Lanka Citizen

by Ajith Samaranayake

‘Compare and contrast’ is the favourite catch-line of the English literature teacher.

Mahinda Rajapakse offers the image of an emblem of reconciliation. Ranil Wickremesinghe seeks to suggest a sober managerial approach to the problems of governance.

So what points of comparison and contrast do the two main Presidential candidates offer the political essayist? The most obvious point of departure (the Old School Tie or the ‘Noose of Colonialism,’ as it was called by the late Prof. A. D. P. Jayatilleke nicknamed ‘Jacko’ by fellow old Royalists, being far from unloosened from the Sri Lankan male neck) would be school. Ranil Wickremesinghe, son of the former Managing Director of Lake House and the eminence grise of the Senanayake-Kotalawela UNP, went to Royal College while Mahinda Rajapakse attended the adjacent Thurstan College considered by snooty Royalists as the country cousin if not a poor relation.

This comparison itself offers a vast commentary on the sociology of Sri Lankan politics since independence and the differentiation within the political class triggered off by the two crucial years, 1948 and 1956 for Royal was the bastion of the old anglicised elite and Thurstan a symbol of the newly-resurgent and assertive middle-class rearing at the leash.

Both the contenders then come from political families but while Esmond Wickremesinghe was the power behind the UNP throne and given to a politics of manipulation D. A. Rajapakse was a grassroots politician battling in the open.

What is more, being at Thurstan Mahinda was in and out of ‘Sravasti’ the MPs’ hostel situated close by and came to know intimately the colourful figures of parliamentary politics. In contrast, Ranil was having genteel tea with the Bandaranaikes at Rosmead Place Anura being his class-mate even as the Esmond Wickremesinghe - run Lake House was attacking Prime Minister Bandaranaike ferociously.

That early apprenticeship among political giants stood Mahinda in good stead when he entered Parliament in 1970 as the youngest MP proposing the Vote of Thanks to the then Governor General William Gopallawa. He also learnt invaluable lessons in the school of hard knocks from his uncles the late George Rajapakse and Lakshman Rajapakse whose joint mantle he has inherited and carries with his self-effacing brother Chamal also a MP and Deputy Minister.

The rural-urban divide then is the major contrast in the political characters of the two contenders. Rajapakse comes from the deep south the land immortalised by Leonard Woolf in his ‘Village in the Jungle’, the land of poverty, pestilence and superstition on which the all-pervading jungle steadily encroaches. Wickremesinghe on the other hand is an urban politician groomed and reared within the UNP party machinery shaped by his uncle J. R. Jayewardene after he broke the stranglehold of the easy-going, patriarchal Dudley Senanayake on the UNP.

Mahinda Rajapakse is therefore the more senior in politics but ministerial office came to Wickremesinghe first in the Jayewardene dispensation of 1977. He was made in quick succession the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Youth Affairs and Employment and Minister of Education.

In the Premadasa administration he was Minister of Industries and Leader of the House and Prime Minister under President Wijetunge. By contrast the 17 long years which the SLFP led in the wilderness ensured that Rajapakse would only assume office in 1994 first as Minister of Labour and then as Fisheries Minister until he was elevated to Prime Minister last year.

But this was a blessing in disguise because it gave him invaluable experience in the art of street fighting. Not that Mahinda Rajapakse fought with his bare knuckles. But while the Old Left had mouthed the term ‘extra-parliamentary tactics’ more as a bogey to scare the Right one feels rather than a practical method of struggle Rajapakse gave flesh and blood to novel forms of extra-parliamentary agitation.

He was the live-wire behind the highly-successful Pada Yatra and Jana Ghosha campaigns against the Premadasa regime. The Pada Yatra which he led from Colombo to Kataragama instilled a new sense of elan to the anti-UNP forces. Although attempts were made to detain him at the Katunayake airport he was able to successfully carry with him dossiers pertaining to disappearances and human rights violations which he produced before the International Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

I remember the then Opposition Chief Whip Richard Pathirana hosting a dinner at ‘Sravasti’ for the conquering hero on his return. So while Wickremesinghe was busy with administration Rajapakse although his name denotes loyalty to the regime or the Raj was equally busy trying to toppled the UNP’s ancien regime.

