Ninety four percent voted for ‘One Country, One Law,’ so there!

The recently held presidential election, like all major elections, was a hard fought affair. In terms of who supported whom, historical antipathy, who wanted to remain in power and who wanted to assume power, there were differences. Well, the candidates themselves, outside of their political homes, were also different in the way they conducted themselves and of course their track records. Apart from all these rather trivial differences actually, Sajith Premadasa and Gotabaya Rajapaka had more things in common than has been acknowledged by either or their supporters, especially when it comes to policy issues.

Both promised goodies. Sure, Sajith went a bit overboard with such things, as he did with almost everything, but still, ‘welfarism’ was a key part of both manifestos.  Both candidates said that if elected they would review all bilateral agreements. The point of reference was the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact (MCC Compact). They both believe, sadly, in growth-led development. Both, happily (the way I see things), spoke in one voice about the legal system in the country. Apart from promising the independence of the judiciary, due process, rule of law etc., they both assured the electorate that the future, in terms of legal matters, would be framed by the following: ONE COUNTRY, ONE LAW!  

A total of 6.9 million voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa while Sajith Premadasa obtained 5.7 million votes. That’s 12.6 million. There were altogether 35 candidates. They either echoed this vision in their manifestos and rhetoric or were silent. In other words, at least 12.6 million people or 94.24% of the total number who cast valid votes (52.25% for Gotabaya and 41.99% for Sajith), voted for candidates who believed that Sri Lanka is a SINGLE COUNTRY and therefore should have ONE LAW for all.    

What does it mean, though? 

Before answering that question, let’s flag some slogans frequently tossed around by the class-less, identity-less, religion-less saints who are fond of blaming all ills on the majority community: ‘There should not be a special place for Buddhism,’ ‘This is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious country,’ ‘Article 9 should be repealed,’ ‘religion should be separated from the state,’ ‘Sri Lanka should be a secular state.’

Fine. 

First of all, is there any county with a population at least as large as Sri Lanka’s that is mono-ethnic, mono-religious and monolithic in terms of political beliefs? No. We are multi-ethnic and multi-religious. Should the fact be enshrined in a constitution? Should we also say ‘Sri Lanka is an island?’ No. Should we say ‘In Sri Lanka there are men and women?’ No. More importantly, if you are really fixated with this multi-religious, multi-ethnic wording, the you have to insert the numbers as well, for clarity if not for anything else.  Otherwise, the impression given is that the population is equally divided into ethnic groups and religious communities, much like how the use of the words ‘North’ and ‘South’ during Sri Lanka’s long struggle against terrorism gave the mischievous impression that Sinhalese and Tamils were equal in numerical strength and that the relevant ‘homelands’ could be demarcated by drawing a horizontal line perpendicular to the half way point in a line connecting Devundara and Point Pedro. 

What Gotabaya and Sajith (and other candidates) promised is that there would be a single corpus of laws. In other words, what applies to a Sinhalese would apply to a Tamil, what applies to a Hindu would apply to a Muslim, etc. In other words, the fundamental concept of ‘Equality’ should be applied across the board. 

The next question is ‘what IS this “One Law”?’ C.V. Wigneswaran delivering the Kanthaiah Sivanantham Memorial lecture about a decade ago vociferously defended the Thesawalamai Law. He maintained that it would protect even non-Tamils who purchase property in areas that come under this law. Well, it is arguable that there could be laws that help strengthen community integrity. If that’s the case, such laws could cover the entire country. The same would go for, say, Sharia Law or the Kandyan Marriage Law. We don’t have to throw away the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Ordinance. We could expand its ambit to cover all religious communities and atheists too!  

Alternatively, and this seems to be the most logical course of action, all such regional, ethnicity or religion based laws should be repealed. What applies in the general should not be trumped by the specific.  

But then again, horror of horrors (some might whine), wouldn’t that hurt customs, religious practices and culture of some communities? Well, there’s give and take. There’s having the cake and trying to eat it too. You want ‘secular’? Fine. You want ‘secular’ for some but not for others? No. The truth is that there is celebration of specificity and there's also abuse of specificity. 

What is held sacrosanct by each religious community should not be brushed aside. Agreed. However, it is humbuggery of the highest order to demand sensitivity (and secularism) in the name  of reconciliation and co-existence and then use sensitivity as a cover to chop off other people’s noses so you can have more room to flex your muscles ‘freely’.  

There’s something wrong, for example, in saying ‘equal rights for all communities, but not when it comes to gender,’ using these ‘sensitive’ religious ‘edicts’.  

These are not easily resolved, of course. All the more reason for these issues to be widely debated and taken seriously, instead of taking the easy path of, say, repealing Article 9 (but leaving Thesavalamai, MMDC and the Kandyan Marriage Laws untouched, [Aha!].’  

Religious freedom is non-negotiable. The parameters of ‘religion’ need to be fixed, though. You cannot have a set of laws that has any reasonable degree of integrity if there are ‘religious’ caveats through which certain people can creep through but others cannot. Religious communities in a ‘multi-religious’ (that term!) nation cannot have it all for this would mean, theoretically, that in the name of religion certain groups can enjoy privileges that are denied other religious groups, or that women of a particular faith are subjugated in specific ways in which others are not. 

