By Tisaranee Gunasekara“Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic; they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all. If someone replaces the words ‘heroic’ and ‘virtuous’ with ‘fanatical’ long enough, he will come to believe that a fanatic really is a virtuous hero, and that no one can be a hero without fanaticism”.- Victor Klemperer (The Language of the Third Reich)
(March 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The evening began with a lullaby. A lullaby of the ‘heroic saga’ of ‘King Mihindu’ and his ‘Chief General Gotabhaya’, of how they defeated the ‘demons’ threatening the motherland. ‘Mihindu came and saved your Mother Lanka, Son’, sang the songstress, while in the foreground a troupe of dancers rocked a baby to sleep. A century from now Lankan mothers will sing such lullabies to their sons, the comperes assured the audience confidently.
The show ‘Jaya Jayawe’ was billed as a ‘Musical Tribute to the Heroes of the Nation’. As song succeeded song, it became clear that the heroes so honoured were just President Mahinda Rajapakse and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse (albeit a long way behind). And their mother, to whom the last song of the evening was dedicated: ‘Mother, are your watching from heaven, as the Son, who the gods and the Brahmas sent to your womb from golden palaces, is protecting the Nation?’ queried the songstress, mellifluously, casting reverential looks at the said heaven-donated son in the audience.
“The Young Alexander conquered India. Was he alone? Caesar beat the Gauls. Did he not even have a cook with him?” Bertold Brecht famously asked in his poem ‘Questions from a Worker who reads’. The message conveyed by the Jaya Jayawe extravaganza was clear – the Eelam War was won by President Rajapakse (also known as King Mihindu), with some backing from his brother Gotabhaya. Just him, and his brother, no other helper, not even a cook. According to this rendition, Rajapakse, a gift to the nation from the heavens, defeated the Tigers almost single-handedly. This ‘version’ cannot be laughed off as counter-factual nonsense, because it is solemnised by official sanction and Presidential blessing. The musical show was organised by the state owned Independent Television Network (ITN) and attended by the President, his wife and brothers, Basil and Gotabhaya. Occasionally the cameras showed row after row of impassive young men in wheel chairs and their uniformed escorts. But that evening, these disabled servicemen, and their absent comrades dead and living, went un-honoured. There was no song about their deeds, nor any acknowledgment about the terrible price many of them were compelled to pay.
Not even the LTTE, which deified Vellupillai Pirapaharan, had such a uniformly leader-centric narrative of the war.
Pongu Mahinda
The ITN had billed the show, with nary a shadow of irony, as the antithesis of ‘panegyrical songs’.
One song expressed pride in having a king such as Mihindu. Another crooned that he united the nation’s heart and gave the nation a tomorrow and that the ‘nation is forever with you’. ‘You are the country, you are tomorrow… you are us…. Mihindu’ said yet another song. My personal favourite is the one which hailed the President as ‘the Lion in the Lion Flag’, and as ‘Our Time, Our Legacy, Our Future, Our Solution, Our Father, Our Comfort, Our Happiness, Our Light…..’ ad nauseam. The President was called the ‘Father of the Nation’ and the ‘Wonder of the World and the Universe’, ‘High King’ and ‘Divine Gift’; he was compared to a ‘Golden Sword’ which defends the nation, and a ‘Golden Thread which unites sundered hearts’. Another song exhorted the populace to give thanks (say ‘sadhu’) because ‘we got a king’. An ‘ethnically integrated’ song hailed the President as the Sun and the Moon, in Sinhala and Tamil (Hiru and Sandu to the South; Thinakaran and Chandiran to the North). ‘Mahinda Rajapakse is our king…. King Rajapakse’s name will be written in history in letters of gold…. We owe King Rajapakse,’ sang a little boy, barely older than a toddler, lispingly.
The final song referred to Rajapakse’s mother as ‘Our Mother’ (ape amma), in an unconscious echo of the North Korean practice of referring to Kim Il Sung’s mother as the ‘Mother of the Nation’ (an early indication of the dynastic rule that was to come). In Buddhist literature there are stories of miraculous conceptions (our version of Immaculate Conception); children, who are to perform preordained tasks, are conceived in a manner that is beyond the norm of procreation. The conception of Prince Siddharta and the conception of King Kusa (in the Kusa Jathakaya) are cases in point (in both instances the mother is sleeping alone). According to Mahawamsa, a childless Viharamahadevi, on the advice of a senior monk, begged a dying Samanera (a student monk) to be reborn in her womb. After the Queen left, the Samanera died, “and he returned to a new life in the womb of the queen while she was yet upon her journey” (The Mahawamsa). The baby thus conceived became the legendary Dutugemunu. By referring to Rajapakse as the son who was sent by divine beings from golden palaces to his mother’s womb, the song implied that this too was a miraculous conception of the aforementioned sort. With this seemingly inane but innocuous reference, Rajapakse is sanctified with a divine flavour, enhancing his status as the Chosen Hero-King.