In terms of personality too there are points of difference. Wickremesinghe suggests an urbane, laid-back personality, a technocrat rather than a mass leader, while Rajapakse’s is the more robust persona. Neither are very compelling speakers but here too Rajapakse scores with his baritone voice and delivery.

Wickremesinghe incidentally would have done better if he had continued to adhere to the matter-of-fact simple speaking style of J. R. Jayewardene which he had emulated for long and which one feels comes easily to him rather than go in for blood and thunder gesticulating outbursts as he is sometimes wont to do now.

By choice if not the logic of political circumstances Mahinda Rajapakse is now at the head of a bloc of heterogenous forces holding high the banners of patriotism and populist socialism while he himself offers the image of an emblem of reconciliation. Wickremesinghe on the other hand seeks to suggest a sober managerial approach to the problems of governance.

Whether it is the grassroots mass appeal of Rajapakse or the muted technocratic approach of Wickremesinghe which will tug at the electorate’s heartstrings, November will in many senses be Sri Lanka’s encounter with destiny.

Postscript: Thurstan Road has a further symbolic connotation since Mr. Wickremesinghe’s private residence is situated on a lane leading off this road now renamed after the great Sinhala scholar and grammarian Munidasa Cumaratunga.

courtesy Sunday Observer

The New York Times
October 25, 2005

By E. R. SHIPP

Rosa Parks, a black seamstress whose refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., almost 50 years ago grew into a mythic event that helped touch off the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s, died yesterday at her home in Detroit. She was 92 years old.

Her death was confirmed by Dennis W. Archer, the former mayor of Detroit.

For her act of defiance, Mrs. Parks was arrested, convicted of violating the segregation laws and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. In response, blacks in Montgomery boycotted the buses for nearly 13 months while mounting a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow law that enforced their second-class status on the public bus system.

The events that began on that bus in the winter of 1955 captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. into a major civil rights leader. It was Dr. King, the new pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, who was drafted to head the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization formed to direct the nascent civil rights struggle.

“Mrs. Parks’s arrest was the precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest,” Dr. King wrote in his 1958 book, “Stride Toward Freedom. “The cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices.”

Her act of civil disobedience, what seems a simple gesture of defiance so many years later, was in fact a dangerous, even reckless move in 1950’s Alabama. In refusing to move, she risked legal sanction and perhaps even physical harm, but she also set into motion something far beyond the control of the city authorities. Mrs. Parks clarified for people far beyond Montgomery the cruelty and humiliation inherent in the laws and customs of segregation.

That moment on the Cleveland Avenue bus also turned a very private woman into a reluctant symbol and torchbearer in the quest for racial equality and of a movement that became increasingly organized and sophisticated in making demands and getting results.

“She sat down in order that we might stand up,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said yesterday in an interview from South Africa. “Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors for our long journey to freedom.”

Even in the last years of her life, the frail Mrs. Parks made appearances at events and commemorations, saying little but lending the considerable strength of her presence. In recent years, she suffered from dementia, according to medical records released during a lawsuit over the use of her name by the hip-hop group OutKast.Over the years myth tended to obscure the truth about Mrs. Parks. One legend had it that she was a cleaning woman with bad feet who was too tired to drag herself to the rear of the bus. Another had it that she was a “plant” by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The truth, as she later explained, was that she was tired of being humiliated, of having to adapt to the byzantine rules, some codified as law and others passed on as tradition, that reinforced the position of blacks as something less than full human beings.

“She was fed up,” said Elaine Steele, a longtime friend and executive director of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. “She was in her 40’s. She was not a child. There comes a point where you say, ‘No, I’m a full citizen, too. This is not the way I should be treated.’ ”

In “Stride Toward Freedom,” Dr. King wrote, “Actually no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, ‘I can take it no longer.’ ”

Mrs. Parks was very active in the Montgomery N.A.A.C.P. chapter, and she and her husband, Raymond, a barber, had taken part in voter registration drives.

