Alex Carey and the (small) matter of legacy

The Australian wicketkeeper across all formats and the vice-captain of the ODI side Alex Tyson Carey has a lot of cricket left in him. Just 31 years old, he has scored almost 1,000 runs in 22 tests at an average of 34.51 and has a century and five half centuries to his credit. Seven 50s and a century in 64 ODIs at an 87.92 strike rate means he’s an integral part of Australia’s white and red ball cricket teams. Barring injury and a significant dip in form he should play for a few more years as well.

What would he be remembered for, though?  

Let’s take a stab at that question later. I am thinking of two individuals right now, a cricketer and a politician, Trevor Chappell and Mahinda Rajapaksa respectively. Let’s start with the latter.

In the year 2010, the day after Mahinda Rajapaksa began his second presidential term, I wrote an article titled ‘Thanks and good luck Mr President.’ It was about the kind of legacy he could leave behind. Here’s a quote:

‘He has shown he can handle pressure. He knows how to win over his enemies.  He knows how to deal with those he cannot win over.  He can be firm to the point of being seen as brutal and unforgiving but in this he is no worse than the next politician.  He has one enemy.  A formidable one.  An enemy he should be wary of and watch out for every wakeful moment.  An enemy he should never underestimate for he could do so only at his own peril. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s biggest enemy is himself.’

The legacy of his presidential terms is mixed, ‘mixed’ being a rather generous term.

People leave legacies. They are remembered not for all they’ve done or achieved but sometimes for some specific thing, typically that which is considered ignoble. In Rajapaksa’s case it’s many things. In the case of Trevor Chappell, one.

The achievements of the Australian cricketer Trevor Chappell are nothing compared to those of his illustrious brothers Ian and Greg. Three tests and 20 ODIs with batting averages of 15.80 and 17.61 respectively don’t add up to ‘legend’ even if you consider the fact that he was a brilliant cover fielder and scored an ODI century. He’s remembered though. He is remembered for something he would have wanted to forget but probably cannot and will not be allowed to.

Trevor Chappell is most remembered for his involvement in the infamous last-ball underarm delivery, which he was instructed to bowl by Greg Chappell against New Zealand's Brian McKechnie in Benson & Hedges ODI in February 1981 at the MCG to effectively ensure that it won’t be carted for a game-winning six.

Trevor rolled the ball along the pitch and McKechnie lobbed away his bat in frustration. The crowd booed. Trevor would later admit that although he thought it was a good idea at the time, he knew it wasn’t in the spirit of the game. His brother would recall that it was only when a little girl ran up to him, tugged on his sleeve and said ‘you cheated,’ that he realised [the decision and consequences] were bigger than he had expected.

Legacy you would not want to be associated with, then.

Back to Alex Carey.  A few days ago, England were fighting to keep the Ashes alive on the last day of the second test. Skipper Ben Stokes was out there in the middle with Jonny Bairstow. England were still quite a distance from the target, but with these two in the middle there was reason to be optimistic. Then it happened.

Bairstow ducked under a short ball from Cameron Green, scratched the crease with his boot and walked down the pitch towards his partner. The ball not being dead, technically, Carey, who had collected the ball on the bounce under-armed a throw at the striker’s end. The on-field umpires referred it to the TV umpire who ruled Bairstow out. The Australians were booed until and after they won the test, surviving a belligerent onslaught by a clearly livid Stokes.

Later, in his column for the Daily Mail, Stuart Broad who replaced Bairstow at the crease, expressed surprise that none of the senior Australians had reflected on what had happened. Instead they took refuge, it seems, in the technicality. The rule. The rule book. In ‘rules are rules, so there!’

Greg knew almost immediately that he had erred in terms of upholding the spirt of the game. Trevor knew even as he bowled the delivery. That single moment tainted them both. Legacy. Legacy you cannot feel proud about.

Mahinda Rajapaksa has not shown remorse and maybe he never will. Maybe it will not haunt him. It’s part of his legacy, though. Same as Trevor’s and Greg’s.

Alex Carey may notch up many batting and keeping records. He may end up as one of the greatest wicketkeeper batters, although he doesn’t have too much time to get there. He may one day express regret. He may not. Either way, this act, within the rules of the game but in violation of its spirit, will be part of his legacy.

No one is unblemished and therefore it would be harsh to pick on the warts, but it is good to know that one moment of weakness can leave a scar that cannot be erased.  

Even in an unforgiving world there would be some who would forgive if the person involved is remorseful about the particular transgression. Consolation, true, but it’s still better than sustained damnation. Trevor and Greg have moved on. Cricket has moved on. The underarm delivery is mentioned but not to the exclusion of all other achievements.  May this be true of Alex Carey too. One day.  

malindadocs@gmail.com

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

Other articles in this series:

The Edelweiss of Mirissa

The insomnial dreams of Kapila Kumara Kalinga

The clothes we wear and the clothes that wear us (down)

Every mountain, every rock, is sacred

Manufacturing passivity and obedience

Precept and practice

Sanjeew Lonliyes: rawness unplugged, unlimited

In praise of courage, determination and insanity

The relative values of life and death

Feet that walk

Sarinda's eyes

Poetry and poets will not be buried

Sunny Dayananda

Reunion Peradeniya (1980-1990)

What makes Oxygen breathable? 

Sorrowing and delighting the world

The greatest fallacy 

Encounters with Liyanage Amarakeerthi

Beyond praise and blame

Letters that cut and heal the heart

Vanished and vanishing trails

Blue-blueness

A forgotten dawn song from Embilipitiya

The soft rain of neighbourliness 

The Gold Medals of being

Jaya Sri Ratna Sri

All those we've loved before

Reflections on waves and markings

A chorus of National Anthems

Saying what and how

'Say when'

Respond to insults in line with the Akkosa Sutra

The loves of our lives

The right time, the right person

The silent equivalent of a thousand words

Crazy cousins are besties for life

Unities, free and endearing

Free verse and the return key

"Sorry, Earth!"

The lost lyrics of Premakeerthi de Alwis

The revolution is the song

Consolation prizes in competitions no one ever wins

The day I won a Pulitzer

Ko?

Ella Deloria's silences

Blackness, whiteness and black-whiteness

Inscriptions: stubborn and erasable 

Thursday!

