Religionisation Of Politics: Amour Of The Authoritarian Personality 

By Sarath de Alwis –APRIL 13, 2018

Sarath De Alwis

We live in dark times, times of lost hope, times of wrecked promises. The common candidate has turned in to a protean political swindler. The autocrat knocks on the door. 

As the blunt and bright political satirist Art Buchwald put it these are not the best of times or the worst of times. These are the only times we’ve got.

New Year festivals are measures of time. From our tribal days, we have relied on festivals and rituals usually linked to harvesting times as a device that offers a renewal of life. On this new year, our nation is focused not so much in a renewal in life but to make sense out of chaos that surrounds us in life.

After a life and death struggle to free ourselves from a tyrannical autocracy which succeeded somewhat partially, we seem to be again blinking at the abyss, tottering at the top of the precipice of parochial prejudice.

A group of Marxist philosophers now known as the ‘Frankfurt School’ fled Hitler’s Germany and took refuge in Berkeley California. In that Academic refuge, the leader of the group Theodore Adorno edited a volume titled ‘The Authoritarian Personality’. It was a part of a larger project that covered what bothers us today. It was called “Studies in Prejudice”.

The thinkers led by Adorno dissected the ‘Authoritarian Personality.’ They used what was called the F scale- the Fascist scale. It identifies nine principal traits in the authoritarian personality.   

Power and Toughness is carefully projected. Conventionalism is observed with meticulous attention. Submission to authority was amply rewarded. Anti-intellectualism was religiously observed. Superstition was ingrained. Destructive nature was habitual. Cynicism towards general norms was natural. The authoritative personality had an exaggerated concern over sex.

Now, if the reader can identify the Authoritarian personality in our midst today using this F scale designed by the cream of 20th century thinkers my toil would be amply rewarded.

Ours, is a primitive society.  Our cultural traditionalism resists economic incentives and opportunities. We want school uniforms. We do not want vouchers. We need the fertilizer in a bag. We do not want to decide what fertilizer to use. We have stopped thinking for ourselves. The authoritative personality, the powerful patriarch, beloved of the Sangha does all the thinking we need.

The Sangha endorse what the leader wants because they are in comfortable collusion to keep things as they are.

Now comes our greatest misfortune. By a combination of fortuitous circumstances, we succeed in changing the helmsman. Hope was short lived. The changed order is not coercively authoritative. It is pigheadedly in pursuit of a mirage of its own making.  In the age of artificial intelligence, exponential technological progress, our replacement of  the autocrat is caught in a time warp.

He believes that Sakka the king f Gods painted the profile of the Rabbit on the surface of the moon! The same Sakka entrusted with the task of protecting this sacred island. 

This polluted piety and debased devotion is the bane of pluralist and democratic Sri Lanka. In a recent article Tisaranee Gunasekera with characteristic fidelity to fact and luminously lucid logic encapsulates our standoff with contemporary common sense.   

“The TNA is a democratic Lankan party. Comparing it to a man-eating demon illustrates how a warped version of Buddhism is being used to portray the minorities as the inimical and devilish ‘Other’ intent on destroying Sinhala-Buddhists. This deadly practice began with the Bhikku Mahanama, the author of Mahawamsa. Mahanama enshrined the three myths which have become the bane of pluralist and democratic Sri Lanka – sacred land, chosen people and holy war.”

With Sangha in authority, over matters political, our entrapment is deadly. The vertical transmission of cultural and social values is a weapon that was developed with exquisite élan in the decade of the Mahinda Rajapaksa monolith.   

Rajapakse brothers are sponsors and patrons of nearly all Buddhist ventures in to electronic and digital media. This Vertical transmission is as effective as genetic inheritance.

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UNP, SLFP agree to common agenda

Disna Mudalige-Friday, April 13, 2018

The SLFP Ministers and UNP Ministers will put their heads together and come up with a new programme for the Government shortly, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said.

The Prime Minister said that two ministerial groups from both the parties held discussions on the way ahead for the Government on Wednesday night in the aftermath of the defection of 16 SLFP members.

“The SLFP ministers met the President prior to this meeting. We discussed on forging ahead with a new programme. I expect that we will receive it very soon, so that we can go forward based on it,” said the Prime Minister.

The Premier made these comments at a ceremony in Thalapathpitiya yesterday to begin the construction of a 30-storeyed middle class housing complex consisting of 400 housing units.

Speaking to the Daily News, UPFA General Secretary and Minister Mahinda Amaraweera said the meeting between the ministers of SLFP and UNP was centered on evolving a common agenda for the Government rectifying the shortcomings in the past. “It was emphasised during the meeting that we need to have one leadership and one programme if we are to govern together. There must be transparency and both parties must be kept in the loop,” he said.

He said both parties would agree on a common policy framework and a committee compromising of members of both parties would be appointed to finalise it. “The proposed new programme will be presented to the President and the Prime Minister after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year,” he added.

UNP requests the Samurdhi Ministry to provide a permanent solution to poverty

Fri, Apr 13, 2018,

Apr 13, Colombo: The government expects to commence the new session of the parliament with fresh hopes and go forward victoriously after a new cabinet is sworn in, State Minister of Prison Reforms Rehabilitation and Drug Prevention Ajith P Perera said.

He said the United National Party (UNP) has requested the Ministry of Samurdhi Authority when appointing the new cabinet to provide a permanent solution to the poverty of the country.

The State Minister said that the UNP receiving the Ministry of Samurdhi will be the drive and strength required for the majority party to take the country forward.

Samurdhi Ministry was assigned to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the subject minister S. B. Dissanayake, who voted for the no -confidence motion against the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe resigned from his post on April 11 after the UNP demanded the resignation of SLFP ministers who voted against the Premier.

Speaking of the prorogation of the parliament by the President, State Minister Perera said there was no loss due to the end of the Parliamentary session.

He said that only one session of parliament was scheduled on April 19 and two bills were to be taken up on that day. The bills will be presented as soon as the new parliament session commences on May 8th.

The State Minister said with the prorogation of the parliament all the existing parliament committees will be lapsed and new members have to be appointed to the committees when the parliament is reconvened. There is no change in the other posts, he added.

By a Gazette notification, with effect from midnight on Thursday 12th April 2018, in accordance with Article 70 of the Constitution the President Maithripala Sirisena has exercised his constitutional right to prorogue the Parliament.


The next Parliament session will commence on 8th May 2018. During this time, no motions or questions can be tabled in Parliament and any prior actions by Parliament remain valid. The prorogation of Parliament has no impact on the functioning and operation of Government, Government Information Department said.

Is he the worst leader, or has the nastiness of the attacks on him gone beyond the political pale?

How do you solve a problem like Ranil Wickremesinghe?

Prime Minister Ranil

Rajan Philips-April 14, 2018, 12:11 am 

Is Prime Minister Wickremesinghe the worst leader available for Sri Lanka? The PM is witty enough to respond: "except for everyone else around". He should know the trite Churchillian quote about democracy being the worst form of government except for every other form of government that has been tried. He would also contend that for all its disappointments, the yahapalanaya government during the last two years has been much better than the predecessor Rajapaksa government – by virtue of the freedom to criticize the government and protest against it, the freedom from the fear of arbitrary arrest, disappearance and being killed, and the absence of political families wielding the levers of state power. In these respects and more, the present government would still be better than a Rajapaksa government that may replace it.

Neither political formation is unblemished, but who is worse in what respect is the current question, and the crux of our current predicament. And given all the alternative leaders we now have, Ranil Wickremesinghe, ineffectual and disappointing as he has been, is not the worst among them. For the next two years or less, it is also reasonably certain that Mr. Wickremesinghe will be Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister. He will remain as PM until the next parliamentary election, or unless he decides to become a candidate at the presidential election that will come sooner. Given the current political stakes, the next two years are critically important and the role of Ranil Wickremesinghe is critical as well.

Yet, Mr. Wickremesinghe presents a problem to himself and the country. From his standpoint, he has to figure out a public way of responding to the barrage of disparaging barbs, criticisms and innuendos that are constantly flung at him by his detractors. Even sections of the ‘free media’ have been running wild like hyenas on drugs to bring down the man in the run up to the no-confidence vote in parliament. When the vote was badly defeated, other hyenas took to the road howling for revenge for their side. The question for the country is whether politics over the next two years is going to be dominated by rival packs of hyenas, attacking and defending Ranil Wickremesinghe.

As the gossip in Colombo goes, the PM’s friends have been asking their man why he is not taking on a particular TV network that has been framing him constantly with wild commentaries. His reply apparently is that he doesn’t want to dignify baseless slanders by responding to them. It might have been a different story if he is not carrying the bond monkey on his back, and the monkey might be a huge restraint on him going on the attack against his detractors. At the same time, what seems to be baffling even Mr. Wickremesinghe’s highly critical supporters is the scurrilous, relentless and exclusively targeted attacks on Ranil Wickremesinghe in the commercial media. Everyone else is handsomely spared even though all the others have bigger skeletons in multiple cupboards and even graveyards.

The criticisms of Ranil Wickremesinghe by Sinhala civilizational nationalists are perfectly understandable. Even if one may not agree with the premises of their criticisms or their assumed monopoly over patriotism, no one will disagree that their criticisms are honest and that the nationalists who articulate them are honourable men and women who have no ulterior motives of personal gain or business prospects. There is also much generational gripe against the Prime Minister by those who are of the same age cohort and from the same elite political circles, and who think they are better than him academically and intellectually but cannot be where Ranil Wickremesinghe is politically. Disgruntlement is part of human nature but can be a public pain in politics. Commercial media organizations which single out an individual political leader for personal and political savagery are a different species. There is no point is challenging the viewers – "we report, you decide", when the reporting is one sided and the interpretations are not merely ‘leading’ but misleading. This is like having a court system with only the prosecution and the judge charging the jury to decide based on what the prosecution has reported. In a kangaroo court, there is no place for defence. What drives media organizations to broadcast this mockery of free speech is best left unsaid in writing than speculated upon; more so when there is enough speculation doing the rounds in Colombo.

The Wickremesinghe problem

Apart from his critics and detractors, the Wickremesinghe problem is what is he going to do as PM over the next two years or less? Rather, what can he do? To modify what has been aptly said of the present government being in office but not in power, Ranil Wickremesinghe is secure in office as PM but can he exercise any power? These questions are academic, as well as practical and political. Academic insofar as Sri Lanka’s current constitutional stalemate is quite unprecedented and unanticipated. Both NM Perera and AJ Wilson called the (1978) constitutional provisions on the role of the PM and the dissolution of parliament as unique and without parallel anywhere else. The architect of the constitution, JR Jayewardene, did not care so long as he was in power and could keep amending his way through.

The 19th Amendment somewhat stemmed the constitutional decline towards personalized presidential power but has created new unanticipated questions that we are being asked now. The questions show the extent of constitutional business that is still unfinished. Nothing matters to the current defenders of the 1978 constitution, especially the executive presidency, so long as they could have Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as president in 2019/20, to permanently defend the state and civilization of Sri Lanka against false, fake and non-existent enemies. In temporal terms, it will be paradise regained to most of the old Rajapaksa entourage who did more than well for a whole decade, prospering seamlessly in state and private businesses.

The practical way out of the current impasse is for the President and the Prime Minister to work together. That’s what they were elected to do and that’s what they gave all the appearances of doing for over two years until the President started blowing his top off. After the local government elections in early February, the President went all out to get rid of the Prime Minister, even though without the latter Maithripala Sirisena could not have become even a presidential candidate, common or uncommon. With the no confidence motion having come and gone, what are the chances that the two horns of our current ‘constitutional diarchy’ will start working in some harmony? No one knows for sure what came between the two power-mates that turned Maithripala Sirisena so viciously against his principal political benefactor. At least the two leaders must find out what came between them so that they put it behind them and start a new working relationship.

I will wager that it was something more personal than politics. Going by what is generally said about the Prime Minister – it could be the PM’s superciliousness that may have driven the President to go nuts. After sulking for months about the ignominy of decisions being made without any referral to him, about cabinets within cabinets, and committees of outside advisers overseeing cabinet ministers, the President may not have been to handle it any more – so he flew off the handle knocking down everything on his flight path. So at a personal, or practical level, can the PM become more collegial than supercilious, and the President more frank and forthright than sulk and blow? This is baby-sitting at the highest level, but it seems to be quite common among contemporary political leaders. Look at the United States. Every day, every political adult in the US has to anticipate, interpret, explain and prepare the country, often other countries as well, to the temperamental tweets of their infantile President. Sri Lanka is not that bad.

Politically, the No Confidence Motion (NCM) has caused a realignment of affiliations inside parliament. The President has, after some resistance, come around to accept that the six SLFP Ministers who voted for the NCM can no longer be in cabinet. So the sixteen SLFPers who voted for the motion have been allowed by the President to leave the government. They will sit in opposition but support the President! According to the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, after the New Year they will all be subsumed in the SLPP. The cabinet size will not be reduced, but new ministers will be added to replace the departing ones. And the assignment of ministerial responsibilities will continue to be on a ‘scientific basis’ (whatever that means) as they are now, according to the cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne. The resignation or the expulsion of the six SLFP Ministers from cabinet is a rare instance when the UNP has pushed back on the President. Usually, it has been the other way around. There will be more push and pull in the cabinet than before, but what will matter ultimately is what difference the post-NCM cabinet and government is going to make to the lives of the people.

Soon after the elections in 2015, there were high expectations and broad support for action against general corruption and conclusive investigation of specific crimes including murders. Focusing on them exclusively now will only invite public cynicism. The old slogan, "it’s the economy, stupid" has come alive again in Sri Lanka. The government can ignore this only at its peril. A lot will depend on the priorities that the government will identify and focus on for the next two years. The role of the Prime Minister is going to be crucial again because he is the one who has been singlehandedly pushing the economic agenda. The results have been mostly unimpressive, and the people voted their anger and frustration in the local elections. The Prime Minister and the government will have to shift focus away from chasing free trade mirages and megapolis grandeurs, to the countryside that makes up most of Sri Lanka and attend to the farmers and their needs in terms of water, fertilizer, and timely effective. Apart from this being the economically sensible thing to do, it is also the politically correct and electorally smart thing to do.

The Prime Minister’s parliamentary victory against the no confidence motion has not expanded his powers, but has enlarged the onus on him to show more and better results than before. If he does not show results, he will lose his status in the party even before he gets to face the judgement of the people. And he cannot show results by working in isolation from the President, but only by working collegially and consultatively with the President. On the other hand, President Sirisena has no responsibility to show anything to anybody. To put it rather uncharitably, no one is expecting anything much from President Sirisena anymore. The President can chose to being a ‘spoiler’ to whatever the Prime Minister and the UNP want to do, or to work with them co-operatively and somewhat restore his much damaged credibility. The President can also play the role of being only the Head of State and leave the government to the Prime Minister. In which case, as Sir Ivor Jennings said of the Monarch in England, Sri Lankans can cheer the President and damn the Prime Minister.

President Is Powerless To Remove The Prime Minister

By Reeza Hameed –APRIL 13, 2018

Dr. Reeza Hameed

Some commentators have persistently advanced the proposition that, notwithstanding the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the President’s power to remove the Prime Minister is intact. It is a view that relies on a literal reading of the Sinhala text of Article 48(1) in which the phrase “removal from office” appears.

I have, in my previous intervention on this subject, analysed the provisions of the Constitution as amended by the Nineteenth Amendment and expressed the view that the President no longer has this power. That interpretation has been questioned on the basis that the words “removal from office” appear in the Sinhala text of Article 48(1); and because the Sinhala text should prevail in the event of an inconsistency, it must follow that the President may remove the Prime Minister.

I disagree with this conclusion for the reasons I have given below.

Tenure of Prime Minister’s office pre-Nineteenth Amendment

The Constitution as enacted in 1978, (which I shall hereafter refer to as ‘the Principal Enactment’), in Article 47, provided for the tenure of the office of the Prime Minister. It stated that he “shall continue to hold office throughout the period during which the Cabinet of Minister continues to function under the provisions of the Constitution unless he

a) is removed by the President;

b) resigns his office; or

c) ceases to be a Member of Parliament.”

The Prime Minister shall continue to remain in his office unless and until any one of the three events mentioned above occured, whereupon he would cease to hold office. This provision was repealed by the Nineteenth Amendment which was enacted in May 2015.

President surrendered his power to dismiss the PM

The Nineteenth Amendment somewhat drastically curtailed the President’s powers and reconfigured the power relationship between the President, on the one hand, and Parliament and Prime Minister on the other. President Sirisena himself adumbrated the overall objective of the Nineteenth Amendment in the course of a speech he delivered on 23 April, 2015, when he said:

“In order to build a democratic and civilized society, it is necessary to prevent the emergence of dictatorship and taking control of state power, state assets, the judiciary, parliament and all of this to one’s own control that comes from the Executive Presidential system.

This should be immediately changed. I have worked towards this in the past three months. I am not aware of any leader in the world who had obtained an office with all these powers but has been as flexible in trying to get rid of those powers that had been bestowed on such a leader.

The Attorney General informed the Supreme Court that in keeping with my advice these powers should be removed. My Constitutional Adviser also informed the Supreme Court that these powers should be removed. We took a political decision on this. The Supreme Court has given a decision on this.” 

By the Nineteenth Amendment, the President surrendered not only the power he possessed to summarily dissolve Parliament at any time but also his power to dismiss the Prime Minister. The Nineteenth Amendment was seen as the first step in the process of enacting a new constitution to give effect to the mandate given by the people, an important element of which is the curtailment if not the abolition of the executive presidency. It was designed to insulate both Parliament and Prime Minister from the vagaries of Presidential whim. This commitment that has been built into the Nineteenth Amendment can neither be reversed nor nullified by an expansive reading of the President’s powers.

In the Nineteenth Amendment, the provision relating to Prime Minister’s tenure is located in Article 46(2). Article 46(2) reflects Parliament’s intention to withdraw from the President the power to remove the Prime Minister. It reproduces the corresponding provision from the principal enactment but without clause (a). Accordingly, the Prime Minister shall hold office unless

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Sri Lanka president suspends parliament until May 8



Relations between the rival groups in Sri Lanka's unity government have soured. (AFP/ISHARA S. KODIKARA)

13 Apr 2018

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Thursday (Apr 12) suspended parliament until next month in a shock move amid a deepening power struggle between him and his unity government's prime minister.

