The future starts today

And so, amidst the usual grumbling about the wastage of public funds and ‘black’ flag protests, the country commemorated its 75th year of Independence from 450 years and more of ‘white’ domination. The event was abridged – truncated as it were, to a minimum. While the country, no doubt, is in the throes of an economic crisis, it is the rolling of the armoured vehicles, the marching of the uniformed infantry battalions, the flypasts and gunboats, that fire the imagination of little children who witness such parades while cultural pageants showcase this country’s multifaceted heritage – unfortunately, riddled today by divisions rather than diversity.

As a one-time respected Secretary General of Parliament, the late Sam Wijesinha, wrote in a foreword to a book on contemporary Sri Lanka not too long ago; “We are an ancient people with a sense of identity in an independent country. We are yearning to develop into a modern state. We took bold steps to give substance to our freedom. One of the boldest was free education which changed our society radically …… but even before the first decade of our life as a free nation ended, the divisive forces of sub-nationalism began to undermine our national unity and our common purpose. Political opportunism overwhelmed the mutual considerateness and conscious tolerance which held us together, and distorted our perceptions, interpretations of the past, indulgence in historical myth and social legend, to calculations of comparative numbers. Tolerance has been replaced by irritability, trust by suspicion, debate by vindictive vituperation, and all possibilities of making our people, rich in their cultural-linguisticreligious distinctions, to be welded together with a common purpose have been debased and almost – abandoned”.

There have been many advances in the life of this nation since 1948, but the fault-lines could not be better put across than how the late Mr. Wijesinha saw it, with a ringside seat to the thrust and parry of parliamentary democracy, and change of governments for many, many years of the postIndependence era.

By now, the country as a whole and its leaders must surely have identified where the nation took the wrong turns. Nationalism is a natural outcome of four and a half centuries of colonial rule. The much-acclaimed adult universal franchise that required winning votes unfortunately promoted communal, even caste-based politics at a very early stage. Then came welfare populism on the economic front.

These same issues linger on. Today’s hybrid Government is faced with these twin headaches at the top of its agenda and with cleaning up the mess. It is a long and arduous task. Recent trade union activity whipping to a frenzy those workers and even professionals who are no doubt undergoing difficulties on managing their home budgets are no different to the hartals and strikes of yesteryear when free rice or other welfare benefits the Treasury could not afford were withdrawn. It is their children who have had to foot those unpaid bills today. And those who refuse to cough up higher taxes today are only passing today’s difficulties on to their own children.

It is very clear to everyone that taxes imposed must have a corresponding reality that the taxpayers can actually pay what is thrust upon them. Unrealistic tax impositions are patently absurd. On the other hand, it is the onus on the Government to prove to the taxpaying public that what is being extracted goes to the public good and not to the political class. When those who pocket some of that cash and reduce the entire nation to a pecuniary state are not held to account, public agitation and wrath are justifiable.

There is a mountain to be climbed, not only for the Government but also for the entire nation.

The demands of the Northern polity, often called the ‘National Question’ is continuing as a bad hangover from the past. No amount of Indian ayurvedic concoctions or Western capsules seems to cure what is essentially a home remedy. The Northern insurgency from around the mid-1970s till 2009 is almost a half of the post-Independence period and it took the wind out of the sails of Sri Lanka’s upward economic trajectory in the post-1977 years.

The incumbent President is taking the position that as the country’s Executive he must implement existing laws and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution is one of them. He has kicked the ethnic ball into the parliamentary side of the field saying to repeal 13A if they oppose it.

The Opposition has in turn kicked the ball now into the public area, the spectator stand, saying it should be put to the people to decide. Neither side wants to rub a powerful neighbouring country on the wrong side. The resultant fallout is going to be yet more and more rounds of ethnic friction leading to the country’s centenary in 2048, and probably beyond.

Why Parliament cannot get together and repeal 13A that was not its own creation, and come up with a genuine devolution mechanism not based on ethnic enclaves but on economic and administrative prudence, begs the question whether Parliament truly reflects the will of the nation.

The first and immediate hurdle today, however, would be to clear the debt restructuring barrier which has got caught up in geopolitical gamesmanship. With the Non-Aligned Movement, the G-77, and the South Asian regional grouping SAARC virtual dead ducks, and the Commonwealth grouping a dead loss, Sri Lanka has no global support to fight its battles. It is on its own with little muscle left having gone bankrupt.

The country will have to sail very much alone in the stormy seas in a world bedevilled with economic recessions, a prestige war in Europe. neo-colonialism, caught up in big power rivalries, climate change and what not. Economic prosperity is key. The more the country remains divided, the heavier will be the burdens on its people. The political leadership on all sides, including professionals, the business community and trade unionists will have to raise the bar towards achieving national unity, to what by-and-large prevailed in 1948.

That collective leadership will have to swim together or sink separately; whether the country flourishes or flounders for the next 25 years towards the centenary year of Independence, starts today.