Mahinda, Maithripala, Non-issues and the Nonentities

Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri is better known by a nickname he earned as an undergraduate, ‘Vamaa’, translatable as ‘Lefty’.   Whether or not this had anything to do with ideological preferences, Nirmal has certainly been fascinated with Left politics.  Indeed, to the extent that left-right distinction is still valid in Marxian and subjective terms (read self-identified) Nirmal is still ‘Left’.  Perhaps this is why he posted a ‘left’ question as a Facebook status update.

‘There are at least four “left” presidential candidates.  Of them, the NSSP (Nava Sama Samaja Party) candidate has pledged to support Maithripala.  If Duminda Nagamuwa (Frontline Socialist Party) poses as the ‘Common Candidate of the Left,’ let me ask, “what makes him more ‘left’ than the other two, namely those of the Socialist Equality Party and the United Socialist Party?”’

This maybe an important question for Nirmal, but ‘who is the most “left” of the lot?’ is not even of marginal interest for the vast majority of the voters.  Nirmal has also suggested (in another status update) that Nagamuwa’s candidacy can only help Mahinda Rajapaksa.  Nirmal of course is supporting Maithripala Sirisena, this should be remembered.  ‘Leftists’ crying foul is old hat. Leftists have always accused each other of serving the interests of ‘the enemy’.  In this instance the questions are prompted by a need to justify choices more than anything else.

The only ‘left’ issue that is of political interest in this election is the face-off between the JVP and its breakaway, the FSP.  The FSP seems to have stolen a march on the ‘Mother Party’ by putting forward a candidate in a context where the JVP has opted not to.  Whatever the radical/Marxist readings of ‘bourgeois elections’ may be, elections figure in popular perceptions and numbers obtained, however small (relatively), are taken as indicators. Whatever the FSP gets will be read as numbers drawn from the JVP. 

‘Show’ matters too.  So, even though the JVP is not contesting, if it stamps presence during the next few weeks, that ‘show’ can overtrump FSP ‘gains’.  Convoluted arguments and practices to support Maithripala will compete with the need to protect the ownership claims to the red flag.  The likes of Nirmal (and other ‘leftists’) will howl in horror that the JVP is not really ‘Marxists’ or ‘Left’.  Be that as it may, in popular perception (and this counts!) ‘red’ belongs to the JVP, for now. 

  

What’s most interesting about Nirmal’s angst is that at least these are ‘issues’ for him whereas the absence and silence of many good-governance fellow-travelers of the past couple of years have not bothered him at all.  What happened to the ‘Friday Forum’ which was at one time ready to fire off press releases at the drop of a hat?  What happened to the ‘Platform for Democracy’?  What happened to that pawn of USAID and thinly disguised UNP front, the Bar Association which made a lot of noise but whose voice has diminished to the occasional whimper?  What of the NGO wallahs who would rise as though from a drunken stupor when they sniffed regime-change potential each time someone gave the finger to the President? 

There are other questions.  Why is Kumar David singing the praises of the key representatives of the class enemy, namely Ranil Wickremesinghe, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Rajiva Wijesinha while treating his current ‘Marxist favorites’ the JVP like those only fit to polish the floors of the walawwa and the people he loves to hate, the JHU, as vote-swinging adjuncts?  Where’s Maithripala in his analysis and why is this candidate who is wooing the vote treated like a puppet?  And why is Dayan Jayatilleka handing out character certificates to Champika Ranawaka and Ven Athureliye Rathana?  Don’t these questions trouble Nirmal? 

Perhaps all this is because ‘regime-change’ need has effectively footnoted or ever dismissed outright political ideology.  While this is clearly an indication of widespread and justifiable antipathy to how things are in the ‘land of miracles,’ it also points out to widespread confusion on the usual regime-change suspects. 

Consider the following (crude, yes) depiction of politics over the past twenty years.  Chandrika drove to power in the SLFP vehicle on which she painted the word ‘federalism’.  In 2005, Mahinda shoved her off and replaced the word with ‘nationalism’.  Mahinda still has the car.  Maithripala has jumped into the UNP car. He’s in the driver’s seat but there are many hands on the steering wheel.  Too many for him to look like a driver the people can trust, but that’s a separate issue.  The ‘problem’ for the Saravanamuttus, Jayantha Dhanapalas, Sudarshana Gunawardenas and other ‘democracy-voices’ could be that this hodge-podge is volatile.  It can go anywhere and that includes places they would not be comfortable in.   What if, for example, at the end of the day they find the Maithripala Bandwagon has got a ‘Nationalist’ make-over?  What if that vehicle with those colors wins the race?  Would be ironical, would it not? 

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‘Fixing’ can define dimensions of entertainment, health, sovereignty and existence

For years certain NGO personalities, academics, politicians, diplomats, journalists, political commentators and even heads of state argued that the LTTE could never be militarily defeated.  Today we know that these predictions were part conviction, part hope and part psychological operation to dent opposing view and military strategy. 

