War mentality trumps devolution prospects

Electorate roused by regime’s war cry

== Kumar David Writes ==

Echoing President Rajapaksa the Island newspaper greeted its readers on election morning (23 August) with the headline “PC polls referendum on war against terror”, the kept Daily News went one better with a six column wide two line banner headline proclaiming great military victories that would have done Field Marshal Erwin Rommel proud. The Sinhala press blared out a call to war loud enough to drown Attila’s surging Huns. The NCP and Sabaragamuwa provincial electorates loved it and lapped it up. Rajapaksa sold himself as a man of war and the Sinhala voter bought it; he asked for a mandate to battle the LTTE to its death and liberate every inch of – presumably Sinhala – land, and he got it. There is an unmistakable message in the outcome of last week’s provincial council elections, and whether we like it or not (I for one, most certainly do not) we must read the script candidly – intellectual cowardice is not for the timid, notwithstanding hopeful pro-government leftists, well meaning liberal democrats and well heeled DPL charlatans. Barbarism has made gains within the walls of the fortress; a counter-revolution of sorts is Lanka’s lot for the next few years. You don’t like the truth? You prefer fairy tales with pots of gold at the end of the rainbow? OK stop reading and switch to the magazine page, this is not your kind of article.

The plain facts

A little over 55% of both provinces voted for the UPFA slate; since these provinces are 85 to 90% Sinhala it is reasonable to estimate that at least 60% of the rural Sinhala population is strongly pro-war. I have chosen the term ‘strongly’ because voters were fully aware of abuse of state power and knew that this is arguably the most dishonest and undemocratic government in the history of post-independence Lanka; nor was the electorate unaware of the implications of economic failure and 20 to 30% inflation. Nevertheless it decided that the war, the war against ‘LTTE terrorism’ – surely a race war, notwithstanding the LTTE’s predilection to terrorism – was its first priority. The UPFA secured a majority in all 27 electorates in the two provinces; had this been a first past the post parliamentary election it would have been not just a landslide, it would have been a clean sweep.
Let me quote just one statistic to drive home the point. The average of the percentages of the UNP poll in the four relevant districts in the 2004 PC election, the 2005 presidential election and the 2008 PC election were 35%, 46% and 39%, respectively. We need to ask why did the UNP percentage poll rise sharply in 2005 and fall back again by a significant percentage in 2008. Because Mr Rajapaksa was not a victorious war president in 2005 but in 2008 the Sinhala public was enthused by great victories in the new race war.
The 2008 campaign was by no means free of intimidation and abuse of power by the ruling party, but even if one makes an allowance for that, quite clearly, the warlike public state of mind would have ensured a UPFA triumph.
Minister Champika Ranawake said it just like it is, and I quote from the Lakbimanews of 10 August: “The future of this country will not be decided by disgruntled leftists or NGOs but by Sinhala nationalist forces. Rauff Hakeem, Thondaman, the LTTE, foreign embassies and NGOs may not like it, but they must understand it has been decided already. President Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected by the Sinhala people”. The president could not have asked for a more authoritative voice to mirror his own mindset – his chintanaya! The prevailing Sinhala nationalist mood could not have been more aptly expressed, except, he forgot to add exercises in futility, like the all but certified dead APRC, to his list of bankrupted enterprises.
The promised absolute military triumph, should it materialise, will not be the precursor to autonomy, self-government, power sharing, federalism, substantial devolution, or anything of the sort. In triumph, the victorious mindset of the Sinhalese community and the saffron clad clergy, not to mention the JHU, Weerawansa’s chauvinists, the rottener part of the SLFP and indeed the inclinations of the president himself, rule out any such finale. This government is incapable of offering anything more than crumbs in the name of devolution. This is not something unusual about the Sinhalese; it will be the same, in similar circumstances, anywhere in the world at a similar stage in a communal war.

Ethnic time bomb

Over time, hypothesising a decisive defeat of the Tigers, and sans a solution to the national question, the ethnic time bomb will tick away and unravel in its own modus. For a period, disheartened Tamil nationalism will collapse into a state of disillusionment. Whether thereafter the LTTE, like the Taliban, will resurge in its own name I cannot foretell, nor can I tell whether like Hamas emerging from the ashes of the PLO, a new form of militant Tamil nationalism will take its place. But since the unitary Sinhala-Buddhist state will not be set aside and substantial power sharing, that is real devolution, will not be put in place, the medium term future bodes more war and endless conflict. Such is my unhappy perception of the one after the next stage in our history. Unlike the foolish but well intentioned progressive columnists who end their ponderous contributions with “the government should do this or that” kind of gratuitous advice, or an “it is time for Mr Rajakaksa to devolve, accommodate, morph into a leopard that sheds its spotted coat” type of flourish, I prefer to be a realist. These gratuitous appeals are worse than irrelevant; worse because they nurture the illusion that polite petitions will bring forth a profound epiphany in the mind of the regime. They distract from the real road out of our blind alley which is action, mobilisation and a rejection of all illusions about what can be achieved under the existing order. The road, shorn of such illusions, is long and hard, but there is no other way. I do not speak of tactics, of how to conduct day-to-day activities in this difficult period; I am writing only about perspectives and about a clear understanding of the realities of the current conjuncture on which perspectives must be founded.

Source : Lakbimanews Online