Columns

The parties are over; farewell you dubious saviours of the nation

In the last few years the country’s political parties have been imploding and exploding scattering their worthless like in the battlefields of old. But not too many moons ago, the aged and ageing leaders took their battles to the countryside and so the discarded and the career-seekers searching for new ways of amassing ill-gotten wealth scattered hither and thither into new political holes and lay- like scatter bombs about to blow up.

One wakes up in the morning hoping to speak to a prominent politician from one party and the media reports that he has flown into another suspicious coop.

As the parliamentary election draws nearer day by anxious day, leaders and their new henchmen who suddenly flew the coop and settled elsewhere are urging the voters to cast their ballots for educated, knowledgeable and the trustworthy who could read a new sheaf of policies of the new government and save the country from been dragged into the path of destruction.

Some of those who utter these words are actually patting themselves and hoping the voters will recognise their worth and value as the ones being elevated into these valued positions.

But strangely some of those who followed the most recent leader like the rats who followed the Pied Piper ready to lead Sri Lanka into an El Dorado, are among those who have rejected his own advice and decided to stay away from active politics and turn their backs on next month’s parliament election.

Would this have happened as quickly as it did with leaders at each other’s throats but often in stealth as they plotted their political masquerades, if the “Aralagalaya” had not opened enough cans of worms not only to drive a hugely- elected president out of office but also his family clan.

The net result of that political turmoil seems to have ended the Rajapaksa dynasty’s hold on power and its domination of a large swathe of what has also been described as the Rajapaksa fiefdom. The recent presidential election results showed and perhaps the parliamentary polls would confirm, that not only the Rajapaksa grip on the country’s political power has slipped away, the party that emerged from one of the country’s oldest parties, is drawing its last breath.

The more one learns of the present goings on, the more one recalls the words learnt back in the student days with the slightest twist I’ve made: “Oh, What a Tangled Web they Weave”.

Some might attribute those words to England’s celebrated Bard which many could well do, but they would be wrong. They come from an epic poem of Sir Walter Scott but would it matter a hoot to the now departing local politicians with their rolled-up wealth or unreturned luxury vehicles they enjoyed while wallowing in official positions or to those who did some double and treble crossings hoping to be well-settled in the arms of new leaders who swore to make Sri Lanka glorious by 2048 and some even before.

But what has happened to all those parties from Right to Centre- Right and even Left- made up of politicians that were relatively pure, incorrupt up and provided experience and energy to drive the country along lacking the modern technology the scientific knowledge that propels today’s world.

From my first days in journalism that go back to 1962 I had covered many ministries under many ministers and government officials learned enough to convey their wide knowledge to the world and be enthralled by what I learnt treading paddy fields, acres of subsidiary crops, spending days in farmers scant abodes and with scientist’s in their laboratories across the country, the kind of cross education and experience that some of today’s so-called journalists would gain because superficiality is what makes much of journalism today.

In the last days there have been enough examples not only of what passes for media today but of the quality of politicians who love to portray themselves as budding political leaders. Just a couple of days ago I read a virtual diatribe at the new government and its reaction to intelligence information about a possible terrorist attack on tourist resorts in Sri Lanka popular among Israeli visitors.

Having received intel from US embassy and other sources about the possible attack, our police held a press conference at which it said they received information from October 11 and necessary security measures and precautionary measures taken.

Now one of the recent bright sparks who adorned the Ranil Wickremesinghe stables, former minister Kanchana Wijesekera who I suppose is in the election battle, throws his oars in the water and castigates the police and the State security for keeping the information from the public etc, etc.

I really don’t where he learnt the ABC about dealing with impending terrorist attacks or possible terrorist clashes or dealing with such security issues. Surely there is intel which is held back in order to deny the suspected assailants of the knowledge available to you and telling the public to stay off the streets.

But if he knew the first thing of real professional dealings with security issues and not picked it up from some spy novel, he would know that the first thing is that professionals with vital information in their hands that suggests a possible threat to the state or even less strategic, do not go about announcing to the world what steps they have taken to ensure safety unless they have first secured that intelligence and acted on it.

In the UK there is a highly secret and closely knit body of the highest in government ranks including the prime minister and the top most in intelligence circles, called Cobra.

That is the highest political-official body. If Kanchana wishes to learn about how intelligence flowing to the intelligence services are handled, weighed, analysed and filtered he better learn from professional services without going screaming like a banshee.

(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.)