POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK

PARLIMENTARY SKETCH by Rajpal Abeynayaka

To our parliament, with love from Thailand

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra talks about the long links between his country and this country 'which occupy the opposite rims of the Bay of Bengal''. The House is mute.

The Thai premier talks about business partnerships that will bring in billions of dollars. The House erupts into cheers. There is the base sound of desks being thumped.

The Speaker of the House says the last time any leader addressed MPs was when Margaret Thatcher did so. The speaker talks in measured tones. As if he is the one that had Alzheimer's disease and not Margaret Thatcher. He has trouble pronouncing some words as if he is under-awed by the occasion. For once his job is easy. MPs will do nothing more than thump a few desks.

The Thai Prime Minister says he was a lawyer, and a businessman and he started what was called the Thai-love-Thai party. It is actually called Thai-Rak-Thai which translates as Thai-love-Thai. Government and Opposition members look at each other self consciously. Thai love Thai. How about Sri Lankan loves Sri Lankan? Or even Ranil loves Chandrika? They remember love and compassion for about two minutes. Maybe it is another defining moment in the country's religious history, such as when arahat Mahinda brought Buddhism or when the Siam Nikaya was introduced by the Thais to resurrect Buddhism. Thai can love Thai. Sri Lankan can love Sri Lankan. The world is utopian. For about ten minutes.

It is the time for the leader of the House to address the house. He does so in lilting tones, and one wonders whether this is the best way to achieve arahathood -- to ask a foreign dignitary to address the Members of Parliament.

Minister W.J.M. Lokubandara is literally on song. His voice rises to a high pitch and then cascades across the vast spaces of the parliamentary interior, and then he is almost on tiptoe as it reaches a crescendo and suddenly dips to a whisper. It is a virtuoso performance. This is instant arahathood. Lokubandara speaking in Parliament -- and there is not a single barb, a pot-shot or even a passing take at the Opposition.

When he finishes with a flourish with the Sanskrit incantation "suki digayu kobhava' you could hear a pin drop in the House. It is as if Andre Previn has visited the House, and along with Ravi Shankar on Sitar, given the full fusion performance of a lifetime. Lokubandara tilts his head, in salute to Shinawatra - as if Andre Previn is making a last flourish with his baton. The guest bows. This is an altered state in every sense of that word.

It would be a hard act for anybody to follow. But the leader of the Opposition is game. He even says things like "in the neo liberal discourse'' and suddenly the House has been granted an instant kind of absolution. Not only are they being decent today -- they are also being learned.

Henceforth Thailand will not only be known as the land that resurrected the Upasampada tradition. Thailand will also be known as having led to the resurrection of parliamentary nicety - to the point at which all this politeness was almost killing us.

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