By Fr Chryso Pieris SJ –

Fr Chryso Pieris SJ

Surveying the political landscape today, listening to the voice cuts and speeches of various politicians and their supporters, the picture that comes to my mind is that of Siduhath Bodhisatva calmly and most peacefully facing the attacks of Maraya in various guises. The attacks of Maraya are more personal than socio-political. Siddhartha has not yet started to destabilize the status quo.

Around five hundred years later there was a similar scenario with Jesus of Nazareth. This time the attackers were humans and more specific; The political, social, religious and commercial leaders of ancient Judea, Samaria and Galilee.

“He is out of his mind.” “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” “By the prince of demons he drives out demons.” “He has an unclean spirit.” These are some of the accusations attacking Jesus. Those attacks were meant to discredit him and destroy his popularity. These accusations were at the beginning of his public life. But the attacks became more serious and more vicious later at the tail end of his short life.

After Jesus chased out of the Temple the money-changers and sellers of pigeons and sheep, the powers that were, were becoming wary of his movement and popularity. He was becoming a threat to their leadership, influence, income and their power. He called the satrap Herod a fox and the Pharisees and Sadducees white-washed tombs containing rot. Indirectly he told the people not to pay taxes to the Empire. At the hearing in the Sanhedrin, he was accused of putting himself on the same level with God, Yahweh. But that will not cut ice with Pontius Pilate the Roman, therefore in front of him they accused Jesus of setting himself up as their king in opposition to the emperor making himself a traitor to the Empire. Simply put Jesus of Nazareth was a serious threat to their power, positions and privileges. He was giving people dignity and making people free and sovereign. He was liberating people from slavery to pharisaical laws and imperial decrees. He was a danger and a real threat to the status quo. He had to be eliminated.

In the eternal and irreconcilable antagonism between Good and Evil, Evil always attacked Good by trying to denigrate it and destroy the sympathy humans have for it. Through lies and canards about Good it tried to weaken the trust humans place in the Good. It will go to any length, any vicious stinking stab-in-the-back crime to stop the Good from achieving its noble goals.

These thoughts came to my mind surveying the happenings in the political scene. After the Aragalaya 22 there is clearly a demand by the vast majority for a morally clean, safe and a level playing field in society. The only politically trustworthy alliance is the NPP. I call it the Grand Alliance of Good People. The rest are made up of the old rotten governance of greed, nepotism and all sorts of immorality. There is surely an imminent paradigm shift, a renascence, a system change. All of us are, with great patience, waiting for it to happen. As days pass it is becoming more and more difficult to restrain the victims of this evil governance from repeating the Aragalaya 22. Rural women, poor widows with children, at the end of their tether, full of anger at seeing their children going hungry call me and ask me when we are going to get on to the street. A mother who sees her children starving can become a tigress. I tell them it is with great patience that people restrain themselves from doing that. It is only the forthcoming presidential election that retrains them. The whole country is waiting for this election as never before for any other election.

The barking and braying go on at every opportunity they get to slander, accuse and denigrate the NPP. The government, the opposition and even some religious leaders have nothing else to say about the future of this country or plans for its development except blame everything on the old JVP and the 88-89 happenings. Everybody knows who perpetrated the infamous Black July, who burnt down the Jaffna library, who suppressed and hunted down the JVP which had nothing to do with the Black July crimes and atrocities, who sponsored and what happened at Batalanda. It is the same amnesia that SLPPs have of May 9^th. They only talk about the MP who got killed and the burning of their houses. They completely forget what caused all that ire of the people; the SLPP goons attacking the Aragalaya 22, sent with cudgels by MR after treating them to a breakfast with alcohol!

All those who have an interest in keeping the status quo alive will be against the NPP. From what I said at the beginning I’m not saying that the NPP is Bodhisatva or Jesus Christ but that NPP is the only haven of the Good People of this country. Evil will be always against the Good.

The evil status quo will try all kinds of tricks to divide, discredit and destroy the NPP. It is only a short time left to the crucial election. The NPP will have to keep in mind these two things.                                                                        

01. Internally speaking safeguarding and protecting the unity and cohesion of the NPP at all costs.                            

02. Externally speaking the NPP must parry the accusations of the status quo but never go down to the barking and braying style of the opponent. All the NPPs and their supporters must be in their best behavior in public. The second external issue is more dangerous. The evil status quo and the NPP are playing for very high stakes. The lives of the leaders of the NPP, especially the life of AKD, may be in danger. The protection of these lives must be top priority and it must never be allowed to relax. The safety measures must be active and alert twenty-four hours a day, every day, till the election results are out.

God bless the Aragalaya 22 and the Grand Alliance of Good People.