"In March 2021, the archaeological department ordered more than 400 acres surrounding the Kurundi site, which were, and are still, being cultivated by local Tamil farmers, to be handed over to the department for archaeological purposes.
Predictably, this led to widespread resistance from Tamil farmers who suspected that they will lose their paddy lands, livestock farms and agricultural dams. In response, the Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists stepped up their provocations.
Communalism is now being whipped up to divert and divide rising working class opposition to the Wickremesinghe government’s IMF austerity attacks.
Colombo’s ruling elite is acutely nervously about any repeat of the unified action by Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim workers, which ousted President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government last year. The ruling class as a whole is deeply fearful of the reemergence of a unified popular working-class uprising.
On June 8, President Wickremesinghe held a discussion with representatives of the Tamil National Alliance and other government officials, including Archaeological Department Director Anura Manatunga. During the discussion Wickremesinghe ordered the land previously deemed to be part of the Kurundumalai Temple complex to be released to the local farmers for cultivation. However, he quickly withdrew the order following harsh criticism from the Buddhist clergy.
Like their Sinhala counterparts, the Tamil bourgeois parties share the same fear of a united movement of the Sri Lankan working class and are using the controversy over the archeological site to promote their own brand of communalist politics.
While Tamil National Alliance has been politically discredited among large sections of the Tamil population, other parties, including the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), are exploiting the issue. TNPF parliamentarian Selvarasa Gajendran was a leading figure at the August 18 Hindu religious festival at the Kurundumalai site.
As the Socialist Equality Party has consistently explained, the only way to fight the government’s brutal austerity measures and the communalism methods of Sri Lankan ruling elite is through a unified movement of the working class and the oppressed masses against Sri Lankan capitalism and for internationalist and socialist perspective."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/20...KxJCavIwzNwMU1kYA_phpDVugGvwae0i5oYNjJAjn73u8
Link in up ☝
------ Post added on Aug 27, 2023 at 2:33 PM
Predictably, this led to widespread resistance from Tamil farmers who suspected that they will lose their paddy lands, livestock farms and agricultural dams. In response, the Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinists stepped up their provocations.
Communalism is now being whipped up to divert and divide rising working class opposition to the Wickremesinghe government’s IMF austerity attacks.
Colombo’s ruling elite is acutely nervously about any repeat of the unified action by Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim workers, which ousted President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government last year. The ruling class as a whole is deeply fearful of the reemergence of a unified popular working-class uprising.
On June 8, President Wickremesinghe held a discussion with representatives of the Tamil National Alliance and other government officials, including Archaeological Department Director Anura Manatunga. During the discussion Wickremesinghe ordered the land previously deemed to be part of the Kurundumalai Temple complex to be released to the local farmers for cultivation. However, he quickly withdrew the order following harsh criticism from the Buddhist clergy.
Like their Sinhala counterparts, the Tamil bourgeois parties share the same fear of a united movement of the Sri Lankan working class and are using the controversy over the archeological site to promote their own brand of communalist politics.
While Tamil National Alliance has been politically discredited among large sections of the Tamil population, other parties, including the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) and Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), are exploiting the issue. TNPF parliamentarian Selvarasa Gajendran was a leading figure at the August 18 Hindu religious festival at the Kurundumalai site.
As the Socialist Equality Party has consistently explained, the only way to fight the government’s brutal austerity measures and the communalism methods of Sri Lankan ruling elite is through a unified movement of the working class and the oppressed masses against Sri Lankan capitalism and for internationalist and socialist perspective."
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/20...KxJCavIwzNwMU1kYA_phpDVugGvwae0i5oYNjJAjn73u8
Link in up ☝
------ Post added on Aug 27, 2023 at 2:33 PM
