The State as toilet-seat and toilet-paper for the capitalist class

I have a friend, a Sri Lankan, whose US wife can’t stand him talking to any Sri Lankan and just loses it if the conversation moves from English to Sinhala.  He called me one day, about 10 years ago, and Sinhala being our preferred language, we were chatting away in the good old Mother Tongue. The good lady, as I said, lost it. She was screaming and screaming so loud that I could hear her. 

‘You have to look after your wife!’ she yelled.

My friend was not the kind to be intimidated. He didn’t yell, but he was still quite firm: ‘the state will look after you!’  They have since divorced.

What is the responsibility of the state, I’ve often wondered and each time I reflect on this I recall the above exchange.  There are those (like the Inter University Student Federation – IUSF – and other organizations with Socialist/Left leanings) who believe that it is the responsibility of the state to ‘take care’ of all citizens, from womb-time (courtesy midwife) to death.  They get so much and they still complain, ‘the state doesn’t do anything for us’ is the constant whine.  Either they are ungrateful or suffer from selective memory loss. 

They tend to think, though, that they are self-made men and women, forgetting that someone picked their education bill, someone paid for medicines and medical attention, someone pays when they take a housing or vehicle loan at concessionary rates etc.  No, they believe it is their birthright to demand a job from the state upon graduation.  They are pampered out of their minds, this must be said, even as we fault government after government for doing very little to streamline things so that education-employment mismatches are minimized and for totally ignoring the civil education that should accompany ‘free education’ and indeed ‘free’ anything.

It is this same mentality that allowed I/NGOs to run rings around our people.  It is an easy formula: make dependency, then controlling is on cruise-control.  It is the same formula that politicians use.  It is about constructing, maintaining and using hierarchies. 

Time has passed though, and, as evidenced in the slogan api wenuwen api, this country seems to have recognized the truth value of the words of that incomparable human being Siddhartha Gauthama: atta hi attano nato (your hand is the one shade-giver to your head).  Take metaphor out and the lesson is simple: you are your own master, you make your own future. It is the bottom-line conviction of every freedom fighter, every liberator. 

We are talking not about liberation-prerogative or the tenets that revolutionaries should follow. We are talking about the state, the state as giver to be more accurate.  We’ve read enough about the above-mentioned pampered class.  Now let’s talk the un-talked, let’s talk of the other and ridiculously pampered class whose leisure hours are in many ways secured at the cost of denying even subsistence wages to the aforementioned pampered class, whose pampering in comparison seems little more than pittance, the crumbs off the tables of the rich, almost literally. 

When J.R.Jayewardene ‘opened’ the economy, he not only completed the destruction of the local entrepreneur (a process that N.M. Perera launched in the name of nationalization, dressed of course with a lot of nationalistic/revolutionary rhetoric), he gave the green light to the ‘Robber Baron’ (‘Let the robber barons come!’ he thundered, not in the, ‘let’s-show-them’ mode, but in the ‘come f*** us’ sense).  What was that process if not a streamlining of all state mechanisms to facilitate a) plunder of resources, b) exploitation of labour and c) dismantling of our way of life? 

What was the ‘free economy’ about?  Who benefited?  The investors came to a Paradise. Paradise?  Yes, Paradise.  Paradise had a province called ‘Tax Free’. It had another called ‘No labour rights’.  There was more: dirty cheap water, dirty cheap electricity, free land.  Capitalists in this country have had a ball.  A never ending party.  They always had the ear of the rulers. They always got their way.  When Mahinda Rajapaksa, as Minister of Labour, tried to bring in a Workers’ Charter in the mid-nineties, President Chandrika Kumaratunga scuttled it upon the advice of the then spokespersons for capital interests, in particular Thilan Wijesinghe.  Chandrika responded to the spate of strikes that followed her election as President with a crack-down underlined with the classic dismissal: ‘I didn’t promise freedom of the wild-ass’. She dropped the necessary qualifier, ‘for the working class’, for ‘freedom of the wild-ass’ is what the class she represented and pampered had enjoyed since 1977 and what she ensured they would continue to enjoy.

In recent times, we had the big boys in business whining about the war-situation and its negative spin-offs.  They whined that the preferential quota system would end and begged for all kinds of support.  They did not mention anywhere that if the state played any important role in the economy, it was to subsidize capital interests in one for or the other, it was to facilitate the (continued) exploitation of the poor and weak, it was to consolidate entrenched class divisions, it was to keep intact the perimeter walls of Members’ Only clubs, it was to maintain the snooty-yak (yakkhos) distinction in society, especially Colombo.  

