We have over 8000 politicians in active service in this land in main and local governments, but what for?
by Chula Goonasekera
This is a formal thank you letter to all those who assisted the victims of the Easter Sunday bomb blasts in Sri Lanka including my relative with maximum commitment whether they were on duty or not. The doctors, nurses, ambulance men, volunteers and well-wishers worked very hard to achieve the best possible damage control for each victim. The services provided by our professional officers in police and armed forces spoke for themselves of their quality although politicos swiftly blamed them. Sadly this never-ending carnage has become a regular feature in our country.
Starting from 1958 Tamil riots, exactly 10 years after the independence the carnage spread at an intolerant scale; 1971 JVP uprising, 1982 -89 same again, then 1990 onwards until 2009 the LTTE war and now in 2019 this catastrophe. It’s the people who suffered, especially the youth who got killed and not the cunning promoters in hiding. The loss of life and damage to property and education has put our country far behind in development when compared to other countries in the neighbouring region. If you analyse each occasion it's the politicians who had nurtured this environment of riots. Its advantageous and profitable for corrupt politicians to concur their personal agendas at the expense of the poor working class and innocent citizens. The general public have remained poor and becoming poorer andpaying taxes through their noses whilst another lavish class of politicians and their associated are striving for nothing. It is astonishing that not a single politician wearing adorable religious public face-masks for political gain did not even witness any of the above events on Easter Sunday bringing into question the reasons for their conspicuous absence. We have over 8000 politicians in active service in this land in main and local governments, but what for?
I blame politicians who spread hate for their own gain (based on race, religion, colour, size, gender or whatever they can get hold of) and promote wars between and within communities and nations. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka have all suffered from this polarised democracy, and we were vulnerable this time because of peaceful life, just like New Zealand. Malaysia escaped this political downslope and got a cap on racial violence after imposing tough rules following its 1968 riots. As a consequence, they are far ahead of us in development. We too, the general public should work to stop diversity becoming a political plot. Some parties have blossomed representing only fraction of the community wanting a ‘pound of flesh’ from the rest. We are all Sri Lankans including animals born here. They have to live here together in peace whatever separation the politicians are dreaming of – again for their private gain.
We cannot expect any good from the current breed of politicos. They have used parliament to stage their utmost low quality by staging chicken fights for the whole world to see. They have no ability to argue pros and cons based on facts in parliament and we, as voters should be blamed for nurturing this kind of vicious evil.
We also cannot believe anything they say, in whatever form. The President, our first citizen who vowed in front of the highest sacred Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka at the inception that this would be his first and the last term of presidency is now planning to contest for the second term without keeping to his mission, abolish the presidency. So did others in the past.
As voters, we can do one thing. Since there is never the ability to join and rise up in any of the political parties especially for individuals with peaceful or honest standing at present, the voters can only do is to disrupt the current prevailing party politics through their votes. During the presidential election if we vote for the unknown and not the established leaders we can ensure that not a single candidate will have a sufficient majority to be elected as the president. This will lead to a parliamentary election where we can vote for good individuals with no track record of criminality or corruption to ensure that parliament will host at least a good set of peaceful people with lesser interest on their own gain. They can promote a new constitution to abolish presidency and ensure diversity is protected by legislation preventing all racially or religiously polarised parties illegal. To do this, just vote for the persons for his or her character and their track record and not the party or colour or their current political standing. This will ensure that party strongholds are broken allowing some independent good people to come forward to save our country slipping into anarchy and becoming another Somaliaburdened with an unprecedented amount of high interest on Chinese loans. We need a ‘vote for the unknown’ campaign to save us as a nation.
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