Sunday Times 2
The activities of Privileged People
View(s):Throughout human history, Privileged People (whether they were rich people or royalty, priests or aristocrats) have always believed that they were not constrained by the laws applicable to “ordinary people” because they had superior skills compared to the rest of the population.
And the “ordinary people” had it ingrained in them to believe this fallacy. This is why the Privileged People could so easily control the population. Even in this day and age, in countries like Thailand, simply criticising or insulting the king (however incompetent or morally inept the king may be) is, according to that country’s criminal code, punishable by a jail term.
But how on earth can it be assumed that these Privileged People have superior skills to the rest of us and are above the law?
The average king or priest was not cleverer or more talented than the average person. He—and it was almost always a ‘’He’—simply owed his superior position in society to an unjust system of laws and traditions based on heredity and patronage that perpetuated economic inequality and dominance.
This fallacy of Privileged People who, like in Orwell’s Animal Farm, looked upon themselves as being more equal than others, still holds true in the 21st century. However, it is not only royalty and the clergy that consider themselves superior to the rest of us. Our ‘Rulers’ today are simply those politicians who have conned us gullible people into voting them into office and power, and they, adorned with the trappings of office, then behave like the kings, knights, and bishops of previous centuries.
Clever politicians—even if most of them cannot read music and many of them do not even read books—are like musicians. The instruments they play on are human emotions. We don’t use exams or interviews to select those who will rule us; we simply cast our votes because of how we feel about a candidate, a decision based on our emotions at the time of voting.
Once voted into office, these rulers become experts at exploiting their public office for private gain. This is not petty corruption; this is a systematic abuse of power.
Whether it is slapping a porter at the airport for demanding just remuneration for his services, openly demanding bribes for approving tenders and granting contracts, or illegally granting a presidential pardon to a convicted criminal, our politicians have become accustomed to behaving as if they were above the law. Like disgraced former American president Richard Nixon, who famously told journalist David Frost, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,” our petty politicians too have come to believe that whatever they want to do is acceptable and that their right to behave thus cannot be questioned.
Niccolo Machiavelli once observed, ‘The best method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”
Estimating the intelligence of Gotabaya was not difficult; not only did he have an academically unqualified brother around him as minister of finance, but he himself was not the sharpest tool in the shed. But estimating Ranil’s intelligence is not easy. Sure, he himself has a law degree and a professional legal qualification, but why has he surrounded himself with men and women who have neither moral rectitude nor skills in governance?
Is Ranil’s selection of supporters—a minister of urban development who is a convicted criminal on a suspended sentence, a former finance minister (one of Ranil’s closest confidants) who is facing trial on September 4th in the Colombo High Court on charges of bribery, another former seven-brained finance minister with a reputation as the SLPP’s fixer and manipulator known as ‘Mr. Moneybags’—a sign of his poor intelligence? Or is his surrounding himself with these unsavoury characters an example of Machiavellian plotting and planning by a man so desperate to win the coming presidential election that he is calling on all sources of support? Does Ranil believe that the end justifies the means?
If we look at one of his likely opponents in the presidential election, young Sajith appears to have attracted around himself men and women of a better calibre than Ranil has done.
But it is prudent for both Ranil and Sajith to remember Machiavelli’s observation that a prince who expects his subjects to keep their promises of support will end up disappointed.
Such a prince will find that each of his apparently loyal supporters will profess that they will die for him when death is at a distance, but when the chips are down, they will desert him and run away to other masters. After all, aren’t they all in this game of politics to acquire privileges for themselves?