By Kiribanda De Silva Sumanasekara –

Dear Mr. Namal Rajapaksa,

The son of our honorable president,

The Honorable the President after the next Honorable president,

Little Sir, your very sight is an immense pleasure to me, I am a Sinhala Buddhist person who has been silently watching your decidedly Buddhist activities as the prince regent of our beloved country, the greatest country in the world.  Last week I saw you speaking at an election rally making some brilliant arguments against Geneva. You said, “West does not want to see our country progresses”. That is true Sir, they are so scared. That is why all this fuss.

The thought of writing to you personally was with me for months. But there were two big problems. One was that there was really no one whom I could trust to send this letter with.  But the other day, I happened to see your mentor professor GL Peiris jogging in Torrington Square where I go regularly for watching people ‘enjoying’ the peace brought about by your family.  I know that the professor has been mentoring you on the art of statecraft during the last few years. Once I saw the professor in his meditative jogging reflecting on his plans for Geneva I sat right there and wrote this letter. The kind professor agreed to take this letter to you. If this ever gets published somewhere it is the professor who is responsible for leaking it to the press.

Though the rumor has it that the professor has been talking to himself into leaving your father’s regime, I saw him recently having friendly chats with some of his equals among your father’s close buddies such as Duminda Silva and Dr. Mervin Silva- three men of equal caliber and upbringing. Dr. Mervin Silva was professor Peiris’s classmate at Oxford and, from those days, the professor had always longed for Dr. Silva’s uplifting company. They were known as Lakshman and Mervin duo of Oxford; they were always together like a couplet in a Ghazal. After Dr. Mervin, it is with you that the professor looks the happiest. That is one of the reasons that prompted me to write this sooner.

Having seen Lakshman and Mervin together recently I was sure that the professor has no idea of defecting father’s regime, (I know it is practically your regime) because he looks so happy hanging out with Dr. Mervin, Duminda, Johnston, Gold Rohita and the rest.  The professor appears to have done all that study and written all those books just to be with Dr. Mervin (and these men of letters). Let me tell you some unknown facts of their friendship and collaboration. And this is between you and me: The professor’s book General Principles of Criminal Liability in Sri Lanka was actually co-authored with Dr. Mervin. In fact a huge bulk of the first draft was written by the doctor. But that year the professor needed some extra points to get his tenure and promotion and the doctor kindly agreed to let the professor publish the book only in his name. Huge sacrifice on his part- something he has learnt from the cheap abbot of Kelaniya.

Well now I have a messenger. It is none other than Professor GL Peiris. Yet, again there is another problem: I do not know how to address you. As a Sinhala Buddhist and an admirer of ‘Buddhist socialism’ your family has created in our beloved country, I want to call you the ‘crown prince’ but it too closely rhymes with ‘clown prince-’ an epithet no one in your regime deserves. So, I just call you Mr. Namal Rajapaksa, our president after the next president.

You have been a pure delight for all of us in our country. It is awesome to see the way you treat those idiots in the cabinet. When you walk in to a cabinet meeting those idiots shake in fear. They are so scared that they would not be given enough money to develop the country. They are afraid that their words would not be heard at the meeting. There are worried that they would not be given ‘liquor licenses’ to run some more bars. They are worried as to how to impress you so that their sons and daughters can get into politics or win some lucrative contracts and so on. They are so worried that they would be deprived of the pleasure being looked at by your father. They are so petty minded that they think that you might be in their way or in the country’s way to steady economic growth. Having those worries in their minds and working really hard to develop the country, they are so thin now that compared to them even Mahathma Gandhi looks overweight. Let me tell you this: Let them suffer further the way they have for all these years so that our country will become the wonder of Asia.

They are all idiots. But watch out for one of them. I cannot tell you his name. He is planning to get into the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) with his eyes set on the presidency of the country. He is smart; he can get our great teachers, Buddhist monks, running around on his behalf. So watch out for him. That is why I have called you “our president after the next president.” It is up to you to decide how many ‘nexts’ you need before the word “president.” My little advice is that increase the number visits to Malwatte, Asgiriya, the temple of the Tooth Relic and Sri Maha Bodhiya. Then, you will be fine with your presidential ambitions.

