Editorial

Vesak 2566 is being marked today in this blood-spattered Dhammadvipa (the island of the Dhamma – the Buddha’s teachings) anger and vengeance oozing, the very antithesis of non-violence and ahimsa pervading and the people on the verge of starvation.

The Constitution – the fundamental law of the land is under stress, tested to the limits by politicians unable to unite in the face of one of the worst economic crises in modern times, and fangs were bared when a once ‘peaceful protest’ was violently disrupted by goons foolishly unleashed by the ruling party leadership.

It was known that radical elements had infiltrated the month-long protest against the President and his Government at Colombo’s Galle Face Green – the popular promenade dedicated by the colonial British for the public to rest, relax and romance. These groups were biding their time for the spark that could give them the moment to unleash their game plan — to create mayhem through a spate of criminal acts ostensibly against government supporters. The Government obliged them on Monday with its moronic act.

The 24 hours after that ‘Manic Monday’ saw vigilantes take the law into their hands, a replay of 1983 and 1987, and the President as Commander-in-Chief and Minister of Defence too slow to react. The restraint shown by the Forces allowed a guessing game as to why they were sitting on the fence – whether they were with the popular uprising with ulterior motives or with the President, seeing which way the wind was blowing.

On the other hand, the violence that was unleashed after the ruling party goons had drawn first blood, gave the excuse for the Government to justify the imposition of a state of emergency. It was ultra-sensitive to warnings by the clergy, professional bodies and Western governments not to harass the ‘peaceful protests’. Eventually, a Government that came into office on the platform of ensuring ‘national security’ stood exposed – of failure to protect its own partymen and their private property and public assets in a night of arson and looting countrywide in a tailspin of violence.

Mob justice – when people become accuser, prosecutor, judge and executioner does not happen overnight. It occurs when there is growing disenchantment and in this instance with the existing status-quo concerning the political leadership that protects each other, corrupt and politically influenced law enforcement agencies and a prosecutor’s office that takes orders from such a political leadership. In 1983, it was the inaction against the rise of separatist terrorism; in 1987-89 it was the Indo-Lanka Accord and this time, it is the inaction by the entire ‘system’ against those who have plundered the nation, amassing wealth at the expense of the people. They felt, and rightly so, that the collapse of the economy and the shortages of essential items were directly related to corruption at high government levels.

The outgoing Prime Minister ought to have known better than to allow his cohorts and cheering squad to unleash the bloodletting in the first place. He was too senior a politician to have been blinded by pique and hurt. What a fate to befall a leader who steered this country to victory in the final lap of a three decade-old terrorist campaign to divide the land, a leader hailed as a modern-day King having to slither away from his official residence and take refuge in a Naval camp.

Now, a Prime Minister has been appointed by the President after a week of searching for one from all parties, especially the Opposition. The Central Bank Governor had given a broad hint of quitting if the political parties could not form a proper administration. International lending agencies in Washington were not amused either to deal with a country minus a substantive Government. Ministries had no Minister nor Secretary. In these circumstances, of a hiatus, it was reassuring to hear the Defence Establishment say they had no Myanmar-like intentions to jackboot into an existing political vacuum.

The new Prime Minister seems to have beaten the Leader of the Opposition to the tape due to indecision on the part of the latter whether to side with the popular uprising, or take up the challenge of being the PM. A world record has probably been created of a PM whose party has only him out of the 225 Members of Parliament, to be given the job. He clearly has the experience and the knowledge to comprehend, more than most, the real issues facing the country for at least the next few months, i.e. the resuscitation of the economy. Implementing his plans and winning public support has been a question all along in his career.

He cites the example of Winston Churchill who was made Prime Minister of England in 1940 despite a lack of parliamentary support when the sitting PM failed to see World War II coming. Churchill formed a National Government and eventually won the war. Whether or not the five-time former Premier has accepted a poisoned chalice, he will need all his experience of long years in governance to ride this storm. But first he will have to win the confidence of Parliament next week to be confirmed in his job, and there will be those who will try to trip him. All these political games make the blockbuster television soap ‘Game of Thrones’ where events kept unfolding so rapidly it was difficult to keep pace with the plot, look child’s play.

Today is the holiest of weeks for Buddhists around the world and Sri Lankan Buddhists cannot celebrate it the way they are used to with colourful pandals, wayside dansalas giving free food to all-comers, and even the customary illuminations due to the state of the economy.

The chief prelates have thrown their weight behind ongoing political issues while unshaven student monks sit atop barricades mouthing language unbecoming of those wearing the saffron robe, which some, by the way, don’t even know how to wear properly. It is best that the State-Religion divide be maintained with senior monks as counsellors to government leaders rather than pressure groups as this has led to divisions within the Sangha itself on partisan political lines, but that is another issue.

To all rulers the Buddha said, to govern “justly and righteously”. That is when the rains come on time and the harvest is bountiful. His doctrine of pacifism and the Middle Path is timeless, eternal and relevant and a message that must reverberate even today, two and half millennia after it was enunciated, particularly in a country long regarded as the repository of the Buddha’s teachings in their purest form.