There are Big Matches and 'Big' Matches

March is ‘Big Match’ time in Sri Lanka.  ‘Big Match’ as in cricket between rival schools, i.e. rivalries on account of long standing cricket encounters that mark the end and highlight of the season for the particular schools.  Since of late, though, as far as Sri Lankan politics is concerned, the big March-match takes places not at the Oval, SSC, the Galle Esplanade, Asgiriya or any such cricketing venue but in Geneva, Switzerland. 

It’s all about ‘Human Rights’.  It’s all about praise and blame. Well, more blame than praise, for only tokenism is reserved for the latter as in ‘You’ve done this and that’ followed by a thundering ‘BUT….’  Ladies and Gentlemen, we are talking about resolutions on Sri Lanka tabled and to be tabled at the Geneva sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.  ‘The Island’ correctly asks editorially whether it is ‘on’ or ‘against’, implying that it is probably the latter. 

The United States of America led a bunch of EU countries in a knuckle-rap resolution in March 2012.  Previously, Switzerland, a country which believes every country should be like Switzerland, regardless of wide differences in history and context, similarly moved on (against) Sri Lanka in a previous session. India backed the US position last year.  This year, senior US officials state that a follow-up resolution, marked ‘procedural’, is to be tabled in Geneva.

These are said to be ‘friendly’ countries.  That ‘friendship’ they articulate by ‘keeping Sri Lanka informed’.  That’s like declaring war on a country and claiming that the we-informed-you part of the declaration amounts to ‘friendship’.  When Country A tables ‘on’ Country B and Country B objects, then there is clear disagreement.  ‘Friendship’ is thereafter not a valid descriptive.  Country A can say ‘this is in your best interest’ but that would be infuriatingly supercilious. 

Sri Lanka is not an issue-free country.  Sri Lanka, however, is managing its various tumors far better than countries with far greater wealth in terms of handling post-conflict problems.  If ‘human rights’ is the (inflated) issue, then there are countries that have the right to point finger on account of track records that are of the eyebrow raising kind but nothing more, and there are countries that need an immediate and long mirror-check.  The USA and India for example, but not excluding Switzerland for its horrendous record of religious intolerance and of course the xenophobic and Islamphobic  countries of Europe. 

In Sri Lanka’s case there are allegations which are moreover made by people of highly dubious integrity.  If one were to take Israel, there are proven facts.  Same with the USA.  Now the USA is Israel’s ally and friend to the point where it is not clear who writes whose agenda.  That ‘friendship’ allows Isreal to give UNHRC the proverbial finger, with the full blessings of the USA. 

The USA for its part should be first friend to itself and turn the rights-abuse searchlight inwards.   Rev. Jesse Jackson said in Geneva on the sidelines of last year’s sessions that the owner of the Drones are criminals against humanity. That statement had to be squeezed out from him of course for the good US Citizen was until that point playing what appeared to be a Washington brief, castigating all and sundry except the President of the USA.  ‘Drone attacks’ are policy executions.  Innocent people die.  And drone attacks are but one of many crimes against humanity perpetrated by the USA.

And so the circus comes to Geneva again.  The same set of acrobats and clowns will do their routine numbers.   Resolutions will be passed.  Will it help Sri Lanka, though?  Well, considering the political preferences of the local support staff of such moves and their histories of complicity in moves to destabilize Sri Lanka including the whitewashing of terrorists who perpetrated monumental crimes against humanity, few would be impressed.  What it might do is to harden the hardliners and give them the moral high ground: ‘We have treated the enemies of the state as though they are the most innocent and most wronged in the country, and this is the reward?  Well, flower-that!’ 

The problem for Sri Lankans is that it also gives the regime the moral high ground simply on account of preposterousness and the fact that the US talking human rights is made for gut-wrenching guffaws.  It makes it that much more harder for those who truly want more accountability and transparency, constitutional reform that institutes more robust checks and balances, and better governance overall. 

And if this is what ‘friends’ do, then it is better to give Geneva a news-miss and go to see the Dharmasoka-Devananda Big Match in Ambalangoda.

['The Nation' Editorial, February 1, 2013] 

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True conspiracies

There was a time when the SLBC program titled ‘Subharathi’ was dishing out the Eelamist line (in federalist terms of course).  Time passes and that kind of politicking was hoofed out.  What we have now is a different ‘Subharathi’ (except for the theme music at the beginning and end of each program).  It is, for the most part, like programs in all state media, a forum for the government line.  Nothing unusual about it.  The guests are considered ‘safe’ I suppose, in that even if they are not necessarily comfy about regime they would not be necessarily comfy with regime-haters either.

