The Man in Blue and other Politidbits of the Week

Disclaimer:  It’s not that there’s nothing to say about other things, but President Maithripala Sirisena’s UN visit has provided such mind-blowing bloopers that in the interest of sanity we have to laugh.  Actually the poor President is not to blame.  It’s his son. Well, the President made the initial mistake of dragging his son to New York, but he can’t be blamed for what the brad did thereafter. 

Dr Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri has an interesting take: ‘Namal Rajapaksa has a defence of sorts regarding the abuse of state resources and his father’s executive power, but Daham certainly does not.  The people voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa and his political identity in particular.  So it can be argued that Namal has the out of his father’s legacy.  However, those who voted for Maithripala Sirisena on January 8 (except perhaps some people in Polonnaruwa), did so not to ‘Maithripala Sirisena’ but the common candidate of the Opposition.  Therefore he, Sirisena, cannot use the relevant powers as a personal right.  Therefore Daham does not even have the straw that Namal can cling on to.’

Convoluted and incomplete of course, but that’s Nirmal.  It’s not about why people voted and what they voted for.  It’s about what’s right and wrong. Sirisena promised to right wrongs. He said ‘no more nepotism’.  He promised that none of his near and dear would benefit from him being President.  Well, his children apparently have not been paying attention to his campaign speeches or reading his pamphlets.  And he himself seems to have forgotten!

The man in the blue suit 

It had to be a suave, well-educated, highly sophisticated expert on foreign relations, international law, human rights issues, good governance and all that jazz.  Had to be.  Could not be a brat called Daham Sirisena.  

Next stop Buckingham Palace

The man in the blue suit was photographed shaking hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Singh Modi.  First Modi the Good, Friendly Neighbor.  Then?  Well, Barack of course.  Putin? Nah!  But Buckingham Palace beckons.  Rumor has it that Elizabeth has a special pair of gloves (never yet worn) which she can take off when she gets the rare opportunity to shake the hand of the Man in Blue.  

Identified!

The man in the blue suit was identified eventually.  Daham Sirisena.  The President’s son.  People asked what Daham’s status in the Sri Lankan delegation was.  ‘Nepotism!’ some cried.  They all seemed to have forgotten that just a couple of weeks ago his sister and the President’s daughter, Chathurika, had checked out the problems of some folk in a remote village and that she had done so with an entourage of state officials. No ‘status’ there either.  Brother Dudley was put in charge of Telecom.  So why should Daham be less privileged, is the question that was not asked.

Change can be photoshopped

The cries of horror had an impact. Someone was embarrassed.  The managers of the President’s official Facebook decided to do some damage-control.  They edited out both President and Presidential Brat from a picture of the Sri Lankan delegation and this when the original was already doing the rounds.  That dumb, yes! 

The Right of Transferability

Daham is a brilliant young man.  He’s already taught us a lot of things.  Like transferability.  He says that people are making an issue out of nothing.  Apparently his mother had got an invitation and since she couldn’t go he was going in her place.  ‘Daham to stand in as Maithripala Sirisena’s spouse!’ is a headline that all mainstream media and social media missed.  But there’s something really strange which again no one bothered to ask Daham to explain:  what happened to the spouses of the rest of the Heads of State?  ‘They were all photoshopped!’ did someone quip?

The deafening silence of the lambs

Here’s the funniest part.  All those shrill objectors to Rajapaksa-style nepotism are maintaining strict silence.

Why is Ranil smiling?

Ranil has not said a word about the Man in Blue.  He knows which side of the slice of bread is buttered, perhaps.  He is smiling though.  All the time.  

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It's not only about Daham being a Daddy-cared brat

Colombo Telegraph put it well: ‘President Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka and President Alexander Lukashenko turned the UN General Assembly into a Daddy Daycare!’

Young Daham Sirisena should not have been part of the Sri Lankan delegation.  The uploading of the relevant photographs, the photo-editing ‘out’ of Daham and Daham’s disastrous damage-control exercise have been reported and commented on.  