Deveni: a priceless one-word koan

Enlightening geometries

Let's meet at 'The Commons'

It all begins with a dot

Recovering run-on lines and lost punctuation

'Wetness' is not the preserve of the Dry Zone

On sweeping close to one's feet

Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California

To be an island like the Roberts...

Debts that can never be repaid in full

An island which no flood can overwhelm

Who really wrote 'Mother'?

A melody faint and yet not beyond hearing

Heart dances that cannot be choreographed

Remembering to forget and forgetting to remember

On loving, always

Authors are assassinated, readers are immortal

When you turn 80...

It is good to be conscious of nudities 

Saturday slides in after Monday and Sunday somersaults into Friday 

There's a one in a million and a one in ten

Gunadasa Kapuge is calling

Kumkum Fernando installs Sri Lanka in Coachella, California

Hemantha Gunawardena's signature

Pathways missed

Architectures of the demolished

The exotic lunacy of parting gifts

Who the heck do you think I am?

Those fascinating 'Chitra Katha'

The Mangala Sabhava

So how are things in Sri Lanka?

The most beautiful father

Palmam qui meruit ferat

The sweetest three-letter poem

Buddhangala Kamatahan

An Irish and Sri Lankan Hello

Teams, team-thinking, team-spirit and leadership

The songs we could sing in lifeboats when we are shipwrecked

Pure-Rathna, a class act

Jekhan Aruliah set a ball rolling in Jaffna

Awaiting arrivals unlike any other

Teachers and students sometimes reverse roles

Matters of honor and dignity

Yet another Mother's Day

A cockroach named 'Don't'

Colombo, Colombo, Colombo and so forth

The slowest road to Kumarigama, Ampara

Sweeping the clutter away

Some play music, others listen

Completing unfinished texts

Mind and hearts, loquacious and taciturn

I am at Jaga Food, where are you?

On separating the missing from the disappeared

Moments without tenses

And intangible republics will save the day (as they always have)

The world is made of waves

'Sentinelity'

The circuitous logic of Tony Muller

Rohana Kalyanaratne, an unforgettable 'Loku Aiya'

Mowgli, the Greatest Archaeologist

Figures and disfigurement, rocks and roses

Sujith Rathnayake and incarcerations imposed and embraced

Some stories are written on the covers themselves

A poetic enclave in the Republic of Literature

Landcapes of gone-time and going-time 

The best insurance against the loud and repeated lie

So what if the best flutes will not go to the best flautists?

There's dust and words awaiting us at crossroads and crosswords

The books of disquiet

A song of terraced paddy fields

Of ants, bridges and possibilities

From A through Aardvark to Zyzzyva 

World's End

Words, their potency, appropriation and abuse

Street corner stories

Who did not listen, who's not listening still?

The book of layering

If you remember Kobe, visit GOAT Mountain

The world is made for re-colouring

The gift and yoke of bastardy

The 'English Smile'

No 27, Dickman's Road, Colombo 5

Visual cartographers and cartography

Ithaca from a long ago and right now

Lessons written in invisible ink

The amazing quality of 'equal-kindness'

A tea-maker story seldom told

On academic activism

The interchangeability of light and darkness

Back to TRADITIONAL rice

Sisterhood: moments, just moments

Chess is my life and perhaps your too

Reflections on ownership and belonging

The integrity of Nadeesha Rajapaksha

Signatures in the seasons of love

To Maceo Martinet as he flies over rainbows

Sirith, like pirith, persist

Fragrances that will not be bottled 

Colours and textures of living heritage

Countries of the past, present and future

A degree in creative excuses

Books launched and not-yet-launched

The sunrise as viewed from sacred mountains

The ways of the lotus

Isaiah 58: 12-16 and the true meaning of grace

The age of Frederick Algernon Trotteville

Live and tell the tale as you will

Between struggle and cooperation

Of love and other intangibles

Neruda, Sekara and literary dimensions

The universe of smallness

Paul Christopher's heart of many chambers

Calmness gracefully cascades in the Dumbara Hills

Serendipitous amber rules the world

Continents of the heart

  

The allegory of the slow road 

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#Aragalayaleft?

‘Left’ in internet parlance refers, apparently, to an individual who has withdrawn from a group, for example one on WhatsApp created for like-minded people or those who share some common attribute (for example being a member of a particular sports team or a political collective). It can also be used, by extension, to refer to something that was but is no more. It is in this sense that we need to discuss the proposition, ‘#aragalayaleft?’ In other words, what happened to the agitation/protests or the ‘aragalaya?’ Is it still on? Is it done? Does it exist in the trappings and not substance? Such are the issues that we discuss here.

Outside of the diehards, it is clearly apparent that the aragalaya is not what it was or what it was meant to be or what its adherents made it out to be. GGG (Gotagotama) still exists, but few would insist that the spirit pervading the territory in the month of April and the first weeks of May is intact.

Perhaps this is partly because ‘aragalaya’ is associated with a mis-written address. After all, the anxiety, fear, anger etc., that spilled out of the household and workplace didn’t flow all the way to the GGG from all parts of the country. GGG was seen or understood as a proxy or focal point, yes. People from all parts of the country did go there and many camped out for a few days or more, yes. However, for obvious reasons GGG could not hold all the agitators nor all agitation. The agitation still exists of course. The root causes haven’t been sorted out.

On the other hand, after the May 9th incident and its aftermath, several factors came into play. First and foremost the Prime Minister tendered his resignation. The aragalists, having focused on an individual and a family, found the political rug pulled from under their feet. True, some did talk of system-change, but that was almost an afterthought or footnote. Revenge for perceived wrongs dominated the aragala discourse and the voices of those who say personality and party as expressions of system-failure were drowned in the cheers and jeers calling out for blood and beheading. It was clear that the anger was directed towards a political family/clan. It is clear that Mahinda Rajapaksa symbolised this family/clan and all the ills associated with it. When they announced #mahindaleft it was a hefty consolation prize.

