Four Years and Five Months

Sri Lanka (and Sri Lankans) is undergoing a tectonic shift, politically and psychologically. The gradualness of this process of transformation has prevented us from becoming conscious of its magnitude and its depth, its implications and its consequences.

In October 2005, Mahinda Rajapakse was elected the President of Sri Lanka. Four years and five months later his family is occupying the commanding heights of the polity. His brother Gotabhaya is the Defence Secretary, with a law unto himself, who talks and acts as if he is the sole overlord of Sri Lanka. His brother Basil, an electoral neophyte, is heading the UPFA list in Gampaha, over and above far more experienced politicians; he is also a Prime Ministerial contender. His son Namal is contesting from Hambantota. His nephew Shashindra is the Chief Minister of the Uva Province. President Rajapakse himself is regularly hailed as ‘King’ by his followers and propagandists.

“There a different clock ticks with different hands.”
Aharon Appelfeld (Blooms of Darkness)

The society’s predominant response is…..a non-response. Where there should have been angry words or derisive laughter or both, there is silence, silence of either acceptance or apathy.

Four Years and five months ago, all of these developments would have seemed inconceivable. If a political commentator made such an analysis he would have been ridiculed and if an astrologer made such a prediction he would have been laughed out of court. Even just a year ago, at least some of these developments would have seemed preposterously, grotesquely impossible. Yet, today, all of these developments seem normal, even mundane.

The transformation goes much deeper. When President Rajapakse denied the existence of an ethnic problem, and, thus the need for a political solution, a couple of years ago, his comments were dismissed as unworthy of serious concern. After all, the ethnic problem does exist. It predated the Tigers, caused the birth of the Tigers, and would survive the Tigers, in the absence of a political solution. In the stark light of this reality, it was impossible to take the statements of President Rajapakse seriously. True, the ethnic problem has not disappeared from Sri Lanka, simply because President Rajapakse deemed it non-existent. But it has disappeared from the country’s political lexicon. Four years and five months later even the UNP Manifesto contains no reference to an ethnic problem or a political solution. It will take the resurrection of Tamil politics (hopefully in a peaceful and democratic form) for the South to change back into accepting the existence of an ethnic problem and the need for a political solution based on power-sharing.

A Revolutionary Transformation

What the Rajapakses have wrought in four years and five months is nothing less than a revolutionary transformation in political practices and public perceptions. They have brought about a paradigm shift to Sri Lanka, ushering in a new era, premised on two core beliefs – Sinhala supremacism and Rajapakse supremacism. The first has already become axiomatic; the second is well on its way to be so.

The best case in point is the UNP’s reactive transformation. The UNP has not become a racist party. It has not said that there is no ethnic problem in the country. But for the first time since 1987, there is no mention of either an ethnic problem or a political solution in its manifesto. Instead there is a vague and politically neutral term, ‘reconciliation’. This curious absence, this portentous substitution is eliciting even less public interest or public comment than President Rajapakse’s assertions about the non-existence of the ethnic problem did.
Is this silence an indication that the Sinhala majority never really ceased equating the ethnic problem with the Tiger problem, rather than seeing the former as the cause of the latter?

Is it that for the Sinhala South, Tamil problems no longer matter because there is no LTTE to fear? Was the LTTE the only factor which made the Sinhala South willing to accept the existence of an ethnic problem and search for a political solution?

A digression: The UNP’s reiteration of the promise made by the Common Oppositional Candidate during the Presidential Election to remove ‘all unnecessary high security zones’ in the North is welcome, especially given that the Rajapakse regime has accorded permanent status to temporary military camps via a special Gazette. Incidentally a – perhaps not so unintended - consequence of this proliferation of military camps is the proliferation of Buddha statues in a province with a non-Buddhist populace).

The Rajapakses have succeeded in turning the clock back to pre-July 1987 and beyond. That was the dream of Sinhala supremacists, but a bare two years ago, even Sinhala supremacists would have classified it as a dream unattainable. Today it is the undisputable reality, which even the UNP has succumbed to, just as it succumbed to Sinhala Only, not out of conviction but out of sheer opportunism. The extremists in the South have triumphed, just as they did in 1956. Will this, in turn, lead to the return of Northern extremism sometime in the future?

The Rajapakses had a de facto covenant with the Sinhala South: they will defeat the LTTE and reassert Sinhala supremacy over Sri Lanka; in return the Sinhala South would consent to the installation of Familial Rule. The Rajapakses have done their part. The hitherto impossible had been achieved. Now it is the turn of the Sinhala South to deliver. This is what the Rajapakses meant when they turned ‘gratitude’ into the main campaign theme of the recent Presidential election. The next steps would be to gain a two thirds majority and usher in a Rajapakse constitution. Then the transformation will be complete and Sri Lanka will be ‘Rajapakasistan’ in all but name.

