[IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE]
Kids are easy.
Uncomplicated. Direct. They know exactly what they want and even if
they go overboard at times, they quickly adapt to reality. Politicians are the worst. They not only want
heaven on earth, but will grumble and pout when expectations are not met.
The other trouble with politicians is that each one has a
distinct wish list. Kids on the other
hand seem to have insider info; most of them are keyed into what’s chic in the
market at any given time. Come
Christmas, I can whittle it down to a dozen items for each age category and
plan production accordingly. There’s less wastage with kids.
I’ve tried hard to
please all politicians. After several
centuries I decided that it’s impossible.
No, I am not going to cross off all politicians from beneficiary
list. Politicians are also human, they
also have desires. And I have my policy
too: ‘Don’t miss out on anyone’. But I
am human too (no one ever says I am ‘god’) and there’s only so much I can
do. So this time I came up with a
package deal. Instead of gifting
individual politicians I thought I will give something to the parties they
belong to. What follows is my Sri Lankan
list.
The JVP
I’ve considered the rise, fall, rise, fall, rise and fall of
that party over the last 49 years. I
find that they are strong on words and weak when it comes to numbers; high on
emotion, low on reason. A quick recap of
recent history would make things clear. The
JVP backed Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005. Indeed, had it not been for the JVP’s
support, which included a solid propaganda machine of foot soldiers to canvass
votes and multiple and efficient teams to put up posters, Ranil Wickremesinghe
may have even won. The JVP didn’t
realize that the day after the election, the winner would call the shots.
The JVP could have brought down the Government during Budget
2009, i.e. in November 2008. Missed
opportunity. Then there was the blunder
of brinkmanship over local government elections. The JVP was offered a chance to secure
control of 25 local government authorities.
The JVP demanded 40. The JVP lost
even the single one it had, that’s Tissamaharama.
This year I will give them two things: a CD which gives simple
step-by-step instruction that will enable the party to improve math
skills. After they learn that 2 plus 2
equals 4, they will graduate to doing complex sums and unravel complicated
equations. I will give them also a
reason-package that will elevate the party above ‘semblance’. It would gradually learn to be more
circumspect when entering coalitions.
More respect. Less clown-like.
That’s the JVP I want to see.
The UNP
Almost everyone wants Ranil Wickremesinghe out. I checked.
Yes, he is a stumbling block, certainly, but I detected a more serious
problem: infighting. Now it goes without
saying that politicians are ambitious and arrogant. Almost every politician has an exaggerated
sense of self-worth; each thinks that he/she is the best leader that the party
and the country can have. If I fed such
sentiments, it would be curtains for that party. So I decided to drop in all the humility I
can spare with the most arrogant getting the biggest share. One person gets nothing. Imtiyaz Bakeer Markar. Actually, I am not even sure if he is still a
member of the UNP, but one of the things I will deliver to Sirikotha is the
wisdom to invite and convince him to take over the leadership of the Leadership
Council – don’t worry, I’ll be giving Karu the few grains of humility he might
need to make way.
TNA
I am planning to give this party a dictionary. It’s a special dictionary. It won’t contain all the words in the English
language. It will have just a few. Like reconciliation, intransigence, grievance,
aspiration, and resignation. The words
will come not just with pronunciation and meaning but also elaborations and
example so they will be fully acquainted with nuance when they next utter the
words. I will also add a quantity of
self-reflection because this will allow them to determine which words describe
the party best, ‘intransigence’ for example.
A third gift: how to clap hands.
The objective in the last instance is to instill in the party the
meaning of the saying ‘you can’t clap with a single hand’.
SLMC
Eyes. That’s what I
will give this party. The party needs
eyes to see constituency and not possible cabinet portfolios. It also needs eyes to see their feet so they
can learn to stand on them instead of tagging to garment-end of the party in
power. That should do.
JHU/NFF
I believe that the best gift I can give these two parties is
a mind. I mean, most times they are in
two minds and in politics it is best not to be schizophrenic.
DNA
A tiny bit of wisdom would do wonders for this party, I
thought. So the DNA gets is Christmas
gift early. It’s just a single line that
the party leader, given his military history, would immediately understand: One man is not a front.
FSP
The young boys and girls in this party need to read. They badly need to read the works of Karl
Marx to begin with. Not Just Marx, but
Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci and all ‘Marxists’ who came thereafter, right
up to the post-Marxists and post-modernist. Of course, there’s a shortcut, but
I doubt that they can unburden themselves from the drivel they picked by in
their JVP days. Yes, they would probably
have to go through all of the above before they realize that if they read
something of the Buddha Vacana, they
could have spared themselves a lot of trouble.
The Left
This includes the various ragtag outfits associated more
with leader than with any cogent ideology or political program. There’s DEW, there’s Tissa Vitharana, there’s
Siritunga, Bahu and Wije Dias. They need one thing. A life.
UPFA
Nothing. That’s
punishment for taking what was not theirs and acting as though they did the
dispossessed a favor.
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