Midweek Review

Colonial Knowledge Formation under British Rule and Modern Sri Lankan Historiography

Published

5 years ago

2020/11/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

The National Trust – Sri Lanka Monthly Lecture Series No- 129 October 29, 2020

By Prof. Gamini Keerawella

I am extremely thankful to Mr. Kanag-Isvaran, Chairman, the National Trust- Sri Lanka, for introducing me to this distinguished audience. I take this opportunity to thank the National Trust for the honour, bestowed upon me by inviting to deliverer this lecture. I really appreciate the kindness of Mr. Wickremerathne, Vice-Chair of the National Trust, who contacted me on behalf of the National Trust first, for giving me the liberty to decide the theme of the lecture. I decided to present my thoughts on ‘Colonial Knowledge Formation under British Rule and Modern Lankan Historiography’.

I am a historian by training. I am proud to be a historian. What we study in history is not really a dead past. Even though the events and personalities that we study are dead and gone, the thinking process behind these events and personalities are living and reemerging again and again in the minds of generation after generation. In that sense, all history is contemporary. The theme we discuss today is more relevant to the contemporary Sri Lankan political discourses. Tracing the genealogy of modern Sri Lankan historiography would help understand historical roots of the concepts on which the contemporary political discourse is centered.

In my lecture, I wish to elaborate three main points. First, the knowledge formation was a key component of the British colonialism project in Sri Lanka. The political and economic aspects of colonialism, the political domination and the extraction of resources have been given adequate attention. But, without paying attention to the Colonial knowledge formation, the totality of British colonial project cannot be grasped. Second, re-reading history in terms colonial political categories is a main component of colonial knowledge formation. The gathering information about the past of the colonial territories and their subjects was considered essential for building colonial hegemony and resource mobilization and exploitation in colonial territories. Third, the modern Sri Lankan Historiography took its form in the context of colonial knowledge formation under British rule. The main thrust of my argument is that modern Sri Lankan Historiography originated as a British colonial project.

Re-reading Sri Lankan History under British rule did not take place in an empty space. What really happened was that the text of pre-colonial Sri Lankan historiography was re-read in terms of the evolving new political categories. As a point of departure to my argument, I wish to draw your attention to attention to Historical traditions in Sri Lanka prior to colonialism.

Pre-colonial Sri Lankan Historiography

Sri Lanka had one of the oldest and continuous historical traditions in Asia. The origin of this historical tradition could be traced back to the introduction of Buddhism to the island in the 3rd century BC. When the Buddhist cannons were presented, they accompanied an historical introduction in the form of attakatha in order to prove that it was the true Buddha’s teaching. Acoordingly, attakatha to the Pitaka became an integral part of the introduction of Buddhism. This historical tradition was naturalized subsequently in Sri Lankan soil and the Sinhala attakatha were produced with added details of the history of the island. The Buddhist texts in Sinhala, including the commentaries, were once again translated into Pali in the 5th century A.D. The Samantapasadhika is a Pali translation of the Sinhala atuva of Vinaya Pitaka.

As a number of Buddhist centers of learning emerged in the island, there were many variations of historical narrations. The available evidence clearly shows that the ancient historical thinking of the island was enriched with multiple perspectives. In order to understand the ancient historical traditions of the island, Mahawamsa and its tika, Vamsatthappakasini are very useful. According to Mahavansa Tika, the Mahavamsa was based on the Sihalatthakatha Mahavamsa. The Vamsatthappakasini mentions about Uttaraviharatthakata and also Uttaravihara-vasinam Mahavamsa. Uttaravihara was Abhayagiriya, a rival Buddhist center that competed with Mahavihara. Uttaravihara historical perspective was not similar to Mahavihara. Almost all the quotations from the Uttaraviharatthakata in Mahawamsa are either to point out differences in the tradition or to provide additional information not found in Sihalatthakata. The author of Mahavamsa (first part) was Mahanama thera of Mahavihara and it presented the tradition nurtured in the Mahavihara.