Then there was the systematic violence in response to the attack on GGG by goons who set off from Temple Trees. The aragalists and the aragalaya lost much ground then and there. It is one thing to fight in self-defence and quite another to systematically target enemies, engage in arson and looting, perpetrating thuggery and murder. What was lost at that point was the moral high ground: those who engaged in such activity did so in the name of the aragalaya, called themselves aragalists and there was hardly a whimper of protest from those in the aragalaya who did not condone such acts.

More seriously, the non-political claims of the aragalaya (as in ‘not belonging to or being led by established political parties/organizations’) were proven to be idle boasts. There were JVP thugs at GGG; Sajith Premadasa was attacked, Anura Kumara Dissanayake was not. Sunil Handunnetti openly condoned arson, looting, thuggery and murder. Lalkantha did not justify it, but he acknowledged that the JVP called all party units in all parts of the country out on to the streets immediately after the attack on GGG. It’s not hard to connect the dots.

Was the JVP the heart, so to speak, of GGG? Many would say ‘no’ or ‘no way’ and they wouldn’t be lying. However, there was and there still is a JVP presence in GGG, a village they claim, but one now wrapped in fading and faded colours (little is left of the initial enthusiasm, the overflowing of love, camaraderie and a collective desire to recreate a nation of different and more wholesome colours).

Who stole the colours of GGG, then? Who robbed the perfumes? As mentioned above, part of the explanation has to be the fact that the agitation was directed at personalities and not systems. Part of it is the dilemma of any spontaneous uprising made of multiple voices — when it comes to synthesising all interests into cogent, pragmatic demands, there’s dissonance. What came out was pretty bland — mostly regurgitation of old and tired slogans, calls for the obvious and demands for constitutional amendments that clearly indicated absolute ignorance of constitutional content and process.

Part of it is the vile (yes, vile) intentions of the JVP. The JVP initially pooh-poohed the Aragalaya (‘We are not interested in fatherless agitation,’ they said). They were arrogant (‘We will give the leadership that the Aragalaya needs,’ they said). The JVP tried to make political profit out of the aragalaya; Harini Amarasuriya was aghast that Ranil Wickremesinghe, the sole UNP MP, was made Prime Minister but saw nothing wrong in the leader of her party wanting to be President (first PM subject to Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation and then using the inside track to the Executive Presidency), even though his party polled just 3%. And for reasons best known to them perhaps deliberately or unwittingly, the JVP showered body-blows on the aragalaya, robbing it of its integrity and moral superiority by indulging in violence.  

Of course change is not an overnight phenomenon. Neither is it fair to demand that aragalists deliver paradise here and now. Sugath Kulatunga in an FB post generously suggests, ‘probably the aragalaya is a learning process.’ That it certainly is and this is why hope should not be retired. Setbacks are scripted into any revolutionary process. Debacles are also inevitable. However, advancement is predicated among other things on identifying and insuring the struggle against the most pernicious type of enemy, he/she who comes wearing the uniform of agitation, waving agitational banners and assuming he/she has some kind of right to lead. In this instance, the JVP is the most prominent of this tribe.

Kulatunga’s generosity came with some home truths which warrant retelling:

‘System-change is the current buzzword or a mantra chanted by many people including intellectuals. The Galle Face Aragalaya also claims that the struggle is for a systems change. But their 8 demands do not spell systems change. The changes they demand are within the prevailing system. For instance if Gota goes there will be another President. Others like an interim government and amendments to the Constitution are within the current system. Fair and independent elections are provided in the present law. A systems change focuses on the causes, rather than the symptoms. A definition of system change explains that it encompasses taking a holistic (or ‘systemic’) view of required transformations in the policies, practices, power dynamics, social norms or mindsets that underlie the societal issue at stake. Aragalaya demands are neither radical nor revolutionary. They concern only on some adjustments in the prevailing system and do not address the underlying social issues.’

The JVP is not for system-change. Neither is the IMF for that matter. In fact the JVP and the IMF are integral parts of the system (that clearly requires transformation). Maybe the aragalaya will save itself from such fake aragalists. The true aragalaya is never evicted or buried. It finds different addresses, learns from errors, becomes more circumspect and emerges even more radiant and strong. That aragalaya is no longer resident in GGG. It has left. In essence. 

Related Articles:

Personalities and systems

The 'aragalists' and the challenge of re-mapping Sri Lanka

Tomorrow, tomorrow and so forth...

A season of (il)legitimacies 

The brink and beyond

Spontaneity and its discontents 

ලෙයට ලෙය වෙනුවට ආලය

පුද්ගල චරිත මතුවේ, නිර්පාක්ෂික හැව ගැලැවේ, අරගලය ඉදිරියටම....

The BASL Proposals: A review

 

 
malindadocs@gmail.com

[Malinda Seneviratne is the Director/CEO of the Hector Kobbekaduwa Agrarian Research and Training Institute. These are his personal views.]

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ලෙයට ලෙය වෙනුවට ආලය

මසක කාලයක් ගෝල් ෆේස් හි ගොඩනැගු ගෝටාගෝගමෙහි දහස් ගණන් තරුණ තරුණියන් මෙන් ම නොයෙකුත් මතවාදී ධාරාවන් නියෝජනය කරන අන් අය එකට බැඳ තැබූ සුන්දර වරපටය ආදරයයි. එකට එක් වී වැපුරුවේ ආදරයයි. යෙදුනේ හෙට දින රට හදන ව්‍යායාමයක පෙරහුරුවකයි.  අහිංසකත්වය, අවිහිංසාවාදය, නිර්මාණශීලිත්වය, එඩිතරකම, ඉවසීම, සාමුහිකත්වය යනාදියෙන් අරගල භූමිය සුවඳවත් විය. එවැනි අහිංසක, අවිහිංසාවාදී, නිර්මාණශීලී, එඩිතර අරගලයක් මතක ඉතිහාසයේ නැති තරම්ය. අපේ රටේ හෙට දවස පිලිබඳව සුභවාදීව හිතන්න අරගලකරුවන් සියලු දෙනාට බල කර සිටියා මෙන් ය.

