The future is ours

The nation celebrates 64 years of independence today.  That’s a long time compared with the life expectancy of a citizen, but still quite short when viewed against almost 5 centuries of colonial rule.  It is but a ‘moment’ compared with over 2500 years of written history and more than double this length if one takes into account narrative of event embedded in folk literature. 

 ‘Independence’ though, was never new, but in fact was a renewal of and reverting to a condition enjoyed in one form or another by our ancestors for millennia subject of course to the limitations of the particular system of government prevalent at the particular time.

That’s history and it would be folly to treat it as buried and done with, for present is founded on past and only an understanding of what came before allows for an appreciation of what is.  This is what makes for sensible charting of futures. 

We are not less or more independent today than we were yesterday and it is unlikely that the degree of freedom will change significantly in either direction tomorrow.  On the other hand, landmark days such as ‘Independency Day’ make for reflection on how things are, how things could be and what we could do to get from here to a better place.

Sri Lanka was held back by a 30 year war.  We have had close to 3 years of ‘picking ourselves up’.  That’s ‘short’ compared to the ‘long’ of terrorism and yet pretty long given human tendency to be impatient.  We have admittedly turned the proverbial corner and in some respects pushed forward quite a distance.  Where there was fear and foreboding there is now hope and initiative.  That’s a big leap indeed. 

Post-war is naturally euphoric.  Euphoria is followed by sobriety and also the inevitable surfacing of things swept under the political carpet by conflict.  Sri Lanka’s post-war is further complicated by the dogged determination of elements to fan doubts, insecurities and suspicions to an inferno that could very well obliterate goodwill, reconciliation, reconstruction and nation-rebuilding.    This is how we get to ‘trying times’ and that’s where we find ourselves today.

Meeting challenges requires wisdom, compassion and vision.  In terms of strategy, what served us during the struggle to eliminate the terrorist threat can be depended on to see us through other obstacles as well: unity, sense of purpose, sacrifice, cogent strategy and the ability to separate friend from enemy.  In all things, though, the principles which made a civilization and empowered it to take numerous hits, fall at times and yet stand up, fight and overcome, will prove to be the difference between surrender and triumph. 

We must therefore return to the principles of equity, co-existence, the aparihani dharma (the principles of invincibility),  the dasa raja dharma  (the ten principles of governance) and reflect long on the fact that priority should not be given to artillery power but to civil power by deferring to wisdom and the dhamma.   

It is all there in the Grade 9 text book for Buddhism (pages 79-81).  If politicians, officials, professionals, business persons and others tested their lives against these principles, error would not only be discovered but acknowledged and corrected.  Relevant elements of the considerable canon of Hindu, Islamic and Christian discourse would no doubt articulate similar recommendations. 

We have a fairly good idea where we came from, although we don’t really know enough of our past. We live our present and therefore know something about it.  Our tomorrow calls for a return to foundational principles that make for more wholesome being and mutually profitable engagement with our fellow creatures.

 One hopes that our leaders would have the required maturity.  The citizens, however, cannot afford to wait on leaders; they must themselves empower themselves with necessary skills, discipline, a decent work ethic, critical faculties and humility. 

The future is always ours, but its shape will be determined by our action and inaction.  We can make it shine.  We can make it dull.  That’s something to think about on this ‘Independence Day’.  

    

['The Nation' Editorial, February 4, 2012] 

It is time for civil society to recover its lost/robbed identity card

Not too long ago,while interviewing Rajpal Abeynayaka and me on City FM, the presenter, Indika Jayaratne came up with a splendid proposal.  ‘Sivil samaajaya jana sathu kala yuthuda?’ he asked.  Should ‘civil society’ be nationalized or vested with the people was his question.  On the face of it this seems a meaningless idea.  It’s like asking ‘should cricket be cricket?’  Well, it is not football and it cannot be rugger, except of course in a metaphorical sense.  The validity of the question arises from the ground reality of the broad category ‘civil society’ and the identity, politics and other operations of those who consider themselves as representatives of ‘civil society’. 