Religious holidays tell the story best. There are 13 Buddhist holidays, three for Hindus, 54 for Christians and three for Muslims. Hold on, there’s more.  Muslims are given two hours of leave from 1 pm every Friday. That’s the equivalent of 13 work days if you want to be mathematically clinical about such things. During the Ramadan period, Muslims have the privilege of obtaining ‘special leave’ to take part in prayers. A Muslim woman is given leave of four months and ten days in the event her husband dies and three months following divorce.  

If you want ‘One country, one law,’ and if you want Sri Lanka to be ‘secular,’ then this religion-fixation should be dissolved. If you are a devout adherent to a religious faith, it’s fine. Just do it on your time. Take leave to observe sil.  Take leave on Good Friday and Christmas. Take short-leave to go to the mosque. Take leave for Ramadan. Take leave and grieve if your husband passes away. Take leave if you find it hard to deal with divorce. 

The best would be to apportion a certain number of days under ‘Religious Leave’ (which could be broken down to hours if needed) for everyone, just like Annual Leave, Sick Leave and Short-Leave. 

If you want to leave such things as they are and at the same time beat your chest and stamp your foot for secularism, you are indulging in the worst kind of buffoonery. As things stand, it’s all about having the cake and eating it. It boils down to removing Article 9 (which, in any case, is negated by Articles 10 and 14), whacking Buddhists and allowing other religious communities to entrench the privileged positions already enshrined in the Constitution.  

Well, the people have spoken, haven’t they? We are talking of 12.6 million (or 94.24% of those who voted). They subscribe to the ONE COUNTRY, ONE VOTE notion. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has the mandate. And the United National Party (UNP) is honor-bound to support implementation.

This article was first published in the 'SUNDAY MORNING' [December 22, 2019]

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com

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Election results can be skinned any which way you like

A warm but flawed reading of the 2015 result,

People from the same camp, in terms of who they voted for, can and do come up with different reasons for victory, or if that's the case, defeat. 

For example, some who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa could put his victory down to one or more of the following: a) ineptitude of the Yahapalana regime and failure to deliver on promises, b) the need for a strong and tested leader in the face of new threats to national security, c) perceptions that he was a doer as opposed to a talker (that’s Sajith), d) a strong, determined and well-coordinated campaign as opposed to Sajith Premadasa’s wayward, disorganized effort further marred by in-fighting. 

Others could point to the overwhelming surge in the anti-UNP vote from areas dominated by Sinhala Buddhists and claim that it was a response to unnecessary and endless needling of the majority community by various UNP spokespersons. They could add that lack of clarity on the part of Sajith Premadasa on his arrangement with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) given that party’s Eelamist posturing through conditions offered to and rejected by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was key. 

So it is about strengths of the winner and weaknesses of the loser and/or their respective parties. Strengths and weaknesses can be understood in different ways. How would some one who voted for Sajith explain the outcome?

Some might say ‘he didn’t have enough time to campaign since his party was slow in offering him nomination.’ Others would add, ‘and Ranil Wickremesinghe didn’t put his heart and soul into the campaign,’ even though the party leader has refuted this claim by pointing out that he was asked to campaign in the North and East, which districts he delivered. Whether he was key in this ‘deliverance,’ of course is another matter. Anyway, some inclined to be self-critical rather than looking for scapegoats have argued that there was very little campaigning at the grassroots, that the UNP’s party machinery was rusty, that UNPers were demoralized after the debacle at the local government elections in February 2018, and that Sajith’s ‘I-ME-and-Myself’ did not excite the floating voter, that Sajith had a tough brief to defend considering the (non) performance of the government in which he was a cabinet minister.  

Finger-pointers who are not willing to acknowledge error or blemish, have simply said ‘it’s all because Gota appealed to Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists.’  Some say ‘It’s the BBS’. That’s the Bodu Bala Sena. The BBS and it’s political twin, Ravana Balakaya, following the election stated that the organizations would be dissolved following the parliamentary elections.

‘There you go!’ did someone exclaim? It’s easy to join dots (any which way you like) to prove you point. Still, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya ‘decisions’ are worth commenting on. Now these outfits are considered extremists by some who, interestingly, extrapolate the ‘extremism to the entire Sinhala Buddhist population. Interestingly too, they don’t apply the same logic to the National Thawheed Jamath (NTJ) and the Muslim community. Neither do they pause to compare and contrast the extremisms — the involvement of the BBS in Aluthgama and Digana versus the Easter Sunday attacks carried out by the NTJ.  Cost of damage to property and lives lost could be but are not compared. 

Back to the BBS and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. So is it that the BBS and the Ravana Balakaya, having ‘delivered’ the presidency to Gota, have concluded ‘mission accomplished, we got our man in and our work is done?’ Is Gotabaya a BBS man or Ravana Balakaya man? That would be utterly simplistic. First of all, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya are essentially fringe elements of the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourse. More visible, of course, just like the NTJ, but that’s just one part of the story. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, when he was Secretary, Ministry of Defence, did accept an invitation extended to him by the BBS to be chief guest at the opening of an office somewhere in the Southern Province. That was out of order for a government servant. Does that make Gota a member of the BBS high command? Did the BBS deliver the presidency to Gota?  