When the GSP Plus issue came, the Snooty Class whose traditional homeland is the UNP ranted and raved (the results of the electorates within the Colombo Municipality show where their loyalties lay) and screamed that the Government had failed (not them, but the garment workers who would have to be laid off, how very touching!).  What about the free market, though, with its invisible hand and all?  Intervention by state amounts to fiddling with the demand/supply factors, right?  That’s what the text book says, but outside, where political economy and not economy operates it is about using everything in the rule book and everything outside it to secure/retain edge.  It is not about the free play of economic forces, but the deliberate twisting of factors and no ‘factor’ has as sweep-potential as the state. 

I believe that it is time for the pampered to grow out of their diapers.  If they can’t compete with global brands/products, then should say so instead of hiding behind the nationalist rhetoric (new found, let me add; for they were the cheer-leaders when Ranil Wickremesinghe signed the Ceasefire Agreement with Prabhakaran).    Such agreements can be objected to, only in terms of any negative impact on our strategic interests, national security and the fate of the less-pampered (much-less, I should have said) sections of our population.

The truly pampered, we know, have had a ball. For decades!  They’ve got all kinds of concessions. They’ve used and abused institution and law, arm-twisted and/or bribed, been the biggest contributors to the culture of corruption and been the main and biggest beneficiaries of the state’s tendency to pamper.  The state is not a roll of toiler paper.  Neither is it toilet seat.  It is or should be regulator and it is not the leftist/socialist remnants in our society or the IUSF that is preventing it from being this; no, it is the capitalist class, the local robber barons or the local lackeys of international brigands. 

How about some good governance, efficiency, transparency and clean operation from this class?  Will our I/NGO boys and girls want to take them on?  Or are they not interesting in hauling their aunties and uncles over the coals?  I wonder….I really do.  

[first published in the Sunday Island in July 2010]

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A preamble to a proposal for a post-war memorial

[This was first published in December 2010 and although the pro-LTTE voices didn't get as silenced as I thought they had at the time, that whining/screaming should not forbid what I propose below]

In June 2006 The Nation newspaper, in its ‘Eye’ section had a two page spread on war memorials.  I was at the time the Deputy Editor (Features) and I remember inserting two illustrations to decorate the pages.  The first was a cemetery set up by the LTTE.  The second was a blank space, duly boxed, to acknowledge all the 20,000 young men and women who were killed in the 1971 insurrection and the 60,000 who perished in the UNP-JVP bheeshanaya of 1988-89.   

In the first, tellingly, the birthdays and date of death had been omitted, for the LTTE had sent thousands of children to death. That’s something the pro-Eelam sections of the Tamil Diaspora don’t talk about even though it is their money that helped those innocent kids hurry into the Great Beyond.  The decision to insert that photograph was to acknowledge the fact that even those who died fighting the cause of a myth-mongering megalomaniac were nevertheless citizens of this country, needlessly sacrificed. 

Today, more than 4 years later, we are in a post-war situation.  Pro-Eelam sections of the Tamil Diaspora can rest easy that their brethren are not getting killed, even if they are upset that the end of the war also means that Sinhalese and Muslims (and yes, non-LTTE Tamils) are not dying in their hundreds. 

Yesterday was the moment of the tyrant, the rule of dread, the wails of orphans, sighs of widows, landscapes being scarred, scars being opened and re-opened, economies from household to national being devastated, temples being desecrated. Yesterday was made of waiting. It was made of wait dripping to shoulder-shrug to grin-and-bare.  Yesterday saw the consecration of helplessness, attended by the lie of invincibility. Yesterday belonged to quacks calling themselves historians and political analysts and pundits pampered by dubious dollars pontificating on all things under the sun, conferring legitimacy to a terrorist, twisting wild-claim into birth-right. 

Today we are terror-free and voices of Prabhakaran’s lackeys quickly moved from shout to whine and whine to silence.  Yesterday we held our breath, expecting an explosion any moment.  Today we are a breathing people.

Yesterday was made of wounds. Today, we must seek healing. 

Today I remembered those two photographs because there are things we should not forget.  History is written by the victor, this is true.  However, even a cursory reading of arguably the greatest and in many ways most rigorous chronicle, the Mahawamsa, would reveal that there are other ways of writing history, where blemish is called blemish and the fallen celebrated for that which is worthy of celebration. 

Today, in this moment of reconciliation, even as claim remains unsubstantiated and grievance (mis-articulated by way of exaggeration) un-redressed, there are things that need to be acknowledged.

