Columns

And they still call it “Resplendent Isle”. Whatever hardships its people undergo, however much they need to struggle for a handout-to-mouth existence, at least they have not lost their sense of humour.

Nor, it would seem, the country’s leaders and their acolytes, some of whom were somebody else’s obedient ones until they woke up one morning and were crowned with ministerial portfolios or some other occupations where they could dip their fingers into the public purse.

But nothing has been as laughable as the recent antics of this government, the conduct of its slavish ministers and other odd-bods handling the dirty work.

Every ruse in the book –and not in it – has been thrown at the public hoping it would acquiesce the local government elections should be delayed — from the country having no money to politicians digging into their undeclared assets and what has come to be known as the Siyambalapitiya fairy tales (after the state minister of finance).

Only the other day that legal wizard and one-time foreign minister- GL Peiris was busy telling the media that up to seven attempts have been made in various ways to derail the local elections. But one would be a little wary of putting too much weight on Prof. Peiris’s mathematics after he added the voting abstentions to Sri Lanka’s handful as proof that Colombo had defeated its antagonists on a UNHRC resolution.

But it would surprise no one — not even former Central Bank governor Nivard Cabraal who is good at addition and subtraction — that more gimmicks have been added to the Peiris-7, such as, possibly, tampering with the membership of the Election Commission. After all, anything and everything is possible in this country like no other under a government of two political parties whose public esteem can be gauged by the widely-circulating jokes, songs and ditties said about it.

Still, nothing can be as curious, if one might put it that way, as what I just read shortly before sitting down to write this. It came from the leader of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, so named by the country’s first executive president, Junius (the First) Jayewardene who was neither democratic, socialist, nor republican to judge by his ‘reign’.

Space restrictions preclude me from expressing my thoughts more fully on the country’s plunging democratic deficit that could recede below Uncle Dicky’s commitment to democracy or the story about him told me by retired Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala at dinner at his Kandawala residence together with Ranil Wickremesinghe’s father and my one-time boss Esmond Wickremesinghe.

What is more surprising than Sir John’s tale out of school, was President Wickremesinghe’s remarks at a discussion with officials on the upcoming 75th Independence Day celebrations.

“We must celebrate the 75th Independence Day,” the President’s Media Division quoted him as saying, “otherwise the world will say that we are not capable of celebrating our independence.”

Such fantasy sure takes the kavun, kokis and the kiributh. To think that the world cares a jot about whether we celebrate our independence or junk it in the waste bin, is hardly their concern.

What does matter and has increasingly seemed so in recent years, is what a farce it is to call the country a democratic socialist republic when new layers of deceit and deflection are being added to the original transgressions.

The recent use of antiquated laws pulled out of the ‘hamas pettiya’ of British colonialism, the use and misuse of obnoxious laws such as the PTA which the government faithfully promised the UNHRC less than a year ago it would not employ and the deceptive move to push through a “Bureau of Rehabilitation” that would have recreated a miniature “Gulag Archipelago” or a modern-day Uyghur rehabilitation centre in Xingjian are among dangerous incursions into human rights and democratic practices are what have aroused international indignation recently.

Add to that the total disdain over upper crust and official corruption and fraud that have not only attracted criticism from the UN but also more recently from the IMF and its stakeholders, is sufficient evidence of what the world is thinking of our democratic socialist republic.

At the same meeting, President Wickremesinghe confessed there is huge opposition among the people over funds being spent for the celebrations. That question must surely be asked by those who cannot afford to buy an egg to feed a child, but the UN agencies that write about Sri Lanka’s rising humanitarian needs but also growing malnutrition.

Why is a simple flag-raising ceremony with religious prayers and the singing of the national anthem suffice at a time we are travelling the world for help?

With the executive and the legislature working together to protect their citadel of power, the only democratic protection left at home is an independent, impartial, and upright judiciary as some recent court verdicts have shown.

If that too comes under siege as has happened elsewhere in the world, then rigor mortis could set in affecting Sri Lanka’s democracy.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)