Columns

As though our nation does not have enough problems with conspiracies that remain vague and undisclosed and conspirators who remain unnamed, even the stars seem to be conspiring against us.

For the first time in our memory, the galaxy of state-backed star-gazing astrologers are at each other’s throats, as it were, or tearing apart the charts that have tracked the movement of the stars, over the auspices times for our New Year celebrations next week.

Bad enough that so many of the population are on the verge of poverty—that by the way is not what we say but international organisations—and they cannot even provide for their families the basics that are usually handed out during this festive season, we seem unable to decide when to do what and at what time, this new year.

It sure seems to reflect the confusion and indecision that the populace faces in some areas of governance.

It appears as though time is running out on some of those who have brought the country to its nadir in terms of the people’s wants and aspirations, despite all the hoopla about what an economic powerhouse this country would be in 2048 when we celebrate the centenary of our independence.

The illusions of grandeur are what dreams are made of by politicians who delude themselves or believe they could delude the voting majority but are unlikely to be around when the time comes.

So would many of today’s sceptics who would have had a hilarious time 24 years from now were they to be in what is left over of our resplendent isle after chunks of it are sold to foreigners near and far and politicians and their official cronies pocket the loot as investigations will hopefully reveal one day soon.

Still, they would have a good laugh from wherever they are at the political chicanery over the years that reduced a once prosperous nation with genuine democratic credentials to an Indian Ocean backwater on hock and known worldwide for its corruption and hardly for the practice of the rule of law and human rights that some politicians with blurred visions boast of at international fora.

Yet for all that, there are those who believe in necromancy or less dark arts who think that evil forces have managed to alter the constellations, and this spells no good for the country despite the conspiratorial support of the IMF telling us that all is well, though there are a few loose ends that need repair, like going after the corrupt, which successive governments have been reluctant to do, committed as they are to the maxim “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” and to hell with the people.

One cannot, of course, ignore those who strongly believe that Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius have been moved around by some silly Indians who have their knives into Sri Lanka by landing all sorts of garbage on the moon because we have no intention of ceding Kachchativu to some land grabbers from the north who had decades ago conceded our right to it.

But the fault is not in the stars, as Cassius, the arch conspirator in the murder of Julius Caesar, told Brutus, another one of the backstabbers, but in themselves that they are underlings. But unlike ancient Rome, it is not the underlings who have messed up our country, but those who thought they were born leaders and were born to rule.

While the horoscope readers fight their star wars, political underlings trying to brush up their tainted images, having been wiped out by a discontented public at the last parliamentary elections, are emerging from the political woodwork now that fresh elections are not too far away.

Well, that is what our constitution says, but then how many care for constitutions these days when their futures—not to mention their pensions—are at stake?

Missing in this astrological melee is the renowned Gnana Akka—as she was popularly called—said to be Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s favourite fortune teller who disappeared from public view shortly after Gota abandoned his short-lived political career to subsequently take to writing, which some call fiction and others true confessions.

So anything is possible these days when everybody wants to get into the act and get themselves some publicity, including part-time diplomats who are in search of their own Gnana Akkas, to ask what the future holds, now that opinion polls and public interviews by the media suggest political changes ahead.

If there are sceptics and naysayers who have little or no faith in opinion polls, let them try this for size and have a good laugh all ‘summa’ which will come along with other election goodies in the days ahead.

The other day, I read a remarkable statement made by one Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, who is no underling but an assistant leader of the UNP and a former minister. What he told the media is so astonishing that one might well conclude he writes fiction in his spare time.

Lest one is accused of misquoting the assistant leader of the UNP, which is beginning to emerge after some years in the doldrums, just like Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena protesting the other day about being misunderstood over foreign hands trying to elevate him to the presidency.

If one might divert for a moment, I would loathe to think that foreign hands would want Speaker Abeywardena to take over from Gotabaya Rajapaksa and heap multiple more miseries on an already incensed populace, unless they were true conspirators determined to destroy this Resplendent Isle or were psychosomatic.

But to return to what the media reported about this Kariyawasam chap (whichever ministry he held, one hopes it was not Health) I quote his words as reported.

“Research conducted by the government has revealed that more than 60 percent of the voters in Sri Lanka are still undecided on whom they should vote for, UNP Assistant Leader Akila Viraj Kariyawasam said yesterday. Former Minister Kariyawasam told a press briefing that rumours of certain political parties expected to get a high percentage of votes are false. Some political parties are living on illusions, he said.”

And from where does he gather all this–from research done by the government? That in itself should rule out its credibility.

What politician Kariyawasam does not mention who in government did this research, when and how many persons were interviewed in the course of this great incursion into a psephological endeavour and to which election it applies.

From our early days in journalism, we were taught not to believe in government statements and statistics unless credible proof was produced to substantiate what was said.

Sadly, and not surprisingly, Kariyawasam does not produce that essential evidence. He does not do so because it does not exist.

Surely if there was such a survey, even if it was concocted as those out of government often are, he would have produced it to convince the media as proof of what he said even if it was a fabrication of government.

The Right to Information Act, one of the most important pieces of legislation to be passed by parliament and which Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister in the early years of this century strongly advocated, could still be used to try and extract the validity of the information that Kariyawasam laid before the media.

It seems it is becoming increasingly difficult to have former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa disclose more about the foreign hands that he says conspired in his ouster, ex-president Sirisena from telling us about the conspirators to our north involved in the Easter Sunday massacre and Speaker Abeywardena from mentioning the unnamed hands that wished to elevate him to the presidential seat.

Kariyawasam does not belong to the same level of importance. But his disclosure that government research shows over 60 percent of the voters are still undecided on how they would vote at the coming elections seems to approximate Goebbelsian proportions.

(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.)