Sunday Times 2
Fake news, fake logic and poor arithmetic
The collective wisdom on constitutional law expressed by the pundits for about a month — from learned professors like GL to three-wheeler drivers — cannot surpass the fundamental reality of parliamentary democracy: He who holds the parliamentary majority rules that land.
This is an elementary civics lesson we were taught over half a century ago at school. Even if the final legal decision upholds President Maithripala Sirisena’s wisdom of sacking Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and proroguing parliament, whatever new government that emerges cannot function without a working majority. This is clear to the dumbest of the dumb in politics. Even Sirisena has accepted that the claimed parliamentary majority does not exist. So why is this plain political fact being confused and obfuscated with fake logic for a near four weeks? Is it pig headedness, a diabolical political conspiracy or sheer desperation, with the reality staring them in the face? The reality is that had the Yahapalana government continued uninterrupted and the special courts continued trying the Rajapaksa clan and their cohorts, there could have been the likelihood of many of them doing the Jail House Rock for long years.
Can Rajapaksa & Co rescue Lanka, having left it neck deep in debts, from which the country is desperately trying to recover?
UNPers are asking why some honourable members of the highest legislature in the land are braying like strangled asses, screaming like jackals, hurling Mariyakade abuse and throwing chairs and water mixed with red hot chilli powder at the undoubtedly honourable Speaker? The UNP members and even the policemen called into the chamber for security reasons have been targets.
Such political exercises are being conducted, we are told, in defence of the sovereign rights of the people. Incorrect parliamentary procedures had been adopted when passing two no confidence motions against Mahinda Rajapaksa and the new government, President Maithripala Sirisena has held. Of course correct procedures have to be followed. But the whole hullabaloo started when Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on an incorrect procedure, in fact, for no reason at all, UNPers claim. He could not get along with Wickremesinghe, Sirisena has said. It’s likely that Wickremesinghe himself could not get on with Sirisena. So could Wickremesinghe have sacked Sirisena? Constitutional experts will say that there is no provision for the prime minister to sack the president. But the moot point now is whether there are constitutional provisions for the president to sack the prime minister!
So the argument whether the chicken or the egg came first is likely to continue ad infinitum.
The claimed validity of the incorrect procedure by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya is good enough justification for the chaos and mayhem let loose by Hon. Pohottuwa gentlemen, with the backing of even some constitutional authorities. Apparently there is no other parliamentary procedure to remedy the alleged flaw other than to throw chairs, chilli water and even slap a policeman doing his duty of protecting the Speaker. Two wrongs make a right is the basic fake logic now being deployed.
The problem in Sri Lanka is that, like our great big neighbour India, everyone is a pundit in everything. Some will even say the word pundit came across from somewhere in India. Not so, our doughty defenders of the Sinhala language — Hela Basa —will say. They will howl pointing out that we have an equivalent for the word pundit—pandithaya — and quote chapter and verse from ancient texts. We will leave this issue for further comment to more peaceful and leisurely times and instead try to think what lies ahead for the Sri Lankan nation.
Whither Lanka? we ask; but the concern of most people is not so much about Lanka but who will take up the reins of leadership. Whoever it may be, if we go by past performances, we will be galloping into disaster.
Mahinda Rajapaksa has been made the prime minister on a unilateral decision of the executive president without — never mind a manifesto —even a political or economic strategy. But it is apparent that he believes in a panacea (kokatah thailaya) for all Lanka’s ills — Rajapaksa, Rajapaksa, Rajapaksa and some more Rajapaksas as before. Towards the tail end of their regime 75 percent of the economy was controlled by them, while the president, speaker and defence secretary were ‘Three Big Rs’. Even nilames and kapuralas of money spinning devalayas were Rajapaksas or their cohorts while the ‘Babes’ strayed out of their bounds and are now from facing the music in courts.
Can the Rajapaksa & Co rescue Sri Lanka, having left it neck deep in billion dollar debts from which the country is desperately trying to recover? Can Ranil Wickremesinghe with his neo-liberal strategies make Sri Lanka an Asian Tiger like Singapore or South Korea?
There are no definite rational answers to such questions in this age of Fake News and Fake Logic. However, all political leaders believe in ‘the Science of Astrology’. On the last occasion the science of astrology came a cropper and astrologers let down the Rajapaksas, but never mind all that. Science is not always right.
We were searching for enlightenment in this chaos and picked up the Daily News, which we have served for 15 long years. It still has the best Obituary Page but what attracted us was an article, ‘Ten Theses on Sri Lanka’s Existential Crisis…’
We reproduce some excerpts:
‘Our island contains two consciousnesses…….. the periphery of our island has the longest uninterrupted colonial history in the world…… this has resulted in a residue, sedimentation in the consciousness. There are elite classes, strata who have a dependent, colonial, pro imperialist puppet parasitic existence and mentality. Not all classes that live in the island’s periphery have such a consciousness but they are handfuls that do, together with their supportive bourgeois and lumpen strata. This was the Lipton Circus crowd.’
What a stunning analysis of the tens of thousands that constituted ‘The Lipton Circus Crowd’: Sediments of colonialism of a parasitic mentality and existence with the support of the petty bourgeois and the lumpen strata.
May there be more of the puppet parasites, petty bourgeois and those from the lumpen strata.It will be sufficient to win an election. Never mind even if these perceptive observations came from far away desolate Moscow.
President Sirisena has a knack of selecting propagandists and ambassadors.