Sunday Times 2
Can nationalism be a ruling creed for long?
Those knowledgeable about everything have said it and those knowledgeable about nothing on everything and others who know everything about nothing too have voiced their opinion on why the 2019 presidential election was won or lost. All these thinkers will continue to contribute their mite for a long time. That’s democracy.
In this column, we will try to ruminate on the results of the presidential election from a global perspective.
Samuel Huntington, Harvard University professor and distinguished academic, in his work on the Clash of Civilizations, pointed out that since the end of the Cold War the international system that prevailed before it ‘became history’ in the post-Cold War era (after the 1980s) and ‘the most important distinction of peoples are not ideological, political or economic’ but ‘cultural’. By ‘cultural’, he means going back to the beliefs held by the forefathers — religious and tribal beliefs and practices.
‘The ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods’ seems to be beckoning of the post-Cold War people rather than the shibboleths of Marx, Lenin and Engels or the modern humanistic democratic values that evolved from the 16th Century to the present era.
No socialism?
It seemed somewhat bizarre to this writer that in the heated raucous debating in the last presidential election in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, not one of the three leading candidates — not even the JVP leader –mentioned ‘Socialism’ even once despite there were fire-breathing Marxists in the Rajapaksa camp. While ‘Sinhala- Buddhism’ was the issue on which elections in this country were won and lost, since 1956 there was an underlying commitment towards building a socialist Sri Lanka. The Marxist parties — the Samasamajists and Communists — were the motive force for socialism under the reign of Sirima Bandaranaike and even the inveterate veteran, J.R. Jayewardene, though he opposed socialism, renamed this country as the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka for reasons best known to himself.
But not a word about socialism is spoken now. Is socialism dead in Lanka?
Nationalism
The 2019 presidential election results leave no doubt that Sinhala -Buddhism was the motivating force of the 6.92 million that voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa mainly from Sinhala areas — and the 5.56 million votes with the 83. 86% from Jaffna and 78.73 % from Batticaloa were a collective anti-Rajapaksa vote for Sajith Premadasa who was preferred by Tamils. These statistics are enough proof that nationalism, both Sinhala and Tamil was the key factor.
A remarkable parallel to the Sri Lankan presidential election was the parliamentary election held in India in April-May this year. Modi’s BJP and its allies scored 45 percent of the total vote as against 19.5 per cent of the Indian Congress Party led by Rahul Gandhi.
If Sinhala- Buddhism was the main booster that took Gotabaya Rajapaksa to the top, it was Hindutva, the fundamentalist religious-political ideology — which proclaims Hinduism’s superiority over all other religions and is particularly hostile towards Muslims — that propelled Modi. With 82.5 million Hindus (79.8%) of population compared with 138.18 Muslims (14.2%), Hindutva has been found to be an invincible political force in elections given the severe Hindu-Muslim hostility since the partition of British India 70 years ago.
The attack by a suicide bomber on a convoy of Indian Police reservists on February 14 this year in Kashmir which is seething with anti-Indian feelings just weeks ahead of the general election provided an grand opportunity for the BJP to rally the massive patriotic surge of Hindu Indians calling for revenge on Pakistan that stands accused of harbouring Islamist terrorist groups that launch frequent cross-border attacks on Kashmir. On February 26, the Indian Air Force launched a ‘surgical strike’ of an Islamic terrorist camp on Balakot in Pakistan territory and claimed to have destroyed it. The fall out of this encounter undoubtedly was for BJP gain at the polls.
Easter Sunday attacks
In Sri Lanka a number of terrorist attacks on Easter Sunday on Churches and tourist hotels by a group of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists — the ISIS claimed responsibility for these attacks — had a terrific impact on the presidential election that followed seven months later. Failure of national security was attributed to the Yahapalanaya government that was in power. Though the attack was by Islamic extremists on Christian Churches, Sinhala Buddhists reacted adversely on the basis that national security was at risk.
Thus, India and Sri Lanka are two countries where terrorism and nationalism impacted with much effect on the main two elections of the countries.
Nationalism in various forms and guises has been emerging around the world and as claimed by Prof Huntington is doing away with the traditional politics and political infrastructure. In Sri Lanka, the second old political party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, is on its last legs, most of its elected legislators having deserted the party to form a new party under the patronage of the Rajapaksa family. The Grand Old Party, the United National Party, is tottering and may collapse due to internal power struggles. In India, the Indian Congress led by Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the legendary Nehru clan, is tottering after devastating defeats under Narendra Modi while regional parties are emerging.
Extreme right
Even in Western democracies, nationalism or racism under euphemistic terminology is emerging. Donald Trump’s policy of making ‘Making America Great Again’ has one main component: keeping out immigrants coming in and swamping White America. Britain’s Brexit is also partly motivated by Conservative English having nostalgic memories of the British Raj and about the British once again becoming the power it was free of the shackles of European Union bureaucracy and more importantly preventing Britain being swamped not only by migrants from its former colonies but also by East Europeans. European nations are still holding it out but the danger signs are emerging with the rise of extremist rightist parties—even neo-Nazis.
The world is changing as it has always happened. In the South there is extreme poverty, unemployment, overpopulation and now climate change. The Africans said to be the original homosapiens that came out of their continent millions of years ago escaping adverse weather conditions and spread out all over the globe undergoing evolutionary changes giving rise to various races. They are coming out once again to the more affluent countries in the North that exploited them of their wealth for over five centuries and became rich and prosperous. The exploited South Americans too are making their way into the Land of Hope and Glory and will go over the Great American Wall how high it may go up.
Can nationalism prevail over other political creeds and the macho rulers of the likes of Trump, Duterte, Modi and Mohammed bin Salman be there for long?
Hitler and Mussolini, Franco and many potty nationalist messiahs did not last long.