By Mohamed Harees –

Lukman Harees

“One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician’s objective. Election and power are”~ Cal Thomas

In the background of the recent avoidable economic crisis and the consequential popular uprising, Sri Lanka’s upcoming presidential election assumes greater significance. Once again, there appears to be severe competition among major political parties to prey on a gullible electorate, as history time again  has shown. The present Rajapakse led ruling party  faction would perhaps anoint another amoral politician, to use as a mask to hide its past follies. Ranil & Co., an anti-democratic ruling outfit with a skewed parliamentary representation too is busy trying to tinker with constitutional provisions, to suit the political requirements of the rulers without paying no heed for national interest. Analysts say that the much talked about 22nd Amendment could potentially be a ruse to derail the electoral process.

In a greater context, the ruling parties since Independence have been refusing to accept their  responsibility for the pollution of the governance system and democratic institutions through greed oriented corrupt practices, gross abuse of perk and privileges and use of racism and hate politics for political survival, as well as the facilitation of assault on our most basic civil liberties. On the other hand, the people also need to realise that they too are to be blamed equally, if not entirely for the consequential disaster this nation is faced with, by repeatedly voting in their public representatives who have had criminal and dubious track records. The question arises: will the electorate at least this time be determined to vote sensibly to elect those with clean track records and also refuse to fall into the racist trap, reject politics of hate and demand of their rulers to clean their stables and to promote a culture of inclusion?

In Hitler and the Germans, the political philosopher Eric Vogelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist.

All the rulers since Independence, particularly since the end of the war in 2009, in one way or another are responsible for this zeitgeist. They orchestrated the worst economic crisis. Trumpeted by a compliant media, the rulers’ paradigm shifted their focus from the common good to personal greed, politics of division and gross misuse of law and order to parochial interest. Rajapaksas were at the epicenter of this paradigm shift. Those undergoing profound economic and political change were told that their suffering stemmed not from their divisive, corrupt  and inefficient governance as well as corporate greed but from a threat to national security. In the name of national security, racist and hate agendas of the rulers were promoted to stay in power. People were made to believe that national security overrides their right to hold the government to account.

As Chomsky argued, “social spending may well arouse public interest and participation, thus enhancing the threat of democracy; the public cares about hospitals, roads, neighbourhoods, and so on, but has no opinion about the choice of missiles and high-tech fighter planes.” What Chomsky essentially states is that when the public is less interested in the details of state spending, it affords the state increased discretion in how it spends money. In this context, racist, majoritarian policies were often justified in the name of national security, beyond public scrutiny.

It was ethnic divisions that led to a nearly three decade long conflict in Sri Lanks. Initially, while Buddhist nationalists with patron saints in the highest echelons of government, utilized religion to mobilize against Tamil separatists, the island’s conflict was not a religious war. But post-war, anti-Muslim sentiment that the separatist conflict helped mask has risen to the fore, and the result has been pogrom-like violence against the island’s second largest minority. None of the culprits who were responsible for country’s sectarian violence against minorities, from 1983 anti Tamil riots to Post Easter anti Muslim violence were brought to justice, due to the severe impunity crisis. The 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks by s fringe extremist Musli group in Sri Lanka that killed around 260 people exacerbated Islamophobia in the country. Anti-Muslim propaganda became a powerful symbol to claim the island’s Buddhist identity is being threatened which deepened ethnic fault lines further.  Given how religion was being deftly manipulated in Sri Lanka and even in India,  to wage a civilizational war against Muslims, while other minorities are left cowed, the extant majoritarianism  only widened and deepened. The fact, however, is that notwithstanding various crosscutting cleavages, democracy and demography have been favouring majoritarianism in both India and Sri Lanka. This bodes ill more for both societies.

They say good journalism is fact-based, value driven and agenda-free. But reality is mostly otherwise promoting racism and hate speech, paying no regard for ethical journalistic principles.  Media outlets like Hiru and Derana were seen to be in the forefront of anti-Muslim propaganda during Gotabaya’s election time and even beyond to help their political masters to come to and stay in power. Today, the same agenda remains albeit in more subtler forms. Disinformation mostly initiated by the officialdom, has become normalised both globally and locally.