This morning (December 3, 2012) the topic was ‘conspiracy’, i.e. against Sri Lanka.  The discussion invariably slid to the ‘hot topic’ of the impeachment move against the Chief Justice.  I’ve written enough of on the matter, so I won’t go over it all over again. 

A caller made an interesting comment.  He spoke about the economic system, the disparities and other depravations that remain unaddressed.  Shamindra Ferdinando, one of my oldest journalist friends, responded.

‘What that gentlemen said is true.  There is a lot of talk about economic growth and prosperity, but the fact of the matter is that when it’s said that our Per Capita Income is US $ 4000, the number is derived by taking Harry Jayawardena’s income and dividing it up.’

What gets divided on paper does not get divided and dished out. 

Sure, it’s just an indicator and no one thinks that he or she has some legal right to 4000 US dollars every year.  This is the division fallacy which also provides politicians with bragging rights and boosts the ‘national’ feel-good factor, but fools no one, least of all the non-recipient of national prosperity. 

There is no national ‘common wealth’, if you want to put it that way.  A Beetle Bailey cartoon in the eighties put it well: ‘nothing trickles down except pain’.  Of course, we are not a starving nation, but at the same time few would say these are amazing times, economically. 

It may be because we are not at starvation point that the vast majority of the people are not taking to the streets, a non-action that could and does lull the powerful into thinking that all is well.  It is strange however that the cries of ‘shame’ and ‘out of order’ and ‘unjust’ raised with respect to the impeachment procedure that’s underway, there is very little that these self-righteous objectors have to say about the structures injustices of both institutions and economic system.  You do see regular lip-service being paid to old left sentiments on the subject, but that’s limited to May Day carnivals, occasional trade union action and JVP uttering around budget time.  These injustice-fighters forget these issues when they bed with the aforementioned self-righteous hordes.  Then it’s about politics, in particular regime-change efforts. 

Even the calls for system overhaul, interestingly enough, focus on getting the institutional arrangement right but let’s Mr. Economic get off scot free, wiping the grime of surplus extraction off his invisible hands. 

In the meantime, there’s this figure of 4000 whose original is a secret and whose residences are mysterious.  There are questions that are not being asked.

Whose labor congealed and got printed into the relevant number of currency notes?   How much of that labor, in money equivalent, came from those who get to horde an innumerable amount of 4000 dollar ‘pieces’?  Is there a justice issue here? 

Years ago, when I worked at Upali Newspapers, I met Prof Carlo Fonseka, who had come to hand over one of his books to the then Deputy Editor, my friend, colleague and batch-mate from Peradeniya University, Prabath Sahabandu.  As he is wont to do Prof Fonseka could not resist taking a verbal jab at me, all in good humor.  I distinctly remember something I told him that day.

‘Sir, all you “Left” people call me names such as Sinhala Buddhist extremist, chauvinist, racist etc., but the Left has conveniently stopped talking about capitalism, stopped criticizing capitalist; I still do.’

‘I know and I appreciate,’ he said.  He was not joking.

A decade later, those who like to be thought of as ‘Left’ have let their words follow the dictates of the donor dollar market.  They talk of ‘peace’ now and now of ‘reconciliation’; they’ve hopped from tree-hugging to the climate-change bandwagon, while trading occasionally hot commodities like good governance, human rights and election-monitoring.

There are no NGOs to talk about corporate crime, none to take on capitalism; no bucks for these.  But they serve, nevertheless.  They get paid (whether they like it or not and whether or not they are conscious of the fact) to help people forget Mr. Economy (that lovely pseudonym preferred by Mr. Capital) and all the harm he does to the earth and its creatures (including – and especially -- human beings), all the human rights he violates and the significant role he plays in rendering good governance untenable.  I am pretty sure that the movers and shakers among this bunch get more than 4000 US dollars a year.  Heck, some probably make that amount in a month. 

Shamindra pointed out something else which actually speaks to this 4000 dollar business: ‘It is not about “conspiracy” and “politics”; it goes beyond all that.  It is about money.’   Jehan Perera, a well-known and frequently quoted NGO operator once confessed that if the donor bucks dried up he wouldn’t be able to get anyone to join him on a protest.  Shamindra is right, therefore.

So we get back to Harry Jayawardena’s annual buck-cake being cut into little slices each worth 4000 dollars.  Well, not just Harry but let us say a few hundred of like-minded and like-doing individuals.  Between that operation and the number crunching that gives us a per capita income, in figure and not currency notes, there’s a huge lie.  A huge racket.  And we are buying it, wholesale!  Now that, ladies and gentlemen points to THE CONSPIRACY of our times. 

