{"id":129332,"date":"2014-08-23T14:19:23","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T08:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=129332"},"modified":"2014-08-30T03:51:56","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T22:21:56","slug":"enough-of-the-diagnoses-bring-on-the-cure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/enough-of-the-diagnoses-bring-on-the-cure\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough Of The Diagnoses, Bring On The Cure!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Emil van der Poorten<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Emil<\/a>

Emil van der Poorten<\/p><\/div>\n

For a long time now, writers focusing on Sri Lankan ethics or morality of some description have described, often at great length, what ails the body politic in this country. \u00a0I cannot, in all conscience, exclude myself from this lot.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, now that we\u2019ve seemingly plumbed the depths of the ocean of corruption and violence that is Sri Lanka today, isn\u2019t it time that we sought solutions, no matter how minor or temporary, to our homeland\u2019s predicament?<\/p>\n

Let me take a preliminary stab at this task, as overwhelming as the issues facing us might seem.<\/p>\n

Those who believe in the need for and, therefore, seek change to the status quo have, first, to escape from the brain-washing that has resulted in a belief that the other side of the current political coin, totally debased as it is, presents a means of purchasing our way out of the morass that it has bought us.\u00a0 Suffice it to say that I believe that suggesting that the UNP of Ranil Wickremesinghe, Karu Jayasuriya and Sajith Premadasa is a real alternative to what the Rajapaksa Regime (RR) has visited upon us is to pay pooja to something that has already proved its value, or lack thereof, in spades.\u00a0 After all, it was the J. R. Jayewardene regime that started the ball of massive corruption and impunity rolling and these, his unapologetic successors, have not, in any way, sought to distance themselves from that legacy.<\/p>\n

For starters, we need leaders who are not already discredited by opportunistic political behaviour or who do not already have a track record of previous, current or sporadic collaboration of any kind with the RR. \u00a0If that sounds like some absolutist dictum, so be it.\u00a0 To modify an aphorism that the RR is particularly fond of, \u201cYou are either for democracy or against it.\u201d\u00a0 There can be no half measures in that calculation and to seek salvation through those who\u2019ve either ignored or equivocated on that score is just plain stupid.<\/p>\n

We not only need people of principle but those prepared to place their physical mental and psychological well-being on the line.\u00a0 Recently, an acquaintance who had observed the demonstrations in Thailand made a very simple observation to me: that the public protests against Yingluck Shinawatra were going nowhere because the educated Thai middle classes, supposedly in the vanguard of those demonstrations, chose, literally, to go home to look after their very comfortable places of abode after their nine-to-five demonstrations and could not conceive of inconveniencing themselves to the extent necessary to remove a government that they proclaimed to be incompetent and corrupt.\u00a0 That enterprise was saved, if that is the word, by the intervention of the armed forces who, according to them at least, were bringing law, order and good governance to the Thai nation.\u00a0 The conduct of the Thai middle class was typical of their counterparts all over the world, Sri Lanka included, and constituted a refusal to so much as consider \u201cshort term pain for long term gain.\u201d\u00a0 Incidentally, even if one accepts as legitimate in some way the armed forces\u2019 complete control of a nation\u2019s affairs, and I certainly do not,<\/b> this has historically not provided anything resembling an answer to dilemmas of this kind in democratic states. \u201cTaking over a country, putting its affairs in order and then handing power back to a democratically-elected government\u201d has never happened in the past and, particularly given the total subservience of the armed forces of this country to the Rajapaksa family is as likely as an Inuit buying a refrigerator from me!\u00a0\u00a0 That said, our locally \u201ccomfortably-off\u201d are not able to get off their duffs to even do the \u201cnine-to-five thing\u201d because, if truth be told, the current economic chaos and corruption hasn\u2019t hit them, literally, in their collective breadbasket. YET.\u00a0 When it does, and it surely will as night follows day, it will be too late because they\u2019ll then be so cowed into a paralysis of inaction, not by indifference but by a deep and absolute cowardice as befits those who proclaim the bravery of the Lion Race while practicing a political culture better suited to those long- and short-tailed scavengers that have traditionally tagged along behind the King of the Jungle!<\/p>\n

Though the proverbial wisdom, at least in the western world, appears to be that social change can only be initiated by the educated middle class, 20th<\/sup> Century Sri Lankan history seems to suggest something different in that both JVP<\/span><\/a> insurrections and that conducted by the Liberation Tigers<\/span><\/a> of Tamil Eelam were led by the lower middle classes of the two communities and their mass was made up from the peasant and what could pass for the working class of a pre-industrial society.\u00a0 Do we have to wait for history to repeat itself and wait on those same segments of the Sri Lankan population to provide leadership to any effort to kick out the current banditry that tries to pass for some kind of elected, populist government?<\/p>\n

Narrowly applying political theories of any kind in an effort to analyse the current Sri Lankan predicament and then seeking a solution to it through application of those classic theoretical concepts will not provide the proverbial \u201clight at the end of the tunnel.\u201d\u00a0 We need people who are prepared to inconvenience themselves, nay, even, make some significant sacrifices in the areas of purse and person to shake the population-at-large out of its current torpor bred of fear and a \u201cI\u2019m all right, Jack\u201d attitude based on a totally false foundation.\u00a0 The specifics of such an attempt at change within a democratic framework needs to be determined and determined soon.\u00a0 The efforts to find a \u201cCommon Candidate\u201d to run against Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a> in the next Presidential election is a logical first step that Dr. Kumar David<\/span><\/a>, much to his credit, has spearheaded and persisted with.\u00a0 However, even if that is determined to be the logical first step to rid this land of the pestilential parasites that have governed us for too long, the next step(s) must be determined and worked on as well.\u00a0 Remember what Margaret Mead said (and I will never tire of repeating!): \u201cNever believe that a few caring people can\u2019t change the world. For, indeed, that\u2019s all who ever have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any takers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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