The BBS contested the last parliamentary elections as the ‘Buddhist People’s Front’. The total votes polls by that party was 20,377 or just 0.19%. Nation-wide. And that’s ‘push’ enough to decide who would be president? Sobering, ain’t it?

Forget the BBS; was Sinhala Buddhist nationalism the most significant element at the election? Ameer Ali, in an analysis titled ‘Sibling wins, patriarch celebrates and minorities stunned,’ in the Colombo Telegraph, certainly thinks so. 

Ali believes that Ethno-religious nationalism decided the winner. He claims that ethno-religious Buddhist nationalists created and presented an image to the Sinhala public that the two minorities are a clear and imminent danger to national security. He claims, ‘an uncompromising but ultra-nationalist section of the institutionalised Buddhist clergy spearheaded a campaign to deprive the minorities of that privilege and rallied Sinhala Buddhist voters behind Gotabaya, who in their view will be the man to save Buddhist Sri Lanka.’ And, pointing to the fact that Sajith won handsomely in the North and East, but was trounced elsewhere, Ali concludes that it was indeed a battle between the Buddhist majority and the minorities. He says, in the process, that the minorities ‘hoped for a 2015 repeat scenario when their votes decided the winner in a tightly fought presidential contest and threw their support behind Sajith Premadasa.’

On the hand, why doesn’t Ali see that the Sinhalese and Buddhists could perceive an existentialist threat given statements issued by the likes of Sumanthiran and Hizbullah and of course the fact that terrorists from both the Tamil and Muslim communities unabashedly vented against Sinhala Buddhists? He doesn’t play that part of the game, but picks the reverse. It can’t cut just one way, though.

Anyway, Ali’s reading reminded me of an elegant meme created by Shanuki De Alwis just after the January 2015 election. It was a warm interpretation of the result, depicting the North and East embracing/protecting the rest of the country. Indeed, it seemed apt at the time. However, if you looked at the numbers, the story is very different. What the anti-Rajapaksa candidates gained between 2010 and 2015 from these two provinces are dwarfed by what Mahinda lost in just the Southern and Western Provinces. It was not just the minorities that defeated Mahinda in 2015. 

Less than five years later, Mahinda’s brother swept these very same provinces by massive margins. Were people in the relevant districts suddenly converted to the political stance of the BBS (if we believe that claim)? Obviously there are other explanations. Yes, national security was an issue. So was incompetence. Incoherence. Utter confusion. You name it!  That’s all Yahapalana attributes. 

So why say ‘Buddhist’ or ‘Sinhala’ just because of the 6.9 million who voted for Gotabaya happened to be identified in such terms? Sure, they were Sinhalese and Buddhists, but on what basis can anyone say that it is only their ethnic identity and religious faith that determined choice? It’s a bit like saying all those in the North and East who voted against Gotabaya are Eelamists or Islamic Fundamentalists. They voted for Sajith, a Sinhalese, who was in rhetoric far more nationalistic than Gotabaya was, if anyone followed their respective speeches. So Sinhala Buddhist anxieties may have been part of the story, but it cannot be concluded that it was THE story of the election result.

It’s about how you want to skin it, in the end. Minority angst can of course privilege perceptions and hence persuade people like Ali to say ‘we are shocked’. Shocked because you didn’t expect it or shocked because you fear the consequences? Perceptions are real, even if they are not based on facts. You paint a monster and then ‘the monster’ haunts you. You believe your own propaganda. You have a set frame and cannot fathom that that’s not the only one available. You see certain things, choose not to see others and are absolutely ignorant of still other factors. So you go with what you know, throw in anxieties and political preferences/disappointments and get to ‘THIS IS WHAT IT WAS!’  

It’s good to feel good or, as the case may be, to feed one’s anxieties in a masochistic kind of way. That’s however simplistic political analysis, nothing more.  

malindasenevi@gmail.com

This article was first published in the Sunday Morning newspaper [December 8, 2019]

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Presidential Election and Racism: the loud claims and small print

‘Scratch a Sinhalese and you find a racist,’ I’ve heard my Tamil friends say. In jest of course. ‘Scratch a Tamil and you find an Eelamist,’ I’ve heard my Sinhalese friends say. In jest of course. ‘Scratch a Muslim and you find a Jihadists,’ I’ve heard people say. In jest of course. Perhaps it is not a laughing matter. Rivers have sources, trees have roots and perceptions have histories or rather are produced by a healthy complement of history, myth and legend. It is often framed by political selectivity which of course is a product of expedience, let us not forget.

Broad brush strokes, that’s what is common. And we’ve seen these in various analyzes of the presidential election results.  The country has been carved, so to speak, and it is being consumed in part with relish or dismay, as per choice or diminished circumstances respectively.  

So we have an election marked by ‘racism’. True, false, true and false? On the one hand we have the provinces that voted overwhelmingly for Sajith (North and East, to the tune of over 80%) where the population is predominantly Tamil and Muslim. The rest of the country, predominantly Sinhala, voted overwhelmingly for Gotabaya Rajapaksa. That’s cutting the result along ethnic lines.  

