Nationalism and class struggle in Sri Lanka | Green Left Radio

Hi Lionel, this is Jordan AK here.

So the first question we have is that you have recently published a book titled Roots of a Crisis, Nationalism, Class Struggle and the National Question of Sri Lanka.

So this book examines how the intersections of nationalism, class struggle and the national question shaped Sri Lanka today.

Can you give our listeners an overview of your new book and some of the important conclusions that you draw from it?

Yeah, thank you, Congress.

Let me start with the background.

In April 1985, Comrade Rohana Vijayweera, the founding leader of the JVP, published what can be called a thesis.

In English, it can be translated as, What is the solution to the Tamil-Ilaan struggle? That thesis has shaped how the JVP and many other singular nationalist and chauvinist groups have formulated and talked about the national question of Sri Lanka since then.

Roots of a Crisis is the first sustained critical examination of that thesis.

Now, I want to give Comrade Vijayveer a credit where it is due.

He made a serious structural diagnosis of the issue.

He saw that this was more than an ethnic conflict.

He traced it back to a crisis-ridden, peripheral capitalist economy, a divided ruling class, and a compromised traditional left.

And in that regard, he was right.

But the book, Roots of a Crisis, argues he went wrong in three decisive ways.

The first is that he read Lenin and Marx selectively.

He took Lenin's early rejection of federalism, federation.

He ignored the fact that after 1917...

Federalism became the constitutional form of the Soviet state.

And Marx, writing about Ireland, concluded that the workers of a dominant nation cannot free themselves while their rulers oppress other nations.

For Sri Lanka, which means a movement rooted in the single immaturity can only build class unity by campaigning Tamil rights.

The second is that he blurred a distinction Lenin was very careful to keep.

A people's right to self-determination is one thing.

Whether a particular situation is advisable at that time is quite another.

By merging the two, Comrade Vijay Veera's thesis acknowledged Tamil rights on paper, but treated every demand made in their name as illegitimate, in such a way which gave cover to a single majority in the society.