At the urging of an employer, Virginia Durr, Mrs. Parks had attended an interracial leadership conference at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tenn., in the summer of 1955. There, she later said, she “gained strength to persevere in my work for freedom, not just for blacks but for all oppressed people.”

But as she rushed home from her job as a seamstress at a department store on Dec. 1, 1955, the last thing on her mind was becoming “the mother of the civil rights movement,” as many would later describe her. She had to send out notices of the N.A.A.C.P.’s coming election of officers. And she had to prepare for the workshop that she was running for teenagers that weekend.

“So it was not a time for me to be planning to get arrested,” she said in an interview in 1988.

On Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus system’s riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: If whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then they had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door.

For years blacks had complained, and Mrs. Parks was no exception. “My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest,” she said. “I did a lot of walking in Montgomery.”

After a confrontation in 1943, a driver named James Blake ejected Mrs. Parks from his bus. As fate would have it, he was driving the Cleveland Avenue bus on Dec. 1, 1955. He demanded that four blacks give up their seats in the middle section so a lone white man could sit. Three of them complied.

Recalling the incident for “Eyes on the Prize,” a 1987 public television series on the civil rights movement, Mrs. Parks said: “When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ I said, ‘You may do that.’ ”

Her arrest was the answer to prayers for the Women’s Political Council, which was set up in 1946 in response to the mistreatment of black bus riders, and for E. D. Nixon, a leading advocate of equality for blacks in Montgomery.

Blacks had been arrested, and even killed, for disobeying bus drivers. They had begun to build a case around a 15-year-old girl’s arrest for refusing to give up her seat, and Mrs. Parks had been among those raising money for the girl’s defense. But when they learned that the girl was pregnant, they decided that she was an unsuitable symbol for their cause.

Mrs. Parks, on the other hand, was regarded as “one of the finest citizens of Montgomery - not one of the finest Negro citizens - but one of the finest citizens of Montgomery,” Dr. King said.

While Mr. Nixon met with lawyers and preachers to plan an assault on the Jim Crow laws, the women’s council distributed 35,000 copies of a handbill that urged blacks to boycott the buses on Monday, Dec. 5, the day of Mrs. Parks’s trial.

“Don’t ride the buses to work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday,” the leaflet said.

On Sunday, Dec. 4, the announcement was made from many black pulpits, and a front-page article in The Montgomery Advertiser, a black newspaper, further spread the word.

Some blacks rode in carpools that Monday. Others rode in black-owned taxis that charged only the bus fare, 10 cents. But most black commuters - 40,000 people - walked, some more than 20 miles.

At a church rally that night, blacks unanimously agreed to continue the boycott until these demands were met: that they be treated with courtesy, that black drivers be hired, and that seating in the middle of the bus go on a first-come basis.

The boycott lasted 381 days, and in that period many blacks were harassed and arrested on flimsy excuses. Churches and houses, including those of Dr. King and Mr. Nixon, were dynamited.

Finally, on Nov. 13, 1956, in Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court outlawed segregation on buses. The court order arrived in Montgomery on Dec. 20; the boycott ended the next day. But the violence escalated: snipers fired into buses as well as Dr. King’s home, and bombs were tossed into churches and into the homes of ministers.

Early the next year, the Parkses left Montgomery for Hampton, Va., largely because Mrs. Parks had been unable to find work, but also because of disagreements with Dr. King and other leaders of the city’s struggling civil rights movement.

Later that year, at the urging of her younger brother, Sylvester, Mrs. Parks, her husband and her mother, Leona McCauley, moved to Detroit. Mrs. Parks worked as a seamstress until 1965, when Representative John Conyers Jr. hired her as an aide for his Congressional office in Detroit. She retired in 1988.

“There are very few people who can say their actions and conduct changed the face of the nation,” Mr. Conyers said yesterday in a statement, “and Rosa Parks is one of those individuals.”

