The Crisis Of The JVP Is That It Has Lost Purpose
Shyamon Jayasinghe
Right now, the JVP is busy enthusiastically backing the Opposition move for a vote of no-confidence on the Prime Minister. Have any member of that party reflected on the possible net result of such action as far as the party’s own purpose lies?
Crisis of the JVP
In the original days of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), it had a clear sense of purpose. Whether that purpose or general goal had been right or apt or realistic is another issue altogether. The important thing is that the party had a clear and unambiguous eventual goal to which it had been working under the leadership of Rohana Wijeweera, Gamanayake etc. Ask the JVP today what its political purpose is and you will not get a valid answer. The crisis of the JVP today is that it has lost a purpose.
The JVP’s consistently poor showing at elections is largely an outcome of the fundamental reality that the party has ceased to be driven by anything other than being a critic of the government in power-whichever that may be. This is not a goal in any sense of a definition; it is just a state of negative being.
Contrast
By contrast, go back again to the 1969-70s. At that time the JVP took the shape of a growing political force- burgeoning by the day and attracting hundreds of youth from the towns and villages. These youth discovered in the party and its messiah a deeply enthusing idealism to embrace. JVP had been many things even then; but it carried the idealism of rectifying injustices from society and ushering in social justice for the poor and the disadvantaged of society by the destruction of the evil that is capitalism. The idea became viral and thousands of youth were able to conceal their prolonged training in the jungles. When the uprising of April 71 took place, it came as a shock to the broad masses of rulers and people. Rulers and others were thrown into confusion. Purpose can invest those in possession of it with dynamism and energy; with resilience.
Regi Mentis, Doric, NM and Bernard
Doric’s Classes
In my youthful days, the Samasamajists had such an appeal- although by then the appeal had weakened somewhat in intensity.