ඊයේ මැර ප්‍රහාර එල්ල කරන ලද්දේ අරගලකරුවන්ට පමණක් නොව, ඒ සුභවාදී සිහිනයට මෙන් ම මේ ගොඩනැගෙමින් තිබුණු අපුර්වත්වය දෙස ආදරයෙන් බලා සිටි සුවහසක් හදවත් වෙතය. මැර කණ්ඩායම් මෙහෙය වූ අය තක්සේරු නොකෙරුවේ මෙයයි. ගෝටාගෝගම යනු රට පුරා විහිද ගිය ආණ්ඩු විරෝධයක එක් ප්‍රකාශයක් බව ඔවුන් නොසිතුවා විය හැක. මැර ප්‍රහාරවලින් සිහින තුවාල වන්නේ නැති බව ඔවුන් දැන සිටියේ නැත. කෙතරම් දරුණු ලෙස පහර දුන්නත්, අරගලකරුවන්ගේ අධිෂ්ඨානය පලුදු කළ නොහැකි තරමටම ඝනකම්ව අරගලකරුවන්ගේ ආදරය වර්ධනය වී තිබිණ. සිහිනයේ බ්ලු ප්‍රින්ට් එක ඉතා වේගයෙන් නැවත සකස්වුනි.          

වෛරයම වපුරා, ප්‍රචණ්ඩත්වය යෝජනා කර, විහිංසනයේ මාවතම තෝරාගෙන ක්‍රියාත්මක වුවන්ට උපේක්ෂාව හෝ අනුකම්පාව නෙළා ගැනීමට අවසර නැත. ජනතා විරෝධය ජනතා කෝපය බවටත් කෝපය ප්‍රකෝපය දක්වා වර්ධනය විය. සංවිධානාත්මක පිරිස් ප්‍රභූ නිවෙස් ගිනිබත් කිරීමට කටයුතු කළා යැයි විවිධ මත ඉදිරිපත් කරන කිසිවෙකුට බැහැර කළ නොහැකි කාරණය වන්නේ ඒ සියල්ල සඳහා මාර්ග බාධක ඉවත් කරන ලද්දේ මැරයන් ම සහ ඔවුන් මෙහෙයවූවන් බවයි. අද වන විට මහින්දගේ සහ ඔහුගේ දේශපාලන සගයින්ගේ ලේ ඉල්ලන තැනට සියල්ල තල්ලු කලේ ඔවුන් ම මෙහෙයවූ ලේ පිපාසිත මැරයින්ගේ ක්‍රියාකාරිත්වයයි.

ලේ පිපාසය පෙරළා ලේ පිපාසයම අවදි කරන බව ඉතිහාසය කියා දෙන සරලම පාඩමකි. සොඳුරු සිහින බොඳ වෙන්නේ එහෙමයි. 'ලෙයට ලෙය' දරුණුයි, එක්තරා ආකාරයකට මුග්දයි. පහරදීමට එරෙහිව පහරදීම එකක්, පහර දුන්න අයට පහර දීමත් 'පහර දීපිය' යන විධානය දුන් අයට පහර දීමත් තේරුම් ගත හැක, එහෙත් 'සතුරා' සොයා ගැනීමට අපහසු වූ විට සතුරා සංකේතවත් කරන සියලු දේ සහ සතුරාට නෑකම් කියන සියලු දෙනා විනාශ කිරීමට යොමු වීම 'සටන' භයානක පැත්තකට තල්ලු කිරීමක් වේ. එය දැනට උද්ගත වී ඇති තත්ත්වය තුල මීට වඩා බොහෝ දරුණු මිලිටරිකරණයකට අත වැනීමක් වැනිය. විශේෂයෙන්ම මතක තියාගතයුතු වන්නේ එවැනි 'තත්ත්වයක්' කෘත්‍රිමව නිර්මාණය කිරීමට වැඩිම හැකියාව ඇත්තේද ගැටුම ලේ ගැලුමකට පරිවර්තනය කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය පාර්ශවයන්ට බවයි. ඒ සඳහා හැම විට ම විභවය සතු වන්නේ මර්ධනකාරී රාජ්‍ය ව්‍යුහය හසුරවන්නන්ට වේ.   

අරගලයට ඇති ප්‍රධාන ප්‍රාග්ධනය සදාචාරයේ වාසියයි. ප්‍රධාන අවිය ආදරයයි. ප්‍රබලම ශක්තීන් නම් සාමුහිකත්වයයි, අධිෂ්ටානයයි, සිහින දැකීමට ඇති හදවත් සහ සිහින සැබෑ කිරීමට අවශ්‍ය ආත්ම විශ්වාසයන් වේ. ඇමති මණ්ඩලය නොව ඇමති මණ්ඩල දෙකක් ඉවත් කරන්නත්, අගමැතිවරයෙක් ඉල්ලා අස්කරවන්නත් එය ප්‍රමාණවත් විය. රටක් ජනතාවක් අවදි කරන්නත්, අරගලයට කැඳවන්නත් එය ප්‍රමාණවත් විය. මේ සියල්ල ක්‍ෂණයකින් ම්ලේච්ඡත්වයෙන් මකා දැමිය හැක.  නැවත කියන්නෙමි 'ලෙයට ලෙය' දරුණුයි, මුග්ධයි, අරගලයේ සදාචාරාත්මක වාසිය පලුදු කරයි. 'ලෙයට ආලය' ලයාන්විතයි, මෘදුයි, අරගලයට පණ පොවයි. මැර ප්‍රහාරයෙන් අනතුරුව ගෝටාගෝගම පුරා නොකියවෙන එනමුත් සියල්ල වෙළාගෙන ඇත්තේ 'ලෙයට ආලය' විසිනි. අරගල භූමිය හරහා තවමත් හමා යන, අරගලකරුවන්ට ශක්තිය පොවන සුවඳ එයයි. ගෝටාගෝගම වඩාත් ලස්සනට ප්‍රතිනිර්මාණය වුයේ ඒ නිසා ය.

අරගලයක ආරම්භය කවියක් වැනිය. අරගලයක හුස්ම හිරවෙන්න පටන්ගන්නේ අරගලයෙන් ආදරය ඉවත් වූ විටයි. ආදරය 'ලේෆ්ට්' වුනොත්, සටන්පාඨ සමග බිඳුණු සිහින පමණක් ඉතිරි වේ. වෛරයට වඩා ආදරය ඝනකම් විය යුතුම වන්නේ මේ නිසයි.