Various explanations have been offered. Perhaps the Tamils went along with the claim of  Tamil National Alliance (TNA) — ‘Sajith will deliver’. Deliver what? Well, if we go by the conditions for support articulated by the TNA, then it is essentially a road map to Eelam via federalism. On the flip side, it is argued that the Sinhalese were irked by the taunts of Tamil and Muslim communalist parties — ‘you can’t win without us,’ and ‘vote for Sajith and teach the Sinhalese a lesson’. Others argue, ‘Gota is a Sinhala Buddhist chauvinist and so is the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) whereas Sajith is not; therefore the minorities voted for Sajith.’

One might also point out that the North and East saw Sarath Fonseka, the Commander of the Army fighting the LTTE (‘The sole representative of the Tamil people,’ according to the TNA) was less of a threat than Mahinda Rajapaksa (the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces at the time) and therefore the lesser evil, which is why 67% voted for him in 2010. They believed, one can argue, that Maithripal Sirisena (a member of Rajapaksa’s cabinet) was even less an evil than Fonseka, which is he was able to win 75% of the vote in the North and East in 2015. Gotabaya was the Secretary, Ministry of Defence, at the time whereas Sajith played no part in that drama and as such the latter was not seen to have any evil trace whatsoever — hence the massive support in 2019.

Some have argued that the people in the North and East preferred by quite a margin a Sinhalese (Sajith) as opposed to M.K. Shivajilingam, a Tamil, and therefore ‘race’ was not a factor. That would be simplistic, though. Shivajilingam is a) not from the strongest party in the coalition that makes up the TNA, and b) didn’t have even the slimmest chance to win the election.  More logical, it would seem, would be to vote for the candidate who is more likely to deliver demands, which is essentially what the TNA told the people. After all, R. Sampanthan claims, ‘Tamils voted for Sajith to win rights in a united, indivisible Sri Lanka’.  That’s sleight of hand. ‘United’ and not ‘Unitary’ as has always been the word-choice of Eelamists. ‘Forego the term but obtain the meaning’ has been Abraham Sumanthiran’s operative dictum as revealed by ‘independent’ elections commissioner Ratnajeevan Hoole.

On the other hand, almost 50% of Tamils live outside the North and East. Who did they vote for? We can’t really get a number on this, but the UNP has counted the Tamils and Muslims outside the North and East as part of its vote base. This means, that counting ‘out’ the TNA vote-loan and taking out the Tamil and Muslim votes from other parts of the country, the UNP’s slice of the Sinhala vote has shrunk to less than 30% or is even hovering around 25%. That’s something the UNP should worry about as it looks ahead to future elections. This element however is not at center of the ‘racist-discourse’.  

It is clear that Gotabaya won the support of large numbers of Sinhala Buddhists. He has acknowledged this instead of pussy-footing around the fact. A certain segment voted, he named and acknowledged. He also said he won’t leave behind anyone, whether or not he or she voted for him, as he takes the country forward. He is, as he pointed out, President of everyone. Time will tell how he performs and how the people of the North and East assess his performance. 

Name-calling is easy and cheap. ‘Racist’ is an easy and cheap label, applicable to one and all on account of things said and left unsaid, things done and refrained from, association and absence of association. Racist, dependent on racists, approver of racism, tolerator of racism — all easily ‘pinnable’ on one and all. It is a useful political tool and has been used extensively. By one and all, one might add, to a lesser or greater degree. 

There is one indisputable fact, though, which the new president has not only recognized but has stated that he has noted: the vast majority of voters in the North and East did not have confidence in him. They have, by association at least and perhaps on account of pledges made (verbal and/or written) by Sajith Premadasa, hinted at certain aspirations. Whether these are extrapolations based on myths frilled as history or demands deliberately exaggerated to ‘bargain down’ to something acceptable, we do not know. It is a signal, though.  

In 1976, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) under the leadership of S J V Chelvanayakam (of ‘a little now, more later’ fame) resolved in Vaddukoddai to push for a separate state. The TULF scored in the 1977 parliamentary elections consequently.  The racism and wild optimism embedded in the resolution notwithstanding, it did strike a chord with the Tamil voter. The question that should have been asked at the time is ‘why?’ That’s the same question that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa can ask with respect to the results from the North and East. Grievances and aspirations. These are the answers, whether frilled or wild. However you may wish to call it, it boils down to a lack of belonging. 

The previous regime saw ‘reconciliation’ as something that can only be obtained by vilifying the Sinhalese and Buddhists and submitting to the Eelamist demands of the TNA (ref: constitutional reform proposals of the Parliamentary Selected Committee dominated by federalists and rabid anti-Sinhala and anti-Buddhist persons). That’s a recipe for continued inter-communal tensions and perhaps one reason for the massive surge against the candidate of the UNP-led coalition, one could argue. 

Belonging. That could be the key. Inclusivity. Inclusive nationalism, if you will. Racism of course won’t help. Name-calling by way of alleviating political grief is in the end a distraction and even an obstacle to progress.  There’s no way around engagement, though. There could be any number of approaches. Every single ‘way out project’ offered by the federalists have failed. Abandoning engagement and pooh-poohing the sense of un-belonging of the Tamils, for example, has not yielded reconciliation either as the results in 2015  indicate. 