Mrs. Parks’s husband, Raymond, died in 1977. There are no immediate survivors.

In the last decade, Mrs. Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. But even as she remained an icon of textbooks , her final years were troubled. She was hospitalized after a 28-year-old man beat her in her home and stole $53. She had problems paying her rent, relying on a local church for support until last December, when her landlord stopped charging her rent.

Rosa Louise McCauley was born in Tuskegee, Ala., on Feb. 4, 1913, the elder of Leona and James McCauley’s two children. Although the McCauleys were farmers, Mr. McCauley also worked as a carpenter and Mrs. McCauley as a teacher.

Rosa McCauley attended rural schools until she was 11 years old, then Miss White’s School for Girls in Montgomery. She attended high school at the Alabama State Teachers College, but dropped out to care for her ailing grandmother. It was not until she was 21 that she earned a high school diploma.

Shy and soft-spoken, Mrs. Parks often appeared uncomfortable with the near-beatification bestowed upon her by blacks, who revered her as a symbol of their quest for dignity and equality. She would say that she hoped only to inspire others, especially young people, “to be dedicated enough to make useful lives for themselves and to help others.”

She also expressed fear that since the birthday of Dr. King became a national holiday, his image was being watered down and he was being depicted as merely a “dreamer.”

“As I remember him, he was more than a dreamer,” Mrs. Parks said. “He was an activist who believed in acting as well as speaking out against oppression.”

She would laugh in recalling some of her experiences with children whose curiosity often outstripped their grasp of history: “They want to know if I was alive during slavery times. They equate me along with Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and ask if I knew them.”

Correction: Oct. 26, 2005, Wednesday:

Because of an editing error, a front-page obituary of Rosa Parks in late editions yesterday referred incorrectly to The Montgomery Advertiser, which printed a front-page article on Dec. 4, 1955, that publicized a boycott of Montgomery’s buses the next day. It is a general-interest newspaper, not a black one.

Presidential elections and the dilemma of the
northeastern Tamil

By: Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby

As the days draw nearer and nearer to 17 November, we can diagnose the fever becoming frenzy. The candidates, or to be more exact their supporters from the two major political combinations, are frantically attacking each other and making declarations about how they or their leaders would deal with matters ranging from
childcare to geriatrics and from agriculture and industry to peace.

One need not repeat the combination of forces the UNP has drawn to itself such as the SLMC and the CWC. On the other hand, Mahinda Rajapakse though a SLFPer, has abandoned the hand symbol and chosen to contest the election under the betel
leaf insignia – the symbol of the sandanaya of which the JVP is also part.

An important feature about a presidential election, unlike in the case of parliamentary ones, is that the whole country is a single electorate. Anybody who gets 50% of the votes plus one (50%+1) assumes office on the strength that he or she represents the
majority of voters.

In this situation, where do the Tamils of the northeast stand? While stating this, a line of distinction has to be drawn between the Tamils living within the northeast and those outside it, including the upcountry Tamils. Political exigencies demand that Tamils
residing outside the northeast respond to local and regional considerations and exercise their vote on the basis of their geographical location. In the case of the upcountry Tamils, their plantation-based location has problems specific to that
community, which only a trade union turned political party can address.

The northeast is not merely about the Tamils living in those areas but, more importantly, about a single territorial unit that demands special devolution of power. The Tamils and the Muslims would like to call this area their traditional homeland. Though not accepted and approved by the Sinhala parties, the northeast merger has
become a political reality that the Indian government itself is keen on (vide 13th amendment to the constitution flowing out of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord).

Besides other problems that affect this country, the northeast issue is a major question at the election. The SLFP-JVP-JHU combination is very specific about the unitary nature of any constitutional solution. The sandanaya’s manifesto denies the
legality of a combined northeast, and though formal lip service is paid to negotiations for settling the ethnic problem, one is not sure who the Tamil participants in the negotiations would be, if the sandanaya is given a say on the matter. The manifesto is
also silent on the role of Norway, while it is keen on India playing a bigger part. Since the clout of the latter is on the ascendant its anti-LTTE position is the best safeguard for any pro-Sinhala policy for ‘peace.’

