Editorial

A “Manifesto” (from the Latin manifestum – a list of facts) is a sine qua non for every Sri Lankan political party to make public before any national election.

Back in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels drew up ‘The Communist Manifesto’ which changed the world. It was not an election declaration, but a socio-economic thesis set against the Industrial Revolution referring to the exploitation of the proletariat (working class) by the bourgeoisie (ruling class). It predicted that capitalism would self-destruct and the world would move towards socialism, and then communism.

That has, however, not materialised for 170 years, but while the capitalist world may well be on the road to self-destruction with COVID-19 and global warming helping to accelerate the process, the two torch-bearers of world communism, viz., Russia and China, have abandoned Marx and Engels and hitched their communist wagon to the capitalist star in search of a better life for their people. The late Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew famously said of Sri Lankan elections, that they are an auction of non-existent resources. If only these manifestos by the various Sri Lankan political parties are fully implemented, Sri Lanka will be a Utopia – not the dystopia that it is fast turning out to be.

These manifestos are discarded no sooner elections are done and dusted. The J.R. Jayewardene-led UNP used the small print deftly hidden amongst a lot of other issues in its 1977 manifesto to introduce the Executive Presidency. The voters cared little, for they simply wanted to change the 1970-77 Government. Mr. Jayewardene took the manifesto as the mandate to become, ipso facto, the Executive President.

As the Presidential system became unpopular, Chandrika Kumaratunga made a solemn pledge – in her manifesto and elsewhere, to reconsider the Executive Presidency in 1995. Once ensconced, she not only went for a second term in office, but tried to extend her term by a year which attempt had to be foiled by the Supreme Court. And in the 2005 manifesto of Mahinda Rajapaksa, he said he would pursue an “honourable peace” by way of dialogue, sit down with the LTTE leader and present a “national consensus” to the Eelam demand. What happened is history.

While all party manifestos must be taken with a gunny bag of salt, one of the manifestos this time that has been disconcerting is that of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). This alliance was effectively sidelined from the political process during the northern insurgency when the AK-47 toting LTTE ran the show. Returning to the political mainstream only because the country’s Armed Forces eliminated the LTTE from the equation, the TNA began singing its old theme-song calling for the merger of the North and East provinces into one provincial council; self-determination and made references to a ‘Tamil Homeland’ – with a proviso that it will be within an “undivided Sri Lanka”.

Hasn’t the TNA leadership learnt a lesson; how the 1976 Vadukottai Resolution which called for the similar demands gave birth to a radical youth wing? It was these youth who then gravitated towards forming armed groups, which started hounding each other, leaving just the LTTE to become putty in the hands of another country promoting its own geo-political agenda at the time. Does the TNA really want history to repeat itself?

The alliance also calls for the merger of the North and East provinces, a pipe-dream when it couldn’t even run the Northern Provincial Council without in-fighting.

It is nothing but pathetic that the TNA is continuing with its communal politics to chase behind votes at the upcoming elections. They may be trying to compete with other fringe political parties of the North espousing the same or even more radical views. Maybe they are even the lesser evil. But like the House of Bourbons of France all of them seem to have “learned nothing, and forgotten nothing”, committing the same mistakes over and over again expecting different results. In this instance, they are playing to the age-old sentiments of their electorate, only helping fuel an equal and opposite reaction in the ‘south’ which will be greatly advantageous to parties that wish to ride to power in Colombo by playing their own ‘communal card’.

These northern politicians will not be able to blame ‘southern’ coalitions for beating the communal drum if they are doing it themselves in the North – and the East. What they are trying to do is whip up a communal frenzy among a new generation of youth. If the LTTE used a previous generation to wade through slaughter to its impossible dream of a separate state, the TNA – and other northern regional parties, seemingly want to do the same for some seats in the National Parliament.

Recognise PHIs invaluable contribution

The PHIs are not demanding higher salaries like most trade unions do. They are not like Government doctors or nurses, Railway engine drivers and estate workers who strike merely when the iron is hot to paralyse ordinary life, or the economy. Maybe they don’t have the muscle to do that. The country may not fall apart without the PHIs, or some might think so.

Yet, theirs has been a yeoman service ever since they were formed in colonial times, way back in 1913, when they were known as Sanitary Inspectors. It was in 1954 they were termed Public Health Inspectors.

Like other professions or vocations, starting from the politicians, there are the ‘rotten mangoes’ among them, but when one reads the newspapers these days and finds that some men of even the elite Special Task Force (STF) have been involved in providing security to suspects involved in the narcotics trade, it shows the extent to which bribery and corruption in this country has permeated every sphere. The Solicitor General has told court that narcotics seized by the STF were then recycled back to the narcotics mafia which included officers of the Police Narcotics Bureau.

Successive Governments have been full of platitudes about fighting the narco business, yet when a former Prime Minister’s office itself got entangled in a narcotics import scandal not so long ago, everything was done to hush it up and close the file. Is it any surprise then what the Police have been up to when this is the example the political leadership of this country has shown all along.

The PHIs whose duties run the gamut from control of communicable and non-communicable diseases, to waste disposal, rabies control and school health safety work have been the frontline preventive force in the COVID-19 battle, being heavily involved in contact tracing, identifying possible areas of infection and also placing people in quarantine and checking on those in home quarantine. Theirs has been an invaluable contribution.