14 July 2021 01:27 am Views - 859
Did increased autonomy produce the conditions that led to the Easter attacks?
The events of Easter Sunday 2019 have altered the dynamics surrounding Sri Lanka’s national question,
Abolishing the Provincial Council System appeals to a wide and dependable base of the majoritarian electorate. These are political instincts of the right that the emergent new left of Sri Lanka must urgently acquire. The Provincial Councils, as a structure of administration, are fundamental to the Sri Lankan project, and this cannot be in question. What is not acceptable is the politicization of the PCs, such that it neither empowers the community it represents nor falls in line with national objectives.
"Abolishing the Provincial Council System appeals to a wide and dependable base of the majoritarian electorate"
Instead they serve to sustain countless localized power centres around the country. These Councils are also a reminder to the nationalist psyche of that very symbolic moment in history, when Sri Lanka’s national project was explicitly influenced by the neighbouring super-power.
Questions surrounding the devolution of land powers and police powers have always been considered intractable. These complexities multiplied with the emergence of homegrown Islamist terror and the revealing of the ‘Arabization’ and balkanization of the Eastern Province.
The narrative of cultural invasion and oppression by foreign interference worked in perfect sync with the ethno-nationalist rhetoric of then candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR). His personal brand of military professionalism and track record in this arena seemed perfectly suited to address the security and intelligence failures at the heart of the Easter Attacks. This revival of the centrality of Sri Lanka’s national security cannot be understated as the foundation of GR’s political project.
The simple question was; did increased autonomy produce the conditions that led to the Easter attacks? Was Sri Lankan Jihadism the result of too much religious freedom? Clearly, Zahran and his cohorts were able to freely preach Wahhabi/ Salafist Islamism under the guise of religious expression
TNA and the Baggage of Federalism
The media obsession with the return of Ranil Wickramasinghe (RW) will only lead to the tired re-litigation of the UNP’s failures. RW never seemed to understand the aspirations of the rural masses that his UNP so callously abandoned. He failed to appreciate the electorate’s genuine concern for the future of the country’s unitary structure and what it represents in the collective consciousness of the Sinhala-Buddhist working class and working poor.
The RW version of the 13th Amendment and devolution of power has never convinced the masses of his integrity on the unitary nature of the final product. It was this aspect of his philosophy that meant he was never able to secure an adequate slice of the majority Sinhala-Buddhist base.
The SJB must succeed where ‘Ranilism’ and the UNP failed, by building a coalition around a ‘New Deal’ to solve the national question. If Sajith Premadasa (SP) and the SJB can dare to dream up a pragmatic position on the issues of devolution, there exists a rare, delicate opportunity to build a new national consensus. Some ingredients are in place such as the emergence of a younger generation of politicians rising up the ranks of the TNA and affiliated parties. Youth that is unburdened with the heavy baggage of the 13th Amendment and the legacy of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam.
P.K. Balachandran makes the point, referring to results from the General Election; “The polls in the Northern Province showed that Tamil extremism is on the wane, although some pro-LTTE radicals like Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and C.V. Wigneswaran won. The bulk of the seats was won by the moderate Tamil National Alliance (TNA) fighting under the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi’s “House” symbol. The elections in the North also showed that the Tamils now want economic development, besides federalism. This is seen in the success of the pro-government EPDP (2 seats) and the SLFP (1 seat)”
What is preventing the TNA or any alliance of reasonably moderate minority parties from negotiating a development project of historic proportions with the SJB? Such a project would uplift the Northern and Eastern Provinces.
A Multi-Ethnic Sri Lankan Singularity
The Leader of the Opposition appears to have two advantages. First, his political and economic positioning is aligned with the tradition of D.S. Senanayake’s agrarianism and commitment to welfare. Second, he seems to have been given a clean slate from which to articulate his position on the national question.
At a campaign event in Bataramulla during the Presidential campaign of 2019, SP specifically alluded to FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt) and his ‘New Deal’. The SJB has professed some of the broad strokes of Keynesian style spending programs, all of which must be re-evaluated in the post-pandemic context. However, some of the ‘ideologues’ within the SJB, specifically MP Eran Wickramaratne and Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, could be associated with the economic policies of Social Democracy.
The SJB could formulate a ‘Marshall Plan’ for the Northern and Eastern Provinces. A programme of development planned and implemented by the people of those provinces through their elected representatives and appointed councillors. This would complement the “New Deal” aspirations alluded to by the Opposition Leader.
Such a project will dilute foreign claims of the systemic oppression of these provinces. It could counter the Buddhist clergy with the allocation of funds from this Marshall Plan towards restoring the Stupas of these provinces or any other purpose deemed necessary to tame the Asgiriya Chapter.
It should be a source of embarrassment for any right-thinking Sri Lankan that the country has failed to assign a ‘National Day of Mourning’ to mark the anti-Tamil pogroms of past decades.
Why not a programme of targeted reparations towards those that lost loved ones and livelihoods to those pogroms or even an honest admission of and a solemn apology for the failure of the State to protect its own people.
Part of the funding for this Marshall Plan, however small, must come from the annual defense budget. The ultimate goal is to neutralize the narrative and blunt the tools of the UNHRC and allied multi-lateral machinations, truly exposing their imperialist double standards.
A shot at political immortality
The equation has to promote a unitary structure as a non-negotiable foundation. Remnants of devolution and autonomy, those sacrificial lambs to the Indo-US axis must be extricated. There should be no mediation or chaperoning by any non-Sri Lankan actors. The minority political elites must denounce the pro-LTTE elements of the global diaspora and end the careless, provocative language of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the lobbying of Western governments and institutions. If Provincial Councils do not fall in line with national objectives, Sri Lanka will never find a singular, purposeful path to a modern economy and advanced statehood.
The SJB must also escape the trap of demonizing SLPP supporters as racists and nativists. The Easter Attacks aside, many also voted based on financial insecurities, their lack of upward social mobility and against the perceived denigration of their social and cultural values. One is reminded of Hillary Clintons “basket of deplorables” or Barack Obama’s “clinging to guns and religion”. The opposition voter is not the villain of the piece; address their anxieties and take seriously the values they hold dear.
"Questions surrounding the devolution of land powers and police powers have always been considered intractable"
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka has already made the ‘progressive case’ for the SJB and SP. Far from being an ideological, utopian framework, progressivism can only thrive within the boundaries of populism.
The more vital project to build a multi-ethnic consciousness; a Sri Lankan singularity, was lost in RW’s confused maze of constitutional devolution and is now completely ignored by the ethno-nationalist, militarist and increasingly fascistic GR administration.
The success of such a project would lead to nothing less than political immortality for any member or group of the TNA. For them, it would launch an era of unprecedented political power and influence over those provinces.
This is the window of opportunity within which the Sri Lankan opposition can finally clinch the holy grail of a pluralistic and trans-cultural identity that all Sri Lankans can be proudly subscribe to.
(The writer is reading for a PhD in International Relations at the University of Colombo and has 15 years experience in the banking industry and travel sector as well as being a student of International Relations and American Politics with a Master of Arts Degree from the University of Colombo and a Joint Honours Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Kent)