Mahinda, Minotaur, Lenin And Premadasa
Dr. Jagath Asoka
According to a recent Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index, a Sri Lankan Passport is among the 10 worst in the world in terms of free access to other countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine, Eritrea, Nepal, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Lebanon. If you wonder how this happened to Sri Lanka, juxtapose the previous fact with the following fact: Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdom was summoned to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for a meeting related to the issues of renegade Tiger guerrilla leader Karuna entering Britain with official backing from the Government of Sri Lanka.
Rajapaksa clan and its cronies brag endlessly about the tremendous progress that they have made in infrastructure: new highways, stadiums, a new harbor, a new international airport, and a marvelous theater; Colombo looks cleaner; but our inner-structure has been deteriorating. The name “Rajapaksa” is so ubiquitous in Sri Lanka that only the public toilets are not named after Rajapaksas. I think it is better to name our public toilets after some Sri Lankan politicians: Mervin’s mouth; Dayasiri’s tongue; and Wimal’s brain. In 1975, Dr. N. M. Perera exposed 45 rich industrialized families who were controlling Sri Lankan. Now, there is only one: Rajapaksas.
Superabundance of anything turns to its opposite; this phenomenon is known as enantiodromia; Heraclitus introduced this concept. When I was studying in the former Soviet Union, Lenin was so ubiquitous that my roommate, another Sri Lankan student, worshiped Lenin and offered flowers and bread to Lenin, asBuddhists would offer flowers and food to the Buddha; to my Sri Lankan roommate, Lenin was the Buddha of the Soviet Union. We all know what happened to Lenin’s statues when the Soviet Union collapsed. Every Sri Lankan politician is trying to emulate Rajapaksas by introducing their family members into politics, because politics has become more lucrative than selling illegal drugs; in fact, prostitution has become worthy of veneration in Sri Lanka because hapless prostitutes sell only their own bodies to make a living to feed their hungry children; on the other hand, some Sri Lankan politicians have only one goal: To sell the country to become billionaires. Skullduggery, thuggery, and politics have become synonyms in Sri Lanka.
Words such as “nepotism,” “despotism,” “plutocracy,” “Machiavellianism,” “authoritarianism,” “feudalism,” etc.—well, I can keep on using all the words that I know, but that would be too ostentatious. Still, I cannot think of a single word to describe this phenomenon in Sri Lanka. If you can come up with the mot juste to describe this phenomenon please let me know. Read More
