Editorial

15th August 1999

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Politics for all seasons

First there was the announcement that the government will introduce the political package in Parliament by August 19. Now, with equal gravity, the people have been told that the government and the opposition will adhere to a September deadline to forge a consensus on the ethnic problem, so that "Mr. Lalith Kotelawala, the business leader facilitating the task, can proceed to meet Prabhakaran.''

To use the old line, the people probably do not know whether to laugh or to cry when they hear these sporadic peace- messages. All they know is that there is now a familiar flurry of activity aimed at "stopping the war and solving the ethnic crisis.'' These bursts of activity are almost seasonal in a country which misses the contrasts of a winter or summer, but has always been witness to what can be called "cyclic political phenomena'' that unerringly takes place.

The latest flurry may be due to some catalytic factors such as the approaching elections, the increase in LTTE suicide bombings and LTTE activity in the North and East, and not least the fact that certain political parties within the People's Alliance government are disenchanted (or pretending to be disenchanted.) The apocryphal "right thinking people'' would of course all agree that it is good that there is a continuing quest for a solution despite the scores of previous failures. But a lot of "right thinking people'' have also probably latterly done some "right thinking, '' and developed a credible suspicion that the quest for peace is strangely periodic.

It is always intensified when the imperatives of the government are at stake — for example, in this instance when the government will soon be having to face a national electorate.

The effort of the business lobby to evolve a consensus is another matter, and there is no reason to doubt the bona fides of the business leaders. But what's striking is that even the business leaders seem to be caught up in this cyclical pattern in which action is motivated when there seems to be a situation where the national resolve had been driven almost to breaking point.

At the present assassination, the national mood is again at a cyclical nadir. The Tiruchelvam murder, and the escalation of attacks in the North and the East have seen to that. But, once the immediate stress period is past, all interested parties will familiarly go into another guilt – ridden lull, until the next cycle of intense political activity begins. If there seems to be no dogged continuing mission for peace, there also seems to be no dogged idealism among the disenchanted. Take some of the so called disenchanted elements of the "little lingering left".

These so called Leftist parties, which are pathetic shadows of their former political selves, have been making intermittent noises about the fact that the government has not kept its promises. But, none of these parties are prepared to take any bold stand on these crucial national issues, by withdrawing their support for instance. Instead, what they constantly display is strident rhetoric and poodle – like compliance to the diktat of the alliance.

Anybody then who does not develop a carapace of cynicism in this backdrop is either an incurable optimist, a somnolent Rip Van Winkle — or maybe a prize idiot. But this is not to say that there is no case for a consensus. Hope springs, eternal in the human breast, as the poet said.

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