Tyranny, oligarchy, anarchy-What are we?

“The biggest challenge ahead of us is to establish a good government, a lasting one. A system of government which the people endorse is the only way.”
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By Maduranga Rathnayake

(November 29, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The following passage from “Discourses on Livy” by Niccolo Machiavelli, much as it is interesting, perhaps is more relevant to us today than ever before:

“...I say that some who have written of Republics say there are (one of ) three states (governments) in them called by them Principality (Monarchy), of the Best (Aristocracy) and Popular (Democracy)...Some others (wiser according to the opinion of many) believe there are six kinds of governments, of which those very bad, and those are good in themselves,...those that are good are three mentioned above: those that are bad, are three others derive from those (first three)...Principality easily becomes a Tyranny, Autocracy easily becomes the State of the Few (Oligarchies) and the Popular (Democracy) without difficulty is converted into a licentious one (Anarchy)...” (Henry Neville’s translation, 1675)

Machiavelli referring to those good governments further says that “...So much so that an Organiser of a Republic institutes one of those three states (Governments) in a city, he institutes it for only a short time, because there is no remedy which can prevent them from degenerating into their opposite kind because of the resemblance that virtue and vice have in this instance...” (Henry Neville’s translation, 1675).

Good governments are ephemeral is what Machiavelli observes, good governments quickly degenerating into bad governments. We have continuously provided credence to this observation. Bad government after bad government.

A Nation Betrayed

One critical source of our continuous failed governments is that governance as a mechanism was changed from one system to another without our sanction. The history is that the British did away with our monarchy without consulting us. It is true that with little evidence of any revolt against monarchy as an ideology, as opposed to politically motivated attacks on individual monarchs, we would not know if we preferred another system of government. Be that as it may; our long-standing tradition of monarchy was abrogated without our sanction. Again we were not consulted when the Ceylon (Constitution) Order-in-Council 1946 was handed to us, though the Tamil elitists, quasi-serious, voiced their concerns while D.S.Senanayake-Oliver Gunathilake combination got around Soulbury in a bid to fast-track the dominion status. At its best it was no consultation at all. Then appeared the so-called home-grown constitutions preceded by some phantasmagorical processes; once again without consensus. The past thirty years, thirty years of blood, called for this historical betrayal of the nation to be remedied; by way of a system of government that the people, all peoples endorse.

Perfect Constitution

Machiavelli is of the view that people would not agree to a new order unless the necessity for it is established through some peril and he says:

“... it is an easy thing for the Republic to be ruined before it can be brought to a more perfect constitution...” (Henry Neville’s translation, 1675)

It is indeed the time. Though Machiavelli is long dead and gone, the political realism in what he says is much alive. What we have witnessed over the decades have been deceit, corruption and brutality. Uniquely, a mixture of all the bad forms of government, tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy.

So easily ruined a Republic. Time for a perfect constitution.

The Biggest Challenge

The biggest challenge ahead of us is to establish a good government, a lasting one. A system of government which the people endorse is the only way. It must be remembered that the constitution of a country must be first written in the hearts of the people, all peoples. Only then it may be copied to the statute book.

-Sri Lanka Guardian