Kumar David, a well-known commentator, insisted, for instance, that the LTTE will never be crushed.  He said, at the time, that it was imperative for Marxists to hold and express this view. Many, like Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu (Centre for Policy Alternatives) and Jehan Perera (National Peace Council), launched well funded campaigns to convince people that the LTTE’s demands would have to be accommodated in some way ‘because Prabhakaran can never be defeated’.  Sudarshana Gunawardena (Rights Now) screamed ‘The government’s war balloon will burst in Killinochchi!’  Today we know who these people were batting for and why they had to read the game in a particular kind of way. 

It is hard to predict the when and how of conclusion in the case of a war that has dragged on for decades. As such, I doubt that the bookies were giving odds on outcome.  Perhaps there were bets being placed about specific things. For example, someone could have posted 4:1 odds on the Army capturing Killinochchi on or before January 2, 2009.  People betting on the matter might have considered the fact that well-known defence columnist Iqbal Athas had written on December 28, 2008 that it was virtually a toss up, that either party could emerge victorious.  The bookie would have made a killing because the said journalist has a reputation and is expected to know more about these things than the average person on the street.  It was no ‘toss-up’. It was a rout.  In the process, some balloons did burst -- those of people like David, Gunawardena, Jehan and Paikiasothy. 

People gamble all the time.  It is not a clean game. It is not ‘cricket’ (or maybe it is!).  This is why there is ‘fixing’.  For example, it is well known that the share market is negatively influenced by a terrorist attack. So, if someone had prior information of an impending terrorist attack, he/she could save a lot of bucks by selling off large chunks of his/her portfolio.  The late Dharmeratnam Sivaram (who wrote as ‘Taraki’) often knew of an LTTE attack a few hours ahead.  That knowledge could easily have been transformed into bucks if he tipped off someone who speculated in the share market.  I need not elaborate on the buck-making potential of information, especially ‘inside knowledge’ except to say that it is a short step from this place to that of getting the LTTE to set off a bomb.  Yes, we could call it ‘spot fixing’. 

It’s an old game.  Gambling artifacts have been recovered from ancient China (2300 BC), India, Egypt and Rome.  The Mahabharatha tells us that Prince Yudisthara gambled away the kingdom and much else in a game of dice.  Someone could very well have made a bunch by betting that he would stake Draupadi (the common wife of the 5 Pandava princes) if there was whispering that did not go unheard.  That would be called ‘spot fixing’ too. 

It is of course easy to speculate about these things after the fact.  Especially in cricket. There’s been so much talk about match-fixing and spot-fixing, after all.  India beat Pakistan in the second semi-final of World Cup 2011.  Did Pakistan throw the game? Was Umar Gul paid to deliver an uninspiring and indeed match-throwing spell?  Was Tendulkar paid to offer catches at 27, 45, 70 and 81?  Was he dropped because the entire Pakistan team was paid to lose (Tendulkar getting a good score would enhance the possibility of an Indian win, everyone knows)?  Did Younis, Misbah, Kamran and Umar get a bonus for dropping him?   Was Afridi in the plot, after all he persisted with Gul when he was being clobbered and didn’t show concern when one or two of his star batsmen were happily plodding away the overs?  Or was his innocence proven beyond all shadow of doubt because he left Shoaib Akhtar out of the team?  Unless someone rats, we wouldn’t know. Better to assume innocence. 

What is more important is learning from error and learning to predict events.  In other words, use science; state a hypothesis up front and put it to the test.  In cricket, for instance, given what we know and the patterns that have emerged, we could predict something like the following.

So and so will bowl Sehwag juicy, hittable leg side balls and two wides in his first three overs. So and so will produce only 10 runs in the first 30 balls he faces. So and so will bowl in a particular way in three overs at such and such a stage of the game.  Now, if this actually happens, we should flag the person and monitor his performance, the ups and downs.  If there is shady stuff happening, the lines of the pattern will get more pronounced and we then learn to predict the kind of contracts that may be given to susceptible players.

The same principle can be applied to identify people who are in the pay of corrupt corporates. We can, again based on observation over a period of time, that so and so in the Health Ministry will do or say such and such and/or support such and such a move.  We can predict that this cabinet minister will push that policy or that this senior administrator will get subtly smeared in the private 'free' media so that he is vulnerable to being removed or stops being too honest for the liking of the corrupt. This particular IGP, DIG or minister will be portrayed in this way by this particular TV station or media group, we can predict.

After watching the events in the 'Middle East' (by the way, what ‘East’ and what is Bahrain in the middle of?) we need to see who are the agents ready to be given arms to 'rise against' any nationally oriented government in a given country. Or which party is paid to be hostile to which neighbouring country so that tension can always be maintained - ready to use when needed.

Let’s take nothing for granted.  That seems to be a good rule of thumb for the honest, responsible and patriotic citizen in these days clouded by gambling, match-fixing, spot-fixing and nation-selling

[first published in the Daily News, April 1, 2011]

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Accountability, reconciliation and community

There are two words that certain people are fascinated with: accountability and reconciliation.  They are so fixated - possible out of a bad dose of ‘Sour Grapes’, exacerbated with undisguised hatred – that they conflate the two or, in the very least, consider the former as part of latter.  Interestingly their venomous discharges are marked by a conspicuous reluctance to indulge in self-reflection.  Neither do they take issue with many crimes of omission and commission on the part of the LTTE, their backers and themselves. 

