Sunday Times 2
Going and coming à la Lanka
View(s):Something typical of our Sri Lankan culture is the way we take leave of someone after a visit.
Whereas in other cultures one takes leave of someone by saying something like ‘Goodbye’, ‘Adios’, ‘Dosvidanya’, or even the finite ‘Farewell’, in our culture a goodbye is never final. Among our people it is always ‘Mama gihilla ennam’ or ‘Poyittu vaaren’ – words that imply that this act of taking one’s leave is not final. Leaving is always done with a promise to return.
I was musing about this custom of ours after I heard that Basil Rajapaksa had returned to Sri Lanka earlier this month and was warmly greeted on his arrival at the airport on March 5 by a group of his supporters. This is the man who, two years ago, in the midst of the Aragalaya, having been sacked by then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa from his post of finance minister in April, had then had to resign from his seat in parliament. True to the saying, “When the going gets tough, the guilty get going,” he then made several attempts to leave the country. Initially, when he attempted to leave, he was stopped at the airport by the immigration officers withdrawing their services. He then, having informed the US embassy that he had lost his passport, was issued a fresh American passport. However, his plans to decamp were prevented by the Supreme Court, which imposed a travel ban on both him and his brother because they were named as respondents in a case filed over the economic crisis.
During the media conference on June 2, 2022, at which Basil announced his resignation from parliament, he candidly admitted, “Our family is better at politics than governance”—a frank confession that we Sri Lankans would have acknowledged with good humour if not for the fact that their ineptitude in governance ruined our country and created a disaster for our citizens.
Using his skills as a politician and manipulator, Basil managed to convince the Supreme Court that he needed urgent medical treatment abroad. One wonders whether he was provided with a medical certificate by the same person who provides medical certificates for Keheliya Rambukwella! He succeeded in getting the travel ban lifted and promptly took off for the US via Dubai on an Emirates flight, just as he did in January 2016 after his brother Mahinda lost the 2015 presidential election.
In January, when he left the country on his flight to Dubai with several heavy items of hand luggage that were not examined by customs officers, a Chinese diplomat was heard to quip, “It looks as if he is carrying ‘Fu Dai’ with him.” This story was related to me afterwards by a colleague who happens to understand what Fu Dai means in Mandarin, and the implication about what Basil was taking away in his heavy hand luggage was certainly not complimentary!
We trust that Basil’s medical condition has been cured by his physicians in the US, whom he appears to trust to look after his health better than he trusts the doctors in this country whom the rest of us citizens rely on to look after us when we fall ill. He claims to have returned to Sri Lanka this month to lead the election campaign of his SLPP party, being aware that presidential and parliamentary elections in this country have to be held soon.
Interestingly, Basil, who is the acknowledged election strategist of the Rajapaksa family, went with his older brother Mahinda to meet President Ranil Wickremesinghe a few days ago, and we understand that the main idea put forward by Basil and Mahinda was that the parliamentary election be held before the presidential election.
Ranil, however, proved too shrewd to give in to Basil. The president would be well aware that if he holds parliamentary elections first, Basil and Co. would do their best to get their own SLPP loyalists and protectors elected to parliament, and Ranil would then have to be under obligation to these legislators when he contests the presidential election. If, on the other hand, Ranil holds the presidential election first, then all the current group of SLPP parliamentarians, if they value their seats and their skins, would have to work to get him elected, because if Ranil loses and a newcomer like Anura Kumara Dissanayake (who has no desire to protect them) becomes president, they will all go down with him.
It is not for nothing that Ranil (the nephew of J.R. Jayewardene, who was known as ‘The Old Fox’) is known today as the 20th Century Fox. Basil, despite his being reputed to have seven brains and the cunning to win voters and influence elections, is no match for Ranil when it comes to understanding election law, parliamentary procedure, and good governance.
It will be very interesting for us citizens to observe what Basil does next. Will he stay and fight the good fight—to help Ranil in his presidential campaign? Will he use his seven brains and grassroots knowledge to head-hunt an alternative candidate to contest against Ranil? Will he realise that the coming colour is no good and take off to Dubai once again (with or without his Fu Dai)?
The month of March, they say in England, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.
If not for the fact that Basil’s coming back like a lion this March might result in another Rajapaksa-friendly cohort of parliamentarians getting into the seats of power, which would be disastrous for Sri Lanka, his comings and goings remind me of the antics of clowns.
A clown departing—and carrying his Fu Dai.