All evening, Rajapakse (accompanied by his brothers) listened to the saccharine lyrics with manifest complaisance. Clearly this ‘Leader rooted in the People’ (Janamula Nayakaya, as the ITN repeatedly called him) did not find anything amiss, let alone embarrassing, in this mishmash of extravagantly servile laudations, this idolatrous outpouring. Rather, his demeanour indicated that, as far as he is concerned, this is his due, what he is owed, the treatment he expects. What such an attitude says about the man and his worldview, his ambitions and his expectations is not hard to surmise. Here is a leader who sees absolute and lifelong rule as his right and his destiny. A man with such a mindset is unlikely to leave tamely at the end of his second term. On the contrary, he will do whatever it takes to stay on, because for him, retiring would be simply unthinkable.
Amongst this avalanche of delirious encomiums certain specific themes can be identified. Mahinda Rajapakse won the war. Mahinda Rajapakse saved the country. Mahinda Rajapakse is the King. Mahinda Rajapakse is unique not just in the world but also in the universe (I fully agree with this). Mahinda Rajapakse has surprised the world (ditto). Mahinda Rajapakse is the only hero and the only leader, forever. Mahinda Rajapakse is the Father or the Nation. Mahinda Rajapakse is the nation and its future. However silly these claims may seem from an intelligent and rational point of view, they warrant close attention because the man on whose behalf these are made is the Executive President of Sri Lanka. If the UPFA gets its two thirds, President Rajapakse would be able to create his own constitution, the main object of which would be to perpetuate his rule (and that of his family).
Leni Riefenstahl’s artistically magnificent and ideologically diabolical movie, Will to Power, was an early indication of what Nazism was and where it was headed. Watching it, with the benefit of hindsight, it is hard to conceive how the contemporary world failed to see the signs of danger. Perhaps such insights are possible only with hindsight, since reason can be blind to the menacing potential of unreason. Amongst the fare of Jaya Jayawe was a song which was written for and sung on the occasion of the launch of the original Mahinda Chintana in 2005. I had watched that event live on TV and listened to the song without the slightest sense of unease, merely dismissing it as another example of infantile but essentially harmless self aggrandisement our politicians are lamentably addicted to. I did not notice that the lyrics referred to Mahinda Rajapakse as a ‘King who believes in equality’; even if I did notice the term ‘king’ I would have dismissed it as a manifestation of self-conceit, sans political significance. It is with hindsight I realise that this usage was not a mere passing fancy or a but something quintessential to Rajapakse thinking and project.
Symbols of a New Civilisation
The evening also contained a Guest Lecture by JRP Sooriyapperuma, which, despite its howlers, was remarkably perceptive. He defined ‘Jaya Jayawe’ as a symbol of the ‘New Civilisation’ that is coming into being. Each political era has its cultural representations and Mr. Suripapperuma is absolutely correct in identifying the show as representative of the ethos of the Rajapakse era. Jaya Jayawe has a task – that of manufacturing consent for Rajapakse Rule. Jaya Jayawe promotes the concept of a leader who is not the First Citizen of the country (as is apposite in a democracy). Jaya Jayawe advocates the idea of a leader who is superior to the people, of an infallible leader, of a divinely anointed leader, of a leader who is not a leader for a season but the Leader forever - a leader who resembles the absolutist monarchs of yore rather than the democratic leaders of the present. This leader is the Father of the Nation and to him the nation owes the duty of absolute, unquestioning obedience. Since the leader is infallible, questioning him or his deeds is unnecessary. Since he is the nation, such questioning is treasonous. In this worldview there is no room whatsoever for dissent or opposition. One cannot disagree with or oppose the divinely dispatched leader who represents the nation without committing the crime of heretical treason.
The fate of Sarath Fonseka is symbolic of the politics of this ‘new civilisation’. Fonseka is being tried by two military tribunals but neither of the two charge sheets against him includes the ‘crimes’ for which he was arrested – conspiring to overthrow the government and to kill Rajapakse and his family. Clearly Fonseka was arrested because leaving him free would have sent the wrong signal to potential dissenters within the Rajapakse camp. So long as Ranil Wickremesinghe remains at the helm, the Rajapakses do not need to fear the UNP. But the possibility of a rebellion by disgruntled SLFPers cannot be ruled out, and thus needs to be avoided at all costs. Making an example of Fonseka, dragging him in the mud and locking him up, is the best way to discourage others from taking on the Rajapakses. In this sense, the arrest and the trial of Fonseka are the equal of a public hanging. The aim of the Rajapakses is not just to punish their bête noire but also to send an unequivocal warning to any who think of emulating him.
In 2005, we would have dismissed as impossible the possibility of Mahinda Rajapakse being hailed as King or Basil Rajapakse as a contender for Prime Ministership or Namal Rajapakse contesting elections. What would have seemed grotesque and inconceivable then seems normal and mundane now. A few years ago, when Rajapakse denied the existence of an ethnic problem and thus the need for a political solution, he seemed an antediluvian figure. Today even the UNP Manifesto contains no reference to an ethnic problem or a political solution. The Rajapakses have caused a revolutionary transformation in public conceptions and perceptions, gradually and insidiously putting in place a new paradigm premised on Sinhala supremacism and Rajapakse supremacism. At this rate, by 2015, we may deem as common or garden, the fantastically idolatrous encomiums contained in Jaya Jayawe; or see Rajapakse rule and dynastic succession as normal; or believe mindless obedience to be our patriotic duty; or regard as traitors all opponents of the Ruling Family. We would be slaves who celebrate our politico-psychological bondage as the ultimate freedom.
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