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A budget presented amid celebrations and acquittals

 

Over the last few weeks there has been a concerted campaign in social media attacking President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The ‘Gota Fail Campaign,’ as it was, promoted a strong response questioning the success of the President’s detractors. The campaign was clearly targeting the President’s first anniversary celebrations and the impending reading of the budget. The campaign failed or rather, now that the moment has passed, the campaigners have taken a break.

It was a week made of celebratory days, depending on one’s political preferences of course. We had Mahinda Rajapaksa celebrating his 75th birthday. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed his first year in office and addressed the nation to mark the occasion. The first budget of the Government that came to power in early August was presented. Secretary to the then President (Mahinda Rajapaksa) Lalith Weeratunga (also the ex officio Chairman of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission) and Anusha Palpita (former Director General, TRC) were acquitted of all charges of misappropriation by the Court of Appeal.

Quite a week, to say the least.

Ranjan Ramanayake, predictably, ridiculed Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Mahinda Rajapaksa ‘for not standing while presenting the budget.’ Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa rapped Ramanayake on the knuckles for doing so, in a gesture of good grace rarely seen in Parliament.

Obviously, Mahinda Rajapaksa is no longer the energetic man he used to be. This of course does not necessarily mean he is infirm in mind. He still remains one of the most effective communicators in our tribe of politicians. He’s had his good days and bad ones, like anyone else. He receives praise and blame, which again indicates strong passion, fierce loyalty and, on the part of his detractors, equally intense sentiments which include envy, fear and disgust.

That said, as ‘The Gadfly,’ a regular contributor to the website www.theleader.lk observed, when the post-independence history of this country is written, there will be a special chapter devoted to the man, whereas the likes of Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa, Rajitha Senaratne an Wijedasa Rajapaksha would get, at most, a line or two. Again, depending on who is writing the history, someone might say. However, the man’s mark is unmistakable and certainly hard to brush aside.

Some argued that he should have gracefully retired in 2015. Maybe he should have. On the other hand, ‘Mahinda Rajapaksa’ is not just a man but a brand and moreover a name that’s etched in the political consciousness of the nation, and, as the August 5 results indicated remembered with gratitude that obliterates memory of his blemishes. If Gotabaya Rajapaksa was captain-designate and Basil Rajapaksa the man chartering course, Mahinda Rajapaksa was the name of the ship (with a tagline, ‘Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’) and ‘MR’ a signature that was on every element of the vessel.

So, let us wish him, belatedly (on account of circumstances), a very happy 75th birthday, good times ahead, good health, continued guidance of his younger brother the President in matters political and restraint in deference to changed times and more importantly the leadership and power that is constitutionally granted to Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

The budget is still being debated. Predictably Harsha De Silva has come down hard on it. He tweeted, ‘the most boring budget speech in years.’ He added, ‘…a weak n inspiring (he probably meant ‘uninspiring’) budget w totally unrealistic revenue figures…a shift towards protectionist n failed ‘Import Substitution Industrialization’ model.’ Having opened the debate for the Opposition, he then tweeted ‘a short edit’: 1. Figures fudged. 2. No stimulus package. 3. About to explode foreign debt issue ignored. 4. Import Substitution Model has failed; need bridges not walls.’

Now De Silva is a fear-mongerer if ever there was one. There was a time when again he was in the Opposition, when he would issue dire predictions of imminent economic collapse almost on a weekly basis. The man had to keep quiet when the UNP regime he was a part of mishandled the economy. He had nothing to say on the Central Bank bond scam.

He might have been thrilled when that regime wagered on the West coming to Sri Lanka’s help, but he didn’t contradict his then leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who, when ‘Brexit’ happened, suddenly said ‘we will look East.’ This after badmouthing China in the run-up to the January 2015 presidential election. We remember De Silva posting selfies with the Port City construction in the background at the time when his party was swearing to put a stop to the project. Finally, his government signed an agreement even less favorable to Sri Lanka. This was to be expected; after all the Yahapalana Government cheered itself while compromising sovereignty by way of Resolution 30/1 in Geneva. Anyway, neither De Silva, Wickremesinghe, Premadasa and pretenders to various political crowns now in the Opposition seem to have cottoned on to the fact that the USA is no longer the big boss in the global economy and that the sun set on the British Empire a long time ago.

Nevertheless, the onus is on the Government to respond to the charge that figures were fudged. As for the revenue plan, we will certainly assess it, realistic or otherwise, as time goes by. The rest is obviously Harsha rattling off received (non) wisdom about things economic.

Stimulus packages are about bailing out the rich. Nothing more, nothing less. Such things hinge on the erroneous premise that the private sector is the one and only engine of growth, where ‘growth’ itself is a concept that is contentious at best in the development discourse and has by and large been rubbished considering what that model has done to the world, the health of the planet and of course the most vulnerable sections in the global population.

Pertinent here, as has been editorially pointed out in www.gammiris.lk is Harsha’s myopia about the Bretton Woods institutions. Here’s a quote:

‘He (Harsha) does not seem to have gone through Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and its Discontents, which talks in succinct detail how these institutions operate, particularly in underdeveloping countries. A pity, because Stiglitz took the trouble of writing on Sri Lanka, and more to the point, of cautioning the then administration against hedging its bets on the IMF-World Bank paradigm of, what else, “globalizing and liberalizing.'

Siglitz, interestingly, observed, that if Sri Lanka is to progress, it should start “learning to produce, learning to export, and learning to learn.” Harsha of course can’t think beyond the neoliberalism model, which has failed and whose admirers show a marked reluctance to acknowledge the role of the state in the success stories they offer as examples. The state did and still does play a pivotal role in the so-called developed nations that have embraced the capitalist model. Practice is quite a distance from theory in their case.

The budget has sought to empower local production. This is not the same as import-substitution, though. In any event, Covid-19 has forced certain hard choices which even Harsh, had he presented the budget or was the President of the country, could not have ignored.

 

It must be pointed out that the strategy laid out doesn’t make sense if the banking institutions are not focused on development. The Bretton Woods institutions have always been against development banks. There has been talk of setting up a cooperative bank, but the details are still to be worked out. This was an opportunity to get it down in black and white.

