holding elections at regular intervals to bring governments to power and changing governments when necessary as positive—which requires accepting as positive the development of a critique of the government in power. Accordingly, it implies that the current government must be kept in power at all costs to prevent the power groups that the people rejected from coming back to power, and that is why the Left should stop criticizing the current government. This is a very strange idea of democracy. It is clearly not the bourgeois liberal democracy we have known so far. So, what kind of democracy is it? As some are wont to do, we can keep on tweaking the term to suit the changing conditions instead of developing a critique in the name of the ideal of democracy. So, what is the new term for what is done with democracy under the new regime? Or, do they think that we have reached an era of post-democracy?

Traditionally, the role of intellectuals and the intelligentsia has been to provide the critical thinking that society needs. But the intellectuals who are engaged in “washing” say that the Left should silence its criticism in order to save the government, and then everything will be fine. Some who support “washing” argue that what the Left should do is not criticize the current government, but push it further to the left. While this argument presumes the government to be Left notwithstanding the Left criticism of it, what it fails to take into account is that one of the reasons the government needs repressive social media forces and “washers” may be that the government is intolerant of criticism that pushes it to the left.

The NPP government came to power by rallying around the NPP organisations and individuals who called themselves liberal, progressive, leftist, radical, etc., outside of the JVP membership. The group that can be called intellectuals among them identified themselves with the NPP through a series of actions—starting from contributing to the work of building the National People’s Power and the formulation of its policies, to taking the leadership of relevant committees at various levels and appearing publicly at various public events of the NPP, even on the election platform. Some of them won the elections on the basis of their identity-based vote blocks or became members of parliament from the national list and even became ministers. Many others, as is customary after an election victory, got themselves appointed to various positions in the government bureaucracy as chairpersons, board/council members, directors, etc., either immediately or later.

Some, whether or not they were appointed, abandoned the critical role they were previously playing in society and have remained silent. Some of them have abandoned the theoretical interventions they were making in the public arena with a view to a “system transformation” until they brought the current government to power, in favour of safe literary or other topics as if the transformation that all those criticisms targeted had been achieved with the coming to power of the current government. Others entered the “washing” business while holding official positions in the current ruling regime. Although not all those involved in the “washing” process are in positions of power, there have been allegations that some of those who are involved without holding positions do so in exchange for payment. Among these groups are those who, traditionally known as independent journalists, are now mostly known as content and/or digital creators, questioning the validity of their claims to represent independent journalism.

Some leftists assume that this will be the last time a left-wing government has come to power in Sri Lanka, and therefore have joined the government believing that they should achieve the maximum good for the people, as if they think that history has ended.

Conclusion: Populism and the treason of intellectuals

In conclusion, returning to the ideology of populism that provided the backdrop for this article, it is relevant to note how some of the key characteristics of populism identified in the literature align with critics’ accounts of the policies followed by the current JVP/NPP government.

At its core, populist ideology presents a dichotomy between a “pure,” idealised conception of the people and a “corrupt” elite. It frames politics as a moral struggle against corruption, seeking to displace the traditional class basis of politics. Being deeply anti-institutional, populism dismisses expert and academic knowledge as elitist.

Driven by a Schmittian logic of friend-versus-enemy politics, populist leaders and the intelligentsia seek to displace the traditional elite, aiming to purge them from politics, academia, and culture with a view to appointing themselves as the new elite.

Populism rejects the democratic state in the name of the people. Political theorist Wendy Brown points out that populism focuses instead on aggressive law and order, statism, and a non-democratic view of liberty—where authority rules, yet individuals claim libertarian freedom.

Globally, populism tends to breed authoritarian leaders who centralise power in the executive branch, stripping judges of their independence and turning elected parliaments into mere rubber stamps. To stay in power, populist movements systematically target checks and balances, the free press, and universities, labeling them as roadblocks against the people’s mandate. Once in control, these regimes use legal gray areas to oppress opposition parties and subvert democracy to ensure they remain in power.

The Treason of the Intellectuals

For the title of my article, I have borrowed the title of a seminal work by the French philosopher and essayist Julien Benda, The Treason of the Intellectuals (1927). Almost a hundred years ago, Benda critiqued the intelligentsia’s betrayal of their vocation as intellectuals, focusing on their abandonment of the Enlightenment ideal of universal humanity. In our case, I would argue that intellectuals have abandoned their vocation in the very name of the “renaissance” and “enlightenment” ideals—or the punarudaya—they claim to stand for, allowing political partisanship to dictate their understanding of the intellectual vocation itself.

In her 2023 book, Nihilistic Times, political theorist Wendy Brown argues that we are living in deeply nihilistic times. Placing this rise in nihilism at the very center of our current political crisis, she warns that it is actively undoing democracy while degrading and confounding both political and academic life. In Brown’s view, nihilism leads to the devaluation of both knowledge and political responsibility—a crisis that is especially clear in academia. She argues that intellectuals have abandoned democracy, the common good, and the pursuit of objective truth, choosing instead to align themselves with whoever holds political or cultural power to serve partisan or authoritarian goals. Ultimately, Brown argues that public intellectuals must act as honest, thoughtful analysts who hold politicians accountable rather than seeking to win their favor. Finally, she issues a direct challenge to left-wing intellectuals to make good on their foundational commitment to true critical thinking.