Now that the long, dry spell of the holidays is over, we can all get back to being a ‘working democracy’ (ha ha) once again. Of course, when I say “long, dry spell”, I mean “brief, wet and warm” period. But you know what I mean, dear.
That time during the inter-monsoonal traditional new year when nothing gets done, everyone who is anyone is anywhere but here, and the country hotly and stickily grinds to a halt…
This year, though, there was something of an exception to the norm of lethargy. In that, wherever they may have been holed up, vacationing, or simply ‘chilling out’, ‘back home’, most Sri Lankans were busy discussing politics --specifically, the outcome of the election.
Which was an irony, indeed, as many – if not most – of them had not bothered to vote. But even in lull times, political animals that we all are, we cannot be entirely weaned off the elixir that flows in our veins. And so, kevum and kokis in one hand, and newspapers in the other, we discoursed contentedly on the state of our late great nation.
A look back
Sipping planter’s punch or pineapple juice, some pukka sahibs had it that the rot had started back in the heyday of the British. They and their colonial peers had followed up on a policy of divide and conquer, with rape and plunder to follow, and eventually depart and desert (or so these nitpickers suggested blithely) – with nationalistic historical record as the solitary shred of evidence that they hung upon their postcolonial, postmodern hooks. A more sober tribe of patriots pointed sourly to the failure of our founding fathers to lay solid enough a foundation on which the late great empire of conquerors long gone could rise from the ashes like our incarnation of a fabled phoenix newly liberated. Their finger-pointing encircled the dynastic politics of the early decades and held between crucial thumb and critical forefinger the twin hoary chestnuts of a bloodless independence and a freedom won too easily.
Not to be outdone by their nattily dressed nattering neighbours, certain chicly attired chattering classes encompassed the middle years of our country’s tale, when Ceylon – having stolen a march on fellow arrivistes in the new democratic league – fell behind compatriots such as Singapore in the march toward development (“whatever that means, dear”). Hard on their heels came the sloppily dressed neo-nationalists, munching mung kevum and muttering lunar incantations, who were keen to give late great republicans such as JR, et al., a hot time of it by dint of the latter’s propensity to open economies without shutting the stable door before the horse could bolt with the family jewels (“if you will forgive the mixed metaphor, dear”).
On the heads of such Olympian company as the above-named ‘Wily Old Fox’ of yore was heaped the contumely of shaping draconian constitutions for hand-picked successors – who, as fate would have it, were from their motherland’s womb untimely ripped. And a tear or two were shed for Lalith and Gamini. Last but not least into the fray were the warm-blooded but cold-hearted youth of a new generation, who could not tear themselves away long enough from their uppers and downers to be level with CBK and see eye to eye with her apologists.
Especially as to why, vacillating between clear, sharp-edged policies and pure, muddleheaded sentiment, she and her cohorts could not tread the middle path of balanced power-sharing long enough to give a struggling polity one last chance: a final stab at remaining staunchly republican. We didn’t see it like that back then in 2001, did we, dears? But all’s fair in war, love, and one-up-woman-ship; and tucking into kiribath and lunumiris, we cried over spilt milk and lamented that a glory had passed away… Sic transit gloria mundi does not even begin to sum up how we sacrificed good governance, and checks and balances, for the philosopher’s stone that the presidential purple promised to be.
The bottom line
However, in a new week and in a fresh mood, laundered by tropical storms and battered and bruised by political fallout, we can see clearly now that the rain is gone… that clement weather with fair prospects is once more a possibility. Of course, governance, like meteorology, is not an exact science – and given the way the pendulum has swung, it seems that some people prefer the stick to the carrot. Even if it is only half the people who masquerade as that hackneyed donkey, democracy. We were once gluttons for punishment, and the constituency of parliament which is taking shape proves the old adage that there’s a succour born every minute (“pardon the pun, dear”).
Be that as it may, the best might well be yet to come. The unintended inheritor of JR’s imperious mantle has all but emasculated the joint opposition – and very nearly eviscerated the ranks of Tuscany in his own party, to boot… with the appointment of a true-blue PM possibly the only sop to Cerberus.
The incumbent Royalist (no, dear, not just a past pupil of RC, but a real regal type) in the opposition has had the battle lines drawn for him by the Young Pretender from the South, long seen as a legitimate aspirant to the Green Throne. And with the horse-trading that is likely to follow from the single, large, and constantly growing parliamentary giant’s failure to secure a two-thirds majority, the only consolation for true republicans may be the sad loss (he he) to the nation of the hangers-on and time-servers – who, while they did not stab Caesar, were only too keen to bleed the rest of us dry. |
E-mail
