Ambassador Chung and xeroxable change

 

Aragalaya. Translatable as revolt, uprising, protest, agitation, struggle or even insurrection. Aragalaya is singular, but considering statements and actions it was certainly not marked by concert, ideological agreement, unity of purpose etc. Eclecticism was the signature of the rumbling. There was mumbling, nothing more, about system-change, but a revolution it certainly was not. So, aragalaya: singular; aragala: plural. The latter is the better descriptive. And perhaps it is exactly this eclectic and disjointed character that forced the agitators to dilute whatever revolutionary fervour there may have been to a project that targeted an individual and once that ouster was obtained shift focus to another individual.

Let’s elaborate if only to dismiss those who still harbour illusions about what transpired over the past three months was about system-change, revolution or a political shift of tectonic proportion.

History teaches lessons. The Russian Revolution was about land, peace and bread. It wasn’t #Czar-out. Land and peace were obtained; bread took a while. The Czar was assassinated, sure, but in a political sense it was incidental. The Czar was not replaced some Royal heir. Tsarist rule came to an end. In France, it was ‘liberty, equality and fraternity,’ and not #Louis-out.  Capitalism is anti-equality and one might argue anti-liberty and anti-fraternity, but the French ended the monarchical system. Louis was assassinated. Again, incidental. A Royal heir didn’t succeed him.

In China, the slogan of the Communist Party was ‘Serve the people,’ admittedly a different tune to those played in Russia and France. In any event the Chinese weren’t maniacally invested in  banishing Chiang Kai-shek. The target was the Kuomintang and what it represented, and the overall relations of production. Chiang Kai-shek fled. The Communists did stumble and worse in serving the people, but all things considered all Chinese received what was previously the luxury of a few.

In all three cases, like in any revolution such as what took place in Cuba and Vietnam for example, the movements were marked by a clear vision about what kind of political and economic system should replace the one being challenged and organisational cohesion which enabled implementation.

In Sri Lanka, over the past three months, it was different. In Sri Lanka, we had #gohomegota and in a smaller font size and in normal text as opposed to bold and italicised, #gohomeranil, only, the latter was made impossible along the way for Ranil Wickremsinghe’s house was torched. Talk, if any, of land, peace and bread, of liberty, equality and fraternity, got drowned in the individual-focused slogans, As for serving the people, well, the agitators weren’t short on rhetoric. Indeed, as is often the case, all of it (and we need to include, sadly, the destruction of public property, stifling of expression-freedom, arson, theft, thuggery and murder as part of the ‘all’) was done ‘in the name of the people.’ At the end of the day, it was ‘same-old, same-old.’


Enzo Traverso, I am told, put it much better in the book ‘Revolution: an intellectual history’: ‘The aim of revolt is not to put down a political regime; it is rather to change its representatives; usually their targets are individuals, not classes or institutions, nor power itself. This is why they have a limited horizon and a short duration: they can be endemic, but are always territorially circumscribed. Revolutions, on the contrary, raise hopes supported by ideologies and utopian projections; they are frequently carried out by forces that embody political projects, like the Jacobins or the Bolsheviks. They consciously wish to change the social and political order. In short, they express great, sometimes universal ambitions.’

So what was it all about then? Let us not be unforgiving. There was serious anxiety, fear and anger regarding multiple depravations. Fertile ground, then, for all manner of agent provocateurs and there were veritable legions in operation. Some on the ground, some behind the scenes, some cheering on (only to go silent after, perhaps, true objective was achieved) and some in the giddiness of it all compromising professional ethics and tripping gaily over their own contradictions. Names can be named, if necessary, for screen-shots of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posts have been filed. Meticulously, I might add.

Regardless, there were and still are idealists who wanted more than name-change, who genuinely believed that this was a necessary first step in the long march to meaningful social transformation. Maybe they didn’t expect to play pawn, maybe they believe(d) that it was a price they may have to pay, maybe they will learn and become smart enough distinguish enemy from friend and outwit the small-minded and pernicious as well as those who saw a larger picture and preferred outcomes that they, the genuine agitators, never believed was part of this whole exercise.

US Ambassador Julie Chung’s tweets are hilarious but seriously they could feed several doctoral dissertations on international political economy. It is no secret that the US backed several vocal outfits and individuals who backed the aragalaya (and who have since been more cautious in their missives). She was jubilant when Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned. She’s reproached the government for evicting protestors from Galle Face, but in guarded tones.

Check the language. On the 9th of May she used the word ‘condemn’ and on the 22nd of July, merely expressed ‘concern’. Earlier it was ‘violence’ and later ‘actions.’ Perhaps all the social media  ‘activists’ (who would like people to believe they wanted real change and weren’t just being willing pawns of US interests) could do some content analysis of her tweets. She was and is, after all, the point person in Colombo for US interests and knows which individuals and which organizations were and are funded by US organizations dedicated to pushing Washington’s agenda forward around the world, for example the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The attacks (actions/violence) happened. No argument there. The magnitude of course, as claimed/tweeted, is debatable, but violence there was. There is of course a difference between attacking those who are engaged in peaceful protest and taking action against those violating the law. All things considered and especially comparing with the way the USA has treated peaceful protestors (outright brutality including murder, Chung would know), it could have been much worse. But here’s something for the lady to chew on: President Biden recently tweeted, ‘Call me old fashioned, but I don’t think inciting a mob that attacks a police officer is “respect for the law.” You can’t be pro-insurrection and [at the same time be] pro-cop or pro-democracy or ‘pro-American.’

