{"id":155489,"date":"2016-01-08T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T18:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=155489"},"modified":"2016-01-13T12:15:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T06:45:10","slug":"one-year-later-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/one-year-later-what\/","title":{"rendered":"One Year Later… What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Uditha Devapriya<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Uditha<\/a>

Uditha Devapriya<\/p><\/div>\n

Warren Beatty\u2019s extraordinary film Reds charts the life and career of John Reed, who became the first American to be buried in the Kremlin for his sympathy and support for the Bolsheviks. The movie is extraordinary not so much for its vast, epic canvas as for its depiction of the protagonist\u2019s trysts with idealism and disillusionment. I am, of course, talking about his support for the Russian Revolution.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an interesting scene towards the end of the film. Reed (played by Beatty) is on a train with his \u201cComrades\u201d. They\u2019re returning from the Fourth Comintern Congress held at Baku, Azerbaijan, where he had been amazed at Muslims chanting \u201cJihad!\u201d as his inaugural speech was being translated. In the train Reed realises the reason: his speech was rewritten, not translated, and in place of \u201cclass war\u201d, which was what the Revolution was SUPPOSED to be about, the translator had substituted \u201cHoly War\u201d. He then angrily confronts Grigory Zinoniev, the man who sanctioned the translation.<\/p>\n

What unfolds thereafter is a classic argument on the merits and demerits of revolution and truth, underscored by Reed\u2019s growing disenchantment with the Bolsheviks. To quote: \u201cWhen you separate a man from what he loves the most, what you do is purge what\u2019s unique, and when you purge what\u2019s unique in him, you purge dissent. And when you purge dissent, you kill the Revolution.\u201d Which leads to possibly the biggest \u201ctruism\u201d nearly every revolution in human history has venerated: \u201cRevolution is Dissent!\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a catch here, of course. Reed probably never had this confrontation. He probably never argued with Comrade Zinoniev the way the film makes us believe he did. It was Beatty who scripted that sequence.<\/p>\n

Poetic license notwithstanding however, Beatty\u2019s Reed was spot on there. Revolutions are birthed by idealists. But can these idealists go on without the need to accommodate dissent, without realising that truth can only lead to reconciliation and that the gains of a revolution can only be solidified if (and ONLY if) that reconciliation isn\u2019t fudged or frilled? To be more concise: if revolutionists grow complacent with time, doesn\u2019t that take back the gains of their revolution?<\/p>\n

One year ago (we\u2019re told), there was a revolution in Sri Lanka. Commentators today never seem to grow tired of chirping on and on about the overthrow of tyranny that this led to, and about how the world (no less!) can take a leaf out of our book with regard to restoring democracy. I know for a fact that these commentators genuinely believe what they\u2019re harping about: that after more than 10 years of a despotic tyranny, \u201coverthrow\u201d was definitely not that easily to achieve.<\/p>\n

Not easily to achieve perhaps, but not impossible either. Those who laud the people for having overthrowing Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s regime, not surprisingly, are silent over how the people went to the ballot and threw other complacent leaders out in the past.<\/p>\n

That is a silent if not forgivable omission on their part, though. What I find unforgivable and laughable, however, is their assessment of the situation AFTER the revolution. Put pithily, there\u2019s discontentment. There\u2019s also happiness. For the most however, there are mixed feelings. And there\u2019s hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

Let me come out with it: none of us was happy with the way Mahinda Rajapaksa handled the country. After he passed the 18th Amendment, he embraced a new self, a no-no as far as amity and peace for the country were concerned. He sanctioned acts of theft, violence, quackery, and chicanery on the part of those who, at the last moment, disowned him and \u201cbecame\u201d lily-white angels. Most horrendously though, he implied that he himself realised this. No other president in this country, after all, has on the verge of an election claimed that the \u201cknown devil\u201d is better than the \u201cunknown\u201d.<\/p>\n

In comparison, Maithripala Sirisena is way ahead. No other president had the guts to clip his own powers. No other president tried so hard to be simple in behaviour and appearance. I attended functions where he spoke at length, not about his political career but about his personal life. I saw and heard him speak about his schooldays when I attended the 150th Anniversary Day of St Benedict\u2019s College, Kotahena, where he was Chief Guest. His reminiscences, at once poetic and free of frill, moved me.<\/p>\n

