Removing Sheep Skins From “Political Wolves”
Gamini Jayaweera
Following the defeat of the UNP by Mr. SWRD Bandaranaike’s Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, my late brother Wimaladharma Jayaweera (former Co-ordinating Secretary to the late SLFP Minister Mr. C.V.Gunaratne) wrote an article titled “Battalu Hum Galaweema” (Removing the Sheep Skins) which was published in the Lankadeepa Newspaper in 1956, explaining how SWRD was managed to unite the forces of “Pancha Maha Balawegaya” – the five great forces of the Buddhist Clergy, the Ayurvedic Physicians, the Teachers, the Farmers, and the Workers to remove the sheep skins from the elite class of the rich (“People of Bamunu Kulaya”) who governed the country since independence pretending that they would work towards the upward social mobility of the common person in the society. Though the elite class of the rich who governed the country did not provide sufficient facilities to the common person to get into top level administrative and other high level professional jobs, to their credit, they did not get involved in practising unprecedented level of bribery and corruption, violation of the independence of the Judiciary, providing protection for murderers and drug dealers, violating the rule of law, using foul language in parliament to address their opponents, unlawfully taking public money & engaging in drug dealings to become “super-rich”, and taking away the democratic values of the nation.
President’s Support
After 59 years of SWRD’s social revolution, today we are facing another battle to remove sheep skins from most of our “super-rich” corrupt politicians and so called educated “socialists” who are trying to deceive the nation to get into the parliament at any cost. In this critical battle it is very important that our President Mr.Maithripala Sirisena who has worked with some of these politicians for 47 years should publically appeal to the nation to reject these candidates irrespective of their allegiance to SLFP or UPFA. Majority of the Srilankans feel that it is a personal obligation of the President to the vast number of people who supported him publically risking their lives during the last presidential election. I can understand that the President may be under pressure to give nominations to most of these politicians of the UPFA and SLFP but is he under any pressure to speak out the truth for the sake of saving the nation from thieves, murderers, drug dealers, and violators of our democratic values entering the parliament? Hope that our President will demonstrate the qualities of a Statesman as defined by James Freeman Clarke: “The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman thinks about the next generation.”
