Columns

Gone are the days of the Lionel Wendt Theatre, Navarangahala and Tower Hall. Welcome Diyawanna Oya Maduwa. Comedy and tragedy as theatre has shifted to what seems more like a singularly appropriate place with each passing day.

Now we have the theatre of the absurd located conveniently by the water’s edge where our tethered citizens can laugh or cry as they please watching the non-stop nadagam.

There, the representatives of the people gather—lawmakers, law breakers, those on the verge of crossing the legal Rubicon and a few fistfuls of others of moral integrity and intellectual worth.

Day in and day out, laws are made that allow the suffering multitude kaleidoscopic views of a nation being slowly strangled as legislative might prevails over the rights of the people who sent them to this home of modern farce.

On rare occasions, though, those who dispense justice in this nation called a “country like no other” or by some other farcical appellation, justifiably point their collective fingers at main collaborators of the nation’s economic homicide, in what might well be a Last Hurrah, who can really say.

Meanwhile, those who earlier supposedly plotted different economic shenanigans, sometimes called bond scams and other colourful names, seem to live a carefree life, some conveniently outside the territorial waters of the country they helped pilfer.

At some time or other a few of them held their place in the same nadagam maduwa in which the current recipients of the new ‘accolade’ once sat with the assurance of Kekille Rajjuruwo.

One always wondered whether it was some prescience that led the planners of the House of the Peoples’ Representatives to build it by the Diyawanna Oya. Where else can they rave and rant like King Lear, often protected by Standing Orders or no orders at all, not even the orders of The Speaker drowned by the cacophony of rising decibels.

Those who voted this lot in can drown their sorrows in the nearby waters for such a costly error of judgment.

Or better still drown themselves in the same waters in a new version of Japanese hara-kiri in a supreme sacrifice for having voted in perhaps the worst set of people’s representatives the country has seen since independence and let them pass some of the most obnoxious laws that make a mockery of the name Sri Lanka has acquired under the 1978 Constitution—”Democratic Socialist Republic….”

How democratic the country is, the citizens are fast coming to know. As for socialist, that is a sick joke. Every socialist feature that has long existed and helped raise the country’s human development index is being erased in the pursuit of some cranky neoliberal policies that aim at making the rich richer and the poor sink into worsening poverty.

Moreover, the pro-government representatives in their Diyawanna Oya resort, fattened on the privileges extracted from the taxpayers, remain strangely silent as the country’s sovereignty, so stoutly defended in prose and verse, is increasingly sacrificed and its assets sold to every Joe, Li, Modi and Adani.

It would come as no surprise if the Sri Lankan people ask whether the country is run by statesmen or salesmen.

What makes the country’s elected and selected representatives doubly unacceptable and unfit to be their lawmakers is the deplorable, if not despicable, conduct of some of them even in the presence of school children in the public galleries.

They, who are ever ready to preach civilised behaviour and democratic practice to the people, are even more ready to ignore and disobey the codes of conduct that they collectively voted to uphold and respect along with the country’s constitution, sometime in March 2018, erasing them from their conveniently short memories.

Almost 40 years after the respected House of Representatives moved from its original location from Galle Face to Diyawanna Oya, the quality of those elected and their conduct has been as abysmal as the economy the Rajapaksa brothers left as a legacy to the people.

It was not too long ago that the denizens of Diyawanna threw copies of the Bible, the Constitution and even the Hansard at each other in an unprecedented brawl that saw chilli powder being hurled or sprayed the next day as the battle of the buffoons, as some called it, continued unabated.

Only last month it had turned into a battle of the sexes, first by word and before long by limb and handbag. I mean where would you get shows like this without having to buy tickets? Why pay a pretty packet to visit the Dehiwela zoo or the gathering place of Toque Macaques (or rilaw) when one can find even better entertainment “summa”, as a former Lake House colleague used to say.

Just the other day one read of something entirely new—and that’s a real scream mind you. Not to mention rather sophisticated too, seeing that old war horses are keen to know about the educational qualifications of those in the opposite seats.

That former UNP trade unionist Gamini Lokuge was demanding to know Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa’s qualifications saying that Premadasa “makes statements to the effect that he is the only learned person among a bunch of stupids” and “People may think he is the only educated person in this House and the rest are a bunch of buffoons”.

With all due deference to buffoons, it is rather inconsiderate of Sajith Premadasa to call the rest by that name, if he actually did so. Some might well wonder whether there is no lower order among homo sapiens.

Gamini Lokuge is no buffoon. He is registered having and “A”-Level and “O”-Level and it must be correct for he has raised a very pertinent point about the “stupid” and “buffoons”. In fact, he would do this nation a great favour if he demands that not only Sajith Premadasa but all MPs declare under oath their educational achievements and produce official certificates as proof of their declarations.

At least these declarations would amount to more than the declaration of assets and liabilities by this lot which added to the mesmerising figure of 12 out of the 225 who should have submitted them by law.

If Mr Lokuge’s concern is translated into reality then we will surely know who passed what and from where. Then we will all be lucky to see the loquacious Diana Gamage’s MB and LLB (UK) certificates and where they came from.

One might also mention Minister and Chief Government Whip Prasanna Ranatunga’s educational achievements, especially his Diploma Certificate in Leadership and Management from Orara University, Australia which, sad to say, appears to have disappeared in some treacherous tsunami- that is if it existed at all, unknown to many.

All this and more are officially recorded in the Parliament list of potted biographies of current MPs.

As I said last Sunday I was at an event called “Island of Ingenuity” held at the Sri Lanka High Commission and promoted by an association in Sri Lanka and the Colombo Port City.

Since Sri Lanka is being promoted as a nation of great ingenuity, I asked one of them whether any thought had been given to suspending our Parliament and appointing an Interim Committee in place. That would surely count not only for genuine ingenuity and acquire a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Sadly I did not receive a satisfactory reply. Maybe they are giving it a thought or waiting for a climate change- I mean political climate.

(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.)