Parts of the northeast are also areas, which do not come under the political authority of the Sri Lanka government. A substantial portion of the Batticaloa District, west of the lagoon, and almost the entire Vanni (from Omanthai to Palai) are under LTTE
control. The CFA, as it stands today, implicitly accepts this position.

There is also the larger question of normalisation of war-affected areas. Rehabilitation efforts are funded by the World Bank, ADB and other international multilateral organisations. It should be known that ever since the CFA was signed there has never
been a coordinated or planned rehabilitation and normalisation programme for the war-affected northeastern areas. Only government agents are engaged in projects, which are not part of any plan of re-development.

What is also striking is whatever takes place politically in this region immediately becomes a concern of the European Union and the United States. In other words, relevant international opinion is watching very closely what is occurring in Sri Lanka – especially in the northeast. All these, create a sense of responsibility on the part of the voters of this region when casting their ballots at the presidential polls.

Given these socio-political pressures weighing heavily on Tamil voters of the northeast, one would agree that the choice of whom to vote for is not as simple for them as it is to others outside the region. Outside the northeast, there are basically, two categories of voters. Group A supports one of the candidates ideologically i.e.
they are either UNPers or sandanaya people. Group B would like to vote for the winning candidate simply because its members do not want their vote to be ineffective.

Now, if this criterion is applied to the Tamils of the northeast, one could hardly say that there is a group of people who identify ideologically with the UNP, or JVP-led sandanaya. Even the Tamil political groups that support the latter are very eloquent in
their declaration about the need for self-government in the province and power sharing at the centre. Thus, we are left only with Group B in the northeast – voters for the winning candidate.

At this point one has to look more closely into what is said by the two major party candidates. Rajapakse’s manifesto completely rules out the possibility of considering the northeast a specific problem, different from those in other regions. Rajapakse’s
thought (chinthanaya) speaks of renegotiating the CFA. This pronouncement has created very genuine fears in the minds of the northeast Tamils that the CFA could be repealed. And, needless to say, if the CFA is repealed, then, naturally, it is war. This
alone would prevent Rajapakse being the Tamils’ first choice.

What has Ranil Wickremesinghe promised? He has no doubt spoken of peace, the ceasefire and negotiations, but has not categorically stated the political nature of his solution. In fact, he has not used the term ‘federalism’ which President Chandrika
Kumaratunga has used (perhaps to create confusion in her own ranks!)

Wickremesinghe also says that he would first come to an agreement with the Sinhala parties and then negotiate with the Tigers. At a meeting in Polonnaruwa he declared
he would discuss a solution to the ethnic conflict with all parties before he starts talking with the Tigers. Nobody knows what these ‘all parties’ are because he has already specifically promised the Muslims their rightful place in a settlement relating to
the northeast. If therefore, it does not refer to the Muslims, whom does it refer to?

It is at this point one has to understand the situation in which Sri Lankan Tamils in general, and the northeast Tamils in particular, are placed. The LTTE has, over the years, emerged as the only militant group, which has relentlessly spearheaded the
Tamil struggle. Though there have been issues on which bulk of the Tamil population did not agree with the Tigers, right now there is the genuine fear that if efforts to displace them from the position of pre-eminence they have gained over the years are successful, Tamil demands would be undermined.

It should also be pointed out that Colombo treats all Tamil demands as “LTTE demands” and no mention whatsoever is made about such demands springing from Tamil grievances. In fact, neither manifesto mentions anything about the political
grievances of the Tamils as a constituent group of the Sri Lankan polity.

It is also quite clear that the Sinhala-owned media, including most of the English newspapers, have been adding up the number of LTTE violations of the CFA and not taken the trouble to report the violations perpetrated by the government in the Tamil
areas. In fact the Kumaratunga appointed a special presidential commission to go into the killings in the east – especially that of Kausaliyan, the LTTE’s political wing leader of the Batticaloa-Amparai area. The report is not yet out and one does not know whether within the few remaining days of office the president could take meaningful steps to publish the commission’s finding or act upon them.

