By Ameer Ali –

Dr. Ameer Ali

Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW), an epitome of failure, has been elevated to the position of an executive president, not with a popular mandate or from a Mandate of Heaven, but by 134 legislators from 225 total, the majority of whom were the same mob that aided and abetted Rajapaksa regime to make this country a failed state and a textbook model for economic dereliction. In short, RW has received a Mandate of Hell to continue to rule with an iron fist, but with the same Rajapaksa mob and with the same economic model restructured under IMF tutelage. What could he achieve? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Aragalaya Betrayed

The confrontation between aragalaya youth and Ranil Rajapaksa Interregnum (RRI) is, on a broader canvas, part of a global phenomenon where the voice of the youth is becoming more and more assertive and influential in public policy. This novel development, a product of late 20^th century may be difficult to comprehend by the older generation, which had been used to witness the rise and fall of similar eruptions in various parts of the world, and in the name of creating a world order with Utopian dreams. Even when those eruptions were backed by organized political parties of the left and succeeded in establishing revolutionary regimes, those regimes too succumbed ultimately to the global forces of a capitalist order, as witnessed in post-Gorbachev Russia and post-Deng Xiaoping China. The elders of Sri Lanka too may view the rise of aragalaya as a transient phenomenon, which could be won over by enticing the youth with a concession here and a promise there, or, as happened in Cairo and other parts of Arab Middle East in 2011, by suppressing it altogether. Already, certain conservative quarters have started blaming the youth for worsening the economic crisis and they appear to justify RW’s unprovoked attack on aragalayers as a necessary step to liberate the country from its worst economic crisis yet.

What happened at the Galle Face Green was RW’s opening salvo in a series of repressive measures yet to come in order to deny any chance for aragalaya’s core demand for systemic change becoming reality. A septuagenarian president with his 225 parliamentary colleagues of whom only less than a quarter are below 45 years of age is confronting a generation which is threatening to overthrow the existing system lock stock and barrel.

When acting as Prime Minister, RW pretended to support the youth mission, and even appealed to the police not to intervene and destroy the protestors’ encampment at Galle Face Green. After becoming the president however, he went back on his position, ordered the army to forcibly chase out the protestors and recapture the place. He covered his betrayal by promising to open three other venues for peaceful demonstrators and with a half-hearted promise to consider the seven demands submitted by the youth. Being a prodigy of the old order, RW would be the last person to initiate systemic change. To him, such a change would mean the introduction of measures to make the old system work better.

Aragalaya Exploited

The resignations of former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa followed by that of his brother President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would not have happened had it not been for the extraordinary pressure brought upon them by aragalaya. The entire credit for this sudden turn of events should go to the “Gota-Go-Gamas”. But disappointingly, the opportunity created for change by aragalaya was wasted by the opposition parties by exploiting that victory into a race for new leadership instead of allying with the victors to advance the cause for systemic change. Even JVP/NPP, which should have coalesced with the youth and take that struggle to a different height fell prey to leadership aspirations and came out poorly at the end. Having paid lip service to aragalaya’s victory, opposition parties, also belonging to an elderly generation, virtually orphaned the youth. This was a tragedy.

Rejuvenating Aragalaya

Aragalaya has not produced any distinguishable leadership so far, but it has several spokespersons with different ideas, objectives and strategies. A few of them are violence-prone and they are the ones identified by RW as aragalakaruwo and provided him with an excuse to use force to get rid of the entire movement. However, aragalaya is not a spent force but a generational mission, and will gather momentum in the weeks and months to come, as the economy faces even more difficult challenges from a looming international recession, in the face of rising inflation, increasing interest rates and resurgent Covid pandemic. IMF conditionalities, if and when they come into operation, would not make matters easier. RW’s rescue mission would only rejuvenate aragalaya mission and it may even produce its own leadership to lead the struggle. In the meantime, the young missionaries have to do their homework to get the public on their side.

Most importantly, its core demand for systemic change has so far not seen any documentary shape with details of its content, process of the change and benefits accruing from it. In other words, the demand for systemic change should pass beyond its sloganeering stage. This oversight has to be rectified quickly to make vox populi understand its necessity. At the moment, people are understandably too preoccupied with the hunt for food, fuel and medicine. Yet, they should be made to understand that this hardship is not something that was caused exogenously through uncontrollable forces, but endogenously through a political and economic system that gave social license to its managers and guardians to exploit it for the benefit of themselves and their cronies in the name of development. There is no built-in mechanism in that system to bring the culprits to books and make them accountable. This is why a systemic change is imperative. That should be the educative mission of aragalayers. If opposition parties endorse that mission, then they should form a broad coalition with the youth and convert into a nationwide campaign.

The need for such a campaign appears particularly important given the somewhat lackadaisical attitude shown so far by people in the north and east towards then struggle. To be frank, the Tamils of north and east seem to think, and they are right in thinking so, that they underwent even worse economic difficulties for decades during the civil war, and that there was absolutely no sympathy for their plight from the rest of the country. Tamil leadership too had endorsed that line of argument. In their view, therefore, the current crisis and aragalaya are destiny’s wrath for injustice committed to the Tamils. On the other hand, to Muslim leaders of that region, it is business as usual. As usual, they keep on watching the direction of the political wind to swim along with the current. They too demonstrate only a marginal interest in the call for systemic change.

Be that as it may, one historical truth must be accepted by aragalayers; and that is, there is a national question to be resolved before reconnecting the disconnected communities in the struggle for a new Sri Lanka. That national question itself is the product of the old system and without changing that system there is no room for any resolution. This is why an island wide educative campaign is imperative to rejuvenate the protest mission.

It is unlikely that RW would now be willing to disempower his executive presidency with the proposed 21^st Amendment which he introduced to the parliament while he was the acting PM. He would argue that without an iron fist it would be impossible to introduce IMF backed tough measures to stabilize the economy. That would provide ample opportunities for aragalaya to rejuvenate and take the struggle to a new stage. The future belongs to these youth and time is on their side.

•Dr. Ameer Ali, Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University, Western Australia