A Benevolent Dictator

| by Jagath Asoka

( June 08, 2012, Washington DC, Sri Lanka Guardian) A few years ago, while we were having a candid conversation about Sri Lankan politics in a cozy and unpretentious atmosphere, one of my childhood friends casually said, “We need a benevolent dictator in Sri Lanka.” A few months later, a well-known, Sri Lankan linguist, during a brief visit to the US, said the same thing in an informal gathering in New Jersey. Both who made this remark are erudite and have a keen sense of moral rectitude. My response to their incongruous idea was the same: A benevolent dictator sounds like an oxymoron.

Legendary silent film actor/director Charlie Chaplin is shown in a scene from the 1940 film 'The Great Dictator,' his first film with dialogue. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Is it possible to be a benevolent dictator? Does power make you mad? According to Ian Robertson at Trinity College Dublin, power actually has a chemical effect on the brain. So, it is impossible to be a benevolent dictator because no human brain can cope with the drug-effects of unfettered power. The drug-effects of unfettered power make human beings behave in bizarre, narcissistic, and cruel ways as we have seen in dictators like Hitler, Saddam, and Gaddafi. Power changes the way our brain works. For example, power in small doses, even a trivial amount of power that you seemingly have when you interview a person, increases the level of testosterone both in men and women. An increase in testosterone triggers an increase in dopamine: a chemical messenger found in the brain that acts as a neurotransmitter. An increase in dopamine makes you more focused on goals, aggressive, motivated, smarter, and less concerned with the feelings of other people. When the wrong kind of person gets power or the power is unfettered by the artifacts of democracy—free elections, free press, and independent judiciary—then the person who gets the power has a reduced capacity for constraining his or her power. The artifacts of democracy counteract and constrain the biological effects of power in the brain. Since it is impossible to be a benevolent dictator because no human brain can cope with the drug-effects of unfettered power, and power makes human beings behave in bizarre, narcissistic, and cruel ways, no human being should be given unfettered power as we have done in Sri Lanka: an Executive Presidency. The Executive Presidency was created by J. R. Jayewardene in 1978 but has grown so powerful. In Sri Lanka, Executive Presidents cannot be taken to court, but can be impeached by a two-thirds majority in parliament. In 2001, an amendment was introduced to reduce certain powers of the president, such as the election commission, the bribery, and corruption commission, but this amendment has been ignored by the president. Mahinda Rajapaksa promised that he would abolish the Executive Presidency; instead, he removed the two-term restriction on the Executive Presidency. During Chandrika Kumaratunga’s second term, UNP had an opportunity to abolish Executive Presidency, but they did not because they thought that after Chandrika Kumaratunga’s second term, they would get a chance to enjoy the powers of Executive Presidency.

Will a benevolent dictator make a good-faith effort to obey the law and abolish the executive presidency and develop a consensus on power devolution, as well as power sharing at the centre; promote free elections, free press, and independent judiciary; appoint an independent Public Service Commission to ensure that there is no political interference in the public service; abolish nepotism; not interfere with the criminal justice system; enforce laws on the instances of hate speech that contributes to communal disharmony; investigate alleged disappearances and initiate criminal proceedings as appropriate; disarm all illegal armed groups; investigate and inquire into alleged incidents of serious violations of human rights; investigate all allegations of crimes committed by both sides to the conflict; and demand ethical behavior of all citizens?

Before we become besotted with big ideas like free election, free press, and independent judiciary, we have to make sure that when a student—for example at our Law College—goes to take his exam, he will be treated the same way as our president’s son will be treated. In a democracy we elect our leaders, but we do not elect our doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, artists, and professors.

In Sri Lanka, students who studied extremely hard did well and had a chance to earn degrees from Sri Lankan universities; our degrees were good enough to compete with graduates of Europe and the USA; most of Sri Lankan graduates who earned their BS or BA degrees from Sri Lankan universities got scholarships to earn their graduate degrees, and now they work everywhere in the world, and some even work for top 500 global companies. Today, Sri Lankan president’s son gets special treatment; if other politicians and government officials were to follow our president’s footsteps, what would happen to our education system? Still education is one of the surest ways to improve one’s life. There was a time when we were just a poor nation, a third world country, we lived with dignity and had a keen sense of what was right and just.