The earliest known chronicle of the island was Dipavamsa, written around the mid 4th century A.D., little earlier than Mahavamsa. As Luxman Su Perera pointed out, Deepawamsa gives us a fair indication of the nature of the early historical tradition. ” The memory verses, the double versions and numerous repetitions show that it stands very close to the original. Consequently, it gives us a fair indication of the nature of the early historical tradition. The many references to bhikkunis have led scholars to suppose that this may be the work of the bhikkunis of the in the Hatthalhaka nunnery.

Even though there were multiple narratives, the unique place of the Mahavamsa and its overriding importance must not be underestimated. It continued to shape the dominant historical thinking of the island for generations. The Mahavamsa was in circulation as reference material for generations up to the 18th century. It is evident from a reference made by John Davy a medical officer of the British Army who served in Sri Lanka in the period 1816-1820, in his book, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of its Inhabitants.

‘Old Chroncile ‘

The historical sketch which forms the tenth chapter, and concludes the first part of the work, was drawn up chiefly from the information which I was so fortunate as to extract from the late Dissava of Welassey, Malawa, an old man of shrewd intellect, a poet, historian, and astrologer, and generally allowed by his countryman to be the most able and learned of all the Kandyan chiefs. Part of the information that he communicated was given from a very retentive memory, and part was drawn from an old chronicle, or other historical romance of Ceylon, which he had by him, and to which he referred when his memory failed him.

The ‘old chronicle’ that Davy referred to was no doubt Mahavamsa.

Pre-modern Sri Lanka historiography emerged and sustained in a particular socio-political and economic order. It was an organic part of reproduction of culture in that particular socio-political order. This order was replaced by a colonial order under the British rule. The colonial knowledge generation on acquired territories and subjugated people was a key component of colonial project.

Colonial knowledge formation

The practice of gathering information on the land, people, religions and languages of the East by colonial agents began from the very beginning of western colonial encounters in Asia. The Christian missionaries took the lead. They believed that familiarity of native languages, manners and customs would be essential in carrying out missionary work successfully.

Building knowledge of the colonial territories and their people in the East reached a new phase in the mid-19th century along with British colonial dominance in Asia. Its epicenter of British colonialism in Asia was India. Soon after the British acquired Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in the second half of the 18th century, the process of studying the people and their language and culture commenced systematically with the patronage of Warren Hastings, the first Governor General of British India. The connection between the colonial power projects and the renewed interest in the study of ancient languages, religions and history of the oriental people is abundantly clear. With the help of Brahmin Pandiths, Charles Wilkings translated Bhagavad Gîtâ into English in 1785. Writing a preface to the first English translation, Warren Hastings stated:

Every accumulation of knowledge and especially such as is obtained by social communication with the people over whom we exercise domination founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state…it attracts and conciliates distant affections; it lessens the weight of the chain by which the natives are held in subjugation; and it imprints on the hearts of our countrymen the sense of obligation and benevolence…. Every instance which brings their real character home to observation will impress us with more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own.

Charles Wilkins and Nathaniel Halhed, writers of the British East India Company in Bengal were among the first to study the Sanskrit. In 1783, William Jones came to India as a judge in the newly established Supreme Court of Bengal. As a judge in the Supreme Court, he was first interested in translating Manusmati (Laws of Manu) into English. He later translated Kalidasa’s Abhiknana Shakuntala and Ritu Samhara, and Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda into English. In the process of studying the society, he started learning Indian languages with the help of Brahmin Pundits of Bengal. William Jones was instrumental in establishing the Asiatick Society in 1784 in Bengal under the patronage of the Governor General Warren Hastings. In the third anniversary lecture of the Bengal Asiatic Society in 1786, William Jones stated:

The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.

This statement not only challenged then prevailing Western perceptions of language history but also paved the way for the development of racial anthropology. William Jones statement of common source of origin of Sanskrit and the European clasical languages received a wide publicity. European philologers, historians, archeologists and ethnologists rushed to the East for intellectual pursuits in colonial environment.

