One year ago, Sri Lankan elected Maithripala Sirisena as the
sixth executive president of the country.
Today, backers of the President have asked the people to raise the
national flag to mark this day. The President’s
detractors, meanwhile, have asked the people to raise black flags by way of
lamenting that decision on January 8, 2015.
Now it is natural for politicians to think of themselves as
saviours of the people. Even the most
obnoxious and incompetent politician thinks that he or she is the man or woman
best suited to lead the country. That’s
something that can be called an occupational ailment. Nevertheless there is some justification in
considering the defeat of a regime or politician considered to be invincible as
a turning point, a historical landmark and, naturally again, a cause for
national celebration.
It seems however that a change in the political order (in
terms of regimes and personalities) is too often taken as an imminent
transformation of a system. And so the word ‘revolution’ is used. A more sober reflection of what was and what
now is would lead to the inevitable conclusion, ‘unwarranted’.
The fact of the matter is that there’s a long distance to
travel from pledge to delivery and, as is often said, ‘it’s easier said than
done’. Systems more than people are
resilient and will though necessary is seldom a sufficient condition for overhauling
strong structures, undemocratic and inefficient though they may be.
Looking
back it seems that no one really took the deadlines that the regime-changers
set themselves seriously -- not the doers, not the backers and not even the
detractors. The first 100 days of the
Maithripala Sirisena saw only one significant dent being made into a patently
undemocratic and anti-people system, the passage of the 19th
Amendment. For all the big talk about
abolishing the executive presidency, nothing of the kind happened. There was
some pruning, true, but the President remains in the driving seat less because
of popularity than due to powers vested in that office.
The to-do list is longer than the done-list. Electoral reform and the Right to Information
Act, the Government says, are ‘up next’ in the reform agenda. That’s better than dumping them in the overflowing
waste paper basket of promises meant to be broken of course. Still, they remain in the to-do or rather
not-done column. One can put down the
reversals on the economic front (bring down prices, sorted out the cost of
living etc) to ‘external factors’.
Hardships however don’t prompt wide-eyed and mindless celebration, now
approval of such calls. More serious, however,
is the gross violation of the basic principles of democracy.
Nepotism was to go out with the Rajapaksa. It is thriving and indeed one might say it
has got a new lease of life. Cut-outs,
tamashas and general waste of money for shameless self-promotion was to be a
thing of the past. It’s a thing of the
present, still. Out would go the racketeers,
thugs and others who have disqualified themselves from representing the
people. Well, they were nominated and
then, after being rejected by the people, surreptitiously brought into
Parliament. More same-old, same-old,
that.
The cabinet would be downsized. In fact it was legislated to be kept to a
maximum of 30. Ah! But a neat clause was
inserted to get around that difficulty: “National Government”. The definition was kept vague,
deliberately. Not all parties/groups
represented in Parliament are part of this ‘National Government’. So essentially it is a coalition misnamed as ‘national’. No objections from the Bar Association,
Transparency International, the Friday Forum, and other NGOs that were
screaming hoarse for good governance, decency and civilization. Yes, that’s also same-old, same-old. There’s
selective prosecution and a mindless witch-hunting going on. Nothing to celebrate there either.
All things considered, therefore, asking people to wave the
NATIONAL flag to celebrate what’s essentially a set of promises yet to be
delivered is a bit thick.
If the National Flag has some value and if whatever value
that it has is to be preserved then its official use has to be restricted things
that are of ‘national’ nature. Independence
Day, for example. If we go back, there
are probably just 2 other occasions when raising the National Flag was
warranted: the day we became a Republic, i.e. May 22, 1972 and the country was
liberated from terrorism, i.e. May 18, 2009.
We might add the day Arjuna Ranatunga and his team brought the World Cup
to Sri Lanka and when M.H.M. Lafir won the World Billiards title, but then
again neither cricket nor billiards have national-credentials.
Anyway, compared to the above two ‘moments’,
January 8, 2015, for what it was and what it produced is not for flag-waving. There are reasons to celebrate of course,
especially for those who sided with the victors or else hated the losers, but
to grand dignity and etch historical importance to what is essentially a putu-maaruwa is to disgrace the National
Flag. This Government has not done
anything to warrant wild cheering. Sure, there are positives, for example a
climate of less fear (we cannot say ‘fearlessness’) to express opinion. That’s good.
However, in a year there’s been a lot of negatives too and as of now,
they not only cancel out the ‘good’ but make for a lot of worrying about what’s
in store.
That said, there’s nothing that has happened in the last 12
months for anyone to mark the 8th day of January with black
flags. We’ve had black days,
certainly. A nation that has suffered a
three decade long war has many reasons to weep.
The tsunami of 2004 was a black day.
The day that J.R. Jayewardene got the 2nd Republican Constitution
passed was a black day, it can be argued. The day he extended the life of the
Parliament through a fraud-ridden referendum was a black day. The bheeshanaya
was made of red. And black, therefore. There were many black days during Chandrika
Kumaratunga’s reign. The day the 18th
Amendment was passed was the blackest day of Mahinda Rajapaksa tenure. Nothing even remotely close to any of that
has transpired in the last 12 months.
Black flags, therefore, are silly.
As silly as the call to raise the national flag to mark the election of
President Sirisena. That was no
revolution. If anyone disagrees, then a
quick peek in the nearest dictionary would
sort out the matter.
These are no longer ‘early days’ of the Maithripala Sirisena
regime. The signs are not
encouraging. There is the big redeeming
factor, the 19th Amendment, but that’s not enough (not yet) to go
overboard with the National Flag. Bake a
cake, put a single candle, make a wish and blow out the candle, by all
means. Leave it at that. Best.
Note: This article was published in the 'Daily Mirror', January 8, 2016.
Read also: Is 'nation' resident in flag and anthem?
Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance journalist and can be reached at malindasenevi@gmail.com
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