5th Column

My dear friends at the ‘aragalaya’,

I wrote to you last almost three months ago when you had just launched your struggle, or ‘aragalaya’. Many events have happened since then. I daresay that we owe a lot of that to the ‘aragalaya’. So, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t write to you again this week, especially after yesterday’s events.

You had your share of critics who said that you were not really apolitical as you claimed you were. There were also those who thought that the ‘aragalaya’ would fizzle out after Gota maama appointed the Green Man as PM. It did lose momentum, but we always knew that would only be temporary.

We admire you not only for your courage in fighting for what you thought was right, but also for your determination to continue the struggle when the odds were stacked against you. You had the support of many people but, at the same time, you were up against people who wielded all the power.

Mahinda maama may have been a shrewd politician who outsmarted many a rival many a time. Yet, he miscalculated badly when he allowed goons to be unleashed on you. As it turned out, you are responsible for effectively ending his 52 year career in politics.

Gota maama had his back to the wall then. He was about to quit. He didn’t, only because of the Green Man. The same person who arrived at Temple Trees seven years ago to remove Mahinda maama from the presidential chair arrived again at Temple Trees to keep Gota maama in the same chair.

A month later saw the departure of Basil of ‘kaputu-kaak kaak-kaak’ fame. It is a mystery as to why he left when he did. Some say he is plotting the return of the ‘R’ clan in a few years. That will only happen if most of the country suffers dementia. Still, if not for you, he would still be around.

Those who thought the Green Man can work a miracle because of his experience and his so-called ‘international connections’ also thought you will give up your struggle soon. Whatever his links, he couldn’t get more fuel ships to arrive and began telling us instead that harder times were ahead.

Even so, your greatest obstacle was not the Green Man but the inability of the opposition to sit at the same table and talk, let alone working together. They were all pulling in different directions, be it Sajith, Anura Kumara, Champika, the Field Marshall, Aiyo Sirisena or the ‘pohottuwa’ rebels. 

Even as offices shut down, schools closed, public transport came to a near total halt, prices of essential items skyrocketed, people died in fuel queues and also because essential medicines were unavailable, those opposing the regime didn’t unite, playing their own political games instead.

On the other side, the regime too carried on as if there was no ‘aragalaya’. Deal Dasa brought a watered-down constitutional amendment favouring Gota maama. ‘Casino’ Dhammika was made a minister and promptly proved that he was a political clown by calling on the Green Man to resign.

Meanwhile, stories of rathu sahodarayas making bombs – similar to stories of snake kings surfacing from the Kelani river – emerged, men in uniform engaged in football practice at petrol stations, and Gota maama appeared in Parliament grinning from ear to ear as if everything was hunky dory.

Dear friends at the ‘aragalaya’, with all this going on, maybe it was the realisation that the message was not getting through that led to your call for a ‘final’ struggle. That was what we saw yesterday. What a spectacle it was, for they turned up in their thousands, making sure their voices were heard.

They came not for a packet of rice or a bottle of liquor offered by a political party. They came because they believed in you and they believed that our nation must have another chance. They came because they were sick and tired of a system that had cheated them for decades and they wanted a change.

You also managed to do the impossible, dear friends at the ‘aragalaya’ because, finally you forced those in the opposition to work together, at least temporarily. Whether that unity will last is anybody’s guess, but you made them realise that they should consider their enemy’s enemy as their friend.

What we saw yesterday, was the coming together of the conscience of a nation. Dear friends at the ‘aragalaya’, we are grateful to you for awakening that conscience in hundreds of thousands of people. If that brings about lasting change, then the ordeal that we all went through will be for a worthy cause.

As we reflect on what happened yesterday and on what can happen tomorrow, we know that the ‘aragalaya’ is far from over. It can end only when our nation can again stand on its collective feet. So, dear friends of the ‘aragalaya’, your struggle didn’t end yesterday. In fact, it has only just begun.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: Yesterday’s events reminds me of the Paradise that John Lennon had imagined, the Paradise we had lost: ‘Nothing to kill or die for, no need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man, living life in peace’. We can only hope that yesterday was the first step in making our nation that Paradise again.