In 1800, Governor Lord Wellesley established the Fort Williams College in Calcutta in order to train colonial civil servants. The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Fort William College became one seat of Orientalist research where the concept of Indo-European family of languages originated. A while later, in 1812, Francis Whyte Ellis

cholarship of orientalisn , ann Histoty Colonial Collector of Madras presidency established the College of Fort St George to train young colonial civil servants of the Company in South India. The colonial administration in Madras, the Literary Society of Madras and the College of Fort St. George remained the triad of the Madras School of Orientalism. In 1816, F.W. Ellis first published proofs of the existence of the Dravidian language family, after studying ‘dhatu malas’ of the three South Indian languages- Telugu, Kannada and Tamil.

Comparative Grammar

In 1856, Bishop Robert Caldwell, elaborated it further and used the term ‘Dravidian’ to identify that language group in his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages. by quoting Pãnini and other ancient grammarians, Henry T. Colebrooke had argued in his article in Asian researches in 1801, titled ‘On the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages’, that Prakrit was the precursors of modern Indian languages, giving birth to the concept of linguistic unity of India. Now, the concept of linguistic unity of India was challenged by the Madras School of Orientalists, namely, Ellis, Campbell, and Caldwell.

Even though Britain took the lead in building new knowledge on the East but the other European colonial powers also claimed their shares. The first Oriental Society in Europe was the one founded by the Dutch in 1781 in order to map the languages in South East Asia. While Britain had its Royal Society (1823) the French had its own society- Acadèmie des Inscriptions et des Belles Letters. The competition between British and French orientalists to claim authority on oriental scholarship provided an impetus to ‘Oriental Studies’. Anquetil-Duperron, who worked for the French India Company in Pondicherry, returned to Paris with over two hundred manuscripts. His translation of Zend-Avesta and Ouvrage de Zoroastre was a reflection of French interest in Oriental Studies. William Jones who studied Persian at Oxford first came into prominence when he challenged the authority of Anquetil-Duperron.

The European contribution to the development of Oriental scholarship is important at this point. Paris became the main centre of the continental Europe for the construction of knowledge on the Orient. The first Chair of Sanskrit outside Britain was Antoine-Lẽonard de Chẽzy at the Collẽge de France. Eugẽne Bournouf later succeeded him. The first translation of Mahavamsa into an European language was done by Eugẽne Bournouf. In Paris, France Bopp and Max Mủller Studied Sanskrit under Bournouf. I will come to them later.

(To be continued)

All News Advertisement

Midweek Review

Aragalaya: GR blames CIA in Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s explosive narrative

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Asanga

Did CIA chief William Burns visit Colombo in Feb 2023? Sri Lanka and the US refrained from formally confirming the visit. The Opposition sought confirmation of the then CIA Chief’s visit to Colombo in terms of the Right to Information Act but the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government sidestepped the query. A former Republican congressman from Texas and Director of National Intelligence (2020–2021) John Ratcliffe succeeded Burns in late January 2025.

On the sheer weight of new evidence presented by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s ‘Winds of Change’, readers can get a clear picture of the forces that overthrew President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.

Even five years after the political upheaval, widely dubbed ‘Aragalaya,’ controversy surrounds the high-profile operation that forced wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa to literally run for his dear life.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, formerly of the Army but a novice to party politics, comfortably won the 2019 November presidential election against the backdrop of the Easter Sunday carnage that caused uncertainty and suspicions among communities. The economic crisis, also clandestinely engineered from abroad, firstly by crippling vital worker remittances from abroad, almost from the onset of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency, overwhelmed the government and created the environment conducive for external intervention. Could it have been avoided if the government, that enjoyed a near two-thirds majority in Parliament, sought the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?

The costly and well-funded book project, undertaken at the time Abeyagoonasekera was working on a governance diagnostic report for the IMF, in the wake of the change of government in Sri Lanka, meticulously examined the former Lieutenant Colonel’s ouster, taking into consideration regional as well as global developments. Abeyagoonasekera dealt efficiently and furiously with rapidly changing situations and developments before the unprecedented 03 January, 2026, US raid on Venezuela.

