“Fonseka, Fonseka, why have you forsaken me?’’

By Rajpal Abeynayake

“From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” [“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” in King James Version Bible] — which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46, NIV)

(December 15, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It’s true, the bible says Jesus, having been nailed to the cross, cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’’

If this was a passion play, and if Jesus was Mahinda Rajapaksa, his words now are bound to be on the lines of “Fonseka, Fonseka, why have you forsaken me?’’

Why indeed?

Well —- the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. Sarath Fonseka is not representative of himself.

He was estranged from the president no doubt for personal reasons.

Since then, his image has been transmogrified into being that of an iconic leader of a movement for change. That at least is his supporters’ vision of him, and their aspiration for him.

It seems therefore that those who seek to vilify his ability or his experience as a politician are deliberately ignoring a part of the equation that comprises his candidacy.

His candidacy has ceased to be about himself. The substantive proffered intent of those who promote his candidacy is to ask Fonseka to galvanize a movement for change in which he, Fonseka, would primarily be elected to do one thing first, abolish the Executive Presidency.

Subsequent to that, it is true that Fonseka’s role is unclear. According to the JVP’s version, he would abolish the presidency and pave the way for radical change, or rather radical constitutional transformation, after which Fonseka himself would not be the primary player in the political events that unfold.

According to the UNP version, Fonseka would contest, win, and then abolish the presidency and call for general elections.

But what Fonseka has come to represent for both parties is his agency as an instrument for change.

Fonseka vs. Rajapaksa

Therefore, to reduce his candidacy to the binary of Fonseka vs. Rajapaksa —- Him, and the Forsaken One —— would be doing injustice to what has taken shape as a movement in the immediate aftermath of the war against the now vanquished Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

I am struck - indeed appalled — by the fact that all the critiques of his candidacy and all the urgings towards continuity are essentially propelled by the dynamics of this binary, and pegged on the single narrative that essentially the war was won, and the winner of the war needs to rule now, because winning the war is the denominating factor in this historical conjuncture.

What a one dimensional if not myopic view of developments, I must say?

Do people who critique the Fonseka candidacy predicated on these assumptions truly, really, sincerely believe that the zeitgeist of this moment - - this moment - - and not that moment in May near the Nandikadal, is based upon the triumph of the war victory, that cliche apart, the whole nation seems to rejoice in?

I think they sincerely believe so, which is why it appears that they have been monumentally disconnected from the groundswell of opinion after the war which essentially says, the war was won, which is all the more reason we now move onto a next phase of redressing balance, restoring societal equilibrium, while walking away from the almost necessary jingoism that accompanied a patriotic fight against Tamil Tiger terrorism.

After the war was over, there was tremendous and palpable relief, and I was personally aghast to see this relief being labelled ‘triumphalism’’ by the pro-LTTE pseudo-liberal intellectual fringe.

But, when it became clear that the war was indeed over and that we didn’t have to pinch ourselves to realize that it really was, the people moved on from the emotion of relief to that of objective acceptance of that fact. They accepted that the war was over, period.

But yet, that was not triumphalism either.

But some persons in the polity thought that the next few decades as well should be defined in terms of the victory that was achieved in the month of May 2009, and that the same level of heightened nationalism at that point — now gone far enough to be manifest as jarring jingoism — needs be maintained for the next decade or more as well, because that was national happy hour, if you will, and we all want our happy hours to last forever. Now, that last notion veers very close to triumphalism.

This tend is as crazy as thinking that after a climactic Michael Jackson concert moment, when the last gig is over, and people are all moon-waking in their heads, they should also literally moonwalk to the bus, or the train, and ask the bus conductor to Beat It.

Folks, it’s back to life, back to reality, isn’t that plain enough to be axiomatic?

Impunity

The reality is that the war created fissures and polarizations and brittle-points in society that are now manifest in the impunity seen in the country, the Mafiosi that inhabits the political culture and arbitrates the terms of this impunity —- along with all of the negative manifestations of post war reality such as the incarceration if IDPs, now a settled matter only because there is an election in the offing.

In fact, I did not see any single critique of the Fonseka candidacy tackle, or so much as ponder the issue “whither Tamils?’’ in post-war society, and to me, that was shocking. It shows a stark disconnect from the burgeoning realities of a post war era, in the ‘Day-After.’

These realties are, in a cursory list: (1) A need to validate the fact that Tamils are equal citizens, no matter that the war sometimes required necessary quarantining of some Tamil citizens, even though the long term incarceration of IDPs was abominable (2) A need to reset the button on democracy and the right to life and liberty. (3) A need to redress the damage done to the social fabric due to long term neglect during the years of war, resulting in acceptance of impunity, corruption, lawlessness, nepotism, political hooliganism and oligarchic cabal formation — trends in which the Rajapaksas are only the symptom, and not the root of the long term malaise.

So let’s get one thing out of the way. To define the candidature of Fonseka as the candidature of one man against another man is as absurd as saying that a World Cup cricket final is between two brands of bats.

Now, whether Fonseka the man will usurp the new movement for change is a risk- assessment question, which has some real validity. Will he, now being given the agency of change for whatever reason, usurp this collective will to change, and appropriate the election victory - - if it happens — all for himself?

It’s not a question that should be dismissed out of hand, and should be argued out rationally and point by point perhaps at a later date.

But what’s important before that, is to disabuse ourselves of the notion that this election is about Rajapaksa, and about who won the war, and about his General who now wants ownership of that victory.

The reality, without doubt, is much bigger than that.

-Sri Lanka Guardian