The idea of whipping up patriotic passion when in dire straits is not new: it is as old as the hills, and certainly as old as Rome, as told by Julius Caesar himself :
"Beware of the leader," said Caesar, "who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry who, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar."
Srilankan situation exactly fits here, recently Srilankan governement has come out to public for donation to support soldiers in war front.
Indian Govt and people of Tamilnadu collected materials for all IDPs in Vanni region (war zone).Likewise, In srilanka, people are asked to donate money and all essentials to be sent to srilankan army warring against LTTE.
Readers may understand that prevailing Economical turmoil around the world has taken most of the countries on the brink of bankruptcy and srilanka also one among them struggling to manage their finances well to run the country. In recent budget,177 billion has been taken out of corpus just to fight against LTTEs (5000 in number according to srilankan govt). Most of the money comes to them as AID, even recently received humanitarian aids not really been used for any humanitarian activities/developments. Few days back, EU has announced additional 2 billion to be used in vanni region for IDPs. But thankfully all these money being used to buy WMD.
Even Indian government has loaned srilanka some amount which was used to buy weapens and ships from pakistan. Role played by India in Srilankan conflict is very significant from 1970s onwards, but nothing is noteworthy. It is not only India but entire International community to be blamed in most cases.
Coming back to India, recent Mumbai attack even though has lot of questions to be answered, has exposed politicians to the angry masses of India. Now, our PM and EM started talking tough against pakistan even not ruling out military options against perpetrators.
Indian's would not have forgotten Kargil war, the kind of patriotism it fuelled into every Indians mind. No common man would understand, even if he understands, he won't be able to speak his mind out loud and clear against these political classes, because anybody who speaks against WAR and sovereignty, of course must be a traitor and not a patriotic. In whatever way and means this WAR has been put on us.
In srilanka, one of the MPs of UNP exposes the casualities of Srilankan army in recent war. other MP of UNP has to make a statement in parliament in favour of war considering upcoming elections (mahintha mulling over early elections, likely to be announced on Dec 8 2008).
Jingoism is a key word here, which is used extensively by all political classes to deceive and/or escape the wrath of people.
We common man as always fall prey to these hawkish politicians. who is going to save us from their clutches?
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