Let’s replace political charades with a movement for public accountability

By Gongalegodaya

“We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy” — George Bernard Shaw

“Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; Steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for a trickster and catch him at first attempt, but beware of an honest man” — Arab Proverb

“Honesty in politics is an absurd notion, and is merely the solace of the stagnant. Yet, the levels and labyrinths of dishonesty honed to a fine art by successful leaders is sheer brilliance, requiring years of apprenticeship and the singular lack of conscience” — Anonymous

(October 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Open violence and rank intimidation have raised their ugly heads again, as harbingers of things to come in 2010.

Another piecemeal provincial council election has come and gone. The ruling party alliance has won, if not handsomely, at least forcefully. More thugs and sycophants have swelled the ranks of the new political elite. Open violence and rank intimidation have raised their ugly heads again, and, as harbingers of things to come in 2010, these portents and signs have struck fear into the hearts of all those, mistakenly perhaps, who still have a vestigial regard for the so-called democratic process in this country.

The various opposition groups have nothing to offer the public either. The fact of the matter is that the SLFP and the UNP are exact mirror images of each other in terms of party structure and tyrannical leadership. Each has in the other the opponent it seeks and deserves. The unbridled greed, corruption and power-hunger of major political figures are also not new. What continues to amaze is the increasing blatancy of their machinations and the fact that recent judicial decisions appear to recognise and value wheeling and dealing on an unprecedented scale.

The question that worries me is whether the public are taken in by the lies and nonsense dished out on all sides of the political spectrum. It is easy to feel superior to the hoi polloi and suggest that they are not merely hoodwinked by the rhetoric and hype, but, in fact, actively desire this form of political discourse. I now believe that the majority of ordinary people (as distinguished from us who are, by implication, extra-ordinary and special) have a much more useful and nuanced notion of democratic space and political discourse than we do. They are less naïve and purist. It is, in fact, our (upper) middle class parochialities and ideologies that politicians feed on and parasitise. The general public (see how all these terms are loaded and deny active agency, the worst of courses is “masses”) go along, sometimes make the appropriate noises in support, but all the while their agenda and objectives are different.

Let’s face it: people vote for instrumental reasons not principles. What principles can be at stake when the differences among opponents (be they actual persons, policies, track records, complicities, relationships etc.) are tenuous, changing and opportunistic? The elites or wannabes vote for and support those who will help them make money, get tenders, peddle influence, make money, and so on. The highest league support all sides, contributing (read investing) in cash and kind on the expectation of gilt-edged returns.

This we consider sensible and legitimate, but we laugh in scorn at the ordinary voter who, according to us, is hoodwinked and bamboozled on the issues, manipulated by racism, influenced by caste etc.

We concede that even our underworld tycoons make strategic decisions and opportunistic alliances, but we pooh-pooh the thought that the masses are capable of anything more than crude and simplistic choices based on election promises and cheap rhetoric.

No real choices

Not so. The public make much the same kinds of instrumental assessments that we do, though, instead of validating contacts for making a fast buck, their key considerations are often job opportunities, basic infrastructure and service development (a village road, a pipe borne water system, a bus service, a medical clinic) and the like. Right now, they have no real choices, no hope for substantive change, no prospects of increased accountability, no platform for redress. Thus, they choose the evil that directly benefits them. The major political parties and their lackeys have collectively conspired to ensure that the best choices at an election involve considerations about such minutiae. Asking politicians not to lie and cheat in Sri Lanka today is ludicrous; believing that they will listen is dangerously deranged.

Thus, at least in the short- and medium-term, the democratic electoral process offers voters no hope, no respite. Overt violence may wax and wane, and all indications are that 2010 will see some serious waxing. What we need, therefore, is an independent movement free of all politicians (whether they be of the variety that has been afflicted by a temporary bout of ethics which is contracted due to the unhealthy environment, sans perks and power, of being in the opposition).

Reject this sham

Let’s reject this sham and all its various appendages and tail-waggings. We urgently need a public voice that demands transparency and accountability at every level. The national NGOs of today, though they may have many strengths, do not have either the stomach or the capacity for this kind of mass mobilising work. At best they perform a useful function agitating on human rights issues through their contacts in international organisations and foreign governments. At worst, they are a large part of the problem.

Aren’t you fed up with the abysmal (and worsening) levels of transparency and accountability in this country? Aren’t you sick to your stomach with the sham that masquerades as governance here? If so, our solution must move outside the comfort zones and drawing rooms of genteel society or what’s left of it. The need is clear, the path as well, but it is an area that we have spent a lifetime ignoring, denying, vilifying. We need to reinvent ourselves, to unlearn our privilege. We must speak not only a different language but also engage with a different idiom if we to cease to be the stumbling block to a sea change in governance in Sri Lanka.

I believe it may even already be too late for our generation since the rot has set in too firmly. But, it can never be too late for the next, and the next, and the next. If you are interested in participating in a genuine people’s movement that will work towards shaping public discourse and understanding on core issues of accountability and transparency, please email me. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, merely to set it moving in the right direction.

-Sri Lanka Guardian