The love of doting dads sometimes makes them forget lots of things.  For example the difference between right and wrong, the meaning of use and the meaning of abuse.  In this case we need not be surprised.  Sirisena (Snr) after all was all flushed and excited about having met an old lady called Elizabeth and a war criminal called David in London.  He just couldn’t stop talking about it.  It was ‘big’ for him.  Maybe New York and the UNGA was big too and maybe he wanted the little boy to see a bit of the world.  Understood.

But it is not new.  We have seen versions of the same sickness.  We saw spoilt brats of politicians operating as though the rest of the citizenry owed them a favor.  Brats were indulged.  In the case of Mahinda Rajapaksa it was all legal, but it left a bad taste in the mouth when Namal did his night race number.  Had Daham Sirisena wanted to turn the ‘weva-ravuma’ into a race track during President Rajapaksa’s time, the idea would have most likely been shot down.  From above.  

But it’s not new.  Chandrika Bandaranaike was put in charge of Land Reform by her mother even though she had no credentials to show by way of qualifications for the post.  Not illegal, though.  Not ‘wrong’ in the way that Daham’s joyride is ‘wrong’.  

But it’s not new.  Way back in the year 1978, I remember an event at Royal College which was ‘graced’ by the then Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa.  As a member of the school choir, I was present.  The choir, like the Scout Troop, was called upon regularly to be present at school functions.

There we were, ready to sing the school song.  The Chief Guest walked in.  Ranasinghe Premadasa in national suit, neat as always.  He came with his wife and son.  Maybe the daughter was also there but I can’t remember.  Premadasa was accompanied on to the stage by the Principal, Mr L.D.H. Pieris.  Hema Premadasa following a few feet behind.

I noticed young Saith tagging along and distinctly remembered thinking that he would go find a seat somewhere in that vast assembly hall.  Sajith, at the time was a Grade 6 student at Royal College.  

I was both surprised and shocked to see the 12 year old boy following his parents and the principal on to the stage. ‘This is wrong,’ I told myself.

‘Wrong’ because Saith was a student of the same school and although there were no rules against it, students didn’t sit with the Principal on the stage.  The Principal did not object, perhaps because the Prime Minister was his guest.  It was not Saith’s fault but his father’s.  

I can’t remember if it was the same occasion, but there was an event organized by the Students Christian Movement (SCM) where again I was present for choir-duty.  Eran Wickramaratne was the President of the SCM at the time.  It was therefore his show.  He was also the Head Prefect of the school.  At the end of the ‘show’, he had to deliver the vote of thanks.  I can’t remember who was the MC that evening, but I remember the following: ‘Now I invite the Head Prefect of Royal College Eran Wickramaratne to deliver the vote of thanks’.  

Not wrong.  Not right either. If a group belonging to another religion had a similar event the Head Prefect would not be asked to deliver the vote of thanks.  Eran’s status obtained from his position in the SCM and not his prefecture.   The MC was probably careless and anyway it was a trivial matter.  But it is such trivialities that add up and give us things such as the Daham Sirisena Syndrome.    

On the 2nd of May, 1993 I was returning to Colombo from the Kirindi Oya settlement area after a field visit had to be cut short due to the assassination of President Premadasa the previous day.  I was with a team from the Agrarian Research and Training Institute (ARTI).  We were traveling in a green Pajero, a common brand in state institutions at the time.  Somewhere between Matara and Galle, we ran into a bit of traffic and had to slow down.  On our left, in an open space, some people were putting up flags.  One of them chided us: ‘ආණ්ඩුවේ වාහනයක් නේද?  අඩුම තරමින් කොළ පාට කොඩියක් වත් ගහගෙන යන්නේ නැත්තේ ඇයි?’ [It’s a government vehicle isn’t it? Why can’t you have at least a green flag?].  

There is that kind of honest confusion.  State is Government, some think.  State is Party — that’s also assumed.  

So this is not just about Daham Sirisena being a Daddycared brat and an obnoxious one at that.  It is not about the President being incapable of seeing ‘wrong’ in his son (and daughter too, let us not forget) acting as a proxy of sorts, never mind anti-nepotism pledges.  It’s a problem that is resident in the general understanding of the political and the inevitable perversions that arise.  