Lt. Col. (retd) Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for some unexplainable reason and a considerable time after the events, has chosen to blame his ouster on the United States. We cannot blame him either, by the way we have seen how other regime changes had been engineered, in our region, by Washington, since and before Gotabaya’s ouster. The accusation is extraordinary as Gotabaya Rajapaksa in his memoirs ‘The conspiracy to oust me from presidency’ refrained from naming the primary conspirator, though he clearly alluded to an international conspiracy.

April 8, 2019 meeting

Launched in March 2024, in the run-up to the presidential election that brought Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) to power, almost in a dream ride, if not for the intervening outside evil actors, ‘The conspiracy to oust me from presidency’ discussed the international conspiracy, but conveniently failed to name the primary conspirator. What made the former President speak so candidly with Abeyagoonasekera, the founding Director-General of the national security think tank, the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSS), under the Ministry of Defence, from 2016 to 2020?

Abeyagoonasekera also served as Executive Director at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute (LKI), under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2011–2015), during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second term as the President. The author, both precisely and furiously, dealt with issues. Readers may find very interesting quotes and they do give a feeling of the author’s general hostility towards the US, India, as well as to the US-India marriage of convenience. Those who sense so may end up thinking ‘Change of Winds’ being supportive of the Chinese strategy. Among the highly sensitive quotes that underlined the Indian approach were attributed to Indian Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra. The author quoted Mitra as having declared: “We need the MRCC centre [Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre], and you cannot give it to another nation.” As pointed out by the author, it was not a request but an order given to Sri Lanka on 8 April, 2019, meant to prevent Sri Lanka from even considering a competing proposal from China. Against that background, the author, who had been present at that meeting at which the Sri Lanka delegation was led by then Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, questioned the failure on the part of the delegations to take up the Easter Sunday attacks. Terrorists struck two weeks later. Implications were telling.

That particular quote reveals the circumstances India and the US operated here. No wonder the incumbent government does not want to discuss the secret defence MoUs it has entered into with India and the US as they would clearly reveal the sellout of our interests.

The following line says a lot about the circumstances under which Gotabaya Rajapaksa was removed: “In Singapore, a senior journalist recounted how Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation was scripted, under duress, at a hotel, facilitated by a foreign motorcade.”

In the first Chapter that incisively dealt with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the author was so lucky to secure an explosive quote from the ousted leader in an exclusive, hitherto unreported, interview in June 2024, a few months after the launch of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s memoirs. The ex-President hadn’t minced his words when he alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) orchestrated his removal. He also claimed that he had been under US surveillance throughout his presidency.

The ousted leader has confidently cleared India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of complicity in the operation. What made him call Indian National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval ‘a good man,’ in response to Abeyagoonasekera’s pointed query. Abeyagoonasekera quoted Gotabaya Rajapaksa as having said: “… he would never do such things.” The ex-President must have some reason to call Doval a good friend, regardless of intense pressure exerted on him and the Mahinda Rajapaksa government by the Indians to do away with large scale Chinese-funded projects. (Doval in late October last year declared “poor governance” was the reason behind uprisings that led to change of governments in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka over the period of past three-and-a-half years. The media quoted Doval as having said, during a function in New Delhi, that democracy and non-institutional methods of regime change in countries, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, created their own set of problems. That was the first time a senior Indian government official made remarks on Nepal’s government change, followed by the Gen Z uprising in early September, 2025.)

Gotabaya Rajapaksa also cleared the Chinese of seeking to oust him. It would be pertinent to mention that China reacted sternly when at the onset of the Gotabaya presidency, the President suggested the need to re-negotiate the Hambantota Port deal.

During the treacherous ‘Yahapalana’ administration (2015 to 2019) Gotabaya Rajapaksa told me how Doval had pressed him to halt not only the Colombo Port City project but to take back Hambantota Port as well. By then, the Chinese had twisted the arms of the Yahapalana leaders Mairthpala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe and secured the Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease in a one-sided USD 1.2 bn deal. The Colombo Port City project, that had been halted by the Yahapalana government, too, was resumed possibly under Chinese threat or for some money incentive.

