The word in the street is that Ranil
Wickremesinghe’s is the regime’s best friend.
Inept leadership, fuelling division in opposition ranks to prompt
defection, refusal to take on the Government in any meaningful manner on
crucial issues of public concern, rhetorical slip-ups made to be pounced on for
purposes on ridicule and being conspicuously out-of-touch with the sentiments
of the masses are often cited as evidence to support this friendship claim.
On the other hand, it must be mentioned in Ranil’s
defence that the 1978 Constitution does not grand the opposition any favors. In
fact, just as it confers dictatorial powers on the executive president, it also
disempowers the opposition. Sarath N
Silva’s horrendous crossover ruling that made parliamentary traffic a one-way
matter hasn’t helped. These factors
helped scuttle the 17th Amendment and worse paved the way for the 18th,
further strengthening those in power and conferring further disempowerment on
the opposition. Ranil’s detractors might
say ‘Still!’, implying that he could do much better.
But is Ranil really the only friend that the regime
can count on among those who object to it on matters of policy and policy
implementation, and of course corruption, incompetence, inefficiency and overt
and covert attacks on democracy?
Mahinda Rajapaksa had few friends when he was
running for President in 2005. Today he
has few enemies and fewer still have the courage to stand up and object. That’s not unusual. Power corrupts. Power also attracts. There was a time, after all, when there were
countless ‘friends’ swarming around his predecessor. That was not the case before she became
President and it is not the case now that she is Ex-President. It is about playing the right card. It is about mutual benefit. Important no doubt, but still less critical
than friends among the enemy in times of declining popularity.
It’s not just Ranil.
In the past few years there have been ample reason
for many to object to the regime. Not
just object but to be appalled, in fact.
The umbrage however has not translated into mass protests. ‘Fear,’ some
explain, but that’s just a part of the story.
A small part, one might add. Where
does the anger find expression, then? Why, in social media!
Facebook is full of people who have serious problems
with the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Among them are the usual sour-grapes types,
i.e. those who wanted a different outcome in November 2005, May 2009, January
2010 and April 2010. There is a sizable
number though of case-by-case assessors, who would cheer some and critique
some. There are also many who have voted
for the President and his party but have run out of patience and are convinced
that astute political thinking is about burying gratitude along with the LTTE.
They have a point. The President and the
Government did what they were elected to accomplish. That’s ‘job’ and therefore does not
necessitate ‘unlimited bonus’. But what do these objectors do and what do
they accomplish?
Many of them rant and rave. Some are more academic
with objection. They all call for
‘uprising’ of one kind or another. Some
even organize protests, run campaigns to mobilize people and make it out that
it is all spontaneous, free of any agenda except expressing objection, and
borrow from the extensive material pertaining to rebellion from all parts of
the world. They cry, ‘Occupy
Colombo’. They say ‘Sri Lanka Spring’
(never mind seasonality ignorance). They
put up campaign-related profile pictures. They ‘like’, they ‘share’ and they
‘blog’. Some say ‘wish I was there’ and
others pip in, ‘I am there in spirit’.
They seem to be so busy doing all this that they
forget to make it to the events they organize, endorse and cheer. Then they wait for the ‘Next Big
Moment’. They move from ‘spark’ to
‘spark’ and meanwhile the regime moves from one crisis to the other, not in a
crisis-snowballing context but in the classic getting-by of doing it, dealing
with it, counting on ‘forget’ if not ‘forgive’.
Facebook and other social media sites are therefore
regime-friendly. Of course there is
nothing to say that activity therein will not add up and contribute to
regime-change at some point, but it is safe to say that impact will be
marginal. In the end it boils down to
feet on the ground, feet marching together, voices raised in real time and in
real space in unison and not in the artificial congregation of feel-good
solidarities.
There are other ‘friends’. There are the many ‘news’ sites that are
hardly better than gossip rags capable of mild titillation and deflecting and
dispersing righteous anger into feel-good laughter. Objectors who laugh at regimes and do nothing
else, don’t challenge regimes.
There are of course ‘serious’ web-gatherings. Like Groundviews and Colombo Telegraph. The
former is clearly slanted in favor of federalism and federalists, those who
have poorly disguised hatred for Sinhalese and Buddhists or feel a compulsion
to attack them to be counted among ‘intellectuals’ and those whose communalism,
racism, religious fundamentalism is thinly covered by a cloak called
‘neutral’. The latter’s content is more
eclectic, more in-your-face. There’s news and views. There’s greater generosity of accommodation. Those who run these objection-forums if one
may call them that would probably agree that they are frequented by roughly the
same clientele. Both writers and
commentators.
Perhaps some of these people actually meet up for
chat over coffee or wine, but if gatherings and protests organized by the
movers and shakers are anything to go by, they don’t add up to
regime-overthrowing-by-mass-uprising. A perusal of commentary reveals
untrammeled invective, penchant for abuse and foul language, a privileging of
emotion over reason and a conspicuous lack of sobriety. A neutral may be swayed by argument but would
think more than twice about joining hands with the cheering squad.
All these ‘sites of resistance’ (let’s be generous
here) function as outlet, opportunities to let off steam, and spaces to feel
you’ve done your bit (and inflate contribution to oneself). Ironically, in Sri Lanka, the more effective
users of this space happen to be those who are ready to walk the talk and not
all of them walk in peace.
In the end, therefore, true challenge to regime
would probably come from those who for whatever reason don’t use these spaces
to vent their anger. They get the
bullets, history has shown. Those
others, the ‘friends of the regime’ as argued above, will cry foul, weep
virtual tears, like, share and blog, but in the end they will not count. Most
of them will remain the internet versions of Ranil Wickremesinghe, doing their
bit to prop a regime they love to hate.