First let’s get the definitions out of the way.  ‘Civil society’ is a catch-all term taken to refer to all organizations which are not public or for-profit institutions.  Thus any voluntary civic or social organization or institution outside of the structures of the state and commercial entities can be called a ‘civil society organization’.  A Dayaka Sabhava associated with a Buddhist temple, a maranaadhara samithiya (funeral donation society), or a community based organization such as the hundreds set up by Sarvodaya or the thousands by SANASA could be contained within the parameters of this definition. 

Broadly, however, the term is used by way of self-definition by a prominent set of NGOs principally operating in political spheres, self-mandated in particular to advocate transparency, accountability, good governance, democratic practices and so on.  Not only have these organizations assumed the mantle of ‘Spokespersons for civil society’, they carefully exclude around over 95% of all organizations that fulfill criteria pertaining to the definition.   It could be said, safely, that for all the democratic strutting around that the we-war-civil-society screamers engage in, they are at best a cartel, arrogant and presumptuous to the extreme and considering the fact that the clubs they form are limited to the near and dear (politically and otherwise), hardly possess the moral authority to talk about things democratic. 

For a long time it has been common knowledge that such organizations and in particular their key personnel have a) received enormous amounts of money from foreign sources with questionable standing and dubious agenda, b) operated as fronts for the LTTE, c) shown suspicious reluctance to disclose who have them money, for what and why and of course who benefited and in what ways, and d) advocated policies that are divisive and compromising of the nation’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. 

For decades, these organizations had a free hand. They made use of systemic loopholes to operate freely to the detriment of the national interest and this is an indictment of system, controlling mechanism and relevant authorities and personalities.  It looks like someone is trying to set things right and this has alarmed these individuals to the point of tears.

Feizal Samath, reports for the IPS that NGOs are facing funding gap and government scrutiny.   The body of the story focuses on the plight of the NGO cartel referred to above and not ‘civil society’ as a whole.  The quotes included in the story are from such persons.  

A ‘veteran aid worker’ is reported to have stated that ‘any NGO involved in governance, post-conflict peace or post-war trauma related work will have a problem with the authorities’.  This person laments that authorities not only track the work of such NGOs but also visit their offices.  What’s wrong with this, though?  Is he/she saying that NGOs should not be monitored?  What he/she leaves out of the story is the well-known complicity of these organizations in operations that have had serious consequences for national security.  The authorities are not tracking the other 95% of ‘civil society organizations’, are they?  While I believe that no organization, big or small, should operate with blanket impunity from scrutiny, there has to be a reason why these particular NGOs have come under investigation. 

They offer that organizations involved in governance, peace building, conflict-resolution and post-war trauma counseling are targeted because ‘anything that is considered political or empowering people to establish their rights is anathema to the establishment’.  That’s opinion and nothing more. Good for project proposals and what not.  What is left unsaid is what these organizations have done so far.  Under cover of these sweet-sounding democracy-buzzwords, they have worked closely with terrorist organizations and engaged in activities that are not necessarily of a nature congruent with the civil-society definition above. 

The National Peace Council and the Centre for Policy Alternatives are made of mutual-backscratchers who occasionally reward each other and frequently sing each other’s praises. These two organizations and Transparency International have received over Rs. 600 million from foreign sources over the past 3 years.  They are the king-pins among those who wave the civil-society flag.  They are hardly representative of anyone except the rabidly anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist, Colombo-based, English-educated sections of the population which constitute less than 0.0001 per cent of the citizenry. 

The claim to be ‘empowering people’ is laughable for many of these organizations were virtually operating as the mouth-pieces and brand-managers of the LTTE, an organization that not only disempowered people, but actually butchered them in the thousands.  

If the government is cagey about such NGOs, as claimed in the news report, it is something that I would welcome and applaud, not because issues of governance, transparency and accountability are of no relevance (they certainly are) but that these operators need to be investigated thoroughly.  It is something that is demanded by their long and dubious history of operating as agents of destabilization.  