Once Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, PC, declared, at a hastily arranged media briefing at Sri Lanka Foundation (SLF), that Sri Lanka would be relentlessly targeted as long as the Chinese held the Hambantota Port. The writer was present at that media briefing.

Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe said so in the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, while disclosing his abortive bid to convince the Yahapalana government to abrogate the Hambantota Port deal. Did the parliamentarian know something we were not aware of? The author’s assessment, regarding the Easter Sunday attacks, based on interviews with Chinese officials and scholars, is frightening and an acknowledgement of a possible Western role in Sri Lanka’s destabilisation plot.

The ousted leader, in his lengthy interview with Abeyagoonasekera, made some attention-grabbing comments on the then US Ambassador here, Julie Chung. The ex-President questioned a particular aspect of Chung’s conduct during the protest campaign but his decision not to reveal it all in his memoirs is a mystery. Perhaps, one of the most thought-provoking queries raised by Abeyagoonasekera is the rationale in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s claim that he didn’t want to suppress the protest campaign by using force against the backdrop of his own declaration that the CIA orchestrated the project.

Author’s foray into parliamentary politics

Gotabaya

For those genuinely interested in post-Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga developments, pertaining to international relations and geopolitics, may peruse ‘Winds of Change’ as the third of a trilogy. ‘Sri Lanka at Crossroads’ (2019) dealt with the Mahinda Rajapaksa period and ‘Conundrum of an Island’ (2021) discussed the treacherous Sirisena–Wickremesinghe alliance. The third in the series examined the end of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s (SLPP) President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s rule and the rise of Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) whom the author described as a Marxist, though this writer is of the view the JVP and NPP leader AKD is not so. AKD has clearly aligned his administration with US-India while trying to sustain existing relationship with China.

Among Asanga Abeyagoonasekera’s other books were ‘Towards a Better World Order’ (2015) and ‘Teardrop Diplomacy: China’s Sri Lanka Foray’ (2023, Bloomsbury).

Had Abeyagoonasekera succeeded in his bid to launch a political career in 2015, the trilogy on Sri Lanka may not have materialised. Abeyagoonasekera contested the Gampaha district at the August 2015 parliamentary election on the UNP ticket but failed to garner sufficient preferences to secure a place in Parliament. That dealt a devastating setback to Abeyagoonasekera’s political ambitions, but the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena administration created the Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSS), under the Ministry of Defence, for him. Abeyagoonasekera received the appointment as the founding Director-General of the national security think tank, from 2016 to 2020.

Several persons dealt with ‘Aragalaya’ (the late Prof. Nalin de Silva used to call it (Paragalaya) before Abeyagoonasekera though none of them examined the regional and global contexts so deeply, taking into consideration the relevant developments. Having read Wimal Weerawansa’s (Nine: The hidden story), Sena Thoradeniya’s (Galle Face Protest; Systems Change or Anarchy?). Mahinda Siriwardena’s (Sri Lanka’s Economic Revival – Reflection on the Journey from Crisis to Recovery) and Prof. Sunanda Maddumabandara’s (Aragalaye Balaya), the writer is of the opinion Abeyagoonasekera dealt with the period in question as an incisive insider.

Abeyagoonasekera, as a person who left the country, under duress, in 2021, painted a frightening picture of a country with a small and vulnerable economy trapped in major global rivalries. The former government servant attributed his self–imposed exile to two issues.

The first was the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage. Why did the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena government ignore the warning issued by Abeyagoonasekera, in his capacity as DG INSS, in respect of the Easter Sunday bombing campaign? There is absolutely no ambiguity at all in his claim. Abeyagoonasekera insists that he alerted the government four months before the National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ) bombers struck. The bottom line is that Abeyagoonasekera had issued the warning several weeks before India did but those at the helm of that inept administration chose to turn a blind eye.

