VIEWPOINTS

SHIFTING FROM AN OLD HOUSE TO THE NEW?

Wijith DeChickera watches a changing of the old guard to a tyro regime and wonders how long it will take for systemic updates to have effect

April is a time of rest – with an embarrassment of holidays – and recreation, given the coming together of islanders of all racial, religious and sociopolitical persuasions, to celebrate the spectrum of cultural events that bind us together.

It is also a time of renewal and refreshment whereby the botched plans, unrealised hopes of the past and present aspirations coalesce to present a constellation of ambitions for the putative ‘new year’ ahead.

And while much of the prognostications about what the future may hold are no more tangible than astrologers’ imaginations bodying forth the shape of things unseen, the average Sri Lankan has a more transcendent time giving to airy nothing a local habitation and name.

In such a milieu, there hides a treason that is fit only for spoils and stratagems: the soapbox orators of yesterday – now become suave policy makers of an arguably fairer and more visionary tomorrow – plan (or plot) to help the people pluck at least the low hanging fruit that was once promised to them on the perhaps poorly remembered campaign trail.

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST As the astrologically minded observe the change of house from Mīna (Pisces) to Meṣa (Aries), so must the politically oriented continue to champion, critique and call out the failures of the supposed ‘system change’ that the realignment of political houses was arguably to usher in.

And as for the polity that looks on with an admix of uncritical admiration on the one hand and unappreciative disapprobation on the other, dare we essay that both are wrong – because no true lover (one hesitates to write ‘patriot,’ as that has only too often been the first and last refuge of scoundrels) of our country would want this government to get it so badly wrong that it goes the way of several other popular, populist and patently corrupt adminis­trations before.

Thus it behoves a civil society with genuinely national minded motives, which is fair to itself and just by its elected representatives, to take the middle path that is perhaps best characterised by both suitably critical engagement and realistically cautious optimism.

Hence a rehearsal of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led National People’s Power (NPP) government’s election manifesto would not be amiss at this juncture of change, being a sort of gentle reminder that no good deed promised goes unpunished if it is not kept.

REJECTION OF POLICY An albatross that has hung around virtually every head of state’s neck since the odious system was introduced in 1978 is the executive presidency with its onerous fallout for nation, country and people.

Is the NPP (like formerly disreputably forgetful aspirants to high office) now ambivalent about its avowal to dismantle the gremlins of abuses and misuses past, which are still abounding in the machine – and why? 

Is the repeatedly stated position of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake when he was an ardent champion of justice being not only done but seen to be done while he was in opposition now a nonstarter for reasons best known to the incumbent in the highest office in the land?

Or will he, as the high official who appoints the Inspector General of Police (IGP), take practical steps to eliminate the reprehensible culture of killing suspects in custody?

And can it be that in the above and another emblematic case – that of the long overdue dismantling of the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), albeit under whatever other name it is repackaged and smuggled into parliament like an opiate to sate those who have tasted the addictive savour of power – government is a very different proposition from opposition?

Ah yes, the learning curve!

RAISING THE BAR One must duly credit (even if one thinks diabolical things about the incumbents, redolent of past fears or present prejudices) the current administration for sweeping changes in the ethos of governance that are as welcome as shifting from a shambles to a Shangri-la.

These span the gamut from small government to a distinct absence of pomp and pageantry to tangible reductions in presidential expenditure on overseas junkets at taxpayers’ expense.

But far too many cracks are beginning to show than is creditable to a regime that swept the country up in a fever of an expected cleansing of our Augean stables.

And the rot is spreading from an appalling lack of due diligence in the appointment of the Speaker of the House, through mismanaging the recent fuel shortage fiasco by dint of uncharacteristic incompetence, to a puzzling lack of progress in symbolic cases such as the Easter Sunday attacks probe – speaking volumes for the persistence of the deep state.

What price system change if the same roadblocks are thrown up by the apparatus of government?

Get a move on!

April is a time when the sun literally shows a new face in Aries with the sordid past of the Age of Pisces overshadowed!

Or is it simply being swept under the carpet as in the past?