Those who want the future to look different must cure themselves of term-fixations. A new language is required. No, not to facilitate disavowal of problem, but to ensure that its true dimensions are obtained.  It's less, then, about scratching skin and discovering racist than vicious mis-branding. We can do better than that, one hopes.

The country can be carved in many ways. A cartographer can do it. A divide-rule expert can do it. Words can do it. But cartographer, politician and rhetorician can also eliminate difference and distinction in wholesome ways. Let us see what the Gotabaya Rajapaksa years will yield.

malindasenevi@gmail.com

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So what's this 'Premadasa Yugaya (Era)'

Sajith Premadasa has promised to take us back to the ‘Premadasa Yugaya (Era)’. He has not said ‘I mean, only the good parts of that time’. I mean, he hasn’t acknowledged anywhere that there was any wrongdoing during his father’s watch or the time when his father was the Prime Minister in J.R.Jayewardene’s government. 

With that statement, however, he rules out any dismissal of any reference to ‘that time’ and the good, the bad and the ugly of it all. 

He had his positives of course. He planted trees. He built houses. He introduced Janasaviya as a recipe for poverty alleviation.  That was, remember, the era of IMF reforms. It was called ‘Structural Adjustment’. That was followed by ‘Structural Adjustment with a human face’ (the ‘human face’ was picked by by Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994 — ‘Open Economy with a Human Face’). Then came ‘Structural Adjustment with poverty alleviation’. That transition tells a story. In short ‘structural adjustment exacerbated poverty’. Anyway, the man wanted to move out from ‘handouts’.  The program however was politicized. Apparently ‘the poor’ were green, so to speak. Patronage continued to rule. 

Ranasinghe Premadasa quashed the second JVP uprising. Now that’s an interesting story. Let’s recap. 

Rohana Wijeweera and the JVP were, according to the Old Left, creatures of the right wing. Some even said ‘the CIA’. Let’s assume they were not. JR, ‘magnanimously’ released the lot from prison. Thereafter the JVP rhetoric was all about attacking the SLFP and Mrs Bandaranaike. The JVP ‘stole’ some votes, it could be argued, from Hector Kobbekaduwa in the rigged 1982 presidential election (as was the Referendum making a mockery of democracy with 50%+1 vote allowing the UNP to retain a 5/6 parliamentary majority). In 1983, JR sent the JVP underground by claiming the JVP was responsible for the anti-Tamil riots, which as we now know were orchestrated by the JSS (the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya, the UNP’s trade union arm). 

Was the 88-89 insurrection and all the violence just a natural outcome of Wijeweera being a megalomaniac, though? Let’s trace.

During the time Premadasa was Prime Minister, the UNP government stripped SLFP leader Sirimavo Bandaranaike of her civic rights. Premadasa voted for the draconian 1978 constitution which, according to many, is the main reason for the democracy-deficit that has plagued Sri Lanka for more than 40 years.   In 1980 striking workers were thrown out in their thousands. Several dozens would later commit suicide. Two university students were shot dead in June 1984 (Rohana Ratnayake and Padmasiri Abeysekera). That was a ‘Rathupaswala’ that greens disguised as born-again democrats have chosen to forget. They’ve forgotten other things too. 

In 1987 JR capitulated to Rajiv Gandhi’s plans for the ‘Bhutanization of Sri Lanka,’ a project which gave us devolution as a solution for a misnamed and misrepresented problem (Note: all 9 provincial councils are not dissolved, some have been so for more than two years, but get this: no one is protesting, not even the ‘democracy-fixated’ nor the Eelamists who have reinvented themselves as devolutionists). Premadasa was part of that government. The JVP rode the resultant disenchantment. 

In September 1988 a 15 year old student of Nugawela Central College was shot dead. The ‘kids’ were protesting. The protests were instigated by the JVP. Killed, let me repeat. Now think: what if this happened anytime between 2005 and 2015? Get the drift? Well, it’s more than a drift. 

In the period 1988-90 around 60,000 people killed. Most of it under President Premadasa’s watch. 

We saw proxy arrests, abduction, torture, K-Points (Killing Points), tyre pyres, people burnt alive (including Rohana Wijeweera in the crematorium of the Borella Cemetery), billas (masked informants deployed to identify JVPers who would then be ‘bumped off’ — yes, tens of thousands of Ekneligodas), and vigilante groups (Kalu Balallu, Kaha Balallu, Kola Koti, the People’s Revolutionary Red Army [no less] and Ukussas among other creatures bent on dispensing terror).  We didn’t have ‘white van abductions’ back then. They came in all kinds of vehicles, painted in all kinds of colors. 

There’s more. Censorship. Newspaper content had to be passed by a ‘competent (sic) authority’. So too scripts for stage plays. Entire swathes of news pages came out in black by way of editors protesting these moves. Journalists were killed for the most trivial of reasons. Only Richard De Soyza’s name is remembered and that’s the privilege of social class. 

The JVP and UNP went on a killing spree at a rate unseen in this country since the massacres by the British in the 19th Century. Premadasa came out victor in that battle to decide the most pernicious political brute of the century.    

