Coup d’état In Sri Lanka?
Muhammed Fazl
Not in this isle of ours and not in our lifetime, at least as per our cowardice upbringing. We have seen it all… the levels of corruption, winning wars at great human costs, abuse of the judiciary/law enforcement institutions, state sponsored killings & disappearances and the not-so-suited-for-times constitution being exploited among others. And every government in power has been complicit or directly involved since the time of independence.
Where we stand today as a nation, questions about the definition or the importance of ‘Independence’ needs to be raised. A day is being celebrated every year with military parades (as if the independence was gained militarily) and by masquerading the false sense of nationalism and pride. To begin with, do we really have reasons to celebrate? Are we really free from ‘slavery’? Or the developments in Britain at that time or their construction of roads and infrastructure in Ceylon were not suitable for the Sinhala majority who were content with their indigenous ‘buffalo cart’ mentality? Or was it really an independence in its sense or did the reign just change hands from the ‘white man’ to end up in the hands of a murderous and a thieving clan? And the lesser mortals we are, are we not enslaved from expressing our views freely or from standing up for what is right in a country where the ruling elite boasts of ‘independence’?
Bitter it may sound, had it still been a British colony, this country would have made great strides in development, rule of law and human values. Dying traditions and cultural practices that were copied from different communities are being revived desperately to maintain a hollow sense of nationalism, and for the sake of wooing the ignorant voter belonging to the majority community in times of elections. Even the Buddhist philosophy has become just a ritual and a fashionable one at that. It has also become a common practice for politicians and their corrupt henchmen/businessmen to use equally conniving Buddhist monks to showcase their ‘piety’ to the public through public media and on political platforms.
In a country where Buddhism is ‘considered very sacred’ to its adherents, even though only a few actually practices its teachings, politician’s exploitation of racism and the weaknesses of the ignorant majority for political gains does not seem to bring about just rulers either. But the educated segment of the society and the future generation seems to be paying the ultimate price for blind decisions of the villager/ignorant voter and also for reasons of sheer numbers. And that too as if the misled lot benefits from their stupidity.