2ND LEAD (Adds Election Manifestos)

Sinhala leftists need careful perusal of Lenin’s definition of Right to Self-Determination

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 September 2024, 21:30 GMT]
Russian revolutionary leader and theoretician Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was highly critical of the interpretation of the Right of Self-Determination by his contemporary Marxist thinker Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919). While Luxemburg argued that national self-determination was a dangerous distraction from the desired system change towards a socialist state, Lenin defended the right to self-determination, including secession. Most Sinhala leftists have been opportunists who peddle Marxism like a pimp, especially concerning the national question. They are divergent from Lenin’s extremely well-articulated definition and clarification of the national right of self-determination.

Throughout their struggle, the nation of Eezham Tamils has clearly articulated its national self-determination, including statehood. When the proponents of leftist system change are not prepared to recognise the inalienable right of self-determination in its entire scope, there would be no cooperation from the Tamils for the desired system change.

Interestingly, Lionel Bopage, a one-time central leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), who left the JVP in February 1984 due to the chauvinist positions taken on the Tamil question by the JVP leadership, has now returned to the island from his exile in Australia to test his ‘system-change’ expectations with Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National Peoples’ Power.

In a recent YouTube podcast with Kalya Perera, Bopage said he still has the same position regarding the Tamil national question. However, he was talking about the “specific problems” of Tamil people without specifying them. He also touched on the demand for secession based on the right of self-determination as something that NPP could make “to disappear” by addressing ‘the specific problems’ in a new constitution.

Comrade Bopage has failed to grasp Lenin’s lesson that the right of self-determination of an oppressed nation is an inalienable right that would not simply disappear by the oppressor nation addressing some specific issues.



In the meantime, certain Tamil civil society group personalities that receive funds and build research careers from the Western NGOs promoting federalism and constitutionalism lecture on ‘united and undivided’ Sri Lanka and the state formation as a ‘plurinational state’.

At the same time, ITAK parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, who also belongs to the same category, worked closely with the late R. Sampanthan. The duo was mulishly preaching about a ‘united, undivided, indivisible Sri Lanka’ in their proposals.

Both these Tamil groups have been compromising the essence of the national Right of Self-Determination of the nation of Eezham Tamils.

In a sharp contrast to the above groups, the late Vikramabahu Karunaratne, the leader of the New Left Front, has been an ardent supporter of Tamils Right to Self-Determination, including secession.

Siritunga Jayasuriya, one of the presidential candidates from the South, has also reiterated his support for Tamils’ Right to Self-Determination, including the right to referendum.



However, the JVP lineage has no such outlook. It seems to readily accommodate itself with the liberal hegemony of the US agenda setters, including George Soros-funded sections of the Aragalaya exercise.

There is a clear pattern of negating the right of self-determination, as articulated by Lenin, in both the compromised sections of Tamil and Sinhala activists of ‘system change’.

Apart from the contribution of the late Viraj Mendis, a Sinhalese, the Eezham Tamils and their diaspora have yet to present their post-2009 struggle with a progressive outlook.

It is under these circumstances that the mainstream candidates of SL Presidential election 2024 have sophisticatedly expressed their commitment to continued Sinhala chauvinist ‘one-nation, one-state with Buddhism supremacy’ policy in their election manifestos.

The NPP talks about a “united Sri Lankan nation” with a “high level of national security” and the “universal citizen”, implying a ‘one nation - one state’ policy, which is unitary in different terminology.

Sajith Premadasa openly stresses the “foremost place of Buddhism”, which is one of the constitutionally entrenched root causes behind the ethnic conflict.

Ranil Wickremasinghe’s manifesto preaches “one nation” and discusses “Theravada economy”. For him, ex-LTTE members are still subjects for “rehabilitation”.

For Eezham Tamils, there is no preferable candidate among the four mainstream contestants in the SL presidential election.





Therefore, they could boycott or vote for the common Tamil candidate or Siritunga Jayasuriya, thereby clearly expressing their non-cooperation against their enemies and their external masters who operate against the legitimate national aspiration of the Eezham Tamils.





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External Links:

marxists.org:		Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
marxists.org:		V. I. Lenin: The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination

Chronology: