Consensual govt. via its gazette notification proves to the world it is in a pickle and a butt of everybody’s jokes !

(Lanka-e-News - 11.June.2017, 11.00PM)   It is a pity the consensual government which is making an exhibition that it is a model to the world , has in fact  only been able to demonstrate to the world it is instead  in an insipid  ‘pickle’ and has become a butt of everyone’s jokes  following  its recent gazette notification.  This became clear after the gazette notification of Friday (09) which published the Institutions coming under the various ministries following  the cabinet re shuffle. 

Owing to these topsy turvy  ministerial functions  made without following any  scientific or sensible  method , the performance of the tasks duly of the ministers are hindered and hampered . 

A number of Institutions under the purview of the finance and media ministry have been pulled out. The Central bank and the Commercial banks that ought to be under the finance ministry as they were before, have now been withdrawn . Despite the grave  accusations mounted against   the central bank corrupt bond issue , the prime minister has kept the central bank under him.

In addition , the Development Lotteries Board and the National Lotteries board that were under the finance ministry have been brought under the purview of the foreign ministry.

The State printing department , the State printing Corporation and national Film Corporation that were under the media ministry from the outset have been withdrawn and brought under the purview of the ministry of public administration and management , which has no connection whatsoever to those Institutions ( Ministry of Ranjith Madduma Bandara) .

The Kantalai  Sugar factory  which is an entirely different  subject has been brought under the ministry of lands. 

The employees Trust Fund (ETF )has  been brought under the newly created ministry of special development projects following  the cabinet reshuffle , which  ministry was entrusted to Thilak Marapone  , despite the fact  this  ministry and ETF have no relationship at all. The ETF was under the prime minister previously. 

It is to be noted the ETF was under the finance ministry in the past  , and that is the ministry to which it actually  belongs.

‘Milodha’ financial research Institute the first financial research Institute established in this country has been brought under the purview of the new special development projects ministry . Though the financial research Institute must be under the finance ministry in any country , because the government is obsessed with making a pickle of everything , these universal truths to it have meant nothing. 

Though the  State financial taxation affiliated to the National policy and planning , comes under  the monitoring and evaluation of the finance ministry that formulates  financial and macro management programs , the national programs and  formulation of projects have been brought under the purview of the ministry of national policy and economic affairs belonging to the prime minister (P.M).

The new special  gazette notification that revealed the Institutions coming under the new ministries is full of such blunders and indiscretions.  By such tomfoolery  the confidence and trust reposed locally and internationally in the consensual government cannot be boosted. What truly has resulted on the contrary is erosion of whatever confidence reposed in it .  

It is due to such muddling and bungling that those who were desirous of investing in SL , though they  attended the foreign conferences in large numbers , did not come in to invest  for the last two years.

Foreign affairs are under one minister while  foreign investment is under another,  and the Central bank is under yet another minister  . To compound the confusion ,  the commercial banks are under one  minister  , and the economic affairs are under  another. In such a country where everything is in a  pickle , will any  foreign investor invest in SL ? Little wonder the country is stranded . 

Going by the  gazette notification , it is most unfortunate , what the president and prime minister  have exhibited to the world is not only  they don’t understand these egregious blunders , but also are poor when it comes to management .  

The full text of the special gazette notification is hereunder
http://documents.gov.lk/files/egz/2017/6/2022-34_E.pdf

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by     (2017-06-11 20:01:51)

Special features in updated draft of new Constitution

• UNP, SLFP wait for each other’s response on whether executive presidency should be retained
• Three options for election of PM – direct elections, pre-nomination or Westminster model
• Compromise policy proposed on land and police powers, but JHU opposes it
• ‘JO’ wants unitary state provision maintained, but minority parties seek ‘United Sri Lanka’ provision

By Our Political Editor-Sunday, June 11, 2017

An updated draft of a new Constitution has incorporated several new features but a cloud of uncertainty hangs over how soon political parties would be able to reach any consensus.

Main among them are the two principal partners in the Government – the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP). Each seems to be waiting for the other to make its position known. The draft, in the form of an interim report, was originally formulated in November last year and updated only in May this year by the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly.

Special features in updated draft of new Constitution.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

The Govt. might be pathetic: But why the alternative is worse?

2017-06-13

There is a groundswell of public discontent at the government, partly due to its own inability to deliver on high expectations it set during the election, as well as due to its own misdemeanours, which at times mirror its predecessor. The former is understandable for governing requires a different set of skills (as well as luck) than those required to oppose a government. Thus it is easier to criticize the Rajapaksas’ economic model than delivering a sustainable growth. Also, it was easier to allege the former regime of corruption than prosecuting the looter of public funds. That may be perhaps because the former regime always kept a step ahead of public prosecutors.   

In part the government’s current misfortune emanates from the fact that it was in the ‘opposition mood’, almost a year after it won elections and kept on dismantling its predecessor’s economic legacy and suspending development projects, rather than forging ahead with the momentum.  

 However, when the government’s own misgivings are added, the things get more complicated. Its vacillation in mega investment projects as the country is facing a foreign exchange crisis is robbing this country of much more than the Rajapaksas might have robbed during their ten years. Its indifference to rising fringe Buddhist extremism is a dangerous oversight. And when it sought to allocate (and later rescinded) limited public funds to purchase luxury vehicles for ministers while the country was reeling from a natural disaster that smacks of utter callousness.   

Be it about the members of the current government or its predecessors, average folks have a low opinion about the politicians in general. They are often described (not always rightly) as corrupt, nepotistic, free-wheeling spenders of public money and thugs. Yet, the funny thing is that come the next election, it will be the same lot who will be elected to Parliament by the voters, who detest them. Thus, if the public hold the politicians with contempt, the feeling appears to be mutual. Politicians know with near certainty that by pandering to tribal instincts of an electorate, they can win a seat in Parliament.   

Sri Lanka is not the only country where the traditional political order and traditional politicians are under attack.

Sri Lanka is not the only country where the traditional political order and traditional politicians are under attack. This is however one country where such discontent is confined to ineffectual complaints by the public, who cannot do much else other than to keep complaining.   

Elsewhere popular disenchantment has led to drastic changes in the political order -- and in some others not so drastic flash in the pan moments. In India, the public outrage at the corruption of the former Congress administration led to the rise of Aam Aadmi Party (The Common Man’s Party) which campaigned on an anti-corruption pledge. While New Delhi’s middle class wallahs were mesmerized by its single issue campaign, India’s rural electorate proved to be more commonsensical and AAP’s luck soon ran out and business friendly BJP soon cemented its hold.   

In America, public discontent with the political establishment brought Donald Trump to the White House. Mr Trump’s dog whistle demagoguery appealed to a large segment of the white-collar working class who felt their traditional privileged place being compromised by cosmopolitanism and globalization.   

A different scenario where public discontent fed into a positive transformation of the political order was in France, where President Emmanuel Macron won against the traditional political elites and now his political movement built only a year ago is set for a landslide win the Parliament election. Mr. Macron’s win was hailed as the most decisive push back as of yet of the retrograde xenophobic and often authoritarian populism that made headway in recent times.   

It is one thing to be fascinated by the political changes in France. However, the prospect of such grass root movements centred on liberal centrist ideology evolving into national level agents is limited in our part of the world. That in effect multiplies the danger of public antipathy towards traditional politics being morphed into a something that is more sinister, dangerous and destabilizing. In the absence of a liberal democratic alternative, it is demagogues who would exploit the social woes.   

The absence of a liberal democratic alternative or the lack of popular appeal for such can be explained in different pathways of popular empowerment in our region. In the recent history, there were several different approaches of political mobilization adopted by the new States that emerged during the period of decolonization.   

There was secular Arab autocracies which galvanized their public under pan Arab nationalism popularized by Gamal Abdul Nasser and had its hey days leading up to the Six-Day War in 1967. Secular Arab autocracies were modernist, they kept religion at bay; harnessed and channelled collective hatred towards Israel and ran a rentier state centred on centralized economic control. The common denominator for all  (even those such as Iran’s Shah, who unlike his Arab peers followed a blatantly pro- Western line) was that they wielded absolute political control, jailing opponents and crushing dissents . When secular Arab nationalism ran out of steam after the bitter defeat of the Six Day War, a milder version of political Islam gradually made its presence, and was exploited by some leaders as means of regime legitimization and was crushed by others aware of its destabilizing propensity. The monopoly of popular power meant that those countries did not build independent institutions. Thus when those states crumbled, first Shah’s Iran and later Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Mubarak’s Egypt, in the absence of institutions and long suppressed sectarian rivalries, the alternative was proved to be far more sinister than their predecessors. Now few talk about an Arab Spring.  

Politicians know with near certainty that by pandering to tribal instincts of an electorate, they can win a seat in Parliament

We in South Asia followed a different approach. Nehru’s India adopted universal suffrage while a large swathe of public was stilling living in sub human conditions, thus hoping that political rights would better their lot. We in Sri Lanka opened floodgates of political and social mobilization in 1956, adopting the Swabhasha policy and lowering requirements for entry to bureaucracy, which over time has unintended consequences of lowering the efficiency of those institutions as well. 

Fast-tracked and often well- intended political mobilization has unintended negative fallout. It to some extent legitimized the regressive grassroots impulses. Their tribal instincts overtime made their presence in Parliament, and were in part responsible for ethnic unrest . However, in the process of popular empowerment, the leaders of this country ( and India as well) opted out the most crucial avenue of empowerment: free market. In effect they ran miniature renter states, doling out public funds to their electorates, while their very economic policies deprived the public from making an honest living. Finally we now have a skewed kind of popular empowerment as we experience now.  

The third model was approached by the pro- growth authoritarian states in the East and South East Asia and to some extent, Chile. Those were autocrats who like their Arab counterparts kept a tab on political freedoms and dissent, but unlike the latter, they focused on economic development through private investment. Overtime, economic imperatives mandated that those states evolve functioning arbitration mechanisms for commercial disputes, and build some kind of independent institutions and gradually unfold basic rule of law. The economic windfalls of authoritarian development dampened the level of political oppression. When those autocratic regimes finally cave into popular opposition from an economical empowered populace, they left behind a functioning economy and modest independent institutions. Their comparative economic positions meant that they also gave a greater attention to individual rights. Over time they are more like to become liberal democracies, than us. That may explain why it is Taiwan and not India which is likely to be the first Asian state to legalize gay marriages.   

Our flawed pathways of political empowerment did not lead to political enlightenment. They only legitimized the existing primordial instincts of a largely rural and backward population. The result of that process is our not so enviable position today.  

Follow RangaJayasuriya @RangaJayasuriyaonTwitter  

Asking a wings-clipped Finance Minister to fly is a classic repeat of ‘Dunna Dunugamuwe’ 

An unorthodox and illogical functional allocation

Monday, 12 June 2017

President Maithripala Sirisena has issued the Extraordinary Gazette Notification dated 7 June 2017 allocating functions among the newly sworn-in Ministers a week ago. In this notification too, the Central Bank and state banks have not been returned to their legitimate home, the Ministry of Finance. Hence, the Central Bank will continue to be under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the state banks under the Ministry of State Enterprise Development.

Asking a wings-clipped Finance Minister to fly is a classic repeat of ‘Dunna Dunugamuwe’.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

SRI LANKA: DENGUE FEVER EPIDEMIC IN SRI LANKA VS. STATE RESPONSIBILITY

Image: Anti- dengue campaign by school children.

by Sanjeewa Weerawickwama.-12/06/2017

The population of Sri Lanka is 20.97 million (2015) people. Some 1.84 million are migrant workers. The number of Dengue Fever affected individuals in 2015 was 29, 777. In 2016 it was 55, 154. Statistics for the first 5 months of 2017 show affected individuals to be 56,887! And the total number of dengue affected individuals is expected to rise to more than 136, 528. Following the above mentioned statistics, the simple mathematical calculation gives an alarming figure of the percentage of dengue affected individuals to date. It is approximately 1% of the entire population for the period of three years, 2015-2017. [2] Local Government Institutions play a major role in the Dengue Prevention Scheme. The Government’s failure to hold local elections means that the country is running without functioning local government institutions. There is a severe outcry by the people about the total collapse of the State’s mechanism on Dengue Fever Prevention.

SRI LANKA DENGUE FEVER EPIDEMIC IN SRI LANKA VS. STATE RESPONSIBILITY.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

A so called superior quality Doctor of GMOA ( Govt. Medical Oppressors Association) arrested for torturing his doctor wife !

(Lanka-e-News- 13.June.2017, 11.30PM) A doctor who is a member of the  Government Medical officers Association  -GMOA  (a rare  set of jokers of the medical profession)  that preaches superior standard among doctors but does not practice themselves , was apprehended by the police officers of the Children and women’s bureau . This doctor is attached to the Kandy General hospital . 

Being a member of the cruel GMOA ( Government Medical Oppressors Association ,another name for it ) naturally , like his  association  which commits atrocities on helpless patients by neglecting them when staging unending meaningless , senseless ruthless strikes , this doctor   has exhibited his baser instincts and  cruel qualities towards his own wife  who is also  a doctor in the Kandy hospital. Unable to endure any longer  the unrelenting torture and torment her doctor husband  inflicted on her  , she had lodged a complaint with the Children  and Women’s bureau. 

The victim was admitted to the Kandy general hospital for treatment following the assault and battery  suffered  at the hands of her husband , the so called ‘superior quality’ doctor of the super duper Padeniya’s GMOA. 

During the last two  weeks alone three complaints had been made  to the Kandy police against this ‘superior quality’ doctor of the ‘super duper’ inhumane  GMOA , over his inhuman inferior qualities – assaulting and torturing his own wife ! Even prior to this , the victim had made a number of complaints   to the police against this brutal doctor  husband  of the GMOA ( Government Medical Oppressors Association ) .

It is by now a well and widely known fact that  GMOA of doctor joker Padeniya has a great  affinity to  stage strikes even on the slightest pretext to cause  untold hardships to the helpless and hapless patients  . Hence the people are eagerly watching whether the GMOA which has a great passion to inflict cruelty on humans , would take the side of the suffering victim or the cruel  assailant , and stage a strike even for that , which has become their favorite occupation while neglecting their noble professional duties . 

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by     (2017-06-13 20:51:03)

illegal migrants mainly face issues

 2017-06-13

The foreign employment sector is still the largest foreign exchange earner of the country. On an average, 250,000 persons annually migrate to foreign countries seeking better employment. Of the total number of Sri Lankans working abroad over 90% are employed in Middle Eastern countries, according to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

illegal migrants mainly face issues.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

 Recent disasters expose Government’s true capabilities

The much-awaited monsoon arrival in mid-May with a vengeance, bringing floods, submerged roads and earth-slips, forcing hundreds of thousands out of their homes, especially those living Kalutara, Galle and Matara Districts – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Tuesday, 13 June 2017

During 2016 farmers encountered a series of rain failures; last Maha rains expected in late September arrived in November/December in a milder form, delaying Maha paddy cultivation in Eastern and North Central Provinces. Then, in 2017 south-western monsoon rains expected in latter part of March failed to appear and the populace faced the highest temperatures for decades with high humidity.

Recent disasters expose Government’s true capabilities.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

Sri Lanka snaking between Chinese dragon and Indian elephant

A few issues have historically dogged the India-Sri Lanka relationship.

The Hambantota port was to be developed as a deep sea port. Photo: Reuters

BRIG SK CHATTERJI (RETD)@skchatts- 10-06-2017

In October 2014, a Chinese submarine docked at Colombo with the Japanese Prime Minister due the next day. The Indians had objected vociferously. This time, when the Indian Prime Minister was due to visit Sri Lanka on May 11, 2017, the Sri Lankans received a request from China for a port call by one of their submarines.

With Sri Lanka hugely in debt due to Chinese investments at Hambantota Port complex, possibly the Chinese wanted to put across the message that they call the cards at Colombo now. The Sri Lankans displayed the spine that they have by declining the request.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, preceded by the visit of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister to India, earlier this year, has apparently given the India-Sri Lanka relationship a more stable platform. Modi’s low profile Vesak Day visit to Sri Lanka achieved a lot more even without displaying a clutch of MoUs signed. The Chinese dragon failed to torpedo the Indian elephant’s port call.

Strategic importance of sea lanes of communications remain paramount even after centuries, when European colonial powers extended their influence to the Indian Ocean region. Today, the island nation sits astride one of the busiest sea lanes of communications used by a resource hungry China, Japan and a host of Asia-Pacific countries.

For India, Sri Lanka is vital and for Sri Lanka, India is no less. Barely 12 nautical miles apart, any nation that dominates Sri Lanka can actually choke the sea lanes to India. For Sri Lanka, the story is not too different, though in another context.

The country’s cultural and ethnic connects with India are umbilical. The predominantly Buddhist nation, a religion that traces its roots to India, also has an ethnic Tamil diaspora that has deep linkages with Indian people in the state of Tamil Nadu.

India, by virtue of its proximity, is also its natural trading partner. Should the tiny island state need any assistance, India is again geographically best positioned to respond. Beyond that, both are democracies. Up to 75 per cent of transhipment traffic at Sri Lankan ports is also Indian.

A few issues have historically dogged the India-Sri Lanka relationship. The long history of Tamil insurgency and the overwhelming use of force by the Sinhala-dominated state, especially during the final phases of the civil war, has left a deep scar on the psyche of the Tamil population in India.
No political party, be it in power or in opposition in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, will accept New Delhi hobnobbing too much with Colombo till reconciliation in Sri Lanka is fully achieved. As such, dispensations at Delhi are often guarded in their outreach to Colombo.

The other major impediment is the small island state viewing India as a sledge hammer that can, egged further by their umbilical linkage with the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, act against Colombo’s interests. In the bargain, Sri Lanka has had strong relationships with extra regional partners, with China in the lead during the tenure of the last president, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

To limit the narrative to the recent past, the relationship dipped when Rajapaksa was in power. The Chinese were seemingly making brazen inroads. The best example was the development plans for Hambantota. The Hambantota port was to be developed as a deep sea port. The project included an international airport, a cricket stadium, hundreds of kilometres of roads and other ancillaries. Most of it was funded by the Chinese government as loans or Chinese FDI.

Initially, Sri Lanka had offered the development of Hambantota to India, however, the Indians had not found the project viable. The Indian scepticism has since proved right. The entire project is floundering.

By the time the new Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena came to power, it was mostly a case of the projects having gone too far to be rolled back, leaving Sri Lanka at the cusp of a debt trap. Perhaps, that is what the Chinese wanted.

Both the Sri Lankans and the Chinese are now trying to retrieve the situation. China had asked for 1,600 acres of land to build an industrial zone. A financial district is also being built in Colombo on 269 hectares, with 110 hectares reserved for the Chinese. Up to 80 per cent of Hambantota has been handed over to the Chinese on a 99-year lease. Both governments have formed a committee to salvage the project.

With such huge assets being handed over to the Chinese, an Indian security expert, Brahma Chellany, opines, “From a Chinese-financed Sri Lankan project, Hambantota is becoming a Chinese-owned and Chinese-run enclave in the Indian Ocean.”

Sri Lanka has also backed the Belt and Road Initiative. Of course, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister during his earlier visit to Japan had stated that, “We want to ensure that we develop all our ports, and all these ports are used for commercial activity, transparent activity, and will not be available to anyone for any military activity.''

However, the fact remains that Hambantota is part of the Chinese Maritime Silk Route project, which is part of the Chinese Belt and Road initiative. It’s relevance to Chinese designs of increasing its influence by creating logistics bases globally, can’t be wished away.

Sri Lanka has now offered the Trincomalee Port for joint development to India. The Sri Lankan port minister wants some of the Hambantota projects to be moved to Trincomalee. The projects now planned at Trincomalee include an India-partnered sugar factory and a Pakistan-partnered cement plant. Funds allocated for Hyatt Hotel in Hambantota are also being diverted to Hyatt Colombo.
Indian Oil Corporation will also partner in the development of the oil tank farm at Trincomalee. An old 2003 agreement between the two countries is being revisited. The farm has 99 oil tanks and Indian investment in the project is bound to be viewed as more strategic than purely commercial.

Beyond Hambantota, the Sri Lanka-China relationship is quite deep-rooted. The Chinese supply a wide variety of arms and equipment to Sri Lanka.

Smaller nations often play a balancing game when they have two regional powers casting a shadow on them and Sri Lanka is no exception. Chinese domination of the island would alarm Asia-Pacific countries as much as EU and the US. The sheer propensity of investments from China in Sri Lanka could tip the scales in their favour, with Sri Lanka sliding more and more into a hapless debt-ridden position. However, Sri Lanka has experienced the fallouts of debts being incurred through its Hambantota experience and would surely be more careful now.

Sri Lanka now opting for India as a partner to develop the Trincomalee Port is a way of counterbalancing China. However, an island state barely 268 miles at its maximum length may find it difficult keeping two antagonists - a dragon and an elephant - satisfied in their designated nooks on the same small island. It’s a tightrope walk at best.

Indians can also not match the funding that China can pour into Sri Lanka. The way ahead lies in India patching together a responsive consortium to include the Japanese, Australians, EU and US, and possibly a few more Asia-Pacific countries to meet Sri Lanka’s needs.

Sri Lanka, in turn, has to reflect mature strategic thinking and disallow greater Chinese penetration in its economy or provide them potential military assets that could further underscore the Chinese nine dash line.


The Maritime Silk Route of the Belt and Road initiative is designed to reinforce the objectives of the nine dash line. Sri Lankan priorities have to remain fiscal consolidation, debt reduction, ability to exercise strategic freedom of choice in geopolitics and social cohesion with Tamils being integrated into the Sri Lankan society fully, as equals.

Jayatilleka’s Alt-Left Project

By John Kane –JUNE 12, 2017

Prof. John Kane

I applaud Dayan Jayatilleka’s plea for an international ‘Alt-Left’ project—a descriptor that seems immediately obvious but nevertheless brilliant. Since the end of the Soviet Union and the ideological triumph of neoliberal thought in the 1980s there has really been no Left left, at least not of any economic variety (though plenty of Leftist cultural warriors, as Jayatilleka notes). But re-establishing a viable economic Left is a hard ask, despite the failure of the neoliberal project whose collapse created the vacuum that various Alt-Right movements have proceeded to fill. To be sure, some Left-liberal fellow-travellers such as Krugman (2012), Stiglitz (2014), even Summers (2016) are now questioning the validity of the neoliberal model of globalization they once advocated. They generally focus on just one of the factors noted by Jayatilleka: the fact that national elites in their rush to globalize forgot to look after their own working classes with the eventual political backlash we are now experiencing. Their principal remedy is better redistributive measures to ensure that the benefits of increased trade are equitably shared.

Fine as far as it goes, but this hardly approaches what Jayatilleka seeks, namely a new ‘global public imagination.’ The latter intends much more, in Jayatilleka’s adumbration, than a Leftish corrective to the rightward shift of New Labor and New Democrats and their international followers during the post-stagflationary era. It implies a critique of traditional hard-Leftism as much as of a pusillanimous ‘third way’ that was in reality a capitulation to the blandishments of the Right. Any successful new Alt-Left movement must, according to Jayatilleka, establish itself on secure moral-political ground, the ‘moral’ element being crucial. It was in fact always crucial given that traditional Leftism meant a commitment to equality over arbitrary inequality, the dignity of labor over its exploitation, fairness over privilege, and so on. Such moral feelings were central to Leftist motivation but unfortunately difficult to admit within the structures of ‘scientific’ Marxism. According to the hard ‘realism’ of historicist Marxism, morality was suspect as being squeamishly or exploitatively ‘bourgeois’, the values of any period being inevitably the values of its ruling class. Not only that, but moral suasion was necessarily ineffectual against gigantic forces of History driven by crude class interest. ‘Justice’ (and Marx seldom used the term except in scare quotes) would be taken care of in the long run as class-conflictual History took its inexorable course.

This left individual Marxists in a psychological bind, driven by moral feelings their theory proclaimed inadmissible. And the resulting moral ambivalence allowed monstrosities to become, not just conceivable, but actual under the guise of historical necessity (and we should have learnt by now that any claim of ‘necessity’ in political discourse is fallacious). Coleridge (1938), writing of Robespierre, long ago warned that undisciplined benevolence could seduce us into malignity, leading us into “the dangerous and gigantic error of making certain evil the means to contingent good.” Jayatilleka’s long-term project has been to correct this fundamental error of the Left. He is an arch-realist, as anyone familiar with his writings will attest, but for him any realism that omits the moral factor is in fact unrealism. Any Left movement that forfeits the moral high ground—through lethal internecine conflict, through the suppression of thought and the promulgation of blatant lies, through resort even to mass murder—has already doomed itself to ultimate defeat whatever its short-term political successes. In Jayatilleka’s view, political realism inevitably requires hard, sometimes brutal choices, but if these are not adequately and believably justified within an authentically moral framework they will prove counterproductive in the long run.

His other corrective of traditional Leftism is an insistence on retrieving nationalism and patriotism from the grip of the xenophobic Right and from the denigration of liberal cosmopolitans. In this effort he enlists the more subtle and immanent dialecticism of Antonio Gramsci, for whom the ‘self-nationalization’ of the working class—by which he meant its creation of a collective national popular will—constituted a final moment in its ascent to a genuinely expansive and consensual hegemony. Jayatilleka thus assumes that Gramscian theory has continuing relevance even after the destructive attacks of modern Leftist critics, notably Althusser (2006) and Perry Anderson (1976). Stuart Hall (1988) tried to demonstrate this relevance in the age of Thatcher (as mentioned by Jayatilleka). He argued that Gramsci did not give the contemporary Left the tools to solve its puzzles but the means to ask the right kind of questions, which could be done only by directing attention unswervingly to what was specific and different about the present moment.

The world has moved on from the 1980s and ‘90s, never mind the 1930s when Gramsci was writing his prison notebooks. The ‘working class’ of Gramsci’s day, or even of Thatcher’s, is surely not what it was nor ever likely to be reconstituted as such given the fragmental impact of neoliberal policies and the trajectory of global economics. This makes the Gramscian hope of a proletarian moral-political-intellectual hegemony seem quite forlorn.

And yet recent events have shown that class consciousness, and class resentment, still exist. And nationalism, often of the most regressive kind, has once more shown its remarkable resilience. Nationalism was of course the bane of old-fashioned Leftists looking to develop an international class consciousness (if, as Jayatilleka notes, Mao, Ho, Fidel and Cabral fused nationalism securely into their revolutionary projects it must have been through an intuitive grasp of its effectual power rather than any theory they imbibed—I may be wrong, but I’m not aware any of them was familiar with Gramsci). What is less often noted is that nationalism is also a puzzle for liberal and democratic theorists, who seem to depend on it to contain the polity in which their principles may apply yet have no theoretical means of grasping it. Liberals fear cultural nationalism’s capacity for excess and would like to tame it if possible, but they flounder with weaker forms based on ‘liberal values’ (which are shared of course by many nations). I would go so far as to say there are no true, full-blooded modern theorists who defend the concept of nationalism, although there are many who theorize sociologically about nationalism. One has to go way back to Montesquieu, Rousseau, Herder and Fichte even to discern elements of a possible defense.

And yet there nationalism still is, in all its potency, promise and threat, from China to India to Russia to the United States (whose ideological heart, like France’s, has always been torn between theoretical universalism and de facto cultural nationalism). What has been most revealing and alarming about the economic and financial crisis in Europe is how swiftly the ideal of Europeanization collapsed as mutually antagonistic nationalities reasserted their relevance. Creating and maintaining a nation has always been a stern, extended, often violent political and cultural exercise; creating viable entities larger than a nation obviously presents even greater challenges. So, to take Jayatilleka’s Gramscian lesson to heart, we must start with the world as it is, one in which both class and nation remain important elements—along with many others, of course—that any plausible Alt-Left movement must grasp and inform.

There is some sense of back to the future in all this. The post-WWII Western order implied a social contract that was implicitly international and nationalistic: if the Depression that had led to war was to be avoided in the future, then the worst excesses of capital must be managed and regulated internationally. Regulation of trade and finance plus the Keynesian focus on full employment domestically meant that each nation’s working class was protected and assured its (growing) share of national wealth even as that wealth was increased by steadily expanding trade. This was really an historic compromise between capital and labor: the kind that Keynes thought was the only way to avoid the worst extremes of either side.

Read More

MR’s ceaseless whining

2017-06

and its tragic tale…

“Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”   
 ~Macbeth (Act V, Scene V) 

• Through his slogans his brothers tried to hoodwink the masses
• MR is a direct product of 1956 transformation
• MR is no fool; to portray him as so, would be foolish for any investigator
• He ended the three- decade old war that created a ‘hero-saviour’image

‘A real or imagined cause for complaint, especially unfair treatment’ or ‘a feeling of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair’, that’s how grievance is defined in our English dictionaries. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s current spell of whining fits right into that definition. And his whining has not ceased. His family members are being called many times by various investigative agencies. Along with these family members some of his leading supporters, close to nineteen (19), to name a few, Kumar Welgama, Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Udaya Gammanpila feature prominently among them. All these cohorts have already been questioned and Gammanpila and Aluthgamage in fact are out on bail. Investigative action takes place when some irregularity in administration, some palpably criminal activity or even some blatantly corrupt practices are smelled of and, an even more dangerous end the stench leads to, is recognized by those men of the law. It is not the law that was in play and practised, most corruptly administered by those who wielded government powers during the Rajapaksa time. It is a different system now. In fact it is a better one than indiscriminate disappearances in ‘white vans’, better than killings of antagonistic journalists in broad daylight, better than removal of the Chief Justice by way of a select committee process within 70 hours, it is much better than arbitrary decrees by ‘Executive Presidency’.  

Arguments for and against Executive Presidency have begun to end. No one is interested in prolonging a system of Executive Presidency as was envisaged and practised by the architects and engineers of the 1978 Constitution. When enormous powers are invested in one single authority, whether that power is very loosely checked by a parliament whose majority is held by the same man or woman who comes from the same political shade of that majority, enormous consequences cascade with or without that parliamentary checking system. JR Jayewardene who introduced this 1978 Constitution enjoyed five sixths (5/6) majority in the 1977 Parliament. The mind that was working on a stronger executive power to deliver goods on time for a long time while he was in the State Council and then in Parliament, as second in command until the physical demise of the incumbent leader (Dudley Senanayake) in almost all governments led by the United National Party (UNP), when he assumed power with real power to back him with that massive majority in the House, introduced a constitution that could have been tolerable if those who held that power were nursed and nurtured in the discipline of era of the first half of the 20th century.

 
The 1956 transformation that dramatically affected not only the nation’s blend of leaders and the corners from which they originated, it also pointed to an end which seemed hazy at best and disastrous to the socio-economic balance of the nation at worst. Mahinda Rajapaksa is a direct product of that transformation. His father literally crossed the floor of the House of Parliament along with SWRD Bandaranaike, the leader of that ‘56 transformation. The ‘56-transformation, among others, had one singular and most radical influence on our electorate. I purposely use the word electorate as against society for the societal change that the ‘56-transformation engendered was gradual while on the electorate it was almost instantaneous and is lasting to date. That electoral effect underwent another shocking adjustment in 1977 but it lasted only 17 years; from ’77 to’94. That 1977 change affected Mahinda Rajapaksa and it threw him out of parliament.

  
The 1970 - 77 government led by the Bandaranaikes was alleged to have given licence to some willing parliamentarians to exercise unfettered political powers in their respective electorates and the Bandaranaikes gave administrative cover to such exercises. At the receiving end of those thuggish exercises were the supporters and financiers of the UNP. In fact, at the very beginning of the Bandaranaike-led government in 1970, in the wake of the UNP’s crushing defeat at the General Elections, JR Jayewardene the then Leader of the Opposition raised in Parliament the unprecedented violence unleashed by the SLFP supporters against the UNPers in the electorates. Prime Minister Mrs Bandaranaike’s response was thus: ‘let the SLFP supporters enjoy the unprecedented victory against the capitalist, imperialist-UNP’. The words of the first woman Prime Minster in the world were a shameful portrayal of the psyche of all Lankans.

 
Takeover of the famous Buhari Hotel in Maradana under the Business Undertakings (Acquisition) Act (No. 35 of 1971) is another example of political victimization. Government-sponsored agitation against free-market-oriented business ventures began with a vengeance. MR learnt his ABC of state-sponsored harassing of his opponents under the tutelage of a Master par excellence – Felix Dias Bandaranaike. MR’s record-breaking span of ill-governance in the new century is now being questioned by many investigative agencies. His whining is about those investigations and various other allegations that are being debated and argued in the court of public opinion aside from the courts of law. Despite the undisputed fact that it was MR’s regime that ended a 27-year-old war against the LTTE terrorists, and considering the sense of patriotism and its resultant ‘hero-saviour’ image created for the consumption by the masses by the propagandists for the Rajapaksa clan, for MR to suffer an electoral defeat at the hands of his own Party’s General Secretary was an insufferable shame. That is to say the least.

 
Survival in politics is not easy. Especially in the current internet and social media era in which the life cycle of news is measured in minutes not days and weeks as was done about a decade ago, withstanding instant attacks with such unimpeachable authenticity is no mean task. MR has proven over the years that he is a survivor. He has a proven record in employing some of the best in the business in advertising and branding. Slogans such as ‘Uthuru Wasanthaya’ (Northern Spring), ‘Neganahira Udaawa’ (Rise in the East), ‘Maanushika Meheyuma’(Humanitarian Operation) bear witness to the way he and his brothers tried to hoodwink the masses, especially after the war-victory. Such slogans were used to such an unbearable extent; the brothers became intoxicated in their own lies. When they began believing those lies, those lies had a more dangerous effect on their already-elongated egos. It gave them a sense of righteousness. That sense of righteousness gave them licence to resort to any illegitimate and paralegal ventures.

 
That phoney patriotism founded on self-righteousness gave them an illusionary warrant for another term of office. So was born the 18th Amendment. In other words, the 18th Amendment was a legal and constitutional manifestation of the avarice and pursuit of power and wealth by MR and his corrupt clan. Now he does not have that power. He does not have the cover that protected his misdoings and corrupt practices. That is a great loss. One cannot underestimate the chaos that this ‘absence of cover’ creates, not only physically in the day-to-day work routine, the psychological chaos that it creates could be utterly devastating to the psyche of the ruler who is all of a sudden found naked and exposed. His whining is one of paradoxically logical responses to that loss of cover. One can empathize with the man, but to sympathize is to condone his very actions and misdeeds and would be as guilty as the man in question. One may even forgive him, but that forgiveness, if at all, must necessarily follow after justice is effectuated.

 
MR is no fool; to portray him as so would be foolish for any investigator. Over the years he was in power as President of Sri Lanka, he surely has cultivated many friends and associates who stood by him during the dark nights of struggle and pain; many of those friends and associates may have fled him when he was out of power. But what would eventually stand by him are his own family and his siblings. MR looked after his relatives while in power. His practice of nepotism knew no limits. Even the corrupt practices he is alleged to have been engaged in became exclusive to him and his family. The avarice that grew with him ultimately took its unkind toll. Every corrupt regime ultimately comes to that sad end. One should never disregard history’s lessons. How bitter or how drastic those lessons are, they are the only measurable yardsticks by which man can learn. Yet history repeats itself, for man has failed time after time. It is evident that MR and his cohorts are not willing to learn from history. Either they don’t know that their historical precedents or they deliberately chose not to regard them with any due weight. 
MR’s whining is essentially a necessary by-product of the loss of power he suffered. He is amply displaying that he simply cannot come to terms with that by-product.   
The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com  

Suspect who set fire to Muslim shops at Wijerama and Nugegoda is a BBS member since 2014 and bosom pal of Gnanassara: 4 others arrested -Police Spokesman

(Lanka-e-News - 11.June.2017, 11.00PM) The main suspect who was arrested  recently in  connection with the arson committed on four Muslim business establishments at Nugegoda and Wijerama , is a member having links with Bodhu Bala sena (BBS) organization since 2014 , and an active member of the organization .Four  more suspects have been arrested in  Trincomalee and Danthurai . Among them are a Muslim and a Tamil , as revealed by  police media spokesman  DIG Priyantha Jayakody today (11).

The 32 years old suspect Wanniarachige Kasun Kumara is a son of a doctor , and he was  directly involved in setting fire to the establishments , Jayakody further stated.

Jayakody made these disclosures when  addressing a media briefing today  held at the State information department .

Commenting further the police media spokesman stated thus :

‘During the past one month , two religious places and two business establishments of Muslims were set fire to . Investigations in that regard  were conducted by the police officers in charge of those areas.

The suspect responsible for the arson committed on the four establishments in Nugegoda  and  Wijerama was arrested and he is being interrogated while being held in detention. This suspect is directly involved in those four incidents. He has been an active member of the BBS since 2014 and has  been involved in the BBS activities since that time.

He has been having very close ties with Galagoda Athe Gnanassara. He was also the one who led the protests staged at Borella against the arrest of Gnanassara ,it has come to light.

There are several smaller groups that are having connections with the BBS , and this main suspect is closely associated with the leaders of those groups. The investigation is being conducted by a senior DIG monitored by IGP  Poojitha Jayasundara . The police are taking action to arrest the suspects involved in the incidents that happened at various places.

The Police are most vigilant in respect of those who are seeking to incite racial and religious hatred among the people. No opportunity will be given to such individuals to violate the rule of law , or break down the law and order of the country . The laws will be strictly enforced against such groups. 

16 similar attacks have been reported across the country . Apart from the suspect arrested in the Maharagama attack , four others have been arrested in Trincomalee and Danthurai .

One Tamil national has been taken into custody pertaining to the attack launched on a place of religious worship of Muslims in Trincomalee. It was revealed, that attack was a result of a conflict that erupted with another group at the place the incident occurred.

A Muslim youth who made a blasphemous comment about Lord Buddha in his face book account at Danthurai was arrested . He has been remanded until the 14 th of June.

Some  Sinhalese youths who were provoked by this have attacked a number of Muslim houses .  Investigation was conducted into this , and two Sinhalese youths - main suspects in this connection  have been arrested.

The laws will be strictly enforced against those who stoke racial and religious hatred and tension . The IGP has informed  OIC’s of all police stations on this via a circular sent to them a week ago ‘ the police media spokesman explained. 

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by     (2017-06-11 19:39:02)