J. Weliamuna, the former director of Transparency International’s Colombo office, has said ‘The government sees everybody as a challenge and has a phobia against NGOs’.  This is rubbish, unless he believes that the CPA, NPC and TI have the authority to speak for the entirety that is called ‘civil society’.  Certain outfits are being scrutinized, yes.  It is something that should have been done a long time ago.  Weliamuna says, ‘the government views civil society (again that catch-all term!) its only challenge since the opposition is weak’.  That’s self-image.  The truth is that Weliamuna and his friends cannot get 100 people for a demonstration on any issue.  

It is high time that ‘civil society’ stepped forward and demand that the likes of Weliamuna hand back the term.  They do not have the right to use it. They’ve abused it and this is because ‘civil society’ in the main had not known it could be called ‘civil society’ and for this reasons a bunch of self-seeking rogues grabbed it and along with it the ‘rights’ to represent.  

Yes, I am all for ‘peoplizing’ the term ‘civil society’.  In the interest of democracy and true representation.

On flooring the detractor with a thumbs-up sign

Everyone has road stories.  Some are really funny and some are embarrassing.  Some are tragic and the papers are usually full of such stories. My friend and one time student, Jayendra De Silva, along with 3 other friends, all students and chess players, had an embarrassing but funny road-encounter, the story of which I’ve passed around now and then.

They had turned into Galle Road from one of the side lanes (this was before it was turned into one-way sections) without looking and had almost knocked down a trishaw taxi.  No apologies.  They knew they were wrong and counted on superior horse power to put enough distance between car and trishaw to be spared what was believed to be the inevitable earful. 

Circumstances can be cruel.  Not too far down the road they were halted by the unforgiving red of traffic lights.  A quick glance backwards showed a speeding trishaw.  A quick decision was taken. They would not suffer any invective and figured that 4 voices could drown out one. They were ready.  They expected, naturally, an earful and that’s exactly what they got. 

The trishaw driver pulled up right beside the car. He was close enough to be heard loud and clear.  The man turned slowly.  He smiled.   He said softly, ‘Nice driving’ and gave a thumbs-up sign.  Dead silence from the four friends.  They said, later, that they had never felt so embarrassed.  I doubt if any of them ever turned into a main road without looking out for oncoming vehicles thereafter.

There’s a lot that softness can achieve in this world and especially on the roads when there is traffic congestion.  There is the inevitable person in a mighty hurry, tweaking road etiquette or even boldly violating the law.  It’s all about gaining every inch possible and saving every possible second.  And then there are those who are neither in a hurry nor in the mood to break laws but nevertheless err.   Such people can cause accidents and those who are put off balance and have to make an extra effort to avoid a tragedy are naturally angered. 

Typically, they ‘tell off’.  Even if they don’t, they mutter their annoyance loud enough for their travel companions to hear or in the very least think the thoughts they are not ready to voice.  There are countless times when the aggrieved glare at the cause of irritation.  Few would smile.  Fewer still would give a ‘thumbs-up’ sign. 

And what if you were the offender?  What do you do?  If you know that you have erred, you can apologise, but you can also look the other way (or get ready for a shouting match, like Jayendra and his friends) just because you really don’t want to be yelled at in filth or receive kill-you looks.  It is easier, I have found, to nod head or raise hand or offer some apologizing signal.  It might not stop the flow of invective and might not replace scowl with smile, but it could probably chip away some of the emotion.  When that happens the particular driver would be less prone to committing error and more likely to drop the issue and move on, literally and metaphorically. 

Humility works.  Both ways.  It’s a soft skill thing.  It can do what more impressive tools cannot in the matter of bringing down walls.  There’s only one condition.  It must come from heart and not mind.  This requires a little delving into the conditions of life, the eternal verities, acknowledgment of impermanence and the powerful and twin-bladed instruments that cut through all negatives: wisdom and compassion.