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No 'easy' takes on Manjula Tilakaratne attack

It is easy to condemn an attack on anyone.  It is typical for there to be widespread condemnation the more public visibility that a victim has.  It is easy for relevant ministers (and politicians in the opposition too) to visit the victim.  It is easy for the executive to add to condemnation a directive to investigate.  It is easy to say ‘innocent until found guilty’. 

There are lots of easy things in this world.

The Secretary of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), Manjula Tilakaratne was assaulted by four unidentified men in Mount Lavinia this morning.  It is easy to say that it is too early to ascertain the ‘why’ and ‘who’ of the attack and of course the ‘who was behind it’.  It is also easy to point out that rivers have sources and trees have roots, as Himani Banerjee once said. It is easy to trace statements made by Tilakaratne over the past few weeks and to lay out patters pertaining to the relationship between executive and judiciary.  Let’s do that now.

Over the past few weeks, many allegations have been leveled in the media against Tilakaratne and the JSC.  Tilakaratne has insisted that these were ‘malicious and baseless’ and opined that they may have been prompted by a media statement issued by him on the directive of the JSC criticizing alleged intervention in the judiciary by the executive.

The allegation followed a meeting between the President and the Chief Justice and two judges of the Supreme Court.  The word ‘summoned’ has been used.  The President at meeting with media heads recently denied this and in fact stated that he has not and does not intend to interfere with the work of the judiciary. 

The speculation follows a Supreme Court determination that the ‘Divi Neguma’ bill presented in Parliament needed approval by the Provincial Councils.  Detractors of the Government have claimed that this may have irked both the Minister of Economic Affairs and the President’s brother, Basil Rajapaksa, and perhaps the President himself. 

All this is pretty vague.  What is not vague is that friction between executive and judiciary is not new.  ‘This is My Nation’, the regular Sunday editorial page column outlined that history on September 30, 2012 (‘Wisdom of the judiciary should be respected’). 

Thus the long history and the short of executive-judiciary relations cast an inevitable shadow on Sunday’s attack.  Other shadows too, for example countless examples of assault on known critics of the Government with law enforcement agencies failing to bring perpetrators to justice. 

It is easy to order investigations, but we must take into account that consequent to the abrogation of the 17^th Amendment (or rather its replacement by the 18^th), effectively compromised the independence of the Police Department.  On numerous occasions, political hands have moved to tie Police hands or else the Police, recognizing possible and unhappy repercussions of carrying out its duty, has foot-dragged and looked askance. 

It is easy to say a lot of things. It is difficult to do. J.R. Jayewardene did not throw stones or hoot judges. Someone else did.  Where did those hooligans obtain the guts to take on the courts?  The same questions can be asked right now.  If, as alleged, Tilakaratne is guilty of wrongdoing, there’s an established way of investigation and punishment. 

Those who support the Government and the President must hope that this attack had nothing to do with the histories outlined above.  Given the manifest absence of checks and balances in the overall structure of governance, including the lack of transparency and accountability, the truth is that over the past several years trust in law enforcement has been severely compromised.

Tomorrow the Mt. Lavinia Police might arrest a suspect or two or all the assailants.  That would not erase what is most likely to be the general response to such an eventuality: ‘framed’. 

There’s a culture that’s been nurtured for quite a while now.  It is malignant.  That’s easy to say.  Sometimes, though, truth is the easiest thing to say.  And truth is what makes and breaks structures of power.  That too is easy to conclude.  

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India’s 'LTTE'-worries

There are certain things that just won’t stay under.  Like rubber balls.  In water.  They pop up.  It has to do with the properties of matter.  Laws of physics.  Like nationalist sentiments, i.e. sentiments associated with identity, let’s say. 

No, it’s not about the LTTE.  Certain things die and are not reborn.  Like the JVP.  The name can survive and can be used as flag, but the politics can never be the same, except as farce (as Karl Marx famously put it in ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’).  The JVP of 1971 was not recognizable in 88-89 and that JVP is not what we have now.  It’s the same with the LTTE.  ‘That’ LTTE ended its adventure in the Nandikadaal Lagoon three years ago.  If any LTTE lover entertains illusions about a resurrection, then he/she could envisage the second death of that second coming; Nandikadaal is the name to remember.

Delhi has raised concerns about an ‘LTTE-Regrouping’ in Tamil Nadu.  That’s mis-naming.  Tamil Nadu is the logical and most visible residence or, let’s say, headquarters of Tamil Nationalism.  Delhi deftly off-shored a problem that had the potential to hasten what many feel is the inevitable, i.e. the eventual breakup of the Indian union.  To that end, Delhi funded, trained and armed what developed into one of the most ruthless terrorist outfits the world has known in recent times.  Then Delhi feigned to sort out the problem (that’s the Indo-Lanka Accord) and sent a peacekeeping force to Sri Lanka.  Someone’s behind got bitten really badly and it was not that of a Tiger or a Lion. 