Inciting a mob. There were mobs among the idealists, there were arsonists, looters, murderers and paddlers of virulent ideologies that were square-in-the-middle of racism, intolerance and such. Chung knew. Chung knows. Chung didn’t tweet a sweet ‘no, no, not like that!’  

And we have Derek Grossman a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation (established in 1948 in California with the purpose of military planning, research, and decision development, has 1,950 employees from 50 different countries), gloating thus: ‘China’s window of opportunity to one day control Sri Lanka probably just closed.’ Is he saying 'our window of opportunity just got opened that much more'? Would Chung nod in agreement?

Well, when CIA agents cheer a protest, the conscientious protestors should  say something to the effect of,‘we don’t need your endorsement; you are part of the problem, part of the system.’ Didn’t see any of that though.

All this is in a land called ‘bound to happen’ and that inevitability has everything to do with the key flaws of the aragalaya outlined above and the inability of those who truly wanted change to rise to the challenge of taking on and defeating the enemy within, so to speak, even as they targeted symbols and not the system they represented.

Lessons for the future, hopefully.

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malindadocs@gmail.com

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

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Goodbye Pat, hello Michele!

Michele Sison has not yet been appointed as the next US Ambassador to Sri Lanka.  She’s still ‘Ambassador Designate’, meaning that she has to subject herself to scrutiny by the US Senate before being confirmed.  She’s been asked questions, she’s answered; she’s been required to articulate statements of purpose and she’s done that.  One thing can be concluded: we don’t need to anticipate any surprises from Ms. Sison in the likely event of her being confirmed.

When the outgoing Ambassador, Patricia Butenis, assumed office a couple of years ago, she took the trouble to make a statement to the press of sorts, outlining her position on various issues and giving the impression that she is willing to field any questions on any issue.  She made out that she was for dialogue and openness.  It didn’t fool anyone of course.  The lady chose when and where and on what to speak. She chose her ‘friends’ carefully to.   There were those she listened to of course, but when you are the representative of a nation that has the power to blow up the world several times over, it probably doesn’t matter if you don’t get it right.  You can, simply, write it as you want to and not necessarily as it is.  That she did. 

No, there was no dialogue and there was no openness.  There was malice and unabashed interference in the internal affairs of the country in absolute violation of diplomatic protocol.  The best that can be said of her is that she was no worse that the man she replaced, one Mr. Robert O Blake, a meddler of the first order.  In that sense, and drawing strictly from history, both Blake and Butenis are excellent and representative specimen of US foreign policy.  Good for the USA, bad for US-Sri Lanka relations and terrible for Sri Lanka. 

It would be folly indeed to believe that the USA is lax when it comes to training diplomats.  They get the best men and women available for each and every job at whatever corner of the earth it may be.  There is no reason to believe that Ms. Sison would flip the script of her employer. Indeed, her statement could very well have been cribbed from whatever Butenis and before her Blake uttered when they went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Not that she had to memorize anything, for the exchange of views was framed by the Acting Chairman of the Committee, Bob Casey, who rattled off the litany of things that bother such people when they talk about Sri Lanka, but about which they really don’t give a damn when it comes to what their own policies produce. 

So Sison wants Sri Lanka to achieve ‘genuine reconciliation’ and she believes that this can only happen if steps are taken to ‘ensure equality and justice for all Sri Lankans, particularly those living in the former conflict areas’.  She even wants elections held in the North.

Why, thank you Ma’am! 

I doubt that when she said ‘equality and justice’ she meant the dismantling of the structures of exploitation that is also called ‘capitalism’.  I wonder, though, what she meant by the word ‘genuine’ because it implies that there is something called ‘bogus reconciliation’.  She believes too, it is clear, that she has some kind of authority to define ‘reconciliation’. 

If any non Sri Lankan mouthed such disingenuous rubbish, I would not hesitate to call that person ‘Nutcase’, but we are talking about the would-be US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Ms. Michele Sison, a woman who in the very least can be expected to do what Butenis did and what Blake did before that. 

One thing is certain, ‘reason’ will not work with her.  ‘Truth’ will not work with her.  Money and guns might, but we really can’t match the USA in a buck-for-buck, bullet-for-bullet manner and anyway, we are not that kind of a nation in the first place. 

So what are the options?   We could smile and tell the truth. We can resolve to whisper to her the truths that ought to bite her ear but may very well go unheard.  There’s not much we can do, really.  Except to keep saying ‘don’t think we don’t know; we do and we are not only horrified but amazed at the idiocy that persuades you to think we don’t’.

Are we being unfair?  Well, Butenis was asked many times to deliver on her promise of ‘openness’, but she remained clammed up throughout her tenure.  There’s no reason to believe that Sison would be different, given what she’s uttered so far.

Come on, Ms Michele Sison, prove us wrong!

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