According to John Pilger – Writer, Vietnam Correspondent and author, it was Edward Bernays in the 1920’s who invented public relations as a euphemism to propaganda. “Deploying his uncle Sigmund Freud he campaigned on behalf of the Tobacco industry for women to take up smoking as an act of liberation, and at the same time he was involved in the disinformation that was critical in over throwing the government of Guatemala”. The invisible government Bernays had in mind brought together all media PR, Press, Advertising Broadcasting and the power of branding and image making, in other words disinformation. This was the beginning of a new global empire creating a new world order; in today’s context, mostly controlled by the powerful Zionist political and media lobbies – lobbies which still allow a criminal state of Israel to stay within the boundaries of the  ‘civilised’ world and whitewash its genocidal sins. Locally, Rajapaksas also got a second life, due to the influence of the local lobbies.  Journalists know that most politicians resort to racism to win votes. The rot is already there and the media today as a whole has been accused of spreading racism, publishing or broadcasting fake news and being a vehicle for hate mongers, because of racists masquerading as journalists.

Islamophobia became the political football ever since the end of the war in 2009. The BBS Gnanassara clan and its ilk make outlandish claims designed to demonize the island’s Muslims. The BBS has led or influenced much of the anti-Muslim violence Sri Lanka has experienced since the end of the civil war. Now Gnanasara who was jailed earlier on charges of insulting Islam, is let loose on bail and already he has started his barrage of  unsubstantiated anti Muslim accusations. He is trying to hoodwink the Sinhala populace by diverting their attention from the actual reason for his jail sentence- insulting Allah.

Looking back on our past century, Jonathan Glover, director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King’s College in London, in his book, “Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century” says, ‘It is the history of the failure of our humanity and the concurrent rise of barbarism. Glover does not spare us the details of a century of untold blood and savagery, yet his main focus is on a reality that he believes lies beneath the horror fading of the moral law.

In fact, one of the worst disasters afflicting humanity especially  in the post-09/11 phase has been the exponential growth of hatred towards the ‘other’, specifically racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia.  Throughout its history, the United Nations has worked to eliminate racial discrimination. But then, has this ideal of elimination of racial discrimination been a reality, both in terms of individual and institutional racism? No! It was sadly being reflected even in modern-day society in various pretexts and forms, unfortunately in various forms. Despite this wide conviction prevalent among the international community that racism and racial discrimination fundamentally undermine the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the firm determination and commitment of the United Nations to eradicate, totally and unconditionally, racial discrimination in all its forms, it is matter of extreme regret that still this scourge has been hovering around the world, under various pretexts. No violation of human dignity ranks as destructive as that of racism. The racist holds that some people are less human and less valuable than others and that the criterion of value is race, nationality, or cultural background.

It is a shame that various shades of Racism /hate for the ‘other’ has become a conundrum of our time despite our boasts of modernity and civilization. To eradicate or resolve this will require tremendous grit and determination as well as creative activism on the part of all of us; for, ‘politics and governance are too important to be left in the hands of those who govern us. Even the UN acknowledges in its Report 2005, the futility of having loads of rhetoric on improving the lot of Man and his dignity without concrete action on the ground. ‘But without implementation, our declarations ring hollow. Without action, the promises are meaningless. Genuine solidarity and brotherhood among all shades of people, is a must, as a UN Report aptly puts across, ‘equal dignity for all human beings does not generate only rights. In addition, and primarily, it represents a call to action, vigilance and prevention. Recognizing our own dignity makes us answerable to everyone else; there can be no dignity without genuine solidarity and brotherhood’. It is important for us to realize that standing up for human dignity against abuses and transgressions will be standing up for our own self, our kind and our future generations who have trusted us to leave for them a better world than what we inherited from our ancestors.

This election year in Sri Lanka will enable the electorate to do what it must to ensure that racist politics is relegated to the bins of history, and be vigilant of the racist card political party’s abuse in their cheap pursuit of power. People have the responsibility of ensuring the creation of an environment where States vested with three levels of obligation: to respect, protect and fulfil human rights to live in equality and without discrimination, will oblige– both the ruling party and politicians who hold power, or by opposition parties and those vying for power. If the people don’t demand it the politicians will continue talking in their usual election tones of division to suit their narrow agendas, rather than inclusion.

Coming together at the grassroot levels to uphold diversity to achieve common ends is possible. For the first time in the country’s history, Sri Lankans from diverse ethnicities, religions, generations, and social classes came together to wage an Aragalaya to collectively send home powerful Gotabaya in 2022, and to demand political change and accountability for economic crimes. The fight for accountable governance and citizen empowerment demands ongoing dedication and steadfast citizen mobilization. For more than 7 decades, Sri Lanka has suffered immensely due to short sighted racist and majoritarian policies. This nation can only go forward and progress, within a culture of inclusion and national reconciliation becomes the bedrock of State policy making.