And I know he\u2019s still trying. There were those who lambast(ed) him over the Budget, his conduct at the UN General Assembly, and his reaction to that disastrous Enrique Iglesias concert. But look closer: he may have committed the gaffe, but it\u2019s someone else who has to take the blame for that gaffe. He is not Mahinda Rajapaksa, at least not to an extent, in this regard.<\/p>\n

Yes, we are grateful.<\/p>\n

But not being like Mahinda Rajapaksa will neither salvage nor sustain the revolution. The president has been quick to affirm, deny, or apologise, but he has also been quick to trip himself up. He has contradicted himself on various policy issues (most notably his stance on the death penalty, denied by his own Foreign Minister overseas). His stand on nepotism has raised eyebrows. His affirmation of a multiethnic and rational society, where primitivism doesn\u2019t hold sway, has fallen flat on the ground when confronted with the way he lambasted the organisers of the Iglesias concert (and that on the pretext of protecting our Sinhala Buddhist culture!).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine once gave his take on revolutions of the sort our president authored: \u201cThey are fine for rhetoric. They are fine for those insured against transition. But for those who lose from them, not because they backed the \u2018other side\u2019 but because that transition leads to economic instability, the government remains hard to support, harder to sustain.\u201d I think he was being a tad too unfair on the government, but I see his point: at a time when the world\u2019s turbulent enough, revolutions of THIS sort, coupled especially with the sort of policy U-Turns we\u2019ve been seeing soon after the president took oaths last year, need to be handled well.<\/p>\n

This government hasn\u2019t handled it well, truth be told. I\u2019ve lost faith in the rupee. I don\u2019t bother keeping a tab on prices. I can\u2019t think of a worse time to save or invest or borrow (except during the war years). I don\u2019t remember whether we even had a Budget last year, given the number of shifts and capitulations the Finance Ministry has done with respect to that. And no, I can\u2019t understand why we STILL haven\u2019t apprehended the likes of (Dr) Mervyn Silva (where is he now, I wonder?).<\/p>\n

As if this wasn\u2019t bad enough, I have another complaint: I don\u2019t know why the president had to slap democracy in the face and appoint rejects as Ministers last August.<\/p>\n

Oh no, I\u2019m not saying we need to go back to the Rajapaksa Regime. But that doesn\u2019t mean those who won on account of their allegiance with the former president should be \u201cpunished\u201d by being relegated to the parliament. I remember what another friend of mine said: \u201cWe can\u2019t afford five-star democracy when it comes to Mahinda Rajapaksa\u201d. A poor justification of what transpired in August 2015, I believe.<\/p>\n

For those still trying to justify what Sirisena did, hence, I have only one thing to say: just stop it. Democracy isn\u2019t five-star, it\u2019s unqualifiable. Purely and simply.<\/p>\n

And so one year has gone by. Losers are occupying Ministries and they run the show. Some even seem to be behaving as though what they\u2019re doing was and is accepted by the same people who reject them. Crass. Pathetic. Typical.<\/p>\n

No wonder we have a de facto \u201cJoin Opposition\u201d in addition to (and apart from) the TNA-JVP de jure Opposition! No wonder that Joint Opposition can still play on fears perceived and imagined, for the most revolving around issues of sovereignty, suzerainty, and political quackery. No wonder, also, that racist rhetoric is on the rise, what with a segment of the population virtually unrepresented thanks to a government that refuses to recognise their grievances and demands!<\/p>\n

Enough to make you a cynic, right?<\/p>\n

When I reflect on all this, I can only grin at the Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and WordPress activists who ranted against Mahinda Rajapaksa, who\u2019re now bending over backward to defend the man they elected to power, even in the most ludicrous situation. I can only guffaw at their pathetic attempts at criticising the president\u2019s statements while defending the president himself. And I can only scowl and glare at their EVEN more pathetic attempts at trying to place abuses and misuses of power by this government in a better light than those of the Rajapaksa Regime, and that by using the \u201crelative merits\u201d argument.<\/p>\n

No, quackery isn\u2019t relative, folks. Especially when it\u2019s political. I think that\u2019s the biggest lesson we\u2019ve learnt this past year.<\/p>\n

And I think we\u2019re done listening to these activists and bloggers trying to tell us otherwise.<\/p>\n

*Uditha Devapriya is a freelance writer who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com. His articles can be accessed at fragmenteyes.blogspot.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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