Rajpal's Column

30th July 2000

The folks at the Bank, and the silly putty rapper

By Rajpal Abeynayake

A man went up on stage and hooted, using the Prime Minister's microphone for louder report. No more challenges on that day.

In a talk show, there is nobody who can hoot; and besides, a hoot over a telephone can be edited to sound like a hosanna.

What Prabhakaran has done to jam our election gears. The most robust community in South Asia, when it comes to voting, is now reduced to watching a tube, with no chance of hooting within any politician's earshot.

But, a talk show election is making a passive electorate more passive. But talking of passivity, the passivity of the Sri Lankan electorate can be gauged by how much bolder the government gets everytime.

A folk singer is to be appointed Governor of the Central Bank. The Central Bank, the engine of the economy is going to be made corporate silly putty. Last week or so, this folk singer was seen to be singing a dirge for tourism, and saying the biggest gangsta' on the block is the newspaper wallah.

But who wants folk singer as the governor? Does this line of policy emanate from the policy that has been launched by the Lanka Folk Singers Association?

The ascendancy of the folk singer coincides with a time when the people who run this country – one Sheriff who goes by the name World Bank is getting his act together . The Sheriff has been swinging his heft in this generally sleepy isle recently, partly because there is a great deal of cover now provided for the Sheriff.

There is big-trouble in this country, his beat. That trouble was created by all the ballistics that have been created in the North by one Eastwood Prabhakaran — an injun who does not care for the Sheriff or the folk singer or anyone on the block.

The Sheriff is pragmatic. Recently, the Sheriff's line of policy has been becoming most attractive for the type of persons who want to govern his beat by a recipe on the book called constitutional equity. The Sheriff is urbane, and there is an aura of genteelness about the Sheriff these days, that is endearing to genteel men and women who want to govern this country with a measure of constitutional gravitas. For instance, there was a very genteel constitutional activist, who released a tome recently on how equity can solve the country's problems. Nothing said there about economic inequity, and how equity can be achieved when the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer on this Sheriff's beat.

This is excellent from the Sheriff's point of view. The Sheriff creates legitimacy for himself, and this is done in many pro-active ways, such as organising or facilitating seminars, empowering non- governmental organisations, and or course, producing people who can do well at talk shows. Somehow, it fits the Sheriff's general behaviour to think he wants to appoint the folk singer as the Governor of the Bank that got bombed.

But, latterly the Sheriff has had a bonus in terms of creating legitimacy for his interventions. He finds most of civil society, which is also his creation in many ways, prognosticating about how Eastwood Prabhakaran can be neutralised. Due to Eastwood Prabhakaran, there is a general upheaval in the Sheriff's beat. This upheaval is empowering people in civil society that are taking the Sheriff's side, either consciously or by default. In the good old days all the hospitals schools etc., in this country were under the scrutiny and the eye of the people's representatives in the Sheriff's beat — the pesky ones known as "government.''

But, the Sheriff created genteel people, who created "civil society'' for him.

Now, civil society is taking over schools, taking over hospitals, taking over everything on behalf of the people on the Sheriff's beat.

The Sheriff has done that. But, there are things the Sheriff wants to do — such as sell more organisations that belong to the people in his beat to various lounge lizards that are the Sheriff's buddies. (This last machination is called by the genteel men of the equity corporation "a process''. The process of "privatisation''. By this process, the Sheriff agrees to look after the land of the people on his beat, against any other protection racket.)

So when somebody says they want to appoint the folk singer the guv'ner of the local Bank, it's a good guess as to who really want's the crooner?

Basically, the Sheriff wants a good buddy in the Bank, who want's to "privatise'' the Bank as well.

Now that the Sheriff has succeeded in getting the genteel to "empower'' the people, he wants a good hand that can do some real tough work. When it comes to running the Bank, we have had too many genteels he thinks. There are things these equity wallah's can do and can't. Basically, the Sheriff probably wants to privatise the Bank, and it's easy getting that done by the folk singer, who has been doing the gig so well in front of the Chief of the People's representative, that she will dance to any of his tunes.

But, it's the folk singer who will dance to the Sheriff's tune when he gets to head the Bank. But the folk singer — he is now getting to be good at the gangsta rap, and that is a metamorphosis. He wanted to name his group three degrees, but remembered there was a gig already by that name.

All the people in the Bank have bigger degrees than him though he has three. But folk singer looks the other way. His experience is like running a hole in the wall boutique, compared to the kind of experience needed generally by the man who runs the big bank. But, no matter. The Sheriff says he is good. He is the man to run the Bank. His gangsta rap is a good racket.

Inside the glass house

Editorial/ Opinion Contents