“The history of the big Sri Lankan families in the rural areas is a history of enormous cruelties to the poor. The poor know this. Today the difficulty is to find rural labour for the richer families who need it.” ...................................
By Citizen Somapala
(December 30, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There is nothing to be shocked or scandalized about in the fact that one family is running the country, according to Jackson Anthony, who spoke to the ‘Subharathi’ programme of the National Service of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation today (30th of December 2009).
It was a long and detailed discussion on views of history according to this Jackson. According to Jackson Anthony’s version, in the entire history of Sri Lanka up to the time when the British colonial powers introduced their systems of administration, the country was run by powerful families. Brothers, sisters and others running the country, according to him, is the Desheeya way of doing things.
What is wrong, according to Jackson, is that due to Western influence this great tradition of the local families ruling the people has been lost. Now, after many years of failed politicians at last the true tradition of the local Sinhala people is being rediscovered by a charismatic local leadership which has brought the great dream of the Sinhala people back again. This great dream is that one family can rule the entire nation.
What is wrong with that? That is how, according to Jackson, the country has always been run in the great days of pure Sinhala tradition. During those wonderful days the power was transferred from a brother to a sister and from father to son. Jackson gives a long list of how this has happened based on the ‘Mahawamsa’ and other Sinhala narratives.
'One family running the country according to Jackson is the real Sinhala style. And this is what the people themselves have discovered and the people will be happy with this system.' (Picture from: An Historical Relation of Ceylon by Robert Knox)Jackson bitterly criticises the tremendous damage done by the British through various commissions which introduced various reforms into Sri Lanka. These reforms, according to Jackson, were done because the British could not keep a sufficient number of British administrators in the country and therefore they trained the local people with Western mentalities. These people adopted various Western traditions such as the laws, the administrative mechanisms and the parliamentary system and the like.
None of these things are things of the soil. They do not fit into Sri Lanka. The earlier prime ministers and other prominent politicians came from this tradition of people who were trained by the British. Therefore, they could not be true leaders of Sri Lanka. Now things have changed. Now the people from the rural setup have risen to the top and they run the country according to the style of the ancient times.
One family running the country according to Jackson is the real Sinhala style. And this is what the people themselves have discovered and the people will be happy with this system.
The entire programme over the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation is an interpretation of history in order to suit the political propaganda of the government. It was a direct election campaigning effort where reference to history is made in order to answer charges against the present government.
One of the major charges of the opposition against the government is that one family is taking over all the important positions in the government and is therefore abusing power. In using this programme Jackson Anthony answers this question and asks, what is wrong with this? This is how things were done in the past and this should be a better tradition than the more westernized tradition of equality and the imposition of rules against nepotism.
Nepotism, according to Jackson, is the national tradition. Therefore there is nothing wrong with this and this is the ideal way to run things.
In this interpretation of history according to Jackson, in Sri Lanka there were no exploiting classes. The ruling elite were not exploiters of the rural poor. The whole system of caste which was entrenched within the Sri Lankan system is not an important aspect in the history according to Jackson. The tremendous traditions of the exploitation of the poor and of the lands by some few rich families throughout the country for their own benefit is also not part of his history of Sri Lanka.
What Jackson misses in his historical analysis is that Sri Lanka’s rural poor have abandoned this whole system and by various means have migrated out of that village.
The village system is what Jackson thinks is the ideal situation. Throughout the country the rural people have looked for other means of living than being subjected to their rural masters who benefitted from everything that the poor people did.
The history of the big Sri Lankan families in the rural areas is a history of enormous cruelties to the poor. The poor know this. Today the difficulty is to find rural labour for the richer families who need it.
The abuse of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation to carry out blatant and crude propaganda during an election period should be a matter of concern not only for the opposition but also for the election commissioner as well.
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