I think the trishaw driver had it all figured.  I think Jayendra and others picked up an ace that they could keep.  I did too, listening to that story, laughing about it and then thinking about it.  I see that trishaw driver on all our roads and in all my encounters.  He does give the thumbs-up sign all the time, but I know he has it.  I do too. 

In celebration of un-walling

I grew up in Colombo. We lived in a lane that went nowhere and as such provided an excellent cricket pitch with wickets placed at the far end.  Sixers and fours were possible only through straight drives.  One couldn’t take runs if the ball was struck into a neighbour’s gardens.  The players were frequently required to scramble on to sun-shades and roofs to retrieve balls injudiciously or perhaps unintentionally hit. 

There were two other striking features about that dead-end road.  First, it was as multi-ethnic, multi-religious as it could get.  There were Sinhalese, Tamils (Sri Lankan and Indian), Burghers and Muslims; Buddhists, Christians, Catholics, Hindus and Muslims.  Everyone was bilingual and some were trilingual.  The composition survived ‘July 1983’, although people left, as people often do.    Common sense and common humanity prevailed over the occasional disagreement or dispute.  No one was abandoned at time-of-need. 

The second interesting thing about that nameless lane that was home, village and playground was that it was lined with hedges.  All the houses on the right side as you walked up the lane were identical, while those on the left were designed as pairs, facing each other as mirror images.  They all belonged to Francis Gomes but in the seventies they were taken as ‘excess houses’ by the state and ‘Gompa’, a lovable and genial man, retained just the house at the top of the lane from where he watched the cricket and when his wife, Aunty Carmen, was not around offer refreshments and guavas from his garden.  Each house was distinct courtesy hedge-type.  Some preferred multi-coloured hedges, others were more staid and single-minded.  We had an ‘Andara Weta’.

It all changed after July 1983.  A lot of things changed and not just down that lane.  One by one each household chose to put up walls.  All illegal of course since the street-line regulation was violated. Two families, ours and our mirror-image neighbours, remained ‘hedged’ although the mirror was fractured by architectural innovation and a wall that came up in place of where the mirror-line was upon my father’s insistence. 

July 1983 sparked a walling that was of national proportion.  There was passionate wall-building all over the country, especially in urban areas.  There were walls made of brick and mortar and walls made of suspicion, anger, revenge-intent and fear.  In the rush we quite unintentionally participated in caging ourselves and shrinking our respective worlds. 

Almost 27 years later, the walls are coming down. Literally.  Today we can see the Kurunduwatte Police Station and for this reason the Police somehow seems more accessible than before, when it appeared that it was an entity that stood in opposition to the general public and one that gave the impression of being terrified of encountering citizen.  There were, no doubt, legitimate reasons for walling.  In a words, the LTTE.  That’s all gone now and it is wonderful to see the quaint colonial building that was turned into a police station years ago. 

The un-walling has made both city and citizen breathe, I feel.  I knew there was a cricket ground at the corner where the Bauddhaloka Mawatha was made to turn towards Colombo University for security reasons, but I had never seen it.  It is nice to see open spaces.  Colombo University has a fence around the grounds but still, it is ‘open space’ enough that pleases eye and subdues a turbulent mind.  Royal College used to have a parapet wall but it was raised.  In the seventies, someone in a bus traveling on Reid Avenue could see the score if there was a match being played at the time. Or at least watch a delivery and perhaps an elegant stroke or butchery that produced six or four.  There is no reason not to revert to ‘parapet’. 

I know that the Defense Ministry has taken over the Urban Development Authority and while I believe that this is a bad precedent and even if this were not the case that it should be considered a temporary (very temporary) move, it is clear that the views of people who know about city planning and landscape architecture are being solicited.  It means also that the government is taking the lead in demonstrating that anxiety should be slowly but surely retired or put into semi-retirement.  The citizens, hopefully, will follow suit. 

