POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK

POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK by Rajpal Abeynayaka

Putting up with a put down - Sri Lankan style
Sarath Amunugama told some foreign correspondents at a press conference 'do not try to dictate terms to me.'' He said this, and refused to give an English summary of something he had explained in Sinhalese, until the pres conference was over.

Then there was the story about Wimal Weerwansa. He told the President "this must be a letter that you meant to give the LSSP or the Communist party. This can't be a letter you meant for us.''

That was when the President gave him a set of proposals that included concessions that the SLFP is willing to make, to have the JVP as a coalition partner.

The above cited will certainly not go down as the most classic put-downs in recent history. But they were meant to be put-downs. Like calling something so-called. The moment you say something is so-called (that "so-called prophet'' or "that so-called saviour of the people'') you can almost smell the derision that is associated with that put- down. It is better for to say something is pond scum than to refer to it as so-called.

So, anyway, the so-called put downs against the foreign correspondents by Amunugama and the SLFP by the JVP respectively, says something curious about those who are doing the putting down. Anura Bandaranaike used to say that the JVP is the most behaved lot in the Sri Lankan parliament. What did Churchill say -- all are worms, but I'm a glowworm? It is perhaps not difficult being a glowworm inside a can of worms, so I'll say chuck your paw Weerawansa.

But yet, for Amunugama, the home-grown man of letters, it must have been something of a statement to tell the foreign correspondents 'you cannot dictate terms to us.''

Is it the high point of his post-Peradeniya traditionalism? Or was it that he figured very early in the day that there are no voters in Paris or in England, because the foreign correspondents write for audiences in Paris and in England, or maybe Malaysia at best, or Tbilisi?

People tell me that the foreign correspondents have to be grateful. This is Amunugama being polite. He is not in power yet. He is not even a Minister. So he can't be arrogant -- you can't be in the Opposition and be arrogant towards the press, that is like saying that Sri Lanka is being arrogant towards the Norwegians, or the LTTE. It is distinctly not in the realm of possibility. So this was just Amunugama being polite. If you want to watch real arrogance, come back when he is in power -- which of course may be when Hayley's comet comes around next.

But others say Amunugama is in power -- maybe in a vicarious kind of way, but he is in power because his President is in power. So while the JVP is trying to cling on to her saree (in her mother's days they used to say sari-pota) what do they see? Amunugama dangling from the sari-pota already. The JVP will have to put him down first if they want to cling on to it, right - it's elementary, like the laws of Physics? To talk about put-downs in these times…

The JVP says the President must have mistaken their party for the Communist Party -- to write a dismissive set of proposals like the one she had written and given them.

There was another coalition partner who did not take kindly to this type of dismissive trajectory. His name I think was N. M. Perera. Obscure now -- even in the form a of a statue which has been obscured by the giant arches of the Mac Donald's that has sprung up right next to it. But at least he has a good view of the Big Mac lovers of the world seeking to unite inside that living icon to conspicuous capitalist consumption…..

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