STATE OF THE NATION
NEW YEAR VOTES SWING FRESH CULTURE
Wijith DeChickera looks back in order to move forward – and sees that time and again Sri Lanka lost its way on the very cusp of opportunity
April – as the poet notes – is the cruellest month. For one, it breeds lilacs out of the dead land. For another, it mixes memory and desire to disastrous effect. Last but not least, it stirs dull roots with spring rain.
THE WASTE LAND As election follows election, and expectations eventually yield to disappointment, we are reminded that Sri Lankans have the rare gift of turning opportunity into disaster.
At the dawn of our independence, under greats like D. S. Senanayake whose vision was for a secular – yet multi-religious, multicultural multiethnic – society, there was hope that the then Ceylon would truly be the ‘Jewel of the Indian Ocean.’
The dream died in the first decade since the bloodless battle for liberty was won not through war but negotiation.
Successive changes of administration brought an increasing ethos of realpolitik to a nation that had laboured under a colonial burden for five centuries and more. Where once the brutality of native kings had yoked indigenous Lankans to royal servitude, now the locals of umpteen generations lost to posterity kicked against the pricks.
First, contra the cruelty of Portuguese conquistadors; then versus the dry commercialism of the Dutch; and finally, the cynical empire building of the British with their faith in one hand and flintlocks in the other.
Every truly patriotic islander’s hope since the first flush of freedom – economic prosperity with equality for all people – was crushed by each succeeding government; and later, political dynasties.
A racist ‘Sinhala Only’ act put paid to D. S.’ secular vision. Sirimavo’s lockdown on private ownership set our prospects of endemic growth back by decades. J. R. introduced an open economy that liberated us but also the robber barons. Premadasa had to contend with contesting nationalisms – Tamil chauvinism in the north, Sinhalese supremacism in the south.
More recently, those positions have hardened into seemingly irreconcilable differences. For every Chandrika and Ranil who try to usher in a modicum of reconciliation and transitional justice – flawed as their agenda is, and compromised by corruption in their own ranks – there is pushback from an electorate driven Rajapaksa regime that persists.
And let’s not forget that it is the latter’s ethos of divide and conquer that keeps the blessed isle bound to an unending round of pseudo-religious fervour with fiery pogroms to keep the fires of hate burning.
MEMORY AND DESIRE Add to this volatile mix the fuel of Islamist fundamentalism. It was a febrile trajectory that was long since identified by the powers that be and were; but rather than control or stymie its development in the national interest, respective militarised administrations acted under the impulse of narrow partisan gains, using the razor’s edge to shave their political opponents’ beards.
And that volcano came to a head nearly a year ago. So it is an irony that a general election with the power to heal is to be held a little more than a year later. Of course, the more cynical political commentators among us note a leitmotif other than coincidence in the timing. It is the end of a loose string that the strategic manipulators of a majority mindset have been winding into a less than well-rounded golden ball.
As always with other sharply divisive elements in our already badly riven polity, the question to ask is ‘Cui bono?’ (Who benefits?). And if there is value in giving the dynastic machine more power?
If all the angles are examined honestly and assiduously, there can be no doubt that the saviours of the nation at these polls will prove themselves yet again to be the very instigators of mayhem and chaos. It pays to keep the people on the edge of false patriotic fever with cat’s-paws such as war heroes being cold shouldered by the world’s most powerfully active policeman and the paper tiger of political parties still contending for self-determination rights.
STIRRING DULL ROOTS So it is a pity that the best of them – and they’re hardly intrinsically good by a long chalk – are compromised by a desire to grab, retain and consolidate power. There goes the much vaunted and long awaited reforms agenda; at least as far as political culture change goes.
Any hope of a more accountable system of parliamentary rule will be crucified on the hill of personal ambition and systemic corruption that drives the business-politics nexus in this country. Plus any last hope of a revived liberal agenda with a renewed vision of transformation has thrown in their lot with the idea of majority rights.
That the political uni-culture triumphs over a genuinely national minded bipartisan polity can be good news to only a minority – in fact, the notorious ‘1 percent’ of power brokers. These include cynical oligarchs, corporate captains and industrialists with their eye on the main chance, and should-be social pariahs such as philosophical holy men who endorse identity politics at the cost of unity.
Shame be on all of them!
We need a new political culture, not consolidation of any party’s power base. An election that will only prove that democracy doesn’t work well in the national interest under majoritarian regimes isn’t going to hack it.
