Can The TNA’s Decision To Boycott The PSC Be Justified?
Sumanasiri Liyanage
We all are witnessing in Sri Lanka another proof of the Hegelian axiom that history repeats itself. Anticipating Jacques Derrida’s introduction of the notion of iteration in to the philosophy of language, Marx added history proceeds first time as a tragedy and second as a farce. If the repletion goes on farce would become more and more hilarious. In the past, there had been many Parliamentary Select Committees (PSCs), All Party Representative Committees (APRCs) on national question to make recommendation as to how the grievances and aspirations of numerically small nations and ethnic groups in Sri Lanka be accommodated into the constitutional and political power structure of the country. It is interesting to note although these committees came up with constructive recommendations, the governments so far have failed to adopt them for multiple reasons. In this respect, the recommendations of the Mangala Moonesinghe PSC that was supported by two main Sinhala parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) and the APRC headed by Prof Tissa Vitharana should be especially mentioned. Undoubtedly, it was a tragedy that no serious actions were taken to implement these recommendations as they had to some extent questioned the hegemonic notion of politics in post-colonial Sri Lanka. One more PSC was named to recommend necessary changes to the 13th Amendment. External Affairs Minister G L Peiris has waxed eloquent to the diplomatic community about the PSC’s objectives of resolving issues relating to constitutional reform in an “all-inclusive” manner, and the need for a “structured and comprehensive approach” in these matters. Nonetheless, any independent observer would see a notable difference between this PSC and the previous one headed by Mr Mangala Moonesinghe. While previous one tried to accommodate the demands of numerically small nations and ethnic groups by resolving some of the contradictions between the Republican Constitution and the 13th Amendment, the present one is supposed to make recommendations to make Sri Lanka officially and constitutionally mono cultural entity by suppressing the prevailing constitutional rights of other cultures.