Meanwhile a delegation of the European Union and the Embassies of France, Germany, Italy Netherlands, and Romania issued a statement slamming the government’s trade policy, 'with an obligatory non-sequitur to human rights,’ again editorially observed by ‘gammiris.’

‘Thanks to the EU’s special Generalized System of Preferences (GSP+), Sri Lanka enjoys competitive, predominantly duty- and quota-free access to the EU market,” they said. Trade, they pointed out, ‘not a one-way street,’ and observe (gravely) that ‘a prolonged import ban is not in line with World Trade Organization regulations.’  A reference was also made to the Government withdrawing from the (treacherous, what else?) Resolution 30/1, which, they say is ‘a source of concern’.

The hypocrisy of Europe crying foul over human rights is well known. But why talk of WTO rules here? Just last year Indonesia complained to the WTO over EU restrictions on palm oil imports. Both Germany and France blocked their own exports of crucial personal protective equipment (PPE) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hypocrisy much, eh?

Well, if the EU’s ‘concerns’ (threats?) do translate into action, it would only push Sri Lanka even further into the Chinese circle of influence. Sri Lanka would have no option but to promote domestic production and rebuild as per the demands of the home market.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed one year in office. Not given to pomp and pageantry, his first year has been relatively subdued. He promised ‘work’ and ‘systems.’ Covid-19 was an obvious dampener. And yet, in this one year, we saw a mandate overwhelmingly reiterated. We also saw the passage of the 20th amendment which resolved the confusion of the 19th Amendment with respect to who really rules the country. The 19th, let’s recall, as acknowledged by its authors themselves, full of flaws. The Supreme Court shot it down and the then regime introduced what was almost a fresh document, quite in contravention of established parliamentary procedure (in the UK, the House of Lords can make changes but only minor ones). Here, there were wholesale changes at the committee stage. In contrast, the 20th a) retained certain elements of the 19th such as term limits and b) incorporated the observations of the Supreme Court).

The President's anniversary speech was essentially a rehashed version of  his ‘throne speech.’ He didn’t detail the modalities of getting the ‘One-Country, One-Law’ going. He probably should have explained the controversial circular on ‘Other State Lands’ over which he has been getting a lot of flak. It was a no-frills anniversary speech quite in keeping with the personality he has projected or even the person he is seen to be. The proof of everything is in the ‘works’.  Work is where he will be judged eventually.

Given the announcement that the Government is planning to introduce a new constitution, the buzz over the 20th seems silly. The Government could have incorporated the 20th into a new constitution and seek passage in one go. 

 
Covid-19 has framed the president’s first year. He has had to balance coping mechanisms with keeping the economy going. The Opposition, as pointed out in a television discussion on Thursday by Deputy Editor, The Island, Shaminda Ferdinando, was bailed out by Covid-19. Now they have something to talk about, he said. There are charges of mishandling. The rise in numbers is certainly worrying. The Government does have a plan and it is as reasonable as any given multiple constraints.

However, it is certainly ridiculous that so many government officials and healthcare professionals are commenting and contradicting each other on Covid-19. The Government should authorize a single person to do this. Others should obtain from what this person says and not act as though they are epidemiologists. That goes for the opposition and political commentators as well, of course.

In Canada, for example, according to a Sri Lankan who is a long time resident there, ‘there’s a chief medical officer  giving daily recaps at the federal level with Prime Minister Trudeau offering a daily non medical brief. At the provincial level,  the chief provincial medical officer gives a daily briefing. All financial assistance information is conveyed by Trudeau since it's all federal at this stage.  In Sri Lanka, in contrast, everyone except the Minister of Health is an authority on the pandemic!’  

Finally, the court decision on Lalith Weeratunga and Anusha Pelpita. Now they were acquitted not by judges appointed by this government. The charge that they were politically motivated is therefore silly. In this regard it is pertinent to point out that the President has nominated the six most senior judges for promotion to the Supreme Court. Seniority was spurned out of hand by the much-celebrated Constitutional Council of the previous regime. Friendship and loyalty were rewarded. Good move by the President but one which he ought to apply across the board in the matter of appointments/promotions.

The 62-page verdict notes, ‘There is no dishonest intention with which both accused appellants have acted. They were not actuated by men rea or actus reus. There has been a bona fide exercise of their powers and duties. Neither accused was enriched. Whilst the board authorized a transaction which is protected by law and corporate social responsibility, it is a travesty of justice that only two members of the TRC had to endure the traumatic experience of a selective prosecution at a prolonged trial, causing a senior public servant of long years of meritorious public service humiliation and anguish.’

Intention of course is always assessed subjectively. It’s the act that the court has to assess. The court was of the view that the prosecution failed to establish the ingredients of the offenses laid in the indictment. The court also determined that the circumstances in which the presiding judge came to hear the case created a serious doubt on the impartiality and validity of proceedings adopted. In other words, there was selectivity and deliberate maneuvering to obtain a pre-arranged outcome.

Weeratunga is a seasoned public servant. He probably knows the Establishments Code inside out. He probably knows not only what’s possible and what’s not but all the loopholes that can be used and abused. Both Weeratunga and Palpita were responding to a request from the top. They did it legally. He didn’t benefit. Neither did Palpita. One can argue that had Mahinda Rajapaksa won in January 2015, whether or not the sil redi issue was a factor, both would have benefited. At the very least they wouldn’t have been subjected to the obvious harassment meted out by overzealous yahapalana operatives (who essentially turned the FCID into a kangaroo court and commandeered operations from the Prime Minister’s office). That’s however in the territory of speculation. Courts are not in that business. 

The court has ruled. That’s that.

malindasenevi@gmail.com.

A shorter version of this article was published in the SUNDAY ISLAND (November 22, 2020). 

 

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Gotabaya Rajapaksa can go for ‘Yahapalanaya PLUS’

The term Yahapalanaya came into currency in the run up to the 2015 Presidential Election. It is the Sinhala version of ‘Good Governance’.  Although the term itself was not used, notions such as transparency, accountability and fair representations have been around for a long time.  

Perhaps it is the newness of the term that made it difficult to grasp or rather made for flippant usage. There was very little time between the rise of the term and the election anyway. It wasn’t as though it was the result of an organic process made of lengthy debate across social strata. Its quick demise of course was largely due to the violation of basic tenets by the advocates themselves. 