Kumar David, a man who unabashedly wished for a terrorist victory over the Government Security Forces, for example, feels duty-bound to treat Tiger-claim as fact.  As a result he has to treat any objection to exaggerated claims and unsubstantiated allegation as ‘defence of the indefensible’.  He was referring to my objections to wild claims made by Channel 4 and a motley bunch of intellectually dishonest operators calling themselves ‘International Crisis Group’ in a recent article in the Sunday Island.  I always knew that Kumar doesn’t have a leg to stand on; this piece demonstrated that he is visually handicapped too. He was commenting on a panel discussion in New York (which I participated in via Skype) and proved that he hadn’t been watching or listening.  Poor man. 

Kumar David is one of those eternally displaced Marxists, searching for relevance-straw to cling to, so desperate that he sees saviour in terrorists of all hue and tag, so rabidly anti Sinhala and anti-Buddhist that he will break bread with anyone and everyone who is wont to cast similar slur.  And he will say that it is the ‘correct position for a Marxist to take’.  I pity him. 

What is more important in this business (yes, bucks are involved) of calling for reconciliation and accountability is the deliberate ‘absenting’ of the Tamil offender, i.e. those who killed, maimed, abducted, destroyed, exploded bombs and offered moral and material support to these acts by glorifying, providing money, safe-houses and character-laundry services etc., and remaining silent. 

Dayan Jayatilleka (‘TNA and LLRC’ in ‘The Island’ of December 28, 2011) provides an excellent analysis of this strange footnoting or indeed non-noting.  It’s worth a long quote: ‘The call for an international investigation into the last stages of the war by anyone —such the bulk of the Tamil Diaspora, Tamil civil society and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA)—who did not and still does not condemn the LTTE’s crimes and atrocities, internal executions and secret prisons, child soldiers and fratricidal murders, terrorism and totalitarianism, is as if most of German society did not criticise the Nazis and Auschwitz even after WW 2 ended, and called instead for an international inquiry into the fire-bombing of Dresden by the Allies!’

The TNA, hampered by internal quarrels, appears to be seeking unifying gel in doing what their former task-master, Velupillai Prabhakaran did: play the spoiler.  They are threatening to scuttle discussions if ‘land’ and ‘police’ are not tabled, so to speak.  First of all, a non-territorial problem cannot have a territory-based solution and asking for control over a third of the island and half the coast for less than 6% of the population borders on the insane.  Good for third-rate politicking, nothing else.  More importantly, as Dayan points out, boo-hooing about the inadequacies of the LLRC won’t bring tears to many eyes because the TNA has consistently refused to engage in a self-audit of its own.   

Dayan has a proposal: ‘I strongly urge that the best educated, credentialed and knowledgeable members of Tamil civil society be asked to undertake such an audit. I would think that Prof Ratnajeevan Hoole would be the best to head such an exercise. Others could include P Rajanayagam, S Chandrahasan, Ahilan Kadirgamar, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Nirmala Rajasingham, DBS Jeyaraj and Mutukrishna Sarvanandan among others.’ If the likes of Saravanamuttu are considered ‘educated, credentialed and knowledgeable’, then the Tamil community is poor indeed, given that man’s penchant for number-fudging, issue-dodging and hobnobbing with men and women with questionable integrity, especially with respect to what the LTTE did and did not do.  I do not share Dayan Jayatilleke’s admiration for Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and the Catholic Church (his religious/ecclesiastical preferences are clearly implied in a reference to both in the same article), but he does have a point.  We are not going anywhere with the kinds of reconciliation that the West wants us to have if ANY OF THE MANY PARTIES are not ready to engage in self-reflection of the kind Dayan proposes, at least on the lines of the LLRC.  Except for nauseating tokenism about the LTTE having been guilty of violence, the Tamil community has been largely mum about its own culpability. Many cheered, many looked the other way and many were direct or indirect lackeys.  The TNA is yet to come clean on its reprehensible mouth-piece role when the Tigers were riding high.  This is where the TNA’s democracy-need falls flat.  If the TNA cannot reconcile with itself and its crimes of omission and commission, it does not have the moral right to demand anything from anyone, least of all accountability and reconciliation.

The TNA has called for ‘peaceful protests’ demanding devolution along with land and police rights.  I suppose this would boost its political fortunes among certain sections of the Tamil community, but it would make more difficult any reconciliation for the simple reason that it would be silly for anyone to ‘reconcile’ with communalists, especially those whose arguments are not supported by history, geography and demography.  Worse still is that it postpones and distracts from the larger and more important exercise of discussing and reaching agreement on constitutional amendments to correct citizenship anomalies and strengthen democracy. 

A key word left out of the discussion has been pointed out by ‘Gara Yaka’ who writes the YAKHANDA column: community.  You can’t have accountability and reconciliation without community.  This constitution and this economic system rebel against the collective.  Talking rot, like David does, celebrating that which is hardly worthy of celebration (like Dayan does) and wearing pout to further personal political agenda cannot help either. 

[Published in 'The Nation', January 1, 2012]

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