When Art Imitates Life

The Almeida Theatre has once again produced a piece of theatre that is utterly breath-taking. THE PATRIOTS (written by Peter Morgan and directed by Rupert Goold) is a play about the Russian Oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. It follows the story of this billionaire businessman who identifies a provincial Mayor and gradually makes him the President of Russia. Berezovsky was the Frankenstein that created the monster that we know as Vladimir Putin; the rest is history, as we see unravelling in front of our eyes, even now. The play sticks to facts all the way through whilst using some artistic license to create a wonderful piece of theatre. Vladimir Putin, Roman Abramovich, Boris Yeltsin and Alexandre Litvinenko are some of the other major characters in this play, all of whom in real life contributed to this fascinating narrative which, in actuality is quite terrifying just as it is true.

Boris Berezovsky was a brilliant mathematician who became enraptured with the idea of making money. His greed reached a level so out of control that he wanted to create political leaders whom he could manipulate. This man, who had the alcoholic President Yeltsin in his pocket was chiefly responsible for guiding Roman Abramovich to amassing a vast fortune himself. He meets his nemesis in Vladimir Putin whom he steered to becoming Yeltsin’s successor. Putin ultimately takes power into his own hands and ruins Berezovsky who is forced into exile from his beloved Russia. As most of you may know, Roman Abramovich sided with President Putin sealing the fate of his mentor. Trying to retrieve his ill-gotten gains whilst living in the United Kingdom, some the drama is played out in the Royal Courts of Justice where Berezovsky vs Abramovich was one of the most expensive and keenly observed court cases in history. Berezovsky loses much of his enormous wealth which is kept back in Russia due to the fact that there was no documentation as to where or whom the money had come from or gone to! The play ends with his death, he was found hanging from a rope in his country mansion in Berkshire   

Alexandre Litvinenko, who formerly worked for the Federal Security Services (FSB) met Boris Berezovsky when he took part in the investigation into an assassination attempt on the oligarch. He was later responsible for the oligarch’s security and was ultimately assassinated by radiation poisoning, supposedly administered by agents formerly of the KGB. All of these rich characters make up two hours and forty minutes of riveting theatre. From the moment the curtain goes up, one begins to realize that this is art re-creating what has occurred in real life. 

The play begins during the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and is set between Russian and the United Kingdom. Tom Hollander’s performance is undoubtedly one of the best that anyone will see in the UK this year and for a long time to come. It is the sort of performance that rises beyond the radar of those Olivier judges who are busily engaged in a politically correct tick box exercise. Will Keen who plays Vladimir Putin gives a superb supporting performance. He morphs from being almost puppet like to the steely ruthless despot so convincingly that it sends chills down one’s spine.  It is a must see for more reasons than one.

To me, this play was like holding a mirror up to what is going on in Sri Lanka. It is a series of snapshots that reflect many similarities. The greed of a few that has brought our country to its knees, the corrupt politicians who can be made to sell anything (even their soul) to make a fast buck. Bribery and lack of morals especially among the people at the top. The slimy businessmen (similar to those nouveau riche / racist lot who sucked up the Rajapakse’s) and made untold profits without a thought for the people of the land. The murders of people who stood up for what is right and exposed the truth. But what is vividly similar is that every action is linked to false belief in patriotism and nationhood. 

Here are some examples of why it all seems so timely.

The siege of the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow in 2002 by (so called) Chechen terrorists which ended up with the deaths of 120 hostages and the subsequent massacre of all those (supposed) terrorists is now traced very firmly to the current President of the Russia himself. Investigation have revealed that this was staged in order to enhance Putin’s hold of the people of the country by scaring them in to thinking that they were under attack, then he uses this opportunity to portray himself as the protector of the Russian people. Isn’t this startlingly similar to the Easter Sunday bombings (April 2019) in Sri Lanka, where a massacre is carried out just so that ethnic divisions are sown in order to win an election? It is now becoming evident that the Rajapakse’s (especially Gotabaya) was responsible for causing this heinous crime to convince the gullible lumpenproletariat that their precious land was under siege, thus making him and his brothers be seen as the only people strong enough to protect the country from the onslaught of other ethnic minorities who threaten the Buddhist majority. The gullible people with their small island mentality were easily convinced simply because the country was in the hands of the two spineless creeps, namely Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithiripala Sirisena. Their call for Buddhist nationalism was enhanced by the presence of Gnanasara and the Bodu Bala Sena backed by the likes of the Jathika Hela Urumaya which made the election that followed a cake walk for the Rajapakse clan. Only the intellectual elite who were almost always connected to or were from minority groups held their breath in despair and predicted what is unfolding in the island now.