The JR-Premadasa era saw the worst violations of human rights, all in the name of battling terrorism. No Navi Pillais, Marzuki Darusmans or Yasmin Sookas back then. For Premadasa, after he became President, the LTTE were ‘kid brothers’ (mallilaa). He ordered 600 police officers to surrender to the LTTE. They were all shot dead in cold blood. He armed the LTTE (to fight the IPKF, we were told). India quit and that was a good thing, but those guns were turned on the entire nation and citizenry by the LTTE. 

The ‘Premadasa Time’ was when politicization of the public service reached its height (it’s remained there and that’s a black mark on his successors as well). Cabinet-bloating to ensure parliamentary arithmetic remained favorable was his brainchild. Corruption? Had a free rein. 

That’s the Premadasas Yugaya ladies and gentlemen.      

Sajith Premadasa should talk about these things. Just as his loyalists (rightfully) demand that Gotabhaya Rajapaksa speak of disappearances and murders that took place under his brother’s watch.  

All of that was ‘fascist’. And if Sajith Premadasa wants a repeat, a second-innings, well then we can call his proposal ‘Neo-Fascism’ can’t we? 

Sajith Premadasa wants that past. Does the UNP want it too? Do the people want THAT era back?  

If not, we could limit discussion to the 21st Century, to what was done and remained undone, what was said and left unsaid, the track records of the previous regime and the yahapalana government who crimes of omission and commission about which Sajith Premadasa has been strangely silent these past five years.    

We could talk about creating the conditions for economic development versus stagnation produced by rank incompetence and daylight robbery. We could talk of ridding the country of the terrorist menace and a similar monster with a different name emerging from the fertile soil of pseudo reconciliation. 

We could also talk about the Premadasa Era, if THAT’S what Sajith is all about.  

malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

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ABOLITION: A bluff of presidential proportions

It's now established. No one was really interested in abolishing the Executive Presidency. Still, there was a lot of talk about it a few weeks ago, which of course prompted this article for the Daily Mirror. So is it irrelevant now? Well, there's something about talk. About walking. And walking the talk. Some people tried to hoodwink us, didn't they? Good to know who they are as we go to vote! 

Colombo Fort Magistrate Ranga Dissanayake has issued an interim order preventing protesting disabled soldiers from entering the Lotus Road and being anywhere close to the President’s and Prime Minister’s office.

Obviously the judge had to make a determination based on a petition.  I have no quarrel with judges. I have an issue when governments can’t sort out the issues of disabled protestors. I have an issue when governments are dismissive of men who sacrificed so much to rid the country of terrorism. That’s tragic. 

But let’s be light here. Let’s move from the tragic to the comic or, if one wants to be charitable, to the ‘less tragic’. In a word, Karu. That’s Jayasuriya. The Speaker. 

Karu Jayasurya, in a media statement, has said ‘a large number of people’ had wanted him to contest the next presidential election. Few candidates will say otherwise. It’s as though they are really not interested but they reluctantly consent because ‘people’ want them to. Maybe these ‘people’ were important to him. Let’s leave it at that. 

Some have said that Karu would be a ‘national’ candidate; he would give up his UNP membership so that he can be a neutral or independent candidate with appeal to all sectors, political groups etc. We’ve had ‘podu apekshakas’ (common candidates such as Sarath Fonseka and Maithripala Siriena) who have essentially devalued that word/term.  Not much to gain from that tag. His business. 

Karu Jayasuriya would not be a ‘common candidate’. He is a UNPer and would be the choice of his party. That itself is a come-down for a man of his calibre given the track record of that party. Forget the time when the UNP and JVP tried to figure out which party could kill more people, even just the last 5 years have shown that Karu’s party is anti Sri Lankan (UNHRC Resolution 30/1), corrupt (Central Bank heist) and incompetent (look around you!). Still, in my opinion, nominating him would a) sort out the leadership crisis in the UNP, and b) give the UNP the kind of coherence it would need if they have to head into the Opposition a few months from now.  

He’s supposed to be a ‘candidate for reform’. Well, that’s what his party was up to the past five years. Not just his party but the entire yahapalana coalition which included Ven Madhuluwawe Sobitha Thero’s movement for a saadhaarana samaajaya (a just society — did I hear JR’s echo right now?), the entire community of funded voices (read, NGOs that claim to be but are not a part of civil society) and of course Chandrika Kumaratunga. They came up with a ‘reform candidate’, Maithripala Sirisena. Sirisena and Karu’s leader Ranil Wickremesinghe did ‘reform’. Well, they wanted to or rather said they would. They didn’t. They couldn’t.  All old wine. Stale. Again, Karu’s business.

My issue is with another old line that Karu wants resurrected: abolishing the executive presidency.  Haven’t we heard that before? Haven’t those who almost swore they would abolish once elected, conveniently shelved that part of their respective manifestos? 

Then again, just because they didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t, it does not necessarily mean that Karu is using the whole abolishing project as a slogan deemed to be useful. He could be and I am pretty sure he is serious about it. In that case one has to question his political intelligence. 

