The Four Segments Of The Lankan Left Movement
Shyamon Jayasinghe
The scenario of what is left of the Left Movement in Sri Lanka can be broken down into four categories:
Those who have gone to bed with the Right, those who have gone to bed with the Right but who are pretending otherwise, the ambiguous Left and the start-over- again Left.
The start-over again Left is the new Frontline Socialist Party (FSP). These passionate young people and their not- so young mentors start off with the premise that Sri Lanka has not yet seen a “proper Left movement.” There is substantive truth when the FSP says that because what we have seen thus far are fake Left movements.
The Lanka Samasamaja Party and the Communist Party go down to history as two big cruel jokes.These two parties came to the limelight at the beginning largely because they had some men and women of high callibre and breed at the top. NM Perera, SA Wickremasinghe, Leslie Goonewardena, Peter Keuneman, Colvin R De Silva, Phillip Gunawardena, Edmund Samarakkody, Bala Tampoe, Vivienne Goonewardena and some others of lesser prominence. The ordinary masses just ignored their announced policies as the latter simply did not touch their consciousness. Nor did the masses take the leaders seriously when they addressed them as ‘Sahodarayas.’ Indeed it was an unresolvable puzzle to the masses when in a country highly characterized by non-egalitarian feudal values leaders wanted to pretend to be equals.It is legend that Colvin R De Silva had benches for the ‘lower sahodarayas,’ and cushioned seats upstairs for the ‘gentlemen types.’ At May Day meetings Colvin used to come in his luxury car, park it at Borella and then cycle to the Campbell Park venue amidst cheers from other Sahodrayas. Perhaps Colvin was simply brilliant and such weird behavior went unnoticed. The LSSP eventually went to bed with the right wing government headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Personal sacrifice was too much to bear for so long.Read More