Independence in 1948 saw Sri Lanka’s ship of state glide smoothly on still waters as it were, when oceans of rising waves, turbulence and even storms were seen elsewhere. Though on hindsight, the leaders at the time are not seen as great visionaries, they yet managed the ship of state prudently. They were dedicated patriots. They sacrificed their wealth and did not swindle the country. They did not ask for super luxury Benz cars, they used their own. They did not deceive the people; they were not bogus, and they did not fast for exhibitionism, munching biscuits in hiding. Then, trade and foreign exchange balances were good and there were no debts. Even ten years later, Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kwan Yew would say that he would like to make his own small island like Ceylon as it was called at the time.
We also note that when we got Independence, India, Pakistan (then with Bangladesh), Myanmar (then Burma) Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hongkong, Korea, China, and many other countries in our region were very much behind us economically and politically.
We have had universal franchise from 1931 and enjoyed democratic values and human rights and those who sat in the highest forum of the Land were men and women of intelligence and integrity. We had a service oriented public service and a good public schools system with education widening and spreading out to all parts of the country. The knowledge and use of English was spreading out from the urban areas and reaching even the rural districts. ‘Central schools’ coming up to the level of the well known public schools were being established and the intellectual levels were developing and rising. Future prospects were nothing but bright.
UNHAPPY, RUNDOWN AND CRUMBLING
Then the crash occurred, due to the want of an outstanding, principled and non-vacillating leader. In Dharmadveepa, the land of the righteous doctrine arose envy, jealousy, acrimony, hatred, bitterness, sheer wickedness, hostility and indiscipline, all alien to the teaching and the spirit of the noble Buddha who cannot be blamed for the faults of some of his followers. Religion was usurped for politics in a manner that has contaminated religion and politics up to the present day that it has produced degenerate politicians and similarly affected some of those in religious garb. Foolish politicians have politicized all that they surveyed and the religious men have ignored and violated their boundaries and have discarded religious norms and become politicians. They have had to campaign for votes on party policies and various promises. And due to their having to contend with raucous laymen they have had to face not only unparliamentary speech but also subject themselves to the most unbecoming treatment by fellow lay parliamentarians and contend with brawls on the parliamentary floor.
MACABRE SPECIMEN
The socio-economic political system that controls, moderates and orders the social system, system of education, health, inter community relations by its manner of operations impact on the life of people. The uneducated and brainless thugs, rowdies and visionless men who were active in the political fielo often carelessly and thoughtlessly sowed the seeds of social contradiction and societal disharmony and community frustration for selfish ends.
The government that intimidated a religious minority in the style of highway robbers, expropriated their schools and vested them in the State in 1960 on the pretext of establishing ‘a unified national system of education’. Neither they nor their political posterity have ever had a truly national policy on education or a system in which all could wholeheartedly cooperate and collaborate. Short-sighted and foolish Ministers of Education imposed their day dreams on education, undermined the liberty of people, destroyed their initiatives and produced state regimented generations of students and teachers and public servants as undisciplined and selfish as themselves without a thought for the country. The present GMOA is a macabre and horrid specimen of that. Along with the public service the Central Bank itself came to be usurped.
Transgressing financiers said “touchwood” and swindled the credulous. The vicious seeds of racial and religious enmity, suspicion, dishonesty, hate and animosity sown then have never got uprooted and eradicated. The malignant wounds inflicted on the body politic have hardly got healed. The sowers only thought of their personal political and financial gain; they never bargained for the irreparable damage they were doing nor the ghoulish evil spirits within them that were let into the country in spite of warnings then given. We brought on war upon ourselves due to our distorted thinking, twisted relations, attitudes and the way we lived. All the political kattadiyas and manthrakarayas of the UNP or SLFP were and are incapable of exorcising those evil spirits making their ghastly presence felt in the political arena even today. Due to inattentiveness, sundered good relations take generations to repair and rebuild.
Politicians with the power of their positions get enslaved to prestige and privileges attending political office. They show themselves to be shallow minded by surrounding themselves with the meaningless pomposity even while acting with crude flamboyance, not knowing how to handle their privileges and perks at least with a sense of tact or poise if not with humility and gratitude.
This is because due to their lack of human and intellectual depth they are unable to fathom the big social service quotient of their office and gauge the things of real value that are beneficial to the people and the country in the long run. Their individual values run counter to the common good.
They have no social values that shape their thinking and attitudes. Their values are in shambles. The idiocy of some is unbelievable.
They highly value the spacious air-conditioned offices, occasions for buckshee and ‘commissions’, from local and foreign investors. They practice all that without any embarrassment or sense of awkwardness or regard for the good name of the country. Politicians’ demand for perks seem crudely excessive when frugality is called for in the context of a huge national debt of trillions of rupees. We are not out of the woods yet. Benzes imported for CHOGM have vanished into thin air.