A government decree quoted the president as stating that he had halted parliament's meetings "with effect from midnight" on Thursday under article 70 of the constitution.

The move, scheduled to last until May 8, came hours after at least 16 Sirisena loyalists, including six cabinet ministers, said they would leave the troubled coalition.

Relations between the rival groups in the unity government have soured after both suffered losses in February's local council elections.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) had increased pressure on the followers of Sirisena - who voted against Wickremesinghe in a recent no-confidence motion - to resign.

Parliament had been expected to meet again next Thursday and presidential officials declined to comment on the reason for the suspension.

"We have been surprised by the announcement," one government legislator who requested anonymity told AFP.

Just hours before he announced the suspension of parliament, Sirisena had appointed acting ministers to the positions of those who quit the Cabinet.

Wickremesinghe last week won the motion of no confidence moved by the joint opposition and backed by Sirisena's ministers.

With the help of minority Tamil and Muslim parties, the premier defeated the motion - dealing a blow to Sirisena, who had campaigned for Wickremesinghe to stand down to allow him to appoint a prime minister of his choice.

In recent weeks, Sirisena has reduced Wickremesinghe's powers, removing from his control the central bank, the policy-making National Operations Room and several other institutions.

Former strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa's party trounced the UNP and Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in the February polls to win control of two-thirds of the 340 local councils at stake.

In the run-up to the election, Sirisena branded the prime minister and his party as more corrupt than the Rajapaksa regime, which Sirisena and Wickremesinghe jointly toppled in 2015.

Earlier Thursday, a presidential spokesman said a wider government reshuffle would be announced next week.

The SLFP is to decide later this month if it will remain in government. Rajapaksa is pressing for a 2020 national election to be brought forward.

Source: AFP/de

Why Lanka’s Parliament has declined and decayed

The State Council and the ‘old’ Parliament were held in high esteem 

Parliamentarians engage in profound discourse on the future of the Nation

Those days they made them of sterling stuff, now pewter and base metal

Kumar David-April 14, 2018, 12:19 am

Let me start with a confession. The last two weeks have been consumed rereading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire parts of which deal with the decline and decay of that most august of bodies, the Roman Senate. Those familiar with the first three volumes cannot miss their influence throughout this essay, but in a pint-sized column such as this it is infeasible to always insert quotation marks or add dutiful ibids. I have also taken tiny liberties with a few quotations.

By ‘decline’, in my title, I mean institutional changes, such as anointing Octavian as Augustus, or in our case the executive presidency, which undermined parliament. The ‘decay’ Gibbon pointed to was the decline of the moral and intellectual stature of Roman Senators. I borrow it deliberately, and disparagingly, for the appalling degeneration of Lanka’s legislators in the last four decades. Before getting my teeth in, here are two pickings from Gibbon which structure this essay.

* "The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost when the legislative power is nominated by the executive". (In modern English read ‘dominated’ for "nominated").

* "Unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians the authority of a formidable state soon degenerates into despotism". If we translate into the rough and robust style of today we would say: The servile, grovelling, fawning and odious conduct of our parliamentarians has contributed much to the subversion of a free and democratic Lanka.

A personal anecdote of grovelling relates to the Eighteenth Amendment (Rajapaksa’s shot at eliminating term-limits). At the time I was in the Central and Executive Committees of Vasudeva Nanayakkara’s (VN) DLF party and it was gospel that we loathed the Executive Presidency. Mention of a third term would have made the party puke. Then came the surprise from Rajapaksa toadies (including all Sirisena-SLFP current Cabinet Ministers) that 18A was to be tabled. Much overrated Shirani Bandaranayake, then CJ, gave it an opportunist wink and a nod – not that it did her much good in the end; a lesson Sirisena has still to learn. Next, here is a bit of history that needs to be recorded.

There was hullabaloo in the DLF, noisy argument and the Central Committee was summoned. Of the 30-odd attendees, shockingly, only three (Lankaloka, Wilegoda and I) called on the party to oppose 18A. The rest expressed strong support; VN grovelled and endorsed 18A in parliament. The LSSP and CP replicated the grovelling. The motive of these "leaders" who desecrated the mantle of NM*, Colvin*, Pieter*, Dr Wicks and Leslie* were posts and perks. The membership drooled for lesser favours in local areas. This was the last straw; I quit the DLF and sank my valuation of VN to just another Mahinda creep. (*I disagreed with these leaders in 1964 and from 1970 onwards; but there never was any distrust; the dispute was about the right and the wrong road to socialism. The four needed no portfolios, which in any case lowered not elevated their stature).

To return to my theme, on the decay of parliament due to institutional change - the executive presidential system - Gibbon has much to say that would make you think he was standing not at Trevi Fountain but on the bund of the Kotte lagoon. The rot of parliament was precipitate and inglorious after the 1978 Constitution. Weak institutions can be hijacked, democracy undone and systems that concentrate power in one man subverted to personal agendas. All visible in the internecine struggles of the second (Premadasa) presidency and full blown in Caligula like proportions in the Rajapaksa era. The reason the cancer has not swelled up much post-2015, is because Sirisena is distrusted within the divided government, and as an individual he has the disposition of an anaemic hamster. He makes it obvious now that he is Mahinda’s point man inside the ‘no-longer unity government’. This shackles him internally. His personal integrity too is not above reproach.

The general control of finances and the absolute control of the military raised Octavian (Augustus) to levels never before enjoyed by any Consul or Praetor, not even the great Julius. The end of the Roman Republic can be traced with exactness to the grant of extraordinary powers by the Senate to Octavian in 27 BC after the defeat of Mark Anthony at the Battle of Actium. Still, Augustus was only called Principate (first citizen) not emperor.

In times of emergency a "Dictator would be appointed by the Senate for a term of six months only, constitutional government was suspended and the Dictator would take control of the state. When his term ended, constitutional government would be restored and the Dictator fired. The Romans, smarter than Lankans, gave emergency powers, each time, to a different person and for a short period only. Despite deep suspicion of ambition (Caesar paid dearly for "ambition"), the Republic gradually gave way to Empire with constitutional transitions and the moral flabbiness of Senators. In the next phase the shrewd and balanced Augustus (d.14AD), was followed by less able successors; some were tyrants, two (Caligula 37-41 AD and Nero 54-68 AD) were clinically insane.

It would be inaccurate to describe the successors of JR as clinically insane. But tyrant, an old-fashioned term, fits one of them; the nemesis of democracy, disrupter of the rule of law and enemy of human rights. Furthermore, there was a propensity to servitude in the retinue (think of hilarious Dr Mervyn). No one in the cortege dared tell an emperor that he/she was naked, privates in full view, when the boss acted like a knave – Water’s Edge, Mattala, Lotus Tower to emptiness, Sampur power-plant cock-up, and more. Cowardly silence in the retinue, servile civil-servants, billion-rupee larceny and sil-reddi venality are features of our presidential system. Do you know the collective noun for owls and rooks, like flock for birds and herd for cattle? It’s ‘parliament’! When an executive president roars, hordes of parliamentarians, state officers and hangers-on, grope like half-blind owls and eat carrion like crows.

"Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past and depreciate the present" it is reasonable to assert that the State Council in the 1930s and Parliament in early post-independence decades - both institution and membership - were held in esteem. Now parliament is ridiculed. The booming oratory and prodigious intellect of Colvin marked him, at his peak, as Lanka’s Cicero; what a comedown to today’s clattering brass. Schools brought students from Jaffna on excursions not to watch some ratty Finance Minister read the budget, but a fortnight later to hear NM open the budget debate. I am no fan of SWRD, GG, Dudley, Mrs B, or JR - perish the thought - but even a sceptic must grant that today’s lot "walk under their huge legs and peep about to find themselves dishonourable graves". (This phrase of course is not Gibbon’s). The difference is not in the water, the air, or the dhal they imbibe; parliament atrophied when the executive presidency arrived and emasculated it. The debate on the 4 April 2018 no-confidence motion, for example, was so hollow.

There is a second factor which has contributed to degeneration; evaporation of racial and religious tolerance. "The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by philosophers as equally false; and by the state as equally useful". (I love philosophers!). Roman pantheism was open minded, religious accommodation a norm. The edifice of power preserved the wisdom of the ages and let Rome set about the more important business of codifying laws, strengthening institutions, building roads and aqueducts, diffusing city freedom with prudent liberality and crafting a civilisation that stood for a thousand years. Roman citizenship was catholic; millions from the provinces, the colonies and municipal towns were eligible and conditions were not onerous; the state was fortified by an open view of citizenship. It is estimated that at the time of Claudius citizenship stood at seven million; add women and children and it reaches 20 million – huge by the standards of the time.

This reminds me of another emigrant nation which reached for greatness by opening its doors to the best and the brightest. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free". A small island crowded with 21 million souls is a different ball game from Rome and America, but there are lessons that should kick us in the teeth. Our notion of national identity remains undefined at best, blinkered and bigoted at worst. Parliament now serves as a repository of this plague. As I have taken pains to explain, ever since the all-deciding executive presidency took over, it is jobless. Then the new proportional representation system lowered the bar further. You see, MPs have no real constituency to answer to or be responsible for. Hence the overriding purpose of being an MP is to be re-elected. If an unwieldly multitude of citizens debases the exercise of power, then MPs compete to champion the basest instincts of the mass to ensure re-election. In a word, this is why the well of parliament has become a pit of racist stench.

The wretchedness of the hegemonic political culture of the petty-bourgeois does not reinforce progress or unify the nation, it contradicts them. Anti-secularism, outmoded religious systems, the failures of parliament (and presidency), and anti-modernism have undermined bourgeois democracy in Sri Lanka. After the exit of the Raj the Indians found progressive solutions to problems of state, economy and national consolidation; thus far we have failed.

Parliament has degenerated for a multiplicity of layered reasons. Its power has been debased like counterfeit coin by an all-powerful executive; PR and preference voting, as institutionalised in Sri Lanka, have deracinated MPs from the grassroots - they are no longer tribunes of folks in towns and villages. Then pathological communal hatred has sunk Mother Lanka deeper in misery than other nations afflicted with similar ailments.

This would be too negative a note to end on; what’s the way forward? Annul the executive presidency, legislate harsh penalties for corrupt Ministers and MPs (in China they execute the buggers; bloody good idea), educate the ignorant ones (you will need a large classroom), build institutions and most important, school the people and raise public consciousness. Alas, all easier said than done!

SL earns over USD 161mn from UN peacekeeping

SRI LANKAN UN PEACEKEEPERS ACCUSED OF INVOLVEMENT IN HAITI CHILD-SEX RING

2018-04-14

The Sri Lanka Army has earned more than USD 161 million from UN peacekeeping missions since 2004, Army Commander Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake said on Thursday.

 He said this at the opening ceremony of the Directorate for Overseas Operations (DOO) at the Old Dutch Building in Colombo 3.

“Since 2004, Sri Lanka has been earning a minimum of USD 2.5 million per annum from peacekeeping missions overseas. The troops deployed for such assignments benefit financially and through these undertakings, the country amasses foreign remittances that are utilised to train more and more soldiers. Since 1955, a number of 18,179 members attached to the Sri Lanka Army have extended their invaluable services to UN peacekeeping missions. The contingents are currently engaged in peacekeeping missions in Lebanon (UNIFIL), South Sudan (UNMISS), Mali (MINUSMA), Abyei (UNISFA), New York (UNHQ), Central African Republic (MINUSCA) and Western Sahara (MINURSO), either as military observers, staff officers or officer assistants or general contingent troops,” he said.

The DOO Defence Secretary declared open the ‘Mansion of Peace’ (Sama Madura) building at the complex, which is established to handle international peacekeeping and overseas operational commitments under the Director General, Staff Branch.

“Our vision towards world peace is to contribute an effective combat outfit under the United Nations to achieve sustainable peace in conflict zones. Fast changing political dynamics have become a complex and multi-dimensional challenge,” the Army Commander said.

Earlier, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) insisted that feasible clearance for such deployments should be sought from the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) by vetting respective overseas bound UN candidates before their departure. Meanwhile, DG of the Directorate for Overseas Operations, Major General Mervyn Perera said future peacekeeping deployments, training and other activities related to overseas operations would be handled by the DOO.(Darshana Sanjeewa)

Container load of smuggled foreign liquor and illegal drugs seized

By Manushi Silva-April 13, 2018

A container load of over 1,000 bottles of foreign liquor and illegal drugs were seized at Egodawatta in Maharagama today, police Special Task Force officials said.

They importer who had imported the consignment without paying taxes, was also apprehended by the police.

Further investigations into the incident are carried out by police. 

One Palestinian killed, 700 injured in Gaza on third Friday of protests

Thousands of Gazans demonstrate on third Friday of the Great March of Return, with 33 killed since 30 March

Palestinians take cover from tear gas smoke fired by Israeli forces east of Gaza City in the central Gaza Strip on 13 April (AFP)

Friday 13 April 2018

One Palestinian was killed, and more than 700 were injured on the third Friday of large-scale demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, as they came under fire from Israeli forces at the border.

Thousands of Gazans are taking part in protests in the besieged enclave, where almost 1.3 million of the small territory’s two million inhabitants are refugees, to demand the right to return to their pre-1948 homes.

The Ministry of Health reported than 701 Palestinians were wounded as of 6pm, mainly by tear gas and live bullets. An MEE correspondent on the ground said at least one demonstrator was in critical condition after being shot in the head east of Gaza City.

The planned six-week protest, which began on 30 March on Palestinian Land Day, is set to end on 15 May - the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe), in which more than 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces in 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

In total, 33 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded by Israeli forces since the "Great March of Return" began on 30 March. While demonstrators have gathered at tent encampments along the border every day since the protests began, higher numbers have protested on Fridays.

Journalists, medics in the line of fire as scores injured

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported around 2:30pm on Friday that a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces in the area of Khuzaa in the southern Gaza Strip, only to later retract the statement and clarify that the man was in critical condition after having been shot in the head.