Walls stop the breeze. They separate people from people, institutions from the public and in the process fracture both individual as well as organization.  Walls made sense at a particularly violent and fear-filled period in our history.  It seems to be that recovering normalcy requires a gradually un-walling, literally and metaphorically. The latter takes time. It will require mechanisms and processes that facilitate eye-contact, trade, recognition of commonality and so on.  The physical un-walling is quicker and can help. 

If ‘hedging’ is seen to be less secure and securing than a wall, you can sent a barbed wire fence through it or rather have it grow through such a fence.  Hedges are hard to maintain, I agree.  You have to trim hedges regularly whereas walls stay put with hardly any attention required except for a new coat of paint every few years.  Still! 

We were never a walling nation.  Our lives, bodies, homes and minds rebelled against all kinds of walling, all kinds of restrictions.  We are a people who are heirs to a civilization that promoted free thinking and free inquiry.  That’s among the greatest gifts that Buddhism gave our ancestors; a gift that is indelible in our cultural ethos and civlizational make-up, regardless of professed faith. 

I like this un-walling that is happened around the city of Colombo.  Makes one think.  Frees one’s mind to think, rather.         

On the voice cuts that make us lose our tongues and the instruments of recovery

Before compact discs, there were cassettes.  They seemed magical when they first hit Sri Lanka, these little things containing neatly rolled brown-coloured tape.  Before cassettes and their micro versions we had larger spools that smelled strange and were played on what seem now to have been gigantic machines. 

Then there were records.  I found them pretty and pretty amazing too.  It was magical, back in the seventies, to watch my uncle Upali Seneviratne place one of those large black discs on his large record playing station (it had a compartment to store the music and I believe another section to store liquor), gently place a needle and have the voice of that man who seemed to be never happy unless he was sad, Jim Reeves, coming out of machine and floating around the living room, telling us how he was accused, convicted and condemned by someone who was judge and jury all in one.  

I’ve seen many records since then and listened to quite a few too, but the one thing I remember most about them is the logo and the brand name: a dog sitting in front of a record player and peering into a trumpet like contraption which probably amplified the sound and the words ‘His Master’s Voice’.

Back then it was a pretty picture which by and by got layered with notions about ‘man’s best friend’, loyalty, affection and so on.  The image still makes for nostalgic re-visitation but the line has other connotations which of course others have played with when talking about lackeys of the powerful. 

My brother, Arjuna, stopped me once when I started saying something, beginning with the words ‘in my opinion’.  ‘Are you sure this is your opinion?’ he asked looking me squarely in the eye.  It tattled me for a moment.  I said ‘yes’ quite confidently.  Then he gave me a lecture about how opinions are formed.  He would have been about 15 at the time and it was a remarkably lucid and insightful set of observations that he shared with me for one so young. 

We are made of everything we encounter. That which we label ‘I’ and use name to refer to is essentially constituted of things that are in movement. They are in us and make us now and the next moment they get scattered into other bodies, other people who also say ‘I’ and have names.  It is the same with thought. Same with words.  We think they are ours and in a sense we are not incorrect but at the end of the day we are but part owners and then only in a very transient sense.      

Most times we are not even conscious that what we assert in the manner of idea-creator was born elsewhere, nurtured somewhere else and coupled with other things from other sources as it enters our minds and sensibilities.  What’s worse, however, is that there are times when we are conscious slaves committed to regurgitating things that others utter.  This is that other side of ‘the master’s voice’ that I talked about.  Parroting, some would call it.  It is an exercise one can engage in only after internalizing, willingly or unwillingly the conditions of slavery.  One has to retire the question mark, the ability to be critical, and all analytical capacities and persuasions before one can aspire to someone’s voice, especially the voice of the powerful. 

It is like playing a part in a play. There’s script and there’s rendering of script.  The margin for deviation is limited to what gesture, facial expression, stage presence, voice projection, inflection and modulation adds to portrayal.  The good actor could stretch the particular lines in ways that the audience obtains several layers of meaning, but he/she would still be constrained by the script.  This is all good for theatre, but in life and politics when you decide to be player you automatically choose slavery to script and therefore script writer.  