They are not aware that transport is provided them to render a service to the people and not to boost a personality lacking self-respect. Politicians have lost the sense of shame and given themselves over to selfish pursuits at the expense of the country and its people. In our living memory floods have occurred over the last 70 years. Though the floods abate, the politicians go to sleep till the next floods come. When even predictable disasters occur those responsible to provide relief are caught napping, as at the time of the tsunami.
The cancellation of the import of limousines for ministers and the opposition cooperating to give relief to flood victims show there is a measure of a sense of shame.
While preaching integration, politicians of the two main parties blow hot and cold and actually promote ethnic majoritarianism, various types of dominance and thwart partnership, equality of all citizens, national solidarity and unity. Politicians not only want to live in a far-above-the-ground privileged ghetto of their own, they are not conscious how heinous the wrongdoings they commit are.
ROTTEN SYSTEM
There is a widespread lack of expertise and personal discipline among powerholding politicians, due to their notable lack of character. The incompetent and unimaginative ministers cannot give leadership to genuine social reform as distinct from social manipulation. They do not create avenues of employment; they merely dump in government departments and corporations their supporters who idle and draw salaries making the enterprises inefficient and uneconomical to run. They do not understand and are incapable of rendering service to the people. The burden of the massive national debt is in no way lightened with a politicized, corrupt, inefficient, undisciplined and rotten horde within public administration, in the field of education, in the health sector, in transport and even in the administration of justice.
Discipline of the will, the seat of responsibility, of choice, options and motives has not been sufficiently inculcated in the homes and schools and universities in Sri Lanka. This is at the base of the rottenness that has set into the prevailing system aggravated by corrupt and vicious nationalizations. This has resulted in many socio-political, economic, community problems as well as indiscipline in schools, universities, government health care services, the public service and in the ranks of the humbler levels of workers.
The problems of sexual promiscuity, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, sale of body parts, juvenile delinquency, drug trafficking and abuse, murder at high noon to all manner of litigations and delays and bottlenecks in government offices and law courts are contextual consequences that have almost naturally followed the absence of civilized discipline.
We also observe abuse of political office. All manner of corruption and injustice are very much the trend. Not whole communities, even a single citizen threatened by any blinkered bigoted satanic outfit is unacceptable. These with culpable ignorance, inequality, racism, religious bigotry, and exclusivity will before long cause violent responses to erupt if the Government merely makes statements, hides behind words and vacillates in taking firm action.
Some individuals in the ruling class seem unconcerned about principled government; they are concocting plans also for money-laundering to finance the next elections without attending to what needs to be done here and now in a crisis situation.
Though quite a few are getting completely out of touch with the people there is hope that the two leaders and those closest to them will keep their pledge to the people come what may.
Then the people who installed them in power will hold them honourable. Some members of the UNP-SLFP coalition have not understood well the mandate given by the people. It was about banishing a privileged and corrupt ruling class.
It was not to get grooved in outdated and petty party programmes but to set about creating a new Sri Lanka, a new political culture, giving equality of status to all citizens and not having MPs with low intellectual capacity who due to sub-standard education, have no knowledge of the thinking of the people and do not even read newspapers; they are as St. Augustine termed, incurvati, navel gazers curved into themselves; they dwell in a nirvana of their own awaiting a bolt from the blue to strike them in a manner similar to the thunder that struck the last regime.
Then while the vast majority of Sri Lankans were democratic, open to national reconciliation, unity and peace, a small group of fascists were able to dominate the political stage and act as autocrats and bring the whole country to an abyss of social disorder and hang it by the noose of a massive debt.
On the whole Sri Lanka today does not show herself to be short of intelligent level headed far-sighted, courageous, dedicated political leaders who treat all sections of the people justly, equally and impartially, recognizing the honour, dignity and rights of all, able to lead this Country to new horizons of freedom. Therefore the two leaders should mobilize the progressive elements and steadfastly strive together to transform Sri Lanka into a state worthy of the genuine democratic aspirations of all the people.
HONEST GREENHORNS?
If the Government does not radically reform itself, not just shuffling a few Cabinet posts, but in performance and work output, the people may once again embolden themselves and cast aside and dump even the main political actors of today along with those of the past corrupt regime and next time look towards even the inexperienced but honest greenhorns to do better and to put the country back on the right track. But this is not the time for political experiments.
The people have expressed in no uncertain terms that they are not for either vagabond capitalism or for a derelict totalitarian ideological regimentation or the crooked socialislism of the previous decade but for freedom, equality, meritocracy, honest and efficient government with law and order, with the human dignity, honour and rights of every single person assured and protected. In spite of the daunting challenge it is hoped the two leaders would straighten up and when commemorating Independence in 2018 unambguously show that they are into making good the promises they have unitedly given.
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