Wars are about all kinds of things. Ideologies. Claims. Disputes.  Wars generate death. Destruction. Displacement. Wars are not happy things. They bring out the worst in human beings.  War is an excellent residence for cruelty.  Wars nevertheless bring out the best in the human being as well.  Bravery. Sacrifice. Heroism.  None of these can be monopolized by one party to the conflict.  Just as much as we cannot condone cruelty so too can we not forget heroism.

Those who fight each other are not one in objective. War’s end allow for retraction, admission of guilt and forgiveness on account of all kinds of errors, especially those that are not sourced to ideology and objective. War’s end can of course result in a putting-behind and moving ahead on account of changed circumstances, but that’s something that should not be taken as given. Still, I believe that a different kind of embrace is possible and indeed desirable.

Both victor and vanquished share the will to live and fear of death, both share the fact of indulging and suffering cruelty, both are one in heroism. Close to a hundred thousand citizens of this country perished over the past 30 years in a needless war.  They were all children of this land, sons and daughters of mothers and father who would never have envisaged the babies they cradled would suffer the fate they did.  They all died in vain. 

The true monument of reconciliation should occur in hear. The true embrace should be the clasp of heartbeat with heartbeat only made possible by recognition of common humanity.  Takes time.  Until then let us grieve our dead and mark our grievance with a monument to all our citizens who died, whichever side they fought on whatever political signature was etched on the bullet that ensured dream-end. 

Let there be a war memorial etched with all names, a grand mix of identity, so we can remind ourselves that our past, bloody and tear-filled, was made of an inextricable weaving of lives, so too should our future be; made of ourselves and one another, in our common humanity and common destiny as children born on this island who will have to live and live together, breathe and breathe together, now and always.   

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Kahawatta is our country

The gruesome murder of a 52 year old woman and her 18 year old daughter in Kahawatta shocked the entire country.  A lot has happened since that tragic night of January 31, 2012. The story of drug dealing, political patronage, abuse of trust and innocence, revenge intended and exacted etc has all come out.  

When the story unfolded and the culprits apprehended, a community divested itself of rage by burning four houses, including those of the main suspect and his politician brother.  This is how Kahawatta became a synonym for lawlessness and one hopes that arrest, detention and indictment will cool these unholy fevers, sooner rather than later. 

What is most disturbing is that certain elements of the Kahawatta tragedy are common to other parts of the country as well, in particular the nexus between criminality and politics, criminal and politician.  At all levels. 

The main suspect, Raju is the brother of Pradeshiya Sabha member who was, until a few days ago, the Coordinating Secretary of a Minister.  The story validates the commonly held view that politics and drugs are closely related. 

The suspects in this case had been apprehended on four occasions by the Police but on each occasion, it is reported, they had to be released before they could be properly questioned.  It took a special CID team to finally interrogate and obtain a confession.  In other words, for 34 days, that unfortunate community was forced to have in their midst a set of murderers.

Sadly, all this comes under ‘business as usual’ in this country.  Almost everyone knows of a story where known wrongdoers get off scot free or with (at worst) a light reprimand courtesy the invariable ‘call from the top’, the ‘top’ being some local political bigwig.  Interference is the name of the game and it has been virtually a national sport for way too long now. 

The crux of the matter is that law enforcement officers simply do not have the independence to do their jobs.  Their efficiency is therefore compromised while their errors are magnified.  This country simply does not have an overall institutional arrangement that can stop politicians (and the wealthy, who are wont to heavily fund politicians in return for all manner of favours including immunity from investigation) from taking a bite off the justice system. 

Non-compliance can result in punishment transfers and severely denting chances of career advancement.  When powerful politicians bear upon senior police officers to look the other way, their juniors take note. They learn and they put into practice the knowledge gained.  They learn to let big fish slip away.  In this context it is indeed to the credit of the CID that the suspects were actually taken in.  It implies that somewhere close to the top there are people who are actually interested in justice.  To be fair, there have been instances where police officers have shown exemplary courage and integrity, but such individuals are heavily outnumbered by the servile, many of whom double up as takers. 

When law enforcement is influenced by politicians it is to that very extent compromised.  We have seen how police officers have refused point black to investigate acts of thuggery that have been reported as-it-is-happening on television.  When a man ties up another man, that’s not ‘consensual’ or some kinky sexual ritual.  The man who did the tying was in fact giving the finger to law enforcement and the law.  The police took the finger, as it were, without shame. So too the AG’s Department. So too his parliamentary colleagues. So too his political party.  So too every single person who chose to look the other way. 