The second was the impending economic crisis that engulfed the country in 2022. Abeyagoonasekera is deeply bitter about his arrest on 21 July, 2024, at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) over an alleged IRD –related offence as reported at that time, especially because he was returning home to visit his sick mother.

Asanga’s father Ossie, a member of Parliament and controversial figure, was killed in an LTTE suicide attack at Thotalanga in late Oct. 1994. The Chairman and leader of Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya had been on stage with then UNP presidential election candidate Gamini Dissanayake when the woman suicide cadre blasted herself. The assassination was meant to ensure Kumaratunga’s victory. The LTTE probably felt that it could manipulate Kumaratunga than the experienced Dissanayake who may have had reached some sort of consensus with New Delhi on how to deal with the LTTE.

Let me reproduce a question posed to Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and his response in ‘Winds of Change’ as some may believe that the author is holding something back. “Didn’t they listen?” a US intelligence officer had asked me incredulously after the bombings. Years later, during my role as a technical advisor for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amid Sri Lanka’s collapse, the question resurfaced: “How did you foresee the collapse of a powerful regime with a majority in parliament?” My answer remained the same—patterns. Rigorously gathered data and relentless analysis reveal the arcs of history before they unfold.

Perhaps, readers may find what former cashiered Flying Officer Keerthi Ratnayake had to say about ‘Aragalaya’ and related developments (https://island.lk/ex-slaf-officer-sheds-light-on-developments-leading-to-aragalaya/)

Bombshell claim

Essentially, Abeyagoonasekera, on the basis of his exclusive and lengthy interview with former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, confirmed what Wimal Weerawansa and Sena Thoradeniya alleged that the US spearheaded the operation.

But Prof. Maddumabandara, a confidant of first post-Aragalaya President Ranil Wickremesinghe has bared the direct Indian involvement in the regime change operation. In spite of Gotabaya Rajapaksa confidently clearing Indian NSA Doval of complicity in his ouster, Prof. Maddumabandara is on record as having said that the then Indian High Commissioner here Gopal Baglay put pressure on Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to take over the government for an interim period. (https://island.lk/dovals-questionable-regional-stock-taking/)

Obviously, the US and India worked together on the Sri Lanka regime change operation. That is the undeniable truth. India wanted to thwart Wickremesinghe receiving the presidency by bringing in Speaker Abeywardena. That move went awry in spite of some sections of both Buddhist and Catholic clergy throwing their weight behind New Delhi.

The 2022 violent regime change operation cannot be discussed without taking into consideration the US-led project that also involved the UNP, JVP and TNA to engineer retired General Sarath Fonseka’s victory at the 2010 presidential election and their backing for turncoat Maithripala Sirisena at the 2015 presidential election.

The section, titled ‘Echoes of Crisis from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh: South Asia’s Struggle in a Polycrisis’, is riveting and underscores the complexity of the situation and fragility of governments. Executive power and undisputable majorities in Parliament seems irrelevant as external powers intervene thereby making the electoral system redundant.

Having meticulously compared the overthrowing of Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Bangladesh’s Premier Sheikh Hasina, the author condemned them for their alleged failures and brutality. Abeyagoonasekera stated: “When the military sides with the protesters, as it did in Sri Lanka and now in Bangladesh, it reveals the rulers’ vulnerabilities.” The author unmercifully chided the former President for seeking refuge in the West while alleging direct CIA role in his ouster. But that may have spared his life. Had he sought a lifeline from the Chinese so late the situation could have taken a turn for worse.

The comment that had been attributed to Gotabaya Rajapaksa seemed to belittle Ranil Wickremesinghe who accepted the challenge of becoming the Premier in May 2022 and then chosen by the ruling SLPP to complete the remainder of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s five-year term. Ranil was definitely seen as an opportunistic vulture who backed ‘Aragalaya’ without any qualms till he saw an opening for himself out of the chaos.