The grievances mentioned so far are strictly political and have to be sorted out politically. But the 26 December tsunami brought in another dimension into this problem. Besides the southern districts, Batticaloa, Kalmunai and parts of Amparai, along with Mullaitivu and Vadmaratchi have been very seriously affected. The
government was virtually led to create the P-TOMS agreement to sort out the sufferings of Tamils in the LTTE held areas – especially in Mullaitivu. The sandanaya has come out against P-TOMS very strongly. It was fortunate that the Supreme Court
ruling prevented the JVP from gaining political capital by making it an election issue.

In this regard, it is worthwhile looking at what has happened in Aceh in Indonesia. The extent of the disaster and the suffering of the people compelled both the Indonesian government and the Aceh rebels to agree to terms. It is true that the Aceh rebels are
laying down arms but at the same time it is equally true there is a withdrawal of state forces from Aceh. But here in this land of Buddhism, no mercy was shown to those suffering from the effects of the tsunami in the LTTE-held areas.

It is in this background that the Tamils of the northeast are called upon to elect a president for this country. And if the choice for the northeastern Tamil is between Wickremesinghe and Rajapakse, is there a choice at all? The right to vote is a very precious democratic right. It does not mean that the ballot should be used to choose between two persons whose candidature raises so many
grave and negative feelings. This is all the more frightening because international opinion could tell the Tamils who vote either for Wickremesinghe or Rajapakse: “You voted for him, therefore you are duty-bound to accept all what he proposes.” This is the dilemma of the northeastern Tamil.

The northeastern Tamils are called upon to take a meaningful decision especially in the light of the fact that the war has dragged on for 30 years. The responsibility is all the more because a wrong result could nullify even the little that has been achieved
so far. The right to vote is no excuse to misuse that right. [Courtesy: NorthEastern Monthly]

Ignore the Elections -Jaffna Students

In an appeal issued Thursday evening, the Students’ Association of Higher Educational Institutions, Jaffna District asked Tamils to ignore the election promises the candidates are making from their election propaganda platforms.

“Encouraged by his extremist and nationalist supporters, Rajapakse has openly stated he would never compromise on the Unitary State, never acknowledge the existence of the traditional homeland of the Tamils and never execute the Tsunami rehabilitation plan, revealing his chauvinist stand,” the Students’ appeal explains.

On the other hand, the Tamil students’ body warns against the “slimy moves” of Ranil Wickremasinghe, who immediately after signing the Cease-fire Agreement three years ago, had exclaimed that with the Agreement he had prevented the LTTE from taking up arms, prevented deaths of “Sinhala soldiers” in battle field and laid an “international network to have the LTTE ostracised.”

Lankaleft.com

“Today both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapakse talk about the nation, about making sure that the nation will not be divided. Mahinda, more than Ranil, talks about the “national” interest, but even Ranil talks of election-time iconography. The weva, the dagoba, the ketha, the temple, the Dalada Maligawa, the Sri Maha Bodhiya, Parakramabahu and his palace, Sapumal Kumaraya and the need to eksesath the nation, we’ve heard it all, seen it all.”

Malinda Seneviratne, in his weekly column to the Daily Mirror, commenting on that both the Presidential candidates have remained conspicuously silent about the position that they would take, if elected, at the Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Hong Kong in December, had to say this:

This is perplexing because if Sri Lanka signs on to the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services), none of the promises as found in manifestos and as articulated in campaign rallies, will have any meaning. Two conclusions are possible. One, both candidates (and their advisors) are absolutely ignorant of GATS. Two, they are not interested in protecting this country, its people, its culture, its history and heritage. I would err on the latter, given the track records of politicians in this country.
………………..
Today both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapakse talk about the nation, about making sure that the nation will not be divided. Mahinda, more than Ranil, talks about the “national” interest, but even Ranil talks of election-time iconography. The weva, the dagoba, the ketha, the temple, the Dalada Maligawa, the Sri Maha Bodhiya, Parakramabahu and his palace, Sapumal Kumaraya and the need to eksesath the nation, we’ve heard it all, seen it all.
After GATS, Sri Lanka will be unrecognisable from what it is now. The following is not a far-fetched dooms day scenario (how I wish it is!), but a most likely outcome: Eppawala: Gone. Water resources: Gone. Sinharaja: Gone. Sigiriya frescoes: obliterated. Clean air: Gone. You name it, it will not be what you remember it to be, what you expect it to be for your children. It will cease to be a republic, cease to be democratic in any meaningful sense, cease to be a nation with borders, with a culture, with a history and a civilisation. All that will remain is nostalgia. Are you ready?
Let us put it in crudely, for the sake of easy comprehension. A floating casino is set up on the Kandy Lake, in full view of the Dalada Maligawa. Can the Mayor of Kandy protest? Can the Diyawadana Nilame or the Chief Prelates of the Asgiriya and Malwatte Chapters? The answer is, “no”. Forget casinos. It could be a brothel. And if Catholics, Hindus and Muslims are wont to say, “none of our business”, let them consider brothels, taverns, casinos and other places where vice is peddled at the following locations: Madhu Church, St. Anne’s Church at Thalawila, St.Anthony’s Church at Kochchikade, St. Jude’s Church at Indigolla, Nallur Kovil, Munneswaram Kovil in Chilaw. Consider putting up a place to slaughter pigs just outside the Dewatagaha Mosque in Town Hall. Or let’s go multi-religious. How about a casino on top of Sri Pada? Or a brothel in Kataragama. Our Minister of Trade will decide in December in Hong Kong whether we reserve the right to oppose such things, or if we let these places and things that define who we are to be desecrated in front of our eyes.
The point is not that it will be done, the desecration I mean, but that we open ourselves to that violence against which we agree not to raise a finger in protest. And it is not just about places of worship or matters religious. It is about all life. Every little thing that contributes to the matter of living, if it is a tradeable service, will be subject to GATS. What we would be signing away, if in December we become party to this barbaric agreement, would be not just our sovereignty but our very lives.
Is all life contained or containable in the sterile and materialistic article called “free trade”? Surely not! Let us consider a cemetery that contains the remains of your dead grandfather. Let us suppose someone wants to replace it with a military academy that provides the service of education. GATS would require us to erase the word sacrosanct from our vocabulary, would require us to allow the graves of our ancestors to be vandalised. All in the interest of facilitating free trade. All that will remain is nostalgia and maybe not even that. Are you ready?
On November 17, 2005 the people of this country will vote for a President. In December, in Hong Kong, his Minister of Trade will decide whether his President is a puppet or worse a forsaken soft toy, or a leader worthy of a people who believe that freedom, history, nation, dignity and indeed their very lives are important. In December, that Minister of Trade will be subjected to all kinds of direct and indirect pressures. His moral integrity will be tested to the maximum. His human frailties will be found out and they will be preyed upon. He will be pitted against his counterparts in other developing countries. His President will be arm-twisted in much the same way. We all know what happened in the infamous Green Rooms as the Uruguay Round of the GATT was arm-twisted to a close in the early nineties.
This time the stakes are higher. This time, the forces of resource extraction, labour exploitation and cultural erasure are playing for an outright win. We can expect them to give it their all. Are we ready to give our all to resist them? Do our candidates have the intellect, the integrity and the patriotism that are absolutely necessary to fight this fight? These are questions we need to ask.
In December, our country and everything that the word “nation” connotes will fight what could well be the last fight. Mahinda Rajapakse and Ranil Wickremesinghe have not uttered one word about GATS. That is their prerogative.

As citizens of this country, as human beings who have lives, livelihoods, aspirations, memories, ancestry and progeny, as human beings who want to dream about futures, can you and I afford to remain silent, though? I think not.

excerpts, courtesy Daily Mirror, 30.10.2005