Buffalo Democracy
R.A.Ratwatte
The father of Singapore discovered it, lesser minions like JR Jayewardenacorrupted it and it looks like Mahinda Rajapaksa will write the book on it. Along the way the Ghaddafi’s, Mubaraks, Saddam Hussains of this word also produced their own brand of it.
What it basically is, is how to lead a bunch of people who think they are educated, are too lazy to work on a honest living and constantly look for free handouts and shortcuts to the top, to those peoples version of utopia.
The key is to play on that powerful human emotion greed and avarice. The buffalo (in this case the human referred to, with abject apologies to the bovine species) needs to do better than his kinsman, his neighbour and his friend. “Do better” means have more worldly possessions, a bigger car, house, TV basically anything you can think of. To facilitate this they need money, much more than they can ever earn honestly. So you hook them with cheap credit and then you play them on the line like a well hooked fish, when they are unable to pay their dues. You force them to take bribes, to do “private jobs” on official time, you open the way and you show them how.
Once you have your Buffalo populace on their way, they don’t care the proverbial “damn” for any decent human value you can think of. Decency, compassion, honesty, work ethics, they all go out of the window. Respect for the law and those who are charged with enforcing it ceases to exists, because the law is virtually nonexistent. How can you respect someone who tries to enforce something that doesn’t exist?!
If you can throw in some patriotism along the way it does a good job of making all the self doubts and any lingering penchant to even think about the way your forefathers lived and conducted themselves, away. A “war victory” for example or some sort of ethnic division helps immeasurably.
In due course the buffalo herd is in full stampede and may the devil take the hindmost! Anyone who lags to think about the right and wrong of what is happening or even a slight pause to spend a fleeting moment to think, is deemed a traitor and an enemy to the well being of the herd.
Very soon this type of thinking and behaviour becomes the norm. It is firmly embedded into the very fabric of society and any attempt to dislodge it results in the total collapse of that society. Look at what the Americans’ have tried to do in Iraq, Egypt and Libya. What is the result? Of course for an economy like America, that depends on the arms trade and arms manufacturing to survive it would have been a “win-win” situation anyway, wouldn’t it? That is a different story!
Does this sound familiar? Yes, I am talking to you people of Sri Lanka….. why whinge and grumble about what is going on right now ? You don’t really care do you? As long as you have a bigger TV and your 3 wheeler is newer…..
