A Lenten Reflection by Bishop Duleep de Chickera
EVOLUTIONARY
DECLINE AND THE ASCENT OF HUMAN RESILIENCE
25 Feb, 2013
The
weeks leading to Independence Day on February 4 were filled with intense debate
on the legality and morality of the impeachment of the Chief Justice (CJ). The
debate centred on the interpretation of the law and the political motives behind
it. The government finally had its way and the CJ was impeached.
The
beginning of Lent, (Ash Wednesday, Feb. 13) followed close on these events.
Since Lent is a time for inner scrutiny, repentance and a return to integrity
amidst the harsh realities of life, any realistic preparation to celebrate
Easter as the Festival of Ascent, is called to wrestle with these events.
Evolutionary
decline
The
episode of the impeachment of CJ Bandaranayake is not to be seen as an isolated
incident. It is part of a wider design in governance, strong and predictable
enough to be identified as evolutionary decline. Evolutionary because it grows
on us; decline because it pulls us down.
Evolutionary
decline operates in cyclic form. At regular intervals serious irregularities of
public and national importance that demand government accountability, stir the
nation. Some are serious enough to call for the resignation of those in high
places. But as expected no one resigns or is asked to resign; because if one
goes – one will not go alone. And so to the contrary, those responsible
stubbornly close ranks and sit it out with predictable rhetoric until the
irregular is inevitably incorporated into the system.
As
the system absorbs more and more irregularities, its very nature becomes
irregular. From here the regular becomes strange and is caricatured because it
exposes the irregular; and the nation finds itself in a dangerous state of moral
decline which neither National Day parades nor the occasional outburst when a
little girl is arrested for stealing coconuts, can conceal.
Alternative
people’s resilience
Thankfully
this trend is not the end of the story. Evolutionary decline inevitably breeds
an alternative people’s resilience which refuses to succumb to the former. This
people’s resilience, vibrant and alive in all corners of the country, exposes
the irregular system by sifting and sustaining the truth in the security of twos
and threes, when doing so publicly could be costly. When evolutionary decline
threatens to engulf all, it is this ability to engage in critique and
interpretation across all ethnic, political, religious and class barriers that
safeguards human dignity and the national image.
This
people’s resilience also functions as informal people’s tribunals when justice
is distorted. In fact it is these tribunals that recently ruled that CJ
Bandaranayake did not receive justice. Like many individuals who put public
service first in spite of knowing what was coming, she will be remembered long
after those who hurt her are forgotten.
The
verdicts of these people’s tribunals often prove to be more just than official
rulings under evolutionary decline. All legislators and judges are to bear in
mind the sense of natural justice within the people, which spontaneously
scrutinises the integrity of the legal process. This scrutiny is simple and
straightforward. It probes whether constitutions and the rule of law liberate
and benefit people as a whole or whether they benefit those in power mostly and
hinder and harass the people instead. In application it serves as the final
democratic word; judging both the judgement and those who pronounce judgement,
long after the work of parliaments and law courts is done.
The
ability to sustain this people’s integrity when it runs counter to evolutionary
decline is then the essence of human freedom. The ability to recognise, protect
and foster this integrity is the test of true democratic leadership in an
independent nation.
The
teaching of Christ
The
teaching of Christ is best understood when it is applicable to all and not just
Christians; and when it is applied to difficult times and not merely the
routine. In fact Christ’s teaching loses its freshness when restricted for long
periods to the general interpretation and application of religion within the
Church only.
It
is from this perspective that Christ’s teaching on the life-affirming character
of people’s gatherings in “twos and threes” is of relevance for today. To
restrict this teaching to religious gatherings is to deflect its impact. It much
more anticipates a mechanism of survival and counter influence at a time when
credible alternatives to exclusive governance are seen as intrigue. So those
within the tradition of people’s resilience are to take heart. The universal
Christ is present in the “twos and threes” to endorse and empower such
gatherings.
Set
free to free
People’s
resilience eventually has a spill-over effect. Its association with and
assertion of the truth, frees people from self and sectarian interest to
recognise responsibility for the freedom of others. It is this liberating
influence that has historically disturbed and compelled many to pick up the
anxieties of the helpless (those oppressed by structural injustice and violence)
and the harassed (those also oppressed by visible injustice and violence) and to
cross borders to stand in human solidarity with those deprived of justice.
In
practical terms this means that the harassed Jaffna University students, the
simmering antagonism towards the Muslim community, those immersed in poverty
like the little girl who stole coconuts, the prisoners who were allegedly killed
after the Welikada Prison riot, the lawyers who received threats etc., are not
to be left to their own fate or the anxieties and concerns of their immediate
families, communities and groups only. The hurt and insecurity of these Sri
Lankans are to be seen as invitations to counter their isolation through a
demonstration of human solidarity by others.
National
integration and reconciliation
While
the manner in which such a tradition is to be built into the social fabric of a
nation is best left to the integrity of those who respond, one thing is certain.
Even though at the outset it appears to be so, cross border human solidarity
does not remain an initiative of the strong towards the weak. It is to the
contrary, of mutual benefit. Through the ensuing interaction, both the ones who
dare to cross boundaries as well as those isolated beyond boundaries, taste
freedom. For, if freedom means anything in circumstances of structural
suppression and exclusion, it is the freedom to remain ever vigilant and caring
in the service of each other. This is what national integration is all
about.
It
is from such a consolidation of people’s resilience and people’s solidarity that
we will be best equipped to address the deeper wounds of reconciliation that the
national agenda wishes to bypass. These include devolution, dealing with the
atrocities, pain and division of the past, and development with a sensitive bias
for the victims of poverty, war and violence; all of which received visionary
endorsement in the recommendations of the presidential Lessons Learnt and
Reconciliation Commission.
[Editors
note: For an interview with Bishop de Chickera broadcast on public TV in Sri
Lanka, please click here.]
following
days in Sri Lanka. The schedule of broadcasts can be downloaded here.
