Rajpal's Column

5th September 1999

Yuppies, e-mail, Y2K and the politics of the millennium

By Rajpal Abeynayake

Arthur C Clarke, sci - fi guru turned political seer, predicted that President Chandrika Kumaratunga will win the Nobel prize for peace.

Almost simultaneously, the e mails of Ranil Wickremesinghe the leader of the Opposition were intercepted by some sort of post modernist political hacker. As if that was not bizarre enough, the substance of those e- mails revealed that the UNP maybe ordering digital cameras which could alter and doctor photographs, and sensitive microphones that could pick up conversations taking place at a distance.

It appeared with all of this, as if the political landscape was being readied for the millennium. But, it appeared also from the e mail fracas that the UNP doesn’t seem to be able to have the luck to organise a booze in a brewery these days.

But, what is more important is that the UNP is getting ready to launch a campaign that fits in with the millennium anxieties. It’s a sort of campaign that seems to be driven so hard by hi-tech guru’s and whiz kids that the Y2 K problem itself might stop the UNP from getting elected in 2000. Y2 K in computers is, after all poised to ground planes and spike hospital equipment. In the rush, the Y2 K stops digitised Ranil Wickremesinghe from being the millennium’s first Sri Lankan President.

It’s a prediction that Arthur C Clarke should have made… Whether the UNP can weather Y2 K and make it to the seats of power is something that is left to be seen. But, the competition seems to be between Ranil Wickremesinghe’s stylishly binocular vision for the future, and Chandrika Kumaratunga’s casual cockiness. Mrs Kumaratunga seems to be so cocky about her Presidential prospects these days, that she has blasted one of her Cabinet Minister’s with the admonition “I know how to win a Presidential election — without your advise’’ The hi - tech role of the United National Party is not going to help it if its hi - techness is defeated often by its bad luck . But, the UNP is engaged, just as much as the PA is, in a perennial political game that has lasted half a century in this country’s politics. It is the problem of political scions of the elite families trying their darndest to transcend the vast cultural gap that exists between them and the masses who posses the vote.

Images of J R Jayewardene showing the upper part of his torso negotiating a niyara in a paddy field comes to mind in confirmation of the fact that yuppie politicians, as well as those of the old school , went through this ordeal of bridging the social divide. But the Vap Magula story is also reminiscent of other political anecdotes . One story refers to political son of a patrician political family who returned from one of Britain’s higher seats of learning, and went almost straight from the airport to one of those political Vap Magul ceremonies.

The young man was doing well, until it was time for the village lasses to serve the “ambula’’ — a meal of rice served at noonday to all Vap Magul participants. Partaking of the meal was supposed to be the easy part, but when the grains of rice began to sliver through his fingers onto the political tyro’s lap, it became apparent that the man had never eaten with his fingers. His hands betrayed the lack of common touch, and unfortunately this severely disappointed politician never grew out of his baptism of embarrassment.

But, most people essentially suffer from culture - shock when they come into contact with alien cultures and when they are in foreign and alien climes which harbour xenophobic aliens... But , the culture shock Sri Lankan politicians who are “on the make’’ suffer from is in their own backyards.

The way they have tried to get around this problem is curious. There are some who have though that the best alternative is to change the country rather than change themselves to suit the political landscape.

This is why some young politicians have turned verbose and used unparliamentary bilge also known as rank filth on political platforms.

They have basically tried to graft the rugger - bugger culture of the Colombo backyard barbecue - set , onto the nations political fabric.

But filthy attempts have only been successful when they have been tried by some politicians who used filth the way it is used by the lumpen classes.

Ranasinghe Premadasa, the late, for instance, was not averse to filth.

His straight faced sewer lingo at one point seemed to be like a badge that he wore on his sleeve. His filth, repulsive and outrageous at times, was exactly how it was used in the pretty brawls of the rustic village. This is not to say that it worked; but at least the audience understood what it meant.

The smut that was used by some of the other politicians was less understood or not understood at all, which was bizarre At one point, Colombo boys and political scions were using innuendo about bombs going off behind other politicians behinds. This time the masses were the recipients of the culture - shock. The humour of the mahattaya’s was more tasteless and crude than their own; that was hard to stomach.

All this kind of politically awkward behaviour has, also shockingly , become more pronounced with time. That is because the political yuppies of the era are now more socially distanced from the masses than their fathers ever were. D S Senanayake for instance, though he wore top hat and tailcoat knew nothing about the Y2 K problem or cared less about Los Angeles, digital photographs or barbecues at Temple Trees. He was after all, the maha kalu Sinhalaya who spoke the Sinhalese as she is spoken, and bestrode the political theatre as if he sprang from (the kurrakkan) and the salt of the earth.

But, fifty years after independence, things have changed so much that political campaigns themselves are now designed by suddha’s working from advertising companies sitting in cushy offices in a swank part of London. It’s a great feeling of independence.

Hulftsdorp Hill

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