He is not Wariyapola Sri Sumangala, but he stirred the pot
Ven Athureliye Ratana did a Wariyapola Sri Sumangala, and look who is complaining - it's Sarath Amunugama. Amunugama called the Thera's sermon to the donor community a "disgrace to the country'' and therefore gave it much more legitimacy than if he had not referred to it at all.

Ratana was a Herman Hesse character. Like a mendicant he came off the streets with a shoulder bag. Pinstriped power-suited donors looked at him with patronising bemusement. But Ratana did the Herman Hesse's Siddhartha on them. He came at them in a Western language.

For a moment the President and Ratana were eyeball to eyeball. It was the President who blinked. Maybe warranted, maybe not, but all this has led to the romanticisation, and even the mythicisation of Ratana's address to the donor community, with certain Sri Lankan dailies raising cheers from their Editorial columns.

It may have crossed the President's mind that her father's assassin was a Buddhist monk. Ven Ratana won't kill anybody, but he just assassinated the President's speech. She had said she was willing to lay down her life for the Joint Mechanism. It was a kidney punch aimed at the garrulous JVP's nationalist eager-beavers within her party who won the first round, scuttling the tsunami JM before it moved properly onto its flight path.

But in place of the Somarama type assassin in monk's garb -- the portrait that was painted by the President when she talked of lurking threats to her life -- there was a pacifist monk who spoke the donor's lingo, and charmed his way at teatime into the Bretton Woods circle having tea with a spot of milk with the fabled Mr Peter Harrold himself.

It was a clean short-circuiting of symbolism - - the President's symbol , carefully crafted into a ringing address, fell to a side when the monk did the Herman Hesse, and in Siddhartha style managed to tell the donors "we do not carry guns, but we just want to save our souls.''

The romanticism that followed was thick - - - and it was not just the President that blinked, even the TNA demurred, and by Friday the Tiger quisling so-called, was saying the President gave a brave speech even though "now it is time for action.''

The Western nations got a good skit of what real freedom of speech looks like. If this was George W. Bush's speech being upstaged, handlers would have arrived and hauled away Ratana, as if he was a lump of Seattle WTO protester garbage. A Harvard student who once booed Bush said "if you want to heckle the President of the United States, you need to have money in your pocket.'' He was taken away by the police, and fined.

But, the real alchemy here is that there is a blurring of identities. Consider this: after Ratana's speech - - the TNA is praising the President, Ratana himself is having tea with Peter Harrold, and the JVP learns that it's useless rising to Ratana's bait. To outdo him they take the easier way of saying that the President washed the country's dirty linen before the donors.

In all, it has lent to a certain political cosmopolitanism in the central political space. But in the borders, the President's policy gets even more isolated..

She doesn't have the political goodwill she enjoyed December 26th 2004. Since then, the LTTE is reaching for the skies with an airstrip, 139 child soldiers have been recruited says the UNICEF chief and after the Kaushalayan killing the assassination spiral has led to a general mutual distrust between the LTTE and the state and semi-state forces.

If that's not enough she is also delivered a black eye in the form of the Sethusamuduran project. The so called Indian Ocean's Suez will be reality says Indian authorities after Cabinet authorised dredging, despite fears of environmental disaster.

India has also raised its voice over the LTTE's ambitions saying that the fact that the most organised terrorist group has acquired air capability is not a good omen at all. But it's as if India is punishing Sri Lanka for the LTTE presence in its soil. The Sethu project was no doubt an independent Indian government initiative that has nothing to do with India's policy towards the LTTE.

But this coincidence comes too close for comfort. India bashers such as the Editorialist last Sunday are almost in hysterics. It's a recipe made for political gridlock. The President must be being advised that the only way to go forward in this situation of being hemmed in from all sides is to do nothing.

But to be locked into prevailing reality offers only analgesic relief -- it might take the pain away aspirin-fast, but in the long run there is a risk of placing too much stress on the system. The Kandy donor speech seemed to indicate that the President is moving towards taking that one political decision in her life that will really count.

She wants to be bigger than her family album portrait image. She even wants to die like her father did. In a manner of speaking that's just what she said. Her political instinct of going out in glory is tugging at her heart, or is she bluffing? She wants to be a Mandela, celebrated and fading into the sunset basking in the glow of sincere admiration, but when doing the Mandela seems out of the question, she is veering towards a Mahathma Gandhi, even if a Naturam Godse - - an extremist from her own community - - slugs a bullet in her face??

It's said that political landscapes change because politicians like to push the reality to the limits. In Sri Lanka that breed of statesman has been in hiding, which means that in the long term, politics becomes the theatre of the unplanned absurdity. President Kumaratunga can decide that the only way out of this dreary logjam is to cause a political tectonic shift, an induced tsunami, by signing the Joint Mechanism with the Tigers.

At least it will force most everybody to take up practical positions - - the Indians, the Ratanas the JVP the TNA. The meandering chess pieces will return to their opening positions -- and from there, who plays the best opening gambit wins. She seems to be figuring out that it's better to have this rematch than to move in the current state of extended stalemate.

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