Time to take a short break – But think!
View(s):Will the executive, personally, or the executive presidency, per se, be defeated at the emergency polls? To what extent are the leaders of our country and their family members abusing the powers vested in them by the people? How long will the law-enforcement authorities turn a blind eye to the unruly behaviour of bad-boy politicians and their even-worse-boy sons? When will the drug war be directed at the drug mafia and not law enforcement? Whose gold was it really? Whose money is it anyway that’s being drained away? Whose country is it that’s going down the tube?
These are only some of the questions jockeying for space in the collective consciousness of the public recently – or, perhaps, more accurately: the collective semi-conscious. For joyfully engaging as they are with the more mundane issues of pre-poll petrol, diesel, and kerosene price slashes, the people have more pedestrian matters (such as staying on top of seasonal sales and year-end everything-must-go bargain-basement bonanzas) to consciously pursue the presidency-must-go caravan. So much so that, sometimes, it seems as though most of us plebeians have chosen to be unconscious in relation to the appalling goings-on in the nation-state that some wit once called “Paradise”. Regrettably, that wit was only half-right or partially in his or her right mind. What ails Sri Lankan today should be everybody’s every-waking-moment concern – rather than cannon-fodder for the cocktail circuit or fuel for conversation pieces in refined and far-removed-from-reality Colombo drawing rooms.
Could it be though that – despite all the evidence (or lack of it, which is even more damning in some instances) – we, the people, are still in doubt that there is something rotten in our state today? Why else would we tolerate, indulge, and even encourage the status quo to continue unchecked? Certainly, there are isolated pockets of protest – primarily, against the still unconscionable cost of graft – but only mainly from the left-wing of the opposition. Then, there are the socio-political issues – such as the plethora of ills that bedevil our “education” system (for want of a better word)… not so long ago, young people and their academic-guardians and mentors raising their voices against this were treated to a rain of tear gas and truncheon action. But rarely would you find any conscientious citizens’ groups crying out in public forums against corruption and criminality, in such a way that would indicate to the powers that be that the people had had enough. Only the common candidates polls plank has mounted this protest and that, too, rather feebly and by resorting to tired clichés. No, the handful of civil-society groups that champion these and other issues do so in a civilised manner – that is to say, at well-organised and suitably attended seminars that cover the subject in the most thorough fashion… just short of a call to concerted action. It appears that we are all relying on a few crusading MPs and moonlighting party-crossovers and their alleged cliques and claques and cabals to lead the charge – while we will all sit on the sidelines and cheer! (While the under-fire Incumbents, feeling the heat for a change, are scarce constrained to even cry, “Fie! Foul! First-world conspiracy!”)
Don’t get us wrong, though. Surrounded daily by the fallout from realpolitik as we are, we cannot help but be realistic enough to recognise that it is a dangerous affair to possess a Conscience today. A grim reminder of this is coming as, in a morbid concatenation of timing, the Presidential Election will take place on the day of the grisly murder of the media’s one-time “Conscience” (albeit a seared one, having compromised itself many times over) five years ago. Isolated and, therefore, vulnerable voices shouting out aloud at the transgressions of the state, the government, the first family, their political minions and mincing propagandists A.K.A. “economic assassin” cronies will serve no purpose – other than, perhaps, to have the shadow hounds of the secret “state behind the state” descend like a wolf on the fold of sheep who pass for the Conscience of the Country these days. Nay, fellow citizens, the time has never been riper than now to nod in assent at the axiom that there is strength in unity. Then act in unison, while there is still time and opportunity to demand (if not actually effect or realize) a genuine change in the political climate. Which, je regrette, we may not be able to leave to the challengers’ National Government to ensure. Because, if there is one thing worse than a strong dictatorship, it is a tyranny of weak minds!
Of course, we may never have proof that the highest officials in this land are corrupt or have been culpable of criminal activities. If, like deposed dictators of banana republics, they return one day – having left our shores or having been effectively exiled following a crushing but not really surprising defeat at a vital election – we can indict and incarcerate them. If the International Conspiracy they so fear and flail at hasn’t bagged them yet? But, by then, the fire we now only suspect exists may have incinerated everything we possess, prize, and still failed to protect. Voters of Sri Lanka, this means YOU!
That day of reckoning is now only a fortnight and four days away. Let not the interim “Silly Season” debar YOU from mulling over the prospects of the “State of Things to Come”.