Can Gota live down ‘Hitler’ slur when wooing the minority vote?
Birthday blessings presidential hopeful could well have done without
the person could be permanently barred from entering the United States; and that once renunciation of citizenship has duly taken place it is irrevocable.”
If these two obstacles appear formidable hurdles enough for Gotabaya to jump, the Anunayaka Thera’s call to him to be a Hitler like figure and capture power with the aid of the military may well prove to be -- even if he becomes eligible to contest the presidential poll -- a major blow to his chances for winning it. And even before the monk could finish his benediction, the astute Gotabaya may have well realised it would have been like manna from Thusitha heaven for his political enemies. And it was.
The condemnation was swift and ferocious. The following day itself, President Sirisena led the charge from the front.
Speaking at a ceremony in Nikawaretiya, the President said: “In January 2015, people did not vote for food or jobs. They voted for freedom and democracy. I have restored both and will not allow this country to slip back to a dictatorship," and said he was saddened by the call of the Anunayaka Upali of the Asgiriya chapter who sought a return to an era when citizens were deprived of their basic human rights and any dissent was ruthlessly crushed.
"We have restored the freedoms of the people, the media freedom. In fact, these freedoms are being abused and we are attacked without any fear of reprisals, unlike in the past,” the President said. “Even though some attempted to interpret the present regime as a lenient administration, all of them must understand it is a journey with freedom and democracy.”
He added that although some attacked the Government using the given freedom and democracy in the country in a wrongful manner, he will further strengthen the required correct political and development path for the country joining hands with all those who value the democracy including the scholars and intellectuals.
On Saturday, the Prime Minister, along with other politicians and civil rights groups joined the chorus of condemnation.
At the 125th anniversary celebration of the Maha Manthinda Pirivena in Matara, in reference to the sermon made by the Anunayaka of the Asgiriya Chapter, Ranil Wickremesinghe said that “advocating barbaric Hitlerite methods to govern a country, was in direct violation of the teachings of the Buddha.”
“If such a statement had been made in my presence,” he declared, “I would have objected to it immediately. All right thinking people should condemn the attempt by bankrupt politicians and their supporters to establish a military dictatorship, he noted adding that Buddhism had contributed to Sri Lanka remaining a democracy.”
It is this third hurdle that sprung out of the blues that may prove to be the final insurmountable barrier for Gotabaya to win the presidency. Even if he is able to coax the US government to expedite the process of renunciation, even if the Pohottuwa names him as the chosen candidate, the final decider of presidential triumph will lie in the hands of the Lankan public made up of all communities.
That’s the asses’ bridge, the pons asinorum, he must cross.
Immensely popular as he seems to be with the Sinhala electorate which comprises seventy percent of the populace, the Anunayaka Thera’s description of him as a person viewed by the people as a Hitler figure and his call to him to use the military and come to power soonest would not, perhaps, unduly have perturbed him. It may have even earned him some star points in the eyes of the majority race, especially amongst the diehards. The only drawback would be that the opposing UNP would present the choice before the people as being one between democracy and dictatorship. And hammer the message again and again when the election campaign begins in earnest. And the daggers are out.
But would it have ruffled his feathers and denied him flight when it came to soaring high amongst the two main minorities of the land, the Muslims and Tamils?
During the month of Ramadan he had attended many Iftar dinners the Muslims hosted him. He had done so to cultivate their friendship and gain their confidence and to show over biriyani and roast chicken he was not the big bad wolf his opponents had made him out to be. But would this Hitler slur have negated his good intentions, reduced to naught and rendered vain his endeavour to extend the hand of friendship and assure them that, In-sh All h, God willing, all will be well under his presidency and they have naught to fear.
But the monk’s exhortation last week has given rise to old ghosts; and they wonder whether bigotry is on the rise again? Backed with the blessings of the powerful Buddhist clergy? And whether in a new surge of Sinhala dominance, the Bodu Bala Sena will be unleashed again against them. So it is with the Tamils. They are concerned whether the drums of Sinhala chauvinisms are presently being re-skinned to beat the jingoism that had fallen silent these last three years under the Yahapalana Gover nment of Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.
And for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the distant drums do not thump good news. He knows that the Sinhala majority’s vote alone will not enable him to pip the presidential post without the Tamil and Muslim spurs; and the same defeat that visited his brother in 2015, the war winning former president Mahinda Rajapaksa awaits to visit him too if he fails to muster the minority vote.
And that the propaganda outburst presently ignited by the monk’s seeming flattering remark to him as a Hitlerite the country is in desperate need of will intensify a thousand times fold and become his Achilles’ Heel during the forthcoming presidential campaign, provided of course the USA allows him to renounce his citizenship before nomination day and provided the Pohottuwa party make him their chosen steed to run in the twenty twenty presidential stakes.
But how mysteriously has providence struck through the words of a monk to erect the final barrier. After all Gotabaya did not claim the Hitler mantle, he did not seek the Nazi Swastika to be stapled on his shirt sleeve, he did not state he will use the military and usurp power from a democratically elected government. He had it thrust upon.
And it happened when his hands were raised in worship whilst listening to a monk’s sermon at his 69th birthday dane who, with the best of intentions but unmindful of the consequences, damned him with praise.
Ten years ago to win the 30-year terrorist war, no doubt, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the right man at the right time. How ironic that to win his own presidential bid, he may find he is the wrong man at the wrong time.
And as far as the monk’s claim that his advice televised nationwide was distorted by the local, international and social media, even though his comments were aired word for word, to paraphrase a verse from Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat:
The moving finger writes and having writ moves on
The resounding voice is heard and the words having resounded linger on
And not all thy piety nor all thy wit or tears of remorse
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line Or make inaudible the words and silence its echoes