(6) Who are the "fascists"? - An outsider's comments on the Sri Lankan conflict

Supporters of either side of the Sri Lankan conflict routinely call the other fascist or Nazi – falling back, alas, on European analogies once again. The truth is that no group in Sri Lanka is Nazi– although Sinhala nationalist parties such as the JVP and JHU, come closest. The JVP even describes itself as a “socialist nationalist” party.

Both sides in the conflict have unsavoury people in charge, but it should be kept in mind that the Sri Lankan government is at least elected, albeit on the back of ugly nationalist sentiments. The LTTE has at times enjoyed considerable popular support among the Tamils, particularly in the North, but its mandate comes from the gun.

The Sri Lankan government is also answerable to the laws of the state, albeit that Lanka’s legal institutions are weak and biased, whereas the LTTE has been answerable chiefly to its dictatorial leader, Prabhakaran.

Nonetheless, as a social, political, psychological and cultural phenomenon, Sinhalese ethno-religious nationalism is clearly more akin than is LTTE/Tamil nationalism to right-wing nationalisms in Europe – and also to militant Islam.

Sinhalese nationalism is right-wing, grandiloquent, sulky, angry, masculine, extravagant in its intolerances, testosterone-infused, hot-headed, bloodthirsty and braying. Tamil Nationalism under the LTTE is left-wing, cold, determined, utilitarian, murderous, systematic, ruthless and disturbingly well-regimented.

Both forms are terrifying in their own way; but if one had to find an analogy in the West for LTTE/Tamil nationalism, one should look not at fascism, but at Eastern Europe during the Stalinist era.

Yet in one regard the LTTE does echo the Nazis. This is in the disastrous situation in which the leadership now finds itself. They have allowed one man – Prabhakaran – to become absolutely powerful within his organization and utterly invulnerable to replacement from within, but at one and the same time, disastrously ignorant of the realities outside his world.

Hitler and Stalin became insulated, isolated, ignorant, murderous gods. In terms of personality, Prabhakaran is more similar to Stalin than Hitler, since he is calculating and ruthless, not unstable and incandescent; but if, as suspected, he is currently in a bunker with foes blasting down the gate, it is inevitably with Berlin, and with Hitler, that his last days will be compared by his foes.