If this seems fantastic or nonsensical, we must remember how far we have come politically, and more importantly, psychologically, in four years and five months. Today we no longer regard heaping idolatrous encomiums on President Rajapakse as ludicrous. We do not laugh when he is hailed as ‘King’, equated with the country and the nation, and called ‘the Lion in the Lion Flag’, ‘Our Time’, ‘Our Legacy’, ‘Our Future’, ‘Our Solution’, ‘Our Father’, ‘Our Comfort’, ‘Our Happiness’, ‘Our Light’, the ‘Father of the Nation’ and the ‘Wonder of the World and the Universe’, ‘Divine Gift’, ‘Golden Sword’ which defends the nation, a ‘Golden Thread which unites sundered hearts’, ‘the Sun’ and ‘the Moon’. We do not even snigger when a child barely old enough to sing, sings, ‘Mahinda Rajapakse is our king…. King Rajapakse’s name will be written in history in letters of gold…. We owe King Rajapakse’. We are not outraged over the lyrics of a song which asks, rhetorically, ‘Mother, are your watching from heaven, as the Son, who the gods and the Brahmas sent to your womb from golden palaces, is protecting the Nation?’ – the son and the mother being President Rajapakse and his mother. And all this in a Musical show entitled ‘Jaya Jayawe: A Musical Extravaganza Honouring Heroes of the Nation’ organised by the state owned ITN with public funds, with President Rajapakse, his wife and brothers Basil and Gotabhaya as gracing the audience.

We are not perturbed when we see the twin anti-desiderata of Rajapakse rule and dynastic succession taking root, and becoming stronger, with each passing change. The nomination of Namal Rajapakse did not cause an outburst of outrage as it should have done. According to newspaper reports, Tharunyata Hetak, the organisation he is the founder-head of, is planning to start a TV channel. Namal Rajapakse is an unemployed undergraduate. Where does he get the money for a TV channel, plus all the other expensive activities his organisation engages in? Shouldn’t this curious phenomenon be investigated with the same vigour that the anti-government NGOs are investigated?

Have we not, as a society, come to accept mindless obedience to the regime as our patriotic duty and condemn as traitors all opponents of the Ruling Family? Take the case of Sarath Fonseka. When he was arrested, under military law, he was accused of crimes of the highest magnitude - conspiring to overthrow the government and conspiring to murder the President and his family. When his military trial began last week, these two sensational charges were conspicuous by their absence. Instead his charges were laughably petty: hobnobbing with opposition politicians while in uniform and misusing his powers as Army Commander to the advantage of his businessman son-in-law. In other words, indiscipline and corruption, on a minor scale - crimes certainly, if proven, but hardly the earth shattering crimes for which he was arrested. Obviously the government lied and made false charges, to justify the arrest of the man who, only a few short months ago, was hailed as a national hero and the best army commander in the world. And yet, there was no outburst of outrage from Southern society, which once worshipped General Fonseka as a Super Hero. He too, like the civilian Tamils and the Sinhala victims of the Rajapakses, has become invisible.

Defining Moment

The parliamentary election is characterised by widespread abuse of state resources and widespread breaking of the election law and that too has passed mostly uncommented. The practice of treating the state as a Rajapakse preserve, the deliberate violation of the lines of demarcation between the ruling family/ruling party and the state has accustomed us to such massive acts of illegality. These acts are so omnipresent, to the coming generation, they would seem both normal and legal.

Often turning points reveal their seminal nature only with hindsight. It is so with the Rajapakse revolution. When did we begin accepting as unexceptionable such anti-democratic heresies as regarding the president for a term as a monarch for life? When did we begin concurring with the lie of Rajapakse infallibility? When did we give our consent to the equation of President Rajapakse with the nation and, in consequence, anti-Rajapaksaism with treachery? What was the defining moment in this transformation of Sri Lanka from a pluralist democracy into a Sinhala supremacist family oligarchy?

During the launch of the original Mahinda Chinthana Manifesto in the run up to the Presidential election of 2005, a middle-aged male singer sang the theme song of the event.

Last month, this song was among the repertoire of the musical show ‘Jaya Jayawe’ and I was surprised to notice that its lyrics included a reference to Mahinda Rajapakse as a ‘King in who believed in equality’. Four and a half years ago, I had watched the launch of the first Mahinda Chinthana live, on TV and listened to its theme song without noticing this particular reference. Even if I did notice it, I would have dismissed it as another example of infantile but essentially harmless self aggrandisement our politicians are lamentably addicted to.

Today, with hindsight I realise that this usage was not a mere passing fancy or but something quintessential to Rajapakse thinking and project. Today, with hindsight, I realise that that Manifesto and its theme song constituted the defining moment of the Rajapakse revolution, the point at which we began to consent to the Rajapakse revolution, unknowingly, unconsciously.

A leader whose propaganda compares him to the nation and calls him the Father of the Nation, is not going to leave power and retire into relative obscurity when his second Presidential term is over. If the Rajapakses manage to obtain a two thirds majority (or a win close to that) at the upcoming parliamentary election, Sri Lanka would have reached the point of no return. Then a Rajapakse constitution would be inevitable and with it the constitutional and legal framework necessary for familial rule will come into being.

- Asian Tribune -