The Renewal Of The Opposition & The Role Of The Intelligentsia
By Dayan Jayatilleka -October 28, 2013
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
Mental habits, however damaging, die hard. Having spent many years erroneously attempting to achieve peace by placating Prabhakaran rather than prevailing over him, the UNP has been repeating the error of searching for a solution while retaining the problem: that party is seeking to overcome its chronic crisis by equivocation and placation of Ranil Wickremesinghe, rather than by decisively rejecting him. This is not the profile of a party that the electorate would consider fit to rule a country facing an existential threat from the fanatical Tamil Eelamist movement in neighbouring Tamil Nadu and the Tamil Diaspora.
The pro-Opposition ideologues and commentators who criticise me for attacking Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP more than I do the Rajapaksas or State, should ask themselves why there is very little criticism of the Tsar and his family in the 45 volumes of Lenin’s writings, despite the execution of Lenin’s beloved older brother by the Tsarist autocracy! Much of those writings are taken up with polemics against various trends and sub-trends in the anti-Tsarist, i.e. Oppositional space. In Lankan politics today, the ‘key link’ (which Lenin and Mao said must be grasped) or the ‘game changer’ (as Barack Obama would have it), is terminating the citizens’ lack of a viable democratic option; ending the absence of competition in the political system and the near-monopoly enjoyed by the regime due to the endemic crisis of the Opposition which in turn is reducible to a crisis of leadership.
Reading Padraig Colman’s critical commentary (‘Gramsci, Dayan and New Labour’, Ceylon Today, Thursday, Oct 24th 2013, p 13) was a delight for its intelligence, style and sly wit (as a recipient of a gift from my wife of the collected Blackadder DVDs, I loved the Baldrick reference). It was also a sharp contrast to the critiques that usually come my way. A sheer sense of disgust and a sense that ‘time is tight’ (as Booker T and the MGs insisted) has prevented me from responding, for instance, to the rancorous, rancid racism of Prof GH Peiris and HLD Mahindapala, who are attempting to mount a rearguard action having recovered from the shock of the reactivation of the Northern Provincial Council which they polemicized against fanatically, secure in their conviction that they had a strongman on their side who would put a stop to all this nonsense of devolution. Read More
