Well well well, treachery, eh?

By Rajpal Abeynayake

(December 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Aren’t we sick and tired of people who are so blind because they refuse to see? The talk of continuity on grounds of entitlement is so jarring in my ears that I pause to wonder whether some Sri Lankans are fast taking leave of their senses.

There is a coterie of people who are of the view that anything short of continuity at this point in time is traitorous, nay almost sacrilegious.

Exactly who the hell are these people not to see the flip side?

Continuity at this point of time may be the encouragement of treachery because continuity at this time may be a licence for corruption, nepotism, rank disrespect for the constitution, and despotic family bandyism. So there.

Isn’t encouraging this brand of political subterfuge a good example of treachery against the country?

Are we to say that the proclivity towards despotism is not treacherous, particularly when peace had been achieved, and there is a need to consolidate such peace?

Isn’t the very thought sickening that we may be looking down the barrel at another seven years and then perhaps an eternity of single-family despotism?

Any victory by the incumbent regime at this election is bound to precipitate a General Election close on the heels of the presidential contest.

The way our people vote, such an election would create a landslide for the winner of the presidential contest, and secure him if not two thirds at least close to a two thirds of the parliamentary seats.

That would make President Rajapaksa a possessor of a two third majority (counting crossovers too) in parliament, and if this is the level of authoritarianism that exists in the country today, what are we to expect when the man has two thirds of the votes in the legislature at his disposal?

And, dare anybody say that we do not have despotism in this land today?

This upcoming election is akin to the validation of a junta ruler through a mock enactment of popular franchise.

I am no enthusiast of the 17th or the 13th amendment, in particular, and have written before in these spaces, detailing the brittleness of both these shotgun attempts at constitutional tinkering.

But at no point have I ever advocated that these two amendments to the constitution be ignored and that the constitution be made a screed that’s therefore not worth the paper it’s written on.

But blithely, the Rajapaksa administration has chosen to flout the constitution, risking a slippery slope slide into anarchy, and yet we are told by the S L Gunasekeras and such men of integrity that it’s treacherous to oppose this kind of treachery?

Is that integrity? If it is, then that’s a new brand on me.

Taken in sum, the disrespect that this dispensation has for democratic process and practice is so monumental that it makes J.R. Jayewardene’s subterfuge look like a Sunday barbecue.

J.R. Jayewardene had Supreme Court judges stoned, and he rolled up the electoral map using a carapace of legitimacy which he called a Referendum. There was at least the pretence that process needs to be followed.

The tendency of the Rajapaksa administration is to say, process be damned, because patriotism is embodied in our flesh.

I say boo - - and boo once more...

It’s trite now that patriotism is known as the last resort of the scoundrel, but a claim that a bid at dictatorship is excusable and even expectable is so preposterous that it should shock us all, if we have a smidgen of concern for the country, to hear such a claim that reeks to the heavens due to its expedient hypocrisy.

But yet, we have a cacophony of voices which say that we should choose this treachery over the ostensible treachery of a power bid - - however cynical it could appear to be - - that seeks to challenge this outrage of patriotic-despotism of the current ruling cabal.

It’s true that elements of those who support the challenger against Rajapaksa have been traitors, and this writer was among the most vociferous who inveighed against their treachery of the Wickremesinghe caboodle, but have we not forgotten than the JVP which has not been a traitor to the war effort also challenges this slippery slope slide to despotic jingoistic rule of a family oligarchy?

Are we to repudiate the JVP and call them a bunch of traitors when the JVP, it was, that called for a war, even when some of the Gunasekeras were still mute and yet to come out of their shells during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s slavish appeasenik ceasefire?

It’s not as if we have risen from the dead to forget that it was Lakshman Kadirgarmar and the JVP which read the riot act to Ranil and his government of appeasement.

Utter disregard

Are we to now debunk this JVP as a bunch of traitors for their opposition to a despotic regime that has no respect for the constitution or constitutional process, and that has perpetuated a ‘democratic’ political culture that has at its core values nepotism, utter disregard for due process, and utter disregard for good governance including the rights of minorities - - as evidenced by this government’s long duration incarceration of refugees in the Menik Farm camps etc.,?

A phantom fear of JVP treachery is therefore inducing some gentlemen, it seems, to oppose the real treachery of a government that wants to run away with the peace and convert it into a Banana Republic tin-pot autocracy.

Howzat?

We have to recognise that the JVP, though it may be a small party in its own right, in all the elections of the recent past, made the right call, because by and large in relative terms at least, the JVP has the aspirations of the southern poor close to their hearts.

It was the JVP that broached a tenuous pact with Chandrika Kumaratunge to abolish the executive presidency which propelled her to power, calling a full-stop to the long duration UNP tyranny of 17 years. It was the JVP that then called for a probationary regime with Kumaratunge and finally when it appeared that Kumaratunge was a non starter even though a damned-sight better than 17 years of UNP con-artists and brigands, withdrew its support from her.

When Ranil Wickremesinghe then took over and hatched a treacherous ceasefire it was the JVP that worked overtime with Lakshman Kadirgarmar and called the bluff of that government and eventually precipitated its downfall.

After Ranil Wickremesinghe ran a triumphant campaign to regain Sri Lanka after Kuamratunge finished her two terms, it was the JVP which backed Rajapaksa against all odds and made the correct call to install him in power, when his own party had turned its guns against him and as we all know, and when its own leader.

Kumaratunge’s vote went for the UNP candidate Ranil. And now they tell me after all that, that the JVP is treacherous and cannot make the correct call this time?
Sounds queer to me.

Does treachery induct itself by mere association, or is it more recognisable when it’s manifest?

I believe I would any day opt for the JVP’s “associative’’ brand of “treachery’’ rather than the manifest treachery of a brand of quasi-depots who want to covert the peace into their own Private Family Holdings.

-Sri Lanka Guardian