VIEWPOINTS

BETWEEN DREAMS AND DOING FALLS A SHADE

Wijith DeChickera writes that yearnings for a type of new nationhood must have more inspired underpinnings than false hopes of the past times

There is perhaps no more divisive a time for the people of Sri Lanka than the nation’s traditional commemoration of its independence from colonial rule, customarily conducted with much pomp and pageantry – and with an emphasis on matters military – at and over Galle Face.

However, for the first time in 77 years in which the baton of government has passed between liberals and conservatives of an increasingly uniform ideological stripe, there is a new – and progressive at that – political party at the helm… and being the cynosure of a country on the cusp of liberation from slavery to old ideas about civics and governance, no doubt the eyes of the nation will be on how the government conducts the ceremony.

Please may it behove Presi­dent Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his administration then – tyros as they are at governance – that here, if ever there was one, is a cardinal opportunity (some may say ‘another’ since the presidential swearing in ceremony and our new chief executive’s inaugural address to parliament were other occasions) to set a new standard instead of reinventing the wheel with trite repetitions, and tired customs and conventions.

The irony of the moment would not be lost on civil society either way.

On the one hand, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that comprises the main component of the National People’s Power (NPP) government was once an outlawed entity that lived by its wits beyond the pale… and its erstwhile violent approach to ‘social reform’ meant at least twice in national life that it was subject to the full brunt of law enforcement, as well as the tri-security forces.

So if the JVP bows before so-called ‘public sentiment’ (and one could then wonder whether there is a rump or remnant of the ethnonationalistic chauvinism that ushered many a majoritarian regime into the corridors of power) and opts for a martial minded commemoration, the human rights, civil libertarian and more moderate segments of society that are mindful of plurality and inclusiveness will bay for its blood – an irony compounded.

But because the alternative – a ceremony that minimises or even ignores and neglects the contribution of the country’s police and armed forces to state security over the decades especially during the times of the ‘ethnic conflict’ – would be equally abhorrent to demographics subscribing to the ethos of ‘patriotism,’ ‘nationalism’ and the like, the NPP in general and JVP in particular could well feel caught between two inimical extremes.

And for a government that has had it fair share of early shocks (the scandal of a Speaker of Parliament who falsely represented his credentials and assumed office without due diligence on the part of government) and setbacks in governance (vide the critical commentary on the absence of a viable plan to abolish the executive presidency as promised, for example, and also repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act – PTA), the regime needs a success.

That the ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ campaign, which kicked off in the first week of January, carries much potential for such a success story must garner the true support of all genuinely patriotic and national minded citizens. Conversely, the government must match its narrative with early and expeditious results, rather than let time and nature or the law’s delays take their courses.

Just as “all war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal” (as American writer and Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck essayed in the mid-20th century) so is peace without justice a cost that characterises failed, unfeeling and unjust societies that are naively or nastily complacent with the status quo. Naively, if one doesn’t know the value of equity and equitability – or nastily, if one chooses to ignore its worth.

To ignore the ongoing demand that social justice be done – and be seen to be done – would be to neglect at our joint peril the clarion call that has echoed in town hall, market square, and other places of public congregation and discourse since the time of the aragalaya.

The nightmare of the people’s protest ended prematurely when the movement that was based on the exercise of popular sovereignty ended with a state crackdown on spiralling violence and the compromise of a peaceful demonstration that culminated with the storming of the presidential palaces – only to have the dream of the progressives come true when an interim administration under a caretaker president failed to discern the pulse of the masses.

Pray ye gods and train guards that yet another government will not fail to grasp the thorny nettles of the present adequately to ensure the greatest good of the greatest number of the people it represents at present. Too much about the state of the nation is riding on the ability of the newbies in office to read the writing on the local and regional – to say nothing of geopolitical – walls.

So from drafting and crafting a new social contract, to inking trade pacts and duly implementing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, it is time to stop dreaming.