Now Delhi finds, we are told, a re-grouping of old friends.  Delhi, by raising concerns, is not sending a warning to a friendly neighbor about a possible threat somewhere down the line.  Delhi is inadvertently articulating an old fear, that of losing Tamil Nadu and then, following the Domino Principle the rest of the country.  It happens.  Just look at what happened to the Soviet Union.  Fictional aggregates are not sustainable and Delhi probably knows this and wants to postpone D-Day. 

Well, Delhi got a breather, if one can call it that, of close to three decades.  Sri Lanka in 2012 is not the Sri Lanka of the early 1980s.  Off-shoring would not be easy, because 30 years of that kind of operation leaves communities exhausted.  Tamils have problems (as do Sinhalese and Muslims, Buddhists and Christians, working class people and unemployed graduates) but gun and bullet is not the way to go.  That every Sri Lanka knows.  Delhi cannot convince otherwise.   

What this ‘re-grouping’ is about then is mis-residenced Tamil Nationalism (should be called ‘chauvinism’, but let’s be generous) re-discovering traditional homeland.  The likes of Vaiko, Jayalalithaa, Karunanidhi and others who rant and rave about Tamil brethren across the Palk Straits while ignoring the real, tangible and terrible grievances of Tamils at home (abject poverty, ill-education, lack of proper healthcare and so on), will need a new ‘Other’ to divert away ‘regime-fatigue’. 

Tamil Nadu is a fertile soil for Tamil Nationalism for reasons of geography, demography, chronic ill-treatment and history (compared to which the ‘suffering’ of Tamils in Sri Lanka are not worth mentioning).  

One could say something about birds coming home to roost, but it’s probably deeper than that.  Delhi’s backyard is dry.  That’s tinder.  Ready to crackle. 

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We are glad, Dr. Verghese Kurien

The Agrarian Research and Training Institute, where I worked briefly in the early nineties, used to organize lectures by eminent persons whose work was relevant to the research staff.  One such lecture was on livestock development and in particular about dairy farming.  The speaker was   Kurien.

He told his story. 

Verghese Kurien was an engineer but that’s not how he is remembered.  He was known in India as the Father of the White Revolution for launching and tending the world’s greatest agricultural development program which took India from being a milk-deficient nation to the largest milk producer in the world, surpassing the USA in 1998.  He also made his country self-sufficient in edible oils too, but that’s another story.

Kurien spoke how he went from ministry to ministry seeking help to build the dairy industry, using ‘milk-aid’, i.e. ‘excess’ milk produced by the USA donated in order to maintain high prices.  He spoke about cooperatives.  About cooperation.  About how solidarity and vision can beat the odds.  He told us how the brand he created, Amul, took on Nestle and won. 

He talked of tough times.  The obstacles.  The trials.  The triumphs.  He took us through years and decades, interjected anecdotes, pointed to landmarks and drew the unmistakable thread of cooperative principles in the transformations he helped bring about. 

A few years later, i.e. after the People’s Alliance came to power, an enthusiastic minister invited Kurien to advice the Government on developing the milk industry.  Sri Lanka with a long history of cooperatives (the first credit cooperative was set up in 1906 and subsequent to a revitalization effort in the late eighties developed into a bank, insurance company and other such entities with island-wide networks) and is culturally open to the ideas of solidarity, togetherness, sharing etc.  Kurien’s ideas have not yielded anything close to ‘Amul’.  We don’t have our ‘Anand’.   We might get there someday, but perhaps only because we’ve exhausted other options, i.e. all those prescribed by the World Bank and IMF and scripted into policy by way of subtle arm-twisting.

That’s another story.

Verghese Kurien died a few days ago at the age of 91.  He was an Indian.  He was a global citizen.  He was an Indian and one who was nothing like his countrymen and countrywomen who off-shored a simmering separatist movement and with ‘milk of kindness’ posturing facilitated blood-letting.  Kurien gave us milk.  The greatest milk: ideas.   True, we haven’t learnt enough and haven’t put into practice what he taught, but that too is another story.  

Veghese Kurien is someone who we can say ‘An OUR kind of Indian’, a friend, a neighbor, a member of the family. An elder we would feel no shame in touching whose feet.  

He was born a Christian but claimed he was an atheist, so we can’t say ‘rest in peace’.  We can say ‘you walked this earth and we are grateful that you did’. 