Karu ought to know how constitutions are changed. The president is not the Legislative entirety of the country. Laws are made or amended by Parliament. Saying ‘I will abolish the executive presidency’ is therefore the claim of a political neophyte. When Karu says something like this, one can’t really decide whether to call it comic or tragic.  

I have issues with those who propose the abolishing of the executive presidency and are dead silent about the 13th Amendment. Note: no one, not even the die-hard devolutionists, are calling for elections to be held to the now dissolved provincial councils. Devolution is dead, politically. It is resurrected only by Eelamists (open and closeted) to hoodwink Tamil voters who’ve been fed Eelamist historiography and duped on grand statehood dreams. The issue is that abolishing the executive presidency while keeping the 13th intact takes out an important safeguard against the 13th being used to facilitate the division of the country.  Karu hasn’t uttered a word about the 13th Amendment. Neither do those who have been vociferous about abolishing the executive presidency.  

Now had he done so, i.e. called for the abolition of both, one might take him seriously. But this is a monumental bluff that is unbecoming of the man.  We take it along with the noises made by other presidential hopefuls in his camp, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa. The former states he’s ready to bring in a new constitution (again something that Parliament has to handle, followed by a referendum). His backers commissioned to draft a constitution came up with a federal ‘solution’ all but in name. M.A. Sumanthiran is on record acknowledging that such subterfuge is necessary (for the Eelam project to be furthered). The latter talks of ‘maximum devolution’. What’s ‘maximum’? He has not spelled it out and one does not expect him to do so either. ‘Maximum devolution’ is as monumental a lie as ‘abolishing the executive presidency’.  It’s the tired line tossed out to hook the Tamil voter.  

He can say something though. He could answer the following questions. 1. What is the mechanism through which the executive presidency can be abolished (use two A4 papers, at least)? 2. What do you have to say about the 13th Amendment: was it legal, was it effective in terms of outcomes envisaged, does its existence threaten the unitary character of the state in the event the executive presidency is abolished, is it not a colossal waste of money and do people even want it (going by the absolute absence of agitation on account of the councils being non-functional)? 

As things stand, this talk of abolishing the executive presidency is a bluff. A bluff of presidential proportions. Karu Jayasuriya, given his track record, does not deserve association with that kind of project. Some may be taking him for a ride. Maybe he wants the ride (I hope not!). Either way, ‘bluff’ is not something I believe he wants to be a part of.  Let’s see.

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My vote is for a Green President

No, not THAT ‘green’. That’s not what I meant. That said, this is not about a particular political party or a particular presidential hopeful. It is about policy that abandons the idiocy of economic planning that has put the entire country at risk. The entire country meaning the entire population and the full complement of natural resources, either opening it all to mindless plunder (by foreign powers and local racketeers) or wanton destruction.  

With the presidential election just over two months away we have presidential hopefuls promising the sun, the moon and the universe in its entirety. There is token references to the environment, but when policy documents and rhetoric are considered carefully, it is pretty clear that they have little or no understanding of the ways in which development can and does impact the environment in adverse ways. Well, either that or they just don’t give a damn.

We are not talking about the environment as a sphere that has to be left untouched. No. For centuries human beings have out of necessity interacted with the world around them. They’ve taken, they’ve given. They’ve taken what they had to and ensured that the taking will not exceed limits that can compromise taking as the years, decades and centuries go by. 

What do candidates do but promise us the good life? Well, ‘the good life’ can mean any number of things. It could be framed by the here and now. It can be about material comforts. It could be about opportunity for self improvement. Good health. Decent education. And, in small print, a clean environment.   

What exactly is a clean environment? Is it all about a well-oiled garbage disposal system? Many seem to understand it that way. That’s convenience folks. It’s the old, NIMBY argument, ‘not in my backyard’. Is it about a good drainage system so that Colombo won’t get flooded? That too is narrow. Systems, unfortunately, are larger than your household or city or even country. This is true for capitalism, marked by and dependent on war and plunder, and it holds true for natural processes. This is why development makes sense only if it is framed by sustainable lifestyles. Sustainable lifestyles mean sustainable and therefore responsible consumption and development that does not compromise our tomorrows on account of a grand today.  

So far, the names tossed around as candidates from main political parties are not associated in any way with sustainable development. They talk big. They promise much. They are obviously conscious of pleasing people for they talk of material benefits that they promise their presidency would yield. That’s the perennial sahana malla (bag of goodies) which of late has included the unfortunately bastardized notions of transparency, accountability, democracy and good governance.

Talk, we know, is cheap. The problem is the plan. What plans will yield what, is the question. All plans have been marked by mindless faith in the growth-led model of development. Since 1977 development thinking has been about market mechanisms.  Climate change and natural as well as human-made calamities have sobered people up to the point where environmental safeguards and protocols have been scripted into the development story. That’s just words, folks. It’s the ‘on paper’ out for the pernicious. So we have laws (inadequate) and institutions (inefficient). We have a political culture that allow thugs to ride roughshod over people and communities. Rules are bent, controls are circumvented or else ignored altogether.  At the end of the day we have an earth and waterways that are poisoned. 

That’s the price of ‘development’. That’s what getting the crumbs of ‘the good life’ has cost us. Yes, crumbs. For the majority. And that’s what it not being addressed by the presidential hopefuls. 