The white elephant that is the Mattala Airport was built at a huge cost and has yet to yield any visible profit. But what is most concerning is the fact that there seems to be no paper trail what-so-ever of where the money came from and went to. Apparently, all documentation in relation to this fiasco have gone up in smoke. Most of Sri Lanka are aware that the Rajapakse’s were all over this project, rather like a rash but it seems that they fain innocence about the money that has disappeared! This draws a parallel to the many deals done between Berezovsky and Abramovich. Berezovsky’s wealth (most of which was generated from his oil production company Sibneft (which he co-owned with Abramovich) was taken over by the Russian state because these two businessmen initially agreed that a fifty percent stake of the profits should be handed to Berezovsky leaving no paper trail. All this was agreed on the simple pretext of a handshake! It was a case of trust mislaid but it was still underhand and illegal. Sounds familiar?

The murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge bears a similarity to the politically motivated murders in Putin’s Russia. Lasantha was brutally gunned down just before he gave evidence about Gotabaya Rajapakse’s alleged corruption in an arms-deal at a defamation case.  Alexandre Litvinenko was murdered because he was adamant about exposing Putin and his regime. He wrote about the underhand manner in which the regime operated in his books “Blowing up Russian” and Terror from within.” 
In these books he accuses the Russian Secret Services of staging the Russian apartment bombings in 1999 and other acts of terrorism in an effort to bring Vladimir Putin to power. (The Russian apartment bombing resulted in the death of 300 civilians, although the Chechen militia were blamed, they have consistently denied responsibility for these atrocities. This incident led to the second Chechen war)

An article in the Forbes magazine once said that, “Berezovsky is clearly one of those who never feels he has enough.” The Rajapakse clan who have destroyed Sri Lanka’s economy with their greed obviously felt the same way. Just like in Russia, the businessman in Sri Lanka who give money towards political campaigns hope for favours. They seek positions of power themselves and expect dividends for the contributions they have made. They want to sit on boards such as that of the Sri Lankan Airlines so that they can use this as a taxi service to transport their wives to Singapore for their monthly botox injections! This has resulted in our national airline reporting a loss of 170 billion rupees in 2021 alone. 

When the laudable Aragalaya achieves its goal, let’s hope that the businessmen who contributed towards the rise of those ghastly brothers, are not forgotten. We must never forget that they themselves were condoning the racism, religious divisions and nationalistic tendencies that the Rajapakse’s were famously promoting. The myth of a Sinhala Buddhist country for Sinhala Buddhist only should be torn to shreds and vanquished never to be spoken on again. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once said ‘One cannot impose a set of singular values in a plural world.”

All these so-called Sri Lankan businessmen were hardly visible on social media since the start of the protests. Did anyone see them participating in the protests on Galle Face Green? Did anyone hear any of them actively comment about the need to get rid of the corrupt family? All they did was to publish a few bland joint statements, albeit hesitantly, just so that they could avoid the wrath of the people who had seen the light. There may have been the occasional picture of one of their wives is a sari that looked as if it was made up of old lace curtains, wearing a necklace of barbed wire round her neck. I, for the life of me, couldn’t make out if she was symbolically associating herself with the struggle of the Sri Lankan people who have lost everything, or whether she just had bad taste. 

What this play highlighted to me was that the influence of race, religion and business, always proves to be toxic to any government. And it goes to prove what the good book has always said “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

Beware the businessmen!