On Wickremesinghe’s path

Abeyagoonasekera discussed the joint US-Indian strategy pertaining to Sri Lanka. Whatever the National People’s Power (NPP) and its President say, the current dispensation is continuing Wickremesinghe’s policy as pointed out by the author. In fact, this government appears to be ready even to go beyond Wickremesinghe’s understanding with New Delhi. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on defence and the selling of the controlling interests of the Colombo Dockyard Limited (CDL) to India, mid last year, must have surprised even those who always pushed for enhanced relations at all levels.

The economic collapse that resulted in political upheaval has given New Delhi the perfect opportunity to consolidate its position here. Uncomplimentary comments on current Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha in ‘Winds of Change’ have to be discussed, paying attention to Sri Lanka’s growing dependence and alleged clandestine activities of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Abeyagoonasekera seemed to have no qualms in referring to RAW’s hand in 2019 Easter Sunday carnage.

Overall ‘Winds of Change’ encourages, inspires and confirms suspicions about US and Indian intelligence services and underscores the responsibility of those in power to be extra cautious. But, in the case of smaller and weaker economies, such as Sri Lanka still struggling to overcome the economic crisis, there seems to be no solution. Not only India and the US, the Chinese, too, pursue their agenda here unimpeded. Utilisation of political parties, represented in Parliament, selected individuals, and media, in the Chinese efforts, are obvious. Once parliamentarian Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe raised the Chinese interventions in Sri Lanka. He questioned the Parliament receiving about 240 personal laptops for all parliamentarians and top officials. The then UNPer told the writer his decision not to accept the laptop paid for by China. Perhaps, he is the only Sri Lankan politician to have written a strongly worded letter to Chinese leader Xi warning against high profile Chinese strategy.

Winds of Change
is available at
Vijitha Yapa and Sarasavi

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

Beginning of another ‘White Supremacist’ World Order?

Published

3 days ago

2026/02/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Donald Trump’s complete lack of intelligence, empathy and common sense have become more apparent during the current term of his presidency. Ordinarily, a country’s wish to self-destruct as the United States seemingly does at present, and as the violence against US citizens and immigrants alike at the hands of federal authorities have shown in Minnesota, can be callously considered the business of that country. If the Trumpian imbecility was unfolding in Sri Lanka, anywhere else in South Asia or some other country of the purported Third World, the so-called World Order, led by the United States, would be preaching to us the values of democracy and human rights. But what happens when the actions of a powerful country, such as the United States, engulfs in the ensuing flames the rest of us? Trump and his madness then necessarily become our business, too, because combined with the military and economic power of the United States and its government’s proven lack of empathy for its own people, and the rest of the world, is quite literally a matter of global survival. Besides, one of the ‘positive’ outcomes of the Trumpian madness, as a friend observed recently, is that “he has single-handedly exposed and destroyed the fiction of ‘Western Civilisation’, including the pretenses of Europe.”

It is in this context that the speech delivered by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, on 20 January, 2026, deserves attention. It was an elegant speech, a slap in the face of Trump and his policies, the articulation of the need for global directional change, all in one. But, pertinently, it was also a speech that did not clearly accept responsibility for the current world (dis)order which Carney says needs to change. The reality of that need, however, was overly reemphasised by Trump himself during his meandering, arrogant and incohesive speech delivered a day later, spanning over one hour.

My interest is in what Carney did not specifically say in his speech: who would constitute the new world order, who would be its leaders and why should we believe it would be any different from the present one?

Speaking in French, Carney observed that he was talking about “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” He was, of course, responding to the vulgar script for global domination put in place by the Trumpian United States, given Trump’s declared interest in seeing Canada as part of the United States, his avarice for Greenland, not to mention his already concluded grab for Venezuelan oil. But within this scenario, bound by ‘no limits’ and ‘no constraints’ he was also talking of Russia and China albeit in a coded language.

He reiterated, “that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states. The power of the less power starts with honesty.”

