By Michael Cooke –
Michael Cooke
The fantasy of the colonist defence
Faced with a growing body of evidence of mass killings of civilians, the Lankan and the Israeli governments, as mentioned have fallen back on demonising the colonised . Professor Tony Taylor has discussed this historical and political trend in the discussion of the Armenian Genocide, the denial of the methodical killing of the Jews in Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators (6 million died out of out of 9 million in the occupied territories), the stubborn denial of successive Japanese governments of the Japanese role in the massacres of indigenous populations in China and Korea, the denial of atrocities committed by Stalinists in the USSR, Serbian and Croatian atrocities during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and a reluctance by Australians (only now changing) to acknowledge the massacres of Aboriginal people by colonial occupiers[1].
Historical deniers, according to Professor Taylor, display the following behaviours: an acquiescence to authority and leaders, hostility towards ‘others’ who are usually defenceless and hence an easy target, a simplistic analysis of complex circumstances, antagonism to ideas beyond their frame of reference, belief in the purity of their beliefs and in the evil of the others, and a belief that their own group is superior to other groups[2]. These characteristics are very evident in the Israeli attitude to Palestinians and in the treatment of Tamils in Lanka.
Sinhala chauvinists and Zionist zealots alike cling to the unexamined assumption that their armed forces cannot commit atrocities and that their military responses are measured. They point instead to their opponents’ misdeeds. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the then President of Lanka whose government oversaw the massacre of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians, said this at a victory …read more
Source:: Colombo Telegraph