A year ago, in this space, I wrote a series of articles covering various subjects. It was about issues that candidates would do well to think about when they formulated manifestos. This is from the note on the environment.  

“There’s the human-centrist school which sees everything outside the species as dispensable or as having potential to serve human interests. ‘Human’ here needs to be fleshed out a bit; many things are done in the name of entireties but in fact they serve the interests of one or few and usually a particular category of people. Theories are constructed to justify carefully suppressing or footnoting the uncomfortable. For example, the term ‘imponderable’ is used and so too ‘externality’. Throw those out and we get neat equations such as demand and supply curves which intersect at ‘price’.  Sure, pressure from objectors have forced such theories to be refined and be accorded a veneer of inclusivity, but they are not fooling too many people.

“Justification comes in the form of utopias that are aggressively marketed. The ‘poverties’ of the present are used as alibis and goodies called progress and development are swung like carrots in front of the impoverished. The entire story is not told. Not all costs are talked about. Instead we are sold ‘imperatives’. And if anyone dares talk about uncomfortable truths such as global warming or climate change then the entire discourse is shifted to scientific exchange where those with bucks and power get to commission and thereafter market ‘value-free truths’ supposedly obtained scientifically.  

“It’s all in the name of ‘The People’ and Mister Progress.” 

Some people. No progress, all things considered. A decline, in fact. 

There are questions that candidates need to answer.  What does development really mean?  Where are we heading or rather what kind of destination would we like to walk towards? What are the costs we are willing to pay? What kind of benefit-package would we be satisfied with? What are the parameters and who gets to decide and impose them? And what's the fallout? It’s the last that is least talked about. 

Manifestos have of late contained the inevitable dash of green and in the lightest hue possible. We do not have green candidates. If we did, all talk of development and the good life would be sobered by the prerogatives flowing from sustainability.  So ‘future’ is not part of their plans. Not the long future and not even the short future.  

Candidates therefore do not have the moral authority to talk about national security. They can't talk about food security. They cannot talk about wholesome lifestyles. They have disqualified themselves because they do not have the vision nor the compulsion or else lack the intellect to take stock of the massive risks at hand to life as we know it. 

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Where are the green candidates and green manifestos?

Elections call for manifestos. Manifestos are typically documents into wish the wish lists of all conceivable political communities are inserted. It makes sense politically to promise every religious community, every ethnic group and even every caste, class, age, region, sexual-preference and professional community a piece of the future’s pie. Lip service is the too often the order of the day. 

It is not that people really believe manifestos, but they certainly ought to. And they would if politicians and political parties were a) serious about statements and promises, and b) scripted manifestos that are wholesome, coherent and serious about plans for the country. 

However, what we have had for decades are documents which cut the 21.44 million Sri Lankans into over 700 groups as per the above categories.  And, most importantly, nothing gets done for anyone and certainly not for the country as a whole, if one focuses on the health of the economy, status of the natural resource endowment and the integrity of the nation across all such spheres. 

Even a cursory examination would reveal that the country’s social, economic, political and environmental balance is at tremendous risk. And this in a country which has ample natural resources and human capital. 

We need to ask, ‘why?’ 

Sri Lanka is considered the world’s most beautiful island. Sri Lanka is also among the most vulnerable countries when it comes to the effect of climate change. Approximately 600,000 people are effected by drought, flood, landslides or high winds annually. Around 200 deaths are caused by these calamities every year. Our seas, lagoons and waterways are polluted. Over two million acres of agricultural lands are polluted. In fact, the Global Climate Risk Index put Sri Lanka as second only to Puerto Rico among regions affected.

These matters are mentioned in grave tones now and then, seminars and conferences are held, but nothing is done to address the plans and processes that produce them. 

Sri Lanka is a signatory to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of 2016, but that’s just ink on paper.  Absolutely nothing of significance has happened on the ground. Policies are not framed by such frameworks, so to speak. Instead such protocols are made irrelevant where plans are made to ‘develop’ the country.  

Our politicians, presidential hopefuls included, have been obsessed by the now outdated and so clearly erroneous theories of development based on growth. Neoliberal economics, to put it in a nutshell. Candidates talk of and manifestos speak to environmental issues, but they are oblivious to the contradiction of policies that rebel against conservation. We have seen this at least since the 1994 presidential election. ‘Environment’ is a must-mention in manifesto and speech. It is also a convenient discard thereafter. 

Candidates and parties must be made to understand that this country is not just a clod of soil with people on it. It is a country whose overall identity is made not only of the religious faiths and sense of communal belonging but the full complement of natural resources whose sustainability will be the make-or-break of the more popular notions of ‘nation’. Development that costs the environment is not development. It is destruction.

It is about the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. These things are tied to the health of our natural resource base. 

Candidates need to take these matters as integral and not cursory  elements when developing manifestos. Correction: candidates must be made to integrate environmental protocols into their respective plans of action. In other words, they have to be made to understand that if their manifestos are not ‘greened’ then they should not be taken seriously. If they use words such as environment and sustainability but their plans don’t even talk about disaster mitigation and conservation or else just stop there, then they are not patriots. They are traitors. 

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