Who could disagree with Carney? His words are a refreshing whiff of fresh air in the intellectual wasteland that is the Trumpian Oval Office and the current world order it prevails over. But where has been the ‘honesty’ of the less powerful in the specific situation where he equates Canada itself within this spectrum? He tells us that “the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

That is stating the obvious. We have known this for decades by experience. Long before Canada’s relative silence with regard to Trump’s and US’ facilitation of the assault on Palestine and the massacre of its people, and the US President’s economic grab in Venezuela and the kidnapping of that country’s President and his wife, Canada’s own chorus in the world order that Carney now critiques has been embellished by silence or – even worse – by chords written by the global dominance orchestra of the United States.

He says the fading of the rules-based order has occurred because of the “strong tendency for countries to go along, to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.” Canada fits this description better than most other nations I can think of. But would Canada, along with other nations among the silent majority within the ‘intermediate powers’ take the responsibility for the mess in the world precisely that silence has directly led to creating? Who will pay for the pain many nations have endured in the prevailing world order? Will Canada lead the way in the new world order in doing this?

Carney further articulates that “for decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, we praised its principles, we benefited from its predictability. And because of that, we could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.”

But this is not true, is it? Countries like Canada prospered not merely because of the stability of rules of the world order, but because they opted for silence when they should not have. The rupture and the chaos in the world order Carney now critiques and is insanely led by Trump today is not merely the latter’s creation. It has been co-authored for decades by countries such as Canada, France, the United Kingdom to mention just a few who also regularly chant the twin-mantras of human rights and democracy. Trump is merely the latest and the most vocal proponent of the nastiness of that World Order.

It is not that Carney is unaware of this unpleasant reality. He accepts that “the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

While Canada seems to be coming to terms with this reality only now, countries like Sri Lanka and others in similarly disempowered positions in this world order have experienced this for decades, because, as I have outlined earlier, Canada et al have been complicit sustainers of the now demonised and demonic world order.

It is not that I disagree with the basic description Carney has painted of the status of the world. But from personal experience and from the perspective of a citizen from a powerless country, I simply do not trust those who preach ‘the gospel of the good’ not as a matter of principle, but only when the going gets tough for them.

At this rather late stage, Carney says, Canada is “amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture.” Unfortunately, we, the people of countries who had to dance to the tunes of the world order led by the First World, have heard it for years, with no one listening to us when our discomforts were articulated. Now, Carney wants ‘middle powers’ or ‘intermediate powers’ within which he also locates Canada, “to live the truth?” For him, the truth means “naming reality” as it exists; “acting consistently” towards all in the world; “applying the same standards to allies and rivals” and “building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored.” This appears to be the operational mantra for the new world order he is envisioning in which he sees Canada as a legitimate leader merely due to its late wakeup call.

He goes on to give a list of things Canada has done locally and globally and concludes by saying, “we have a recognition of what’s happening and a determination to act accordingly. We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.” He goes on to say Canada also has “the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.” He notes this is “Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently, and it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.” Quite simply, this a leadership pitch for a new world order with Canada at its helm.

Without being overly cynical, this sounds very familiar, not too dissimilar to what USAID and Voice of America preached to the world; not too dissimilar to what the propaganda arms of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party used to preach in our own languages when we were growing up. It is difficult to buy this argument and accept Canadian and middle country leadership for the new world order when they have been consistently part of the problem of the old one and its excuses for institutionalised double standards practiced by international organisations such as the likes of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other hegemonic entities that have catered to the whims of that world order.

As far as Canada is concerned, it is evident that it has suddenly woken up only due to an existential threat at home projected from across its southern border and Trump’s threats against the Danish territory of Greenland. When Gaza was battered, and Venezuela was raped, there was no audible clarion call. Therefore, there is no real desire for democracy or human rights in its true form, but a convenient and strategic interest in creating a new ‘white supremacist’ world order in the same persona as before, but this time led by a new white warrior instead. The rest of us would be mere followers, nodding our heads as expected as was the case before.

As the 20th century American standup comedian Lenny Bruce once said, “never trust a preacher with more than two suits.” Mr. Carney, Canada along with the so-called middle powers and the lapsed colonialists have way more than two suits, and we have seen them all.