I find it difficult to understand the zeitgeist—the spirit, attitude, and general outlook—in Sri Lanka. Most Sri Lankans, including my compatriots, think that corruption is fine, because it is a fact of life; Is it right to embezzle public funds as long as there is progress in Sri Lanka? When you talk about the existing problems in Sri Lanka, the sycophants of the present political system always say that these problems such as total disregard for law and order by politicians, corruption, intimidation, murder, rape, disappearance of journalists, etc are ubiquitous, not unique to Sri Lanka. Most Sri Lankans say that in Sri Lanka, people tolerate corruption—politicians and government officials take a certain percentage of the funds that are allocated for development projects and economic activities—because economic growth and activity still happen despite corruption; therefore, there is progress and development. But when politicians and government officials embezzle public funds or take bribes, they are using the money they steal from the public to gain political power; everybody is looking for political power because they can commit crimes with impunity and use power for illegitimate private gain, repression of political opponents, promote cronyism, nepotism, patronage, and police brutality. This current system is not sustainable because when corruption becomes ubiquitous, most societies collapse.

It is true that now there is more economic growth in Sri Lanka, but do not forget, that the remittances from migrant workers—1.7 million Sri Lankan citizens work abroad, a majority are women working as housemaids—estimated at around $4.1 billion in 2010, is the most important source of foreign exchange for Sri Lanka. If you sincerely think, Sri Lanka is the country where you want to live and raise your children, would you give up your US citizenship and go back to Sri Lanka with your children? I think that would be the ultimate proof of progress, development, and economic growth in Sri Lanka and a patent act of true patriotism, and anything less than that would be just humbug and bunkum. We all know that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

We cannot see what is going to happen to Sri Lanka in the future. But today we are reaping the harvest of what our power-hungry leaders did to our country. We made the Sinhalese language the official language of Sri Lanka. But the minorities in Sri Lanka did not give up learning English, so they ended up getting most of the jobs, disproportionate to Sri Lanka’s ethnic makeup. Then we blamed the minorities because they had most of the jobs in administration. After independence, politicians did nothing to promote harmony among various ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. Today, Sri Lankans openly display bigotry. I have heard the following statement made by Sinhalese parents: I do not want my child to marry a Tamil or a Muslim. We all know that there is one thing common to all Sri Lankans when it comes to their identity: being a Sri Lankan is our second choice; most Sinhalese would say proudly, “I am a Sinhala-Buddhist.” I have heard Tamils say, “I am a Tamil, first; a Sri Lankan, second.” We will continue to hate, torture, and kill each other as long as we do not identify ourselves as Sri Lankans, first. I know for a fact that it is not going to happen in my lifetime. Sri Lankans are doomed to live with each other with hate and mistrust. We have defeated the LTTE, yet we have not found a viable solution to our national plague: our ethnic problem.

We all know that our opposition is impotent— there is no political-Viagra to make them potent—and they are not a viable solution to our existing problems. Yes, there has been development and progress; people are not scared of terrorists, our country is cleaner, but can we criticize our own politicians? Is it possible to hold our politicians and their cronies and thugs accountable? Are we equal under the law? Is it right to violate the rights of our own citizens? Is it worth to have development without dignity, and wealth without decency? Is it better to live with the fear of harassment, retaliation, and intimidation than with the fear of bomb explosions?

If you are wishing for a benevolent dictator, do you think the dictator will always remain benevolent? I think, those who favor a benevolent dictator expect the dictator to be benevolent to their family members, cronies, and unctuous sycophants, but cruel and unforgiving to the opponents. Dictators have always used unscrupulous mechanisms such as using tinpot thugs to kill, torture, and harass their dissenters. As I said a benevolent dictator is just an oxymoron.