There are times I look around and what I hear (including what I myself say) makes me wonder if we are all in a gigantic studio where multiple masters and mistresses get us to speak in their voices, vomit out words well-rehearsed under their direction.  I wonder how many times we all had to say this or that before it was decided that we ‘got it right’.  Life is a studio and articulation about someone thrusting a script and you having to read it out ‘right’ and do it over and over again until some minimal standard line is crossed.  I know, I know, it’s not a one-way street and we are not slaves at all times and in all contexts, but still, I find we are reluctant to admit that there are times when we are pretty servile. 

I asked the following question seven years ago: ‘After how many voice-cuts do you lose your tongue forever, and how many fraudulent elections before you win your franchise?’  There was a question I didn’t think of asking back them and maybe I am asking it now because other voices have crept into my sensibilities and because I’ve become slave to their masters, knowingly or unknowingly.  I am not sure if ‘slave’ is coterminous with ‘adherent’, for example whether a follower of the Buddha Vachana is ‘fettered’ or if the follower of Jesus Christ is a prisoner of the Bible.  What is pertinent to me is the Buddha’s compassionate suggestion that we could benefit from a closer examination of who we are, what ‘I’ is, so to say. 

At some point in this larger incarceration that is of greater magnitude than the fetters employed by political realities and ideological fascination, I believe we need to recover our tongues.  This has nothing to do with elections, fraudulent or otherwise, but a conscious decisions to embark on a journey that could begin with reflection on the notion ‘His master’s voice’ or even, as my brother pointed out, ‘where did your opinions come from?’  We might be surprised by the number of voice cuts that cut our voices to size and we might surprise ourselves by the potentials of recoverability. 

The pots and kettles of accountability

A friend of mind on Facebook asked an interesting question.  It is a question and comment and too interesting to truncate. 

‘Why does Malinda Seneviratne’s learned friend Dr Paikiayasothy (Saravanamutu) urge attention to certain matters (missing parts and disappointments) after the LLRC report is released and NOT before when he had the opportunity (to make representations to the LLRC)?  He says "because he had some reservations about mandate and composition of LLRC commission’ (and he had NO RESERVATIONS about mandate and composition of UN Ban Ki-Moon's panel). If he truly wanted justice, he would have gone any commission. He wanted to boycott LLRC and prepare grounds for an international war crimes tribunal for Sri Lanka. He is disappointed about the success of the LLRC and fears that there would be no international investigations if (the) international community was satisfied with the LLRC report and rejected (the idea of) an international investigation. Frankly said, these NGOs and human rights organizations must be held accountable for civilian casualties (in any conflict). They encouraged LTTE terrorists to use civilians as human shields to avoid a defeat of LTTE (lose two state option). They never asked the LTTE to lay down arms or surrender in order to avoid casualties. These HR orgs are like maggots, they live in carnages. They are like foxes sniffing for conflicts and dead bodies. Their cash inflows increase when dead bodies pile up.’

Indeed!

The going word then is ‘disingenuous’.   Saravanamuttu talks accountability, but fails to account for his considerable contribution to the myth that the LTTE was invincible, which of course laid an argumentative platform for all kinds of accommodation proposals.  He has not accounted for rupees and cents (or dollars and euros) issues where the integrity of his outfit, the Centre for Policy Alternatives, has been severely compromised.  You can’t demand accountability from anyone if you are not ready to answer accountability queries. 

It is the same with the other NGO personality who urged the Government and the people of Sri Lanka to play into the hands of the LTTE, Jehan Perera.  He has commended a statement issued by a prominent group of Tamil civil society leaders who argued that with the end of the war, it has become important for all ethnic communities of Sri Lanka to re-examine and re-evaluate their actions, in particular the complicity in the horrendous crimes of the LTTE.  While endorsing this, he does not feel any compulsion to come clean himself. 

