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by Nilantha Ilangamuwa
“Liberty is meaningless where the
right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all
rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike
down.”
— Frederick Douglass (1860 speech in
Boston)
( October 10, 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Guardian) The tread of hundreds of thousands of feet walking across the country
in search for the liberty of education has ended (as has the lives of two
students in the process) at the Ministry of Economic Development, one of the
ministries headed by a brother of the president. The Federation of University
Teachers Association (FUTA) had the 'opportunity' to sit with the minister of
the subject at his high security compound and receive his 'political' answers.
Later, they met the Secretary of the Treasury, P.B. Jayasundara, who tried to
explain the real facts and figures that comprise the banana republic, now world
famous as a laboratory of nepotism.
However, things are still unstable
and unclear. Even the president of FUTA, who spoke to this writer earlier this
morning, does not have a clear idea about the ruling family’s policy towards
the education crisis. And this is after one of the longest union actions in the
recent history of Sri Lanka. It is obvious that the President of the
country is ignorant of the concept of good governance; his chief political
strategy being nothing more than using the armed power under his control or
simply killing time until all that oppose get tired and give up. Today, what we
are witnessing in the name of politics is that sincere ignorance and
conscientious stupidity, which, as Martin Luther King, Jr. remarked, comprise
the most dangerous scenarios.
As this writer has repeatedly
pointed out, the basic foundation of politics in Sri Lanka is embedded in habitual
lies and vulgarism. These are the core tactics which the government is using to
stay in power. Spreading baseless gossip against opponents has become a very
important strategy not only for keeping up its reputation but in undermining
the truth. In this context, popular politics has sincerely ignored the
political wisdom, eventually overlapping with popular cultural aspects rather
than organizing within the framework of the rule of law.
Generally, politics has more connection
with culture than with legalities and because of this an idea of “social
change” entered into the discourse where social moments originated. It was the
revolt against the “culture of silence.” Our culture is based on a pyramidal
hierarchical chamber, which is always allowed to dominate and undermine the
people who are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Caste has registered a system
where freedom has no room. We do not have common authentic acceptance on
conditions for justice. We value human beings according to the place they have in
the hierarchy. Religion came after culture, but reality was too harsh; religion
has been adapted into cultural acceptance and habituates each of the communities.
The whole scenario has been based on one question, which is, abstaining from
the rule of law and the habitual cultural deviation from the rule of law.
In this circumstance, the idea of
“no alternative if we lose the present” has rooted into our system, becoming part
of the culture even after colonial inventions in the sixteenth century. The rule of the country was based on the emotional
intention of the king, people’s rights were none other than what they received
by birth. No one has dared to challenge the “power centric system”, preferring
to rather obey everything. The idea to struggle against “absolute power” or the
“royal absolute” was the first time questions rationally arose. This was during
the end the colonial times, courtesy the social change that occurred in Europe over the ferment of the industrial revolution, though
there were minor incidents reported in ancient times, which were basically
identified as “power struggle between brethren.”
We never fought to change the
system. We fought to protect the system on behalf of the kingdom, while people
who really wanted to change the system were labeled as “nation traitors.”
Basically, we did not have courage to fight against authoritarianism and unjustness
until the British established a system based on the electoral process. This was
developed up to a certain extent, but our own politicians were unable to read
meaning into it. As a result, the electoral process has become a cynical
manipulation of power and believing in the system is nothing but infantile. In
this context, politics has become agitation without visionary political
ideology. The very core reason behind this failure is that we do not extend our
knowledge to understand the importance of dissent or collaboration of
voluntarily work in politics.
FUTA entered into society in this
prevailing situation. That is why many people started to believe that FUTA
itself had tremendous opportunity to change the system. Perhaps many thought it
had the capacity to re-construct authentic dissent in this country. Creating dissent is absolutely dependent upon
voluntarily based social movement and there is a minimum role to play in the
political parties in this country. It will be another betrayal if FUTA were to
lose their voluntary-based battle just for “politics of vulgarism.”
