{"id":237247,"date":"2024-06-10T07:54:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-10T02:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=237247"},"modified":"2024-06-21T23:42:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T18:12:02","slug":"voice-of-the-voiceless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/voice-of-the-voiceless\/","title":{"rendered":"Voice Of The Voiceless"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Vishwamithra<\/a> –<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.\u201d <\/i>\u00a0Arundhati Roy<\/p>\n

\"\"The pathetic state of the rural Sri Lanka may not be visible to the pundits of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but it is real. The decline in living standards of the rural kin cannot be ignored. From three meals a day to two or one meal a day is a reality that the ruling powers would prefer to forget; either they are totally ignorant of such social cruelties or they are deliberately trying to sweep such dust under the proverbial carpet. That segment of our population has not been served by our successive governments. Sri Lanka boasts that it is the ‘Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka’; but at each and every time when they had an option to engage in the uplift of those who have been living in the most trying and miserable conditions, they, the rulers completely disregarded their primary responsibility of protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable sector, they were too engrossed in enriching themselves.<\/p>\n

Leader after leader came to power promising to do something better for the poorest of the poor, yet were engaged in the most hideous corrupt practices and an undiluted nepotistic agenda. That is not political malpractice. It is unadulterated political crime. The voiceless eventually capitulated to the more powerful; The powerful had money; they had the wherewithal to resist occasional demonstrations and protests. Trade unions lost their clout; government servants from the ordinary peon to Ministry Secretaries and Government Agents willy nilly<\/i> empowered the politicians. For them politics did not matter; for they were the permanent government, deep state<\/i>, so to speak. When the politicians were corrupt, government servants encouraged them; some who had a conscience and a sacred oath to defend, kept quiet.<\/p>\n

The whole government structure gradually became plagued with the most dangerous and most lethal of all human follies- greed and endless greed. An ailment that was somewhat contained in the nineteen fifties and sixties began its merciless spread across the whole polity. An economy that was wholly dependent upon the export of tea, rubber and coconut started crumbling like a pack of cards; its ruthless infection ate into every corner of society and what was constrained to the not-so-critical joints began its invasion into the bones, marrow and the flesh. What began as a bartering between one unit of elites and another eventually gave way to a systemic annihilation of a national life. What was limited to the politicians of the central government, top and secondary levels government service cascaded down to the lowest level of village bureaucracy. Officials from Grama Niladhari level to the village watchman were engaged in corrupt-laden regimes.<\/p>\n

The British Raj left us rather a polished and sophisticated civil administration; their efficiencies were to be much desired yet its parameters were defined in detail and strictly monitored and evaluated each passing year. Yet the ‘common man’s<\/i> government showed that that ‘civil service’ was fast becoming anachronistic. With the opening of the economy, the free market principles demanded that in order to fasten development, one has to break away from strictest of regulations and the private sector needs to be encouraged to compete with government departments and agencies. Development fastened, but its cost seemed to have been too high. With the withering away of educated and conscientious leaders in the field of politics and civil administration, the social structures that had been built around honesty, justice, equanimity, patience and human compassion started collapsing one after the other.<\/p>\n

This pitiless tumble of central social architecture was hardly noticed by those who commanded political power. No one had a second look at the billowing artifacts of social, economic and cultural structures. When it began its tumble, the flattening of the process was not taken into any observance by any national leader. Those leaders who might have done so had left the land of the living by then. The people at large were totally apathetic to the derangement of their surrounding society and as a consequence of this debilitating social condition, the sociopolitical tapestry was torn apart. The individual pieces were mistaken for the whole and one lost sight of the total. Instead of the forest, the individual trees were taken as a representative whole. In turn, this social malignancy created a sequential continuation of the decaying process. A deeper study of this phenomenon would throw out some extremely corrosive elements of society which eventually paved the way for a newly emerging social paradigm. The consequences were nearly catastrophic.<\/p>\n

Isolation of our rural, yet educated and semi-educated classes, became more acute. The cultural gulf between the two major classes, bourgeois and working, started becoming increasingly wider. No political leader recognized this process and the challenges this process hurled at the elements of this transformation were either misunderstood or not at all comprehended by the leaders. The resultant residue of social players misread this process altogether; until the great economic crash that occurred in 2022 April\/May, not only our political leaders, the greater majority of our citizenry did not understand its gravity and dangerous side-effects it entailed. The rural-based men and women lost their voice, not because they could not express themselves, but because there was no one left to listen to them. This social condition remained unnoticed and latent like ember beneath ash. It was waiting for an occasion for the light veil of ash to be blown away.<\/p>\n

Aragalaya-22<\/i> <\/a><\/span>provided that occasion. Men and women from all walks of life gathered at the Galle Face Green; a mere protest by some concerned citizens assumed massive proportions later; ultimately President Gotabaya Rajapaksa ran away from office. The President’s House was raided by the protesters and what started as a determined effort by our determined brethren ended up with the ouster of the incumbent President.<\/p>\n

The voiceless were heard; Aragalaya-22<\/i> gave the voice its first chords and the rhythm; when its echo reverberated the whole island, a new dimension of the crisis could be measured in length and breadth. That voice did not recognize any caste, creed, religion, race or ethnicity. The people at large immediately realized that there is life outside the cocoon of ethnic and religious silky covering. Judgment was passed on all those who enjoyed the misplaced privilege of power since Independence. They were branded, and rightfully so, as the status quo<\/i>. Up to then the status quo<\/i> had been successful in suppressing the voiceless; government servants were muted; journalists had been harassed and silenced; farmers had no time to make their voice heard and the middleclass were too busy waiting in lines for their petrol or diesel. An extremely unpleasant condition was created, not by the silence of the voiceless but by those who controlled them either by keeping the people in lines for this household item or that personal need.<\/p>\n

The arrival of the IMF changed the situation; its offer of loans made it less cumbersome for those who had the misfortune of spending their time in queues. The torch of voice passed from the Galle Face Green to the massive rallies organized by the National People’s Power (NPP<\/a><\/span>). A new dimension to our political panel was added. Swelling crowds, neatly organized meetings, well-articulated arguments and an ideas-starving electorate looked to a fresh start with fresh minds and fresher determination.<\/p>\n

Aura Kumara Dissanayake<\/a><\/span> (AKD) rose up to the challenge with an unmatched voice. His second tier is not second to any one else on the other political platforms. AKD and the NPP have been sustaining a difficult situation with calmness of the experienced and energy and liveliness of youth.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, relative to the NPP, Ranil Wickremaeinghe, the Rajapaksas and the SJB appear to be lethargic and less than creative.<\/span> Oscar Wilde is credited with saying, ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness’.<\/i> The NPP kept Sajith and the SJB busy with imitating the NPP. To cap it all, when the debating date and time arrived, only AKD appeared and Sajith was found missing in action. Once again the lone voice of the voiceless. Sajith does not possess the intellectual capacity, nor the inner stamina to sustain a mentally-demanding political debate with the likes of Anura Kumara Dissanayake. An ungracious non-participation at the Debate which was scheduled for June 6th<\/sup><\/span> proved it in no uncertain terms that the SJB led by Sajith Premadasa is not going anywhere with such action of inaction.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, all forces that are determined to safeguard the status quo<\/i> would eventually come together; for the loss of the comforts and luxuries of the status quo is too steep a price to pay. In a circumstance of a binary choice before the electorate, the solitary voice of the National People’s Power will, in fact, be the voice of the voiceless. It is a voice that no person could un-hear.<\/p>\n

*The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/em> <\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 <\/span> <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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