We know that the 17^th Amendment offered an outside chance to correcting the institutional flaws pertaining to policing.  We know that the 18^th took away that chance.  Be that as it may, in the end what is important is not who appoints who but what the appointed does with his/her appointment and office.  That’s where integrity is tested.

  In this situation there can be no talk of devolving police powers unless one believes there is something substantial in the matter of devolving thuggery or giving free rein to thugs. 

Kahawatta is our country and not a small geographical entity located in some district far away from the high seats of power.  Kahawatta is a tragedy and a defining symbol of ‘things as they are’, top to bottom, left to right. 

No one wants to live in Kahawatta.  Period.  Kahawatta needs to be erased from the political map and that erasing must begin with constitution.  The truth is the beneficiaries of ‘Kahawattization’ will not fiddle with the constitution (why discard a ‘good thing’?).  Who then will do the erasing and when?  The latter is hard to predict.  As for the former, the answer is clear: good people, courageous people, patriots.  If terrorism could have been eradicated, this is not impossible.  If politicians won’t lift a finger, the people must make them lift it. 

There’s a fight to recover a decent map.  It’s not about parties, colour and ideologies. It is about patriotism.  Whose side are you on and what are you going to do about it?  

[See 'Editor's Blog' in THE NATION]

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The buck of corruption floats up

‘The Rising Crime Rate’ is a standard essay topic in schools and has been so for decades.  It says something about the persistence of the phenomenon and also a manifest inability and lack of will on the part of relevant authorities to combat the menace.  It points to complicity or deliberate, systematic and skilled partaking.    

The National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) is reported to be investigating 4 ministers, 2 deputy ministers and several provincial politicians and members of local government authorities alleged to have been implicated in bribery and corruption.  ‘Four’, commonsense says, is a small number and sadly it is the smallness of number that is ‘news’. 

Mismanagement, pilfering, cutbacks and such have made the news before.  Much column space has been devoted to discussing the issue, including the flaws of relevant legislation as well as inefficiencies, skill-lack and complicity within the law enforcement apparatus.  The play of power and bucks in the sustained development of the menace has not gone without comment. 

While applauding the NIB for its work, it must be mentioned that there’s a reason why few would be impressed, given the perception that big fish are either left alone or let loose courtesy loopholes of the law. 

The politician is not alone.  Officials have also been named and shamed, but tend to be relocated with little bruise to reputation or reward.  The Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) has found rampant corruption in over 200 state institutions including ministries and corporations.  We learn that the President has already removed 6 heads of state corporations and that all corrupt institutions, politicians and officials named by COPE are being investigated.  That’s a good start, but the process seems to be marked by foot-dragging which again generates suspicion on will. 

If there are bribe-takers, there are bribe-givers too.  Corruption is not the preserve of the public sector.  Corporate crime, including palm-oiling for attractive contracts, hardly makes the news.   And just last week, the website www.colombotelegraph.com revealed details of a massive US $ 1.5 million pilfering from the FAO.  The UN itself stands accused of being indulgent of monumental corruption and the UN Secretary General himself has been accused of covering up.  As for the ardent advocates of good governance, transparency and accountability such as the Free Media Movement and the Centre for Policy Alternatives, they’ve been caught with pants down and forced to hide behind some see-through underwear they call ‘lack of clarity’, ironically.  And need we even talk of sports bodies, beginning with Sri Lanka Cricket. 

Response has to be multi-fronted.  It is a tough ask because the good tend to lack the resources and the bad come not just with bucks, but patronage and fully armed.  The ‘underworld’, moreover, is not underground, but operates at all levels, all sectors and across all social classes and up and down the pecking order.  We need the laws and we need the enforcement, but in both departments the doers remain accused, compromised and (naturally) unwilling. 

On the other hand, we are a country that had the resources to defeat the world’s most ruthless terrorist outfit.  We had the wherewithal and personnel to capture and bring home Kumaran Pathmanadan (KP), Prabhakaran’s chief operator internationally.  The expertise exists then.  So too the full backing of the general citizenry.  What then is missing?

Well, it is known that when the boss is crooked, it is a license for his/her subordinates to indulge as well.  The reverse is more revealing.  If the minions are in to picking, the chances are the boss is either incompetent or him/herself corrupt.

The President must understand that just as he, as the Executive in a constitution where executive sway is absolute, deserves the major credit for vanquishing terrorism, the ‘buck’ of criminality invariably floats towards him and on to his desk.  It is good that he has taken a stand and initiated action, but the country needs and deserves evidence that he is fighting the good fight, no holds barred.  If there are no concrete results, he will be accused of incompetence and complicity.  

['The Nation' editorial, April 1, 2012]

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