Yahapalanaya, then, as a brand, has run its course. The idea though persists. Indeed, it is all there in the Buddhist scriptures and even in the Grade 9 Buddhism text book. The problem in application was largely a product of ignorance and disinterest. 

There was ‘good’ and there was ‘governance’. The generous view would be that the yahapalanists really wanted good, decent and honorable people running things. The way things unfolded, however, we have to conclude that ’good’ seems to have been understood less as persons and processes endowed with integrity as ‘on our side.’  ‘Our governance’ would have been closer to the truth with respect to compulsion, but then again that’s not exactly a truth that can be marketed in an election campaign.  

Today, close to five years after that experiment has gone down the tube. The word itself has taken on a cuss-word persona. In retrospect, if one were to break the term down to key constituent elements and assess performance against them, the previous government wouldn’t score well. And yet, we must revive both ‘good’ and ‘governance’ because there is nothing really wrong with those words.

First and foremost, there’s one element of ‘good’ that seems to have been lost on the Yahapalanists: effectiveness. That quality obviously is closely related to ‘governance’. Take it out and you get ‘our people’ and ‘lack of governance’ or even ungovernability.  That gives us a clue to where the newly elected president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa can take the country during his tenure.  

Gotabaya Rajapaksa inherited a mess on all counts. However, the fathers and mothers of that mess do not belong only to the previous regime. Starting from Independence, we’ve had good intention and bad plans.  

We threw the baby out with the bathwater when a post-independence language policy was formulated and implemented. Politics of expedience framed all engagements when it came to communal and religious issues. The public service was first vilified and then nullified by ‘experts’ on development, both foreign (through conditionalities imposed on aid) and local (‘brained’ to toe the line of ‘theorists’ intent on furthering capital interests). Whereas an independent and competent public service was indispensable in nation-building, public servants were made subservient to politicians. Political appointments, rewarding the incompetent, sidelining the best minds and a steady deterioration followed. 

Nationalization was not necessarily a bad idea, but this too was scuttled by politicization. As for constitutional reform, it was marked by tinkering and, once again, political expediency.  It was never about strengthening representation or institutional arrangements with a view to creating a robust state. Successive governments saw it as a tool to further the interests of the particular party or coalition. 

It’s a long list of wrongs which Gotabaya, if he so wishes, has to fix. His political friends are not exactly angels and are no more devilish than those who fall into the category ‘political enemy’. In other words, he has set out to take the country forward in less than ideal conditions. And yet, his initial moves have been quiet, determined and effective.  A doer is how he was described. ‘Work!’ Is what he promised he would do and what he requested that his voters do as well. 

It is not that others before him promised sloth, but the doing has been typically accompanied by frill and brag. Gotabaya in these early days has demonstrated that he is a bit different. One notes that he didn’t claim to be simple, but simple he has been. Quiet he is, but this doesn’t mean that he is silent. One doesn’t have to shout to announce presence and one doesn’t have to scream to get things done.

A good example would be the helmet story that is doing the rounds in social media. For years, certain communities in certain parts of the country essentially gave the proverbial finger to the law in the form of refusing to abide by the requirement for motorcyclists to wear helmets. Immediately after Gotabaya Rajapaksa became President, lo and behold, helmet sales in Kattankudy and Matale are reported to have gone up exponentially.  

Why, though?

Well, one can surmise that his opponents painted him as a brute, a devil, a heartless enforcer. That ‘billa’ if you will has come to haunt people because there is a tendency to believe one’s own propaganda after a while. It is not the best way to get people to abide by the law, but if we focus on effect and little else, we can say ‘it’s a good thing, all things considered’.

In the first week of his presidency Gotabaya Rajapaksa can be said to have set the pace, clearly articulated behavioral expectations and led by example. No frills. No grandiose celebrations. No show of force. Just intent. 

It is not that Gotabaya Rajapaksa wants to abandon everything his brother and former president (and now Prime Minister) Mahinda Rajapaksa stands for. He is clearly in tune with his brother’s brand of nationalism. It has also obvious that he rode to power largely on the immense popularity of his brother. And yet, he is also himself; we have ‘Gota’ as Mahinda’s brother AND himself. It would have been very easy for him to piggyback on the popularity-factor in the matter of post-election consolidation. All he had to do was to wear a kurahan satakaya. He didn’t. He did things his way. Quietly. Without fanfare. 

And yet, there’s something about the kurahan satakaya that is not easily dismissible and not just for reasons of expedience. We know that it is a metaphor amenable to multiple application. It is also, like yahapalanaya, something that has been tarnished due to excesses of all kinds by those associated with it politically (and not so much ideologically and culturally). 

Fourteen years ago, just after Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected president for the first time, I reflected on the kurahan satakaya. The following were my conclusions: 

The kurahan saatakaya is and was essentially defined by what it is not, namely the tie-coat world as one would put it in “Sinhala”. It was the perfect “other” to everything represented by the (adopted) children of the colonial project, the privileges they enjoyed and the elitism they fostered and fought for tooth and nail perhaps never as ferociously as in this election. Still, it was not merely a matter of style, preferred clothing, notions of fashion etc. People can vote for any number of reasons but it would be safe to say that few would have factored in the choice of dress in their decision. It was what these things represented and the extent to which the avowed representation was manifest in program and ideological bent that settled the issue, I believe.

All of the above in one way or another found their way into the rhetoric of the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. Rhetoric. That’s the word. I was skeptical and over the course of the next 14 years my apprehensions were proven to be justifiable. Back then, however, in that very note I expressed a wish:

If there comes a day where every single institution insists that all employees wear a kurahan saatakaya we would still not have won if they continue to have tie-coat heads. On the other hand, if these institutions continue to insist that employees wear Western attire, replete with tie and coat, but the people inside these clothes have a kurahan saatakaya frame of mind, then the November 17 decision would most certainly have produced something we can be proud of as a nation. I humbly submit that this is not impossible.