I am writing you to tell you that you are the ideal person to be next president in our country. This fact is self-evident and does not need any explaining.  You have already laid a strong foundation for the Buddhism socialism our great nationalist thinkers were hoping for. Becoming one of the richest princes in the world in barely 10 years you have shown us the way. You have become one the richest men without really investing a single rupee of your own. That is the secret of Buddhist economy: you turn your merits or pin into dollars. I have heard that in turning your previous merits into dollars you have even outfoxed your famous uncle. In these magical economic activities, you have the blessings of honorable abbots at Malwatthe and Asgiriya because they know that yours is a Buddhist economy.

In terms of Buddhist simplicity you are an embodiment of Buddhist virtue. When all other ministers are crazy about huge cars such as Montero, Prado and so on you are into Lambogini- a small car. Four people can barely fit into it. It is so small that even rich Americans think twice before buying one.  Opting for a small car like Lambogini you indicate that you are a protector of Theravada Buddhism which is known as “small vehicle.” Even to buy these kinds of cars, you spent your own ‘merit-born money’ without asking the treasury to buy you one – an exemplary self-sacrifice by a Sri Lankan politician.

In addition to those qualities, you are a very wise young prince. I know it is not just mentoring by professor Peiris. It is your own natural intellectual skills. Like your father, you nicely finish every sentence you begin. Everyone cannot do that. You are known to finish your degree in law with utmost ease and elegance. Compared to the effortless way you finished your law education, even Kumar Sangakkara’s spectacular cover drives seem unattractively labored. The sense of gratitude you have shown to your former law teacher and Principal of the Law College is simply heartening, touching and moving. I read recently that the Law Principal is now the Law director of the presidential palace. That is the Sinhala Buddhist sense of gratitude! That shows how your parents have brought you up.

In cultural life too, your taste is essentially Buddhists. For example car racing in Colombo! Even in ancient India under Buddhist kings, there were chariot racing. It is a nice way to attract some tourism dollars. By the way, you uncle seems to take credit for getting James Packer to invest his trillions in Sri Lanka. But we know, our president after the next president, you are the man behind that development project. There is nothing wrong in Casino. Even the city of Kusinara had casino, and Kusino became Casino when white people pronounced it.

Your skill in ethical reasoning is another aspect of your career. There are numerous examples to cite in this regard. The public speech you made after saving the life of Balachandran, the little of boy of the LTTE Big Man brought tears to every Sinhala Buddhist on that historic day in 2009. On learning that little Balachandan was captured alive, you flew there right away. You hugged the boy with immense loving- kindness; and that boy, feeling that a virtuous Buddhist prince was there, cuddled into your warm embrace. Instantly his fear of life was gone. Many soldiers there wanted to finish the boy up, but you had your father’s message to them: “No child is responsible for his parents’ wrong doing.” Making that statement in your awesome voice, coming through your beautifully chapped and elegantly gapped teeth, you made the boy lie down on the ground and took some photographs to make him look shot to death in the battlefield so that angry Sinhala Buddhists would not cry for the boy’s flesh. Those are the photos of the boy the Channel 4 idiots have been showing around to attack our beloved mother land. Those guys may sensationalize the world for a short while. But one day truth will come to life. I know that the boy is growing up under your family’s protection in the same way as KP, the Arms Dealer growing backward turning into an innocent little boy. Having returned to Colombo with the boy, at a secret cabinet meeting you have reportedly said, “We will save this boy and many other children to show the world that we are a Buddhist country. By saving those lives we would have saved a great deal of ethical capital on whose foundation our country can flourish.”

You were right. Our country is now flourishing indeed.

Your father always says, “All the children are my children and I am the proud father of them all.” You have inherited his philosophy. The children of the nation are so happy that by voting your father into presidency they have automatically received three exemplary brothers, three next presidents.

I know you have acquired such wisdom from professor Peiris, The Rhodes Scholar. May be some afternoon conversations with Dr. Mervin might have helped a bit. But it is mostly the professor, I am sure. It was with his unfailing advice that you could win a bid to host Common Wealth games in our beloved country a couple of years ago. That story can wait for now.

By the way, talk to Dr. Sarath Amunugama too. He knows his Derrida, Foucault, and all the social theories. In fact that is why he is there with your regime. I will write to him too one day requesting him to give you some tips on social equality so that you can fine tune some of your uncle’s social programs such as urban housing programs in Colombo.

By now keep those minister idiots at bay. Call them by their name. Act like the vice president of the country. Train yourself under your father. We are ready to die for you. You are the man to win it for us in Geneva. Please go there with the professor and make an inspiring speech in your immaculate English learned from the professor.

Sincerely Yours

Kiribanda De Silva Sumanasekara