Then there is the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).  TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran has stated that the LLRC Report ‘has failed to address the accountability issue’.  Now if no one can produce any credible evidence of systemic violation, then the LLRC cannot be faulted for omitting the non-existent.  The LLRC was not mandated to transcribe an LTTE rant and if Sumanthiran thought this was what the LLRC was about it says more about him than about the LLRC.  One can say, for example, that Sumanthiran is impotent because he is yet to hatch eggs.  That would be a silly statement, but that’s Sumanthiran-talk.

More importantly, Sumanthiran (and the TNA) fail to understand that the moment the accountability query is raised, the complicity echo is also heard.  Crimes were committed.  Some known and some unknown.  Some systemic and some not.  In terms of the ‘known’ and the ‘systemic’, there is one party that Sumanthiran refuses to mention: the LTTE.  The TNA was the LTTE’s proxy.  The TNA knew what the LTTE was doing. The TNA was silent on all that but as loud as ever in its praise and endorsement of the LTTE.  The TNA’s manifesto (2004) clearly indicated that it was an adjunct of the LTTE.  Sumanthiran cannot claim ignorance.  He cannot (just as Saravanamuttu and Perera cannot) ask for accountability from the Government without applying the same logic to the LTTE, which is alive and kicking in the form of various ‘Tamil’ outfits in various parts of the world. 

The LLRC clearly states that the humanitarian operation that rescued some 300,000 hostages was not without its moments of shame.   It is incumbent on the Government to investigate each and every incident where in spirit and deed its own ‘Zero Civilian Casualties’ policy was violated.  That is more important that ranting about the composition, reliability and unprofessionalism of the panel of ‘experts’ appointed by the US Secretary General to advise him on Sri Lanka.  It is only after this is done that the Government’s right to scoff at the half-tongued utterances of the likes of Saravanamuttu, Perera and Sumanthiran. 

On the other hand, if these individuals insist on being ‘partially-memoried’ they will only further antagonize the necessary and necessarily major (due to sheer weight of numbers) partner in a peaceful future, the Sinhalese.   What all these individuals and organizations fail to understand is that they cannot expect the Sinhala people to take them seriously unless they account for their acts of omission and commission, and also state clearly and without caveat what they believe the LTTE did and did not do.  The longer they are silent, the more entrenched the following kind of position will be:

‘Sinhalese in their thousands died to save hundreds of thousands of their Tamil brethren who had been held hostage by the LTTE.  If Tamil politicians refuse to acknowledge this fact it means that their love for the LTTE must be great indeed.  If this is how they are, then they cannot be interested in peace and reconciliation. ‘

The kind of politicking and brinkmanship that the TNA is playing belongs to 30 years ago when rabble-rousing and provoking rapturous cheers by espousing aspirations that are unlikely to materialize brought in votes and took out lives.  Asking for ‘third party mediation’ in the aftermath of several such attempts that only irked the Sinhalese and didn’t yield any tangible results will only help hardliners across the political divide. 

It is time for the TNA to get serious if it really wants to better the lives of Tamil people.  The way it’s operating will only push a critical mass into extreme positions on either side.  It could end up in a return to a gunfight which will end in a new Nandikadal and nowhere else in all likelihood.  That’s not re-inventing the wheel, it is re-digging a rut. 

The Government must call the TNA’s bluff and implement the LLRC recommendation to the full.  It must go ahead with the PSC with whoever wants to come. Those who deliberately want to be footnoted can scream all they like, but defaulters don’t win brownie points. 

As for Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu and Jehan Perera, this much can be said: ‘it’s sad, really.’

The need for a mirror-check

It is perhaps a sign of a certain lack in political maturity that makes the Opposition indistinguishable from Doomsday Prophets.  The prophesies are mouthed with such regularity that they end up amounting to little more than rant and gripe. After a while no one takes notice. 

