By Shyamon Jayasinghe –

Shyamon Jayasinghe

“I am accustomed to sleep and in my dreams to imagine the same things that lunatics imagine when awake.” ~ Rene Descartes

There isn’t any doubt that Dayan Jayatilleka has been hungry for a top political slot in our country. The highest point that he has been able to reach all these years was when he opted to suck up to Varatharaja Perumal, yesteryear Chief Minister of the Northern Provincial Council, in a provincial government run by the Eelam Peoples’s Revolutionary Front.

Since those quirky days, Dayan has been down and down. Outcast by Ranil Wickremesinghe for reasons best known to the sharply discerning Ranil, Dayan smiled when Mahinda Rajapaksa took hold the reigns of power. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a seasoned wheeler-dealer of Mahinda’s family camp and so Dayan could not make a political materialisation. Instead, he looked for a top billing in the Foreign Service where he would have an opportunity to impress at global level and thereafter, perhaps, retry a subsequent political space. Dayan is arrogant and was overly conscious of his intellectual ability to cast a spell on Mahinda Rajapaksa via a diplomatic masterpiece. But his stars had not yet been good and Dayan was suddenly removed without notice and brought back to ground. Unfortunate for that to have happened because this man had a considerable diplomatic potential, which even his critics like me will not be mean enough to deny. However, to Mahinda Rajapaksa abilities hardly mattered. Lucrative linkages were.

Now where does Dayan lie? No chance with Ranil Wickremesinghe as he burnt his boats with the latter. No chance with Mahinda Rajapaksa as the latter has burnt himself out by his own appalling deeds in government. He has to hang on to a dream-only a dream. Dayan Jayatilleka is pathologically prone towards hallucination and he simply dreams of what he describes as an incoming ‘revolution,’ that would bring back Mahinda Rajapaksa. The tragedy is that even if the recapture does occur there isn’t a ghost of a chance of Dayan getting to where he wants to. Something Dayan doesn’t realize is that Mahinda is capricious and Machiavellian. Dayan isn’t up to that knowledge of the former President.

Yet, we see Dayan Jayatilleka on the Nugegoda stage twice-once in 2015 and next in 2017. Looking at the 2015 crowd Dayan exclaimed about the “ the rise and rise of Mahinda Rajapaksa.” Knowing Mahinda’s superstitious nature, the latter will believe in bad mouth or ‘kata waha,’ and soon shriek at Dayan not to make such prophetic predictions. Why? Because after the 2015 “huge crowd,” Mahinda lost. In his homegrown verbiage Mahinda might reprimand Dayan Jayatilleka: “Kata wahapan yako!” That, if not anything saucier like son-of a bitch in choice Sinhala.

In his article about Nugegoda 2017 Dayan acknowledges the roles of Wimal Weerawansa and Gammanpilla in having- planned the ‘patriotic fight-back/MR comeback.’ I listened to a video doing the rounds where Gammanpilla had virtually wept about the absence of Wimal at the recent Nugegoda meeting. In that video, Gammanpilla asks the audience rhetorically: ‘Why is Wimal in jail?’ he supplies the rhetorical answer: “because he has fought patriotically to save our beautiful motherland.”

Oh! What a beautiful thought Dayan and Gammanpilla! What a tribute to the great and pure patriots! Weera Puran Appu was a joke! Wimal is under arrest not for patriotism but for treachery to his country as the charges related to open stealing of public property. Wimal has allegedly given government-owned vehicles to his relatives to run on government-supplied petrol. His brothers, sister, in-laws and even his cook were running around in over 79 official vehicles that cost millions to the country’s treasury. Can a Minister who steals public money be anyone resembling a patriot? This is not to mention of the misallocation of houses to kith and kin.

This shows that Dayan has sunk into a mode of being obtuse and unaware of his surroundings. To him, alleged rogues are patriots. Wonder how he would describe Duminda who is now in gallows? Also a patriot?

Dayan Jayatilleka, while extolling seedy characters as patriots, has a nasty attack on Professor Nailn Silva by calling the latter, “that Sinhala Buddhist chauvinist ideologue.” Dayan even charges that Nalin is a liar. In which site has Dayan camped? He has forgotten his whereabouts so much? Dayan’s ‘revolutionaries,’ are in the Sinhala Buddhist camp as that is Mahinda’s battle cry.

Unfortunately, Dayan Jayatilleka is ever unable to conceal his consuming hate of Ranil Wickremesinghe and in this piece he repeats the hack again. I am sure Ranil has read and heard of these puerile attacks but is singularly unconcerned about them. This is the comic aspect.

Finally, Dayan advises President Sirisena to remove Ranil and save himself. Goodness gracious- this man Dayan Jayatilleka is out of his mind! He may be ready for the revolution with his new-look Che Guavera-like capping outfit but Dayan has to attend to one urgent thing before that cataclysmic historic event: to medicate himself.

*The writer can be contacted at sjturaus@optusnet.com.au