{"id":187155,"date":"2018-02-07T00:03:53","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T18:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=187155"},"modified":"2018-02-11T18:21:20","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T12:51:20","slug":"the-unps-heart-mind-other-body-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unps-heart-mind-other-body-parts\/","title":{"rendered":"The UNP\u2019s Heart, Mind & Other Body Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/a> –<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s a pithy Sinhala saying that probably predates Sigmund Freud\u2019s notion of the slip that reveals the deliberately concealed truth: \u0d9a\u0da7 \u0db6\u0ddc\u0dbb\u0dd4 \u0d9a\u0dd2\u0dc0\u0dca\u0dc0\u0dad\u0dca \u0daf\u0dd2\u0dc0 \u0db6\u0ddc\u0dbb\u0dd4 \u0d9a\u0dd2\u0dba\u0db1\u0dca\u0db1\u0dda \u0db1\u0dd1 (even if the mouth lies, the tongue does not). So we are talking about mouths and tongues.\u00a0<\/span>And we are talking about the United National Party (UNP).<\/span><\/p>\n

The official campaign slogan of the UNP at the forthcoming local government elections is \u2018\u0d9c\u0db8 \u0dc4\u0daf\u0db1 \u0d86\u0dab\u0dca\u0da9\u0dd4\u0dc0\u2019 (the government that develops the village). It implies of course that the UNP, for all of Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s rhetoric to the contrary, has had enough of the Unity\/Yahapalana arrangement with President Maithripala Sirisena and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). That however is incidental here.<\/span><\/p>\n

What counts is what the mouth said and what the tongue betrayed. The tongue, in this case is the UNP\u2019s mayoral candidate for Colombo, Rosy Senanayake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is natural during election campaigns toss around promises and brag about services rendered to the particular electorate. I don\u2019t have issue with that kind of thing. It is also natural to shoot one\u2019s mouth and slip out something that says too much.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Rosy has said a lot and one can argue has done a lot too. For example, she played a major role in getting legislation through to improve women\u2019s representation. That\u2019s Rosy. What about Rosy as a UNP candidate and an articulator of UNP policy and thinking?<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two things she said that reveal a lot. First, she claimed that under the previous regime Hambantota got kiri and Colombo got kekiri, a clear play on an old JVP slogan on regional disparity ( \u0d9a\u0ddc\u0dc5\u0db9\u0da7 \u0d9a\u0dd2\u0dbb\u0dd2 \u0d85\u0db4\u0da7\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u0d9a\u0dd0\u0d9a\u0dd2\u0dbb\u0dd2). Then she said that Colombo is the heart of the United National Party.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now when did Colombo get\u00a0kekiri<\/i>\u00a0and when was it denied\u00a0kiri<\/i>? Also, is Rosy saying that Hambantota and all other places apart from Colombo should get\u00a0kekiri<\/i>\u00a0and nothing else? Only someone who is utterly ignorant of development gaps between Colombo and the rest of the country could make such a claim. As for Colombo getting\u00a0kekiri<\/i>, only someone with a very short memory and suffers from myopia could say something like that.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If Colombo is pretty now then it was made of squalor before 2009. If by January 2015 Colombo got\u00a0kiri<\/i>\u00a0by way of the analogy, then post-2015 it\u2019s well on the road towards becoming a\u00a0kekirilanthaya.<\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How then are we to read Rosy\u2019s angst? It can\u2019t be about physical realities such as infrastructure and essential amenities. It is probably about who ruled the country and the city. It is about a class that was denied political-kiri<\/i>\u00a0for a long time. Yes, they were a\u00a0kekiri-<\/i>party. This is what\u2019s being extrapolated into a skewed description of geographies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The second statement is an elaboration of this mindset. Let\u2019s repeat. Rosy says \u2018Colombo is the heart of the party.\u2019\u00a0<\/span>Now let\u2019s ask some questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

If Colombo is the heart of the UNP, is Jaffna its jaw? Is Bowatte its bowels? Is Nivithigala its knee? Is Tholangamuwa its toenail? Is Anamaduwa its armpit? Is Buttala its buttocks? Is Rikillagaskada its wrist? Is Penideniya its pancreas? Is Nochchiyagama its nose? What is the UNP\u2019s appendix, what is its kidney, what is its hard palette, where are its incisors, eyelashes, eardrum, knuckles, heel and foot? You can think hard about your electorate, which to most would their political heart, and ask what body part the UNP sees it as.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Rosy reveals and how! Essentially the UNP cares only about Colombo and \u2018Colombo\u2019 is not a geographical location but a social class which, Rosy feels clearly, got political\u00a0kekiri<\/i>\u00a0for a while after swimming in\u00a0kiri\u00a0<\/i>for decades. The UNP sees anything that\u2019s not \u2018Colombo\u2019 as dispensable, negligible or made for neglect.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever it is, it is not \u2018heart\u2019.\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s lesser. That\u2019s what the UNP brain says. It\u2019s an \u2018Us-First and Last\u2019 kind of thinking.\u00a0<\/span>And the \u0d9c\u0db8 (village) is at best an afterthought. Condescending and humiliating, really. That\u2019s Rosy\u2019s tongue speaking the truth that the UNP-mouth dares not utter. Her tongue is the UNP\u2019s mind.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The other body parts, obviously lesser in their eyes, would do well to take note.<\/span><\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne a freelance writer.\u00a0malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/a>.\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":137374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe UNP\u2019s Heart, Mind & Other Body Parts - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unps-heart-mind-other-body-parts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The UNP\u2019s Heart, Mind & Other Body Parts - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unps-heart-mind-other-body-parts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-06T18:33:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-11T12:51:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Malinda.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"279\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"356\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Malinda Seneviratne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Malinda Seneviratne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unps-heart-mind-other-body-parts\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unps-heart-mind-other-body-parts\/\",\"name\":\"The UNP\u2019s Heart, Mind & Other Body Parts - 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