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On the TNA’s post-election statement

R. Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance, has offered the party’s reading of the recently concluded elections for the Eastern Provincial Council.  As the party with the backing of the majority of Tamils, the TNA’s analysis warrants comment. 

The TNA claims that the elections were neither free nor fair, lists numerous illegal and corrupt practices and blames the repeal of the 17^th Amendment of the Constitution for this state of affairs.  There were indeed several incidents which scarred the entire process.  On the other hand, even the TNA would admit that immediate action was taken by the Elections Commissioner on each and every occasion.  There were independent election monitors on the ground and even a cursory glance at reports from such entities from earlier elections would show that the incidence of wrongdoing was comparatively low.  

The overall margin, a mere 6217 votes, gave the ruling party 2 extra seats, which goes to show that even a minor tweaking of the law can have a huge bearing on outcome; all the more reason for further tweaking the system to eliminate error and loophole.  To be fair, the repeal of the 17^th did not take us back to anything like the 1999 Wayamba elections, but democracies are never perfect and for this reason can always be made better.  

It is heartening that the TNA has decided to speak of systemic flaws and chosen to list all the violations, especially since the TNA’s constituent parties and their representatives, especially R. Sampanthan, were not only silent about the body blows to the democratic process delivered by the LTTE but actually benefited from these same violations to enter Parliament!  This about-change then can also be read as a positive outcome of taking the LTTE out of the political equation.  For that, the TNA, Sampanthan, as well as the Tamils who voted for the TNA and the TNA can thank the President and the security forces.

Sampanthan has blasted the Government for trying to intimidate and/or purchase those elected on the TNA ticket.  Which country has Sampanthan being living in?  Was he not intimidated and/or purchased by the LTTE?  Weren’t those who didn’t toe the line murdered in cold blood?  That said, he is spot in objecting to such despicable moves, even though he demonstrates an unfortunate degree of memory loss.  It’s wrong of course, but his case would be stronger if it was preceded by a confession. 

The TNA takes pains to claim that the result showed that the majority was against the Government.  Sampanthan forgets that the SLMC is a constituent member of the ruling coalition.  A regional preference for a communalist party does not indicate general antipathy to the ruling party at the political center.  Sampanthan’s ‘logic’ can be turned against the TNA, SLMC, UNP and JVP as well.  It can be said that the majority of the people rejected all four parties.  Today, for convenient, Sampanthan concocts an artificial solidarity among all parties excluding the UPFA.  He does not mention the fact that all four contested SEPARATELY.  If there was solidarity and commonality in political platform the four could have contested TOGETHER.  The ‘mandate’ was not to ‘function against the UPFA’, as Sampanthan likes to read it.  The mandate given the TNA was different from that given to the SLMC, JVP and UNP.  It is sophomoric to aggregate these and posit a re-reading of mandate that alleviates one’s political angst of the particular political moment. 

Another strange element of the TNA statement is its tired lament about the SLMC’s decision to back the UPFA to set up the Eastern Provincial Council.  Sampanthan is upset that the SLMC chose to play second fiddle to the UPFA in the East even after the TNA offered the SLMC the Chief Minister post.  Well, it seems that the SLMC or at least its leadership had done a cost-benefit analysis before making a decision.  Sampanthan, of all people, should not be surprised, for he has played that kind of politics for years.  

What is really disconcerting is the cheap attempt to tag the TNA to the SLMC using the language-string.  The commonality seeker ‘Tamil Speaking People’ is straight out of the LTTE book and the larger archive of Eelamism.  At best, it was a convenience.  The way it got played out over time is a history lesson the Muslims are not likely to forget anytime soon.  They were slaughtered by the LTTE who were not bothered about language commonality when the blood-letting was planned and executed. And Sampanthan should know that ‘language’ was not an issue when Duraiappah was murdered, or when his own leader A. Amirthalingam was shot dead.  He probably has a list of all Tamil-speaking Tamils assassinated by the LTTE and he should know better than anyone else how long it is. It constitutes the ‘final word’ of this kind of cheap, racist politics. 

Anyway, when Sampanthan describes the SLMC as ‘opportunistic’ and ‘unprincipled’, he conjures images of pots and kettles and their relative blackness!

Sampanthan has also kept silent on the fact that the result laid to rest all claims of ‘Tamil Homeland’.   The vast majority rejected the concept (and this, following Sampanthan-TNA logic).  Those numbers seem to have escaped his mind.  Not surprising.

Overall, it’s time for the TNA to do a re-think and amend this post-election analysis.  It would be good for the TNA and good for the Tamil people too.  For us all, one might add.

['The Nation' DAILY editorial, September 24, 2012]

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