The economy has been ‘on the verge of collapsing’ for such a long time, according to some, that one can’t help wondering if the predictors have any understanding about ‘verge’ and ‘collapse’.  A similar term that did the rounds was ‘failed state’.  Failed states don’t execute wars against ruthless terrorists and live to tell the tale, and certainly not while continuing to heavily subsidize health, education, food and fuel. 

The problem with Doomsday ‘Propheteering’ is that it devalues valid criticism.  Moreover it gives license to the critiqued to pooh-pooh critics by lumping them along with ‘those jokers who keep saying the world is going to end tomorrow’.  It feeds regime-arrogance and when things actually go bad it is too late to prevent breakdowns that cost nation and citizen dearly. 

The past few weeks have seen a wave of protests.  The Government has been quick to denounce these agitations as the work of sinister elements intent on causing instability (and even reversing the victories registered in the battlefield).  While there could be some truth in the claim, it would be foolish to think that these grievances articulated are not felt or valid.   The challenge is to deal with the mischief-makers as appropriate, perhaps by exposing their funding sources and shady financial dealings without ignoring the issues that require urgent attention. 

The Government would do well to identify the potential threat to national security and political stability posed by mismanagement and wild-ass unionism in key institutions such as the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC).   These institutions must not only provide uninterrupted service but they need to be efficient and corruption-free. 

It is high time that the Government recognizes that cronyism and petty political games will inevitably backfire and feed exactly those rogue elements it accuses of being cat’s paws of foreign governments attempting destabilization. People of unquestioned integrity and proven competence have to be appointed so that unions will be dealt with firmly and humanely.  At the same time, the day-to-day running of affairs has to be put in the hands of those who have the requisite knowledge.  Career-minded bureaucrats who are a disgrace to the Administrative Service must not be allowed to run things by proxy and reduce key positions into seats for figureheads. 

Indeed, that kind of thinking would serve all institutions.  Public health, for example, had its best days in the last 30 years during the brief period Ranasinghe Premadasa was President and that’s because his main advisor was a committed leftist and a man of integrity who put country before self and party.  It is to President Premadasa’s credit that for all his many errors and preferences for strong-arm tactics, he had the wisdom (at times) to put the right person in the right place.

Sycophants and cheerleaders are competent misleaders adept at painting bright colours to hide the ugly.    When decisions are made based on fairy tales, nightmares result.  If the right people are placed in these institutions and a hands-off policy is maintained, not only will things get done but the political rewards will accrue to the appointers, in this case the President.    

Loyalty to regime is not important; loyalty to nation imperative. Politicians of whatever hue who understand and appreciate this are men and women of stature and recognized as such by the people. 

What is being suggested here is not necessarily a mechanism to stem a perceptible rot, but a general principle of operation in the broad sphere of governance. Implied in the recommendation, though, is the lamentable fact that Sri Lanka lacks an institutional arrangement that consistently fills posts with competence due to the sheer power of procedural robustness.  That function has by default become dependent on the wisdom of appointers and therefore constrained by inevitable deficiencies.

Ranters and ranting there will always be but grievance, in whatever colours in may come clothed, always has the potential to be exploited by errant politicians looking for shortcuts to power.  The kind of force that is most effective in mitigating such threat is to that made of wisdom and compassion, the pragna and maithriya advocated by the Buddha Siddhartha Gauthama.   Right now, we are not seeing much wisdom and hardly any compassion.    

If the going is going to get tough, the tough-going needs to be recognized and tough action taken.  In designing action, however, reason should prevail over emotion, competency privileged over loyalty, and all things should be underlined by humility. 

This country is not on the verge of collapse.  Nothing is about to implode.  There will always be enemies, within and without, but the least that a government mandated to lead the people and transform a nation can do is to recognize that at times it can be its greatest enemy.   Until this is recognized regimes will continue to confuse friend and foe and keep shooting themselves in the proverbial political foot. 

  

*'The Nation' Editorial, January 29, 2012