This brings us back to yahapalanaya or rather another element which the Yahapalanists missed or were ignorant of or due to world view and ideological preference were so ready to rubbish that there was no way it could have made its way into the yahapalana discourse. They understood ‘good’ in a very narrow way. They understood ‘governance’ as ‘our people being in power, never mind what they do or don’t do’. They did not understand the kurahan satakaya for what it truly represents or ought to have represented. For this they cannot be totally blamed for it was the overriding symbol of a regime they opposed for good, bad and silly reasons.  Nevertheless, if we want yahapalanaya back, it has to be scripted into the politics of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency.

Gotabaya 'wore' the kurahan satayaka during the time he was Secretary, Ministry of Defence and Urban Development. He 'wore' it during the election campaign. He 'wore' it in his swearing-in ceremony. He is 'wearing' it now as he goes about the business of running a country in a period of political transition. He wears it without wearing it. 

It seems, going strictly by what we’ve seen over the last couple of years, i.e. his preparation to contest and the campaign itself, and during his first days as President, that Gotabaya Rajapaksa has a good sense of ‘good,’ and ‘governance’. He has added two things: effectiveness (simple directives that are pragmatic) and a strong and yet not-in-your-face allegiance to the kurahan satakaya in the best sense of the term, i.e. sans the chest-beating nationalism associated with his brother’s term in office and, sadly, in the election campaign of his principal rival, Sajith Premadasa.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa is well poised to deliver Yahapalanaya Plus. At this point, in the immediate aftermath of his victory, it wouldn’t be out of place to wish him the protection of the Noble Triple Gem. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

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Gota and Mahinda: one and the same or an apple and an orange?

Rajapaksa. THAT name. Mahinda’s surname. Loved by some, hated by some but considered ‘formidable’ by one an all.  And that was perhaps one of the key impetus for the Yahapalana Government to bring in the 19th Amendment.  

What did the 19th Amendment do? Well, apart from bringing back independent commissions (albeit with greater selection-sway for politicians courtesy a Constitution Council whose composition was deliberately made politician-heavy), there was a limit imposed on the size of the cabinet. A loophole was scripted into the text in the form of a non-defined ‘national government’. It made for inflation-at-will. Partisan.  

The 19th clipped the president’s powers. Wait, not the then president’s powers so much as his successor’s.  Power would shift to the office of the Prime Minister. The entire Parliament voted for the amendment in the middle of a tiring night. Except of course Sarath Weerasekera. So, technically we have a person elected by the entire country having less power than someone who was voted to Parliament by a single district. That’s democracy, yahpalana-style. Partisan. 

What do we have now, though? The man the yahapalanists loved to hate, Mahinda Rajapaksa is now the ‘“Stronger” PM under the 19th.’  To make matters worse, even the ‘mitigating’ factor of the diminished executive presidency is no consolation, because we have another Rajapaksa in that position. 

Gotabaya. Gotabaya Rajapaksa. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. What happens after the next parliamentary elections, we cannot predict. It is likely that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna will secure a parliamentary majority. Whether Mahinda Rajapaksa will contest that election we cannot predict. While it is no secret that Mahinda’s immense popularity was a major factor, indeed if not the most important factor, that secured Gotabaya Rajapaksa the presidency, this is his time. The time of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Another Rajapaksa regime, but perhaps one with a different flavor.  

Now Gotabaya was able to deliver on tasks assigned when he was Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development because his presidential brother had his back. In turn, Mahinda had in Gotabaya a military strategist who he could trust. Like in the times of the ancient kings.  Their statures were in a way interdependent. 

As mentioned, Mahinda’s backing was key to success in the presidential race. To that extent and because of Mahinda’s persona, one could say that Gota is under his older brother’s shadow. Will he move out of that shadow? Will Mahinda try to keep him ‘in his place’? We can’t predict, but it is clear that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, for all the salutations he offers his political sibling, is not Mahinda’s twin.   

Gotabaya Rajapaksa clearly shares his brother’s ideological preferences when it comes to the nature of the state, the importance of national security, reading of the international community’s machinations etc. And yet, if there is something cultural which in practice could be called Mahindaism, it has not inscribed itself on the persona of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. 

Simply, he does things differently. Nothing grand about him. No frills. Less talk, more work. He keeps things simple and clearly believes that doing the job is what matters — braggadocio unimportant and perhaps even an unnecessary distraction, over and above the additional costs involved. 

The 19th is not cast in stone. It could be amended and my hunch is that this time around, the UNP, plagued with Mahinda-phobia, might welcome such a move. However, even if amendment is not attempted, the home-and-home political arrangement means that Gotabaya has a better chance of doing things his way than did Maithripala Sirisena, even though he, Sirisena, had better constitutional leverage. Indeed, we may very well see the brothers so in agreement most times that such issues may not even materialize. Mahinda could, for example, play the senior political citizen, offer advice when solicited and lat Gota do his thing.

Brothers sort out differences in ways that unrelated people cannot. Families have their tension-busting strategies. Only the Rajapaksas will know what these tensions are (if indeed there are any) and how to deal with them.  However, family though they are, in the eyes of the constitution and the law Gotabaya and Mahinda are two distinct individuals. Cultural push notwithstanding Gotabaya is a man with a mind of his own. In the first few days in office, he has dispelled all doubts in this regard. 

So far, there’s only been accolades. The cheers have come naturally from those who voted for him, but interestingly from even those who didn’t. Maybe it is less that ‘Mahindaism’ is outdated or despised than Gotayism being something fresh and as appealing for obviously different reasons.  

‘Gota’s War’ was the title of an account of the operations seeking to eliminate the terrorist threat. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is not in the middle of a similar battle, but there’s some fighting on the cards. There are institutional arrangements that rebel against change. Procedural matters can block him. A political culture under threat may very well fight back rather than fold down and concede defeat. 

One thing is clear. The opposition is in such disarray that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ample maneuvering room. He has a mandate. He has shown unwavering determination to fulfill tasks taken on. Mahinda Rajapaksa, ideally, would let back him to the hilt, just as his brother did from 2005-2015. Siblings are like that. In any event, the nature of their relationship would most certainly make everyone want to look at the 19th Amendment afresh. 

Siblings, shadows, mirrors, histories, ego and humility, strength and perceived strength, the clash of weaknesses — the Gotabaya presidency could be all about such things. We are in for an interesting presidency.

malindasenevi@gmail.com

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