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Shall we start afresh Mr President?

President Maithripala Sirisena is no saint.  He has not attained arahathood.  He’s new to the job.  He is, however, a seasoned politician.  He has seen many leaders make many mistakes; enough to have learned some lessons.  He’s been a big disappointment so far in terms of the much advertised promise of change.  

Here’s a recap:  He abused presidential powers to remove a Chief Justice and appoint a new one.  He violated the basic principles of democracy in his machinations to take control of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.  He turned into people’s representatives (via the national list) those who were rejected by the people and arranged cabinet portfolios for them to boot.  He has seen no wrong in his daughter Chathurika arrogating on herself presidential powers to turn state officials into minions.  He took his son Daham, a man without any official status, to the UN General Assembly.  All this after pledging to put an end to nepotism.  

Let’s forget all that.  Human beings are by definition frail.  They are victims of circumstances.  They are constrained by forces beyond their control.  They are often made to assess victory not in terms of territory gained but ground not conceded.  

Change gives hope. It makes everyone feel that things can get better.  The fact of regime change as well as the freedom-pledges mouthed by the victors was certainly ‘freeing’.  

It is an easy out, for example, for journalists to explain reticence in certain situations to the fact that owners of media institutions determine the terms of engagement and the parameters of the possible.  Sure, we all work ‘within frames’.  There are stated and un-stated boundaries.  Some play safe and others test the edges.  Sometimes we ‘go overboard’. There are ‘penalties’ to pay.  Journalists know all this.  During the Rajapaksa regime, for example, when ‘ownership’ by and large replaced ‘censorship’, outfits controlled by those close to the political leadership tested journalists to the maximum.  To be fair, the President rarely interfered.  In the case of ‘The Nation’, during the past four years, there was only one request made and that too had nothing to do with the Rajapaksas.  

And yet, there were ‘holy cows’.  Naming and shaming were of the no-can-do kind.  We took liberties and sometimes got away.  Also, since there are many ways to skin a cat, by and large we said what had to be said, one way or another.  Not enough, some would say.  Well, we do what we can or else do nothing.  We note however that those who screamed slogans and waved banners hardly ever strung words together in a coherent sentence. And we note that certain institutions (overtly anti-Rajapaksa) were essentially bank-rolled by that regime through the channeling of advertisements from state institutions to help recover costs incurred in defamation cases.   

Still, it was far from ideal.  Regime change freed us all. Those who were brave remain brave and those who were not found some courage.  And yet, sadly, the scandalous reluctance of the media in general to take on the President and the Prime Minister shows that it is less a fear instilled by a particular brand of governance than a syndrome of servility.  Anyway, we are grateful for the ‘unleashing’ shall we say?  We are waiting and not with bated breath the promised passage of the Right to Information Act.  

So, returning to our not-so-perfect President, let us agree to put the past behind us, including the recent past (leading to Daham Sirisena’s antics).  Here’s something that President Sirisena might find interesting.

In 2001, the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a speech.  This was when his son Euan, then 16, was arrested in London ‘for drunkenness’.  He was almost in tears.  This is what he said: ‘We should take action against violent, aggressive and disorderly conduct and I'm afraid that applies to my son as well as anybody else's. I don't ask for any special preference for my kid. I guess most of us at the age of 16 have done something we might later regret. Not everybody has to see it in the newspapers, but that is the life we have to lead. I hope he would be deterred from behaving wrongly.’

Now Tony Blair is not my favorite politician.  He is a liar and went to war on the basis of a lie.  He is a war criminal in my book.  And yet, there’s something in what he said.  He gets top marks for it.  

This is where President Maithripala Sirisena can give a new boost to the notion of ‘change’.  He can do something that will restore some credibility to the term ‘good governance’, a term that is fast becoming a joke.  President Sirisena can start afresh.  Still.  All he needs is a bit of humility.  It’s a fuel that can take him and his stated program very far.  

Here’s a start: ‘I erred’.  

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