At least three other Palestinians were reportedly shot in the head and in critical condition - one east of Gaza City, and two east of Rafah.

Mohammed al-Hajjar, a Palestinian photographer working with Middle East Eye in Gaza, was lightly injured in the arm after being grazed by a bullet. Meanwhile, Palestinian media reported that another journalist, Ahmad Abu Hussein, was shot in the abdomen east of the town of Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip and was in critical condition.

An MEE correspondent in the area of Karni east of Gaza said it appeared Israeli forces were deliberately targeting press and TV vehicles located 700 metres from the Israeli-constructed separation fence, using large quantities of tear gas, while warning on loudspeakers that anyone approaching the fence would be shot.

Palestinian photojournalist Mohammed al-Hajjar

In the Khan Younis area, the Ministry of Health said a medical tent had been targeted by Israeli forces, causing 10 medics to suffer from excessive tear gas inhalation and "hindering the work of medical staff". Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed that Israeli forces shot one of its medics in the knee near Rafah.

Israel's army alleged there were attempts to damage and breach the fence separating Gaza from Israel, while it said firebombs and "an explosive device" were thrown. Palestinians also sought to pull away barbed wire set up by Israeli forces to keep them away from the fence, an AFP journalist said.

The military said soldiers were responding "with riot dispersal means and are firing in accordance with the rules of engagement."

Earlier on Thursday evening, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man near the Gaza border, the Gaza Ministry of Health said. The ministry said Abdullah al-Shahari, 28, was shot in the chest east of Khan Younis.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Middle East Eye on Friday morning that they would look into whether the army had carried out any operations near Khan Younis on Thursday evening, and said that the army “cannot comment on what is happening inside Gaza”.

A Hamas fighter, identified as Mohammed Hijaila, was killed by an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip earlier on Thursday, the health ministry said. Israel said the air raid was in response to gunfire aimed at an Israeli warplane carrying out earlier strikes, which in turn followed a bomb blast at Israel's fence on Wednesday.

Flag burning

In the northern Gaza Strip, Sumaya Abu Awad, 36, attended the protest with her three daughters and son.

"I am from the village of Hiribya and it is my right to return to it," she told AFP, referring to a village north of Gaza destroyed in the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.

"I am not afraid of death because there is no life in Gaza already."

I am not afraid of death because there is no life in Gaza already

- Sumaya Abu Awad, refugee

While last Friday's protest was dubbed "Jum'at al-Kawshook", literally meaning "Tyres Friday", as demonstrators burned tyres to obscure the view of Israeli troops targeting the crowds with live ammunition, this week demonstrators were encouraged to burn Israeli flags and raise Palestinian ones.

In northern Gaza, a large Israeli flag was burned that had earlier been set on the ground for protesters to walk over, while dozens of Israeli flags were being burned in Jabalia in northern Gaza and hundreds of Palestinian ones were held aloft.

Near Khan Younis in the south, protesters burned pictures of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom they view as cooperating with Israel.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum expressed his support of setting Israeli flags aflame.

أ. فوزي برهوم ـ فلسطين@FawzyBarhoom

حرق الجماهير للعلم الإسرائيلي رسالة لكل المطبعين وللعالم أجمع أنه لن يستطيع كائنا من كان منح شرعية للإحتلال على أرض فلسطين و أن الشعب الفلسطيني هو صاحب الأرض والقرار.

7:02 AM - Apr 13, 2018

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• See أ. فوزي برهوم ـ فلسطين's other Tweets

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Translation: The crowd’s burning of the Israeli flag is a message to all media and to the whole world that no one can grant legitimacy to the occupation of the land of Palestine. The Palestinian people are the owners of the land and its decision makers.

“I am here today to raise high the Palestinian flag, and burn the Israeli flag. I refuse to make peace with the Israelis who kill us and besiege us, and the whole world should know this,” Ahmed Abu Batnein told MEE.

The 25-year-old demonstrator said that while he had come to protest with his whole family, he had ordered that his 14-year-old brother Mustafa stay far back at the tent encampments.

“I want to keep my brother away from the border after seeing how children are being killed, like last Friday with child martyr Hassan Madi, who was only 15 years old,” he said.

Reports emerged on Israeli media that protesters were calling Friday "Molotov Day" and planning on throwing improvised incendiary devices in the direction of Israeli forces.

However, one of the March of Return's organisers told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that "Israel is trying in every way to pin the marches on Hamas and it's very convenient for them if this action becomes violent on the Palestinian side, and that's why we won't allow it."

Inside Israel, in the city of Sderot only a few kilometres from Gaza, a handful of Israelis demonstrated to denounce the military's actions in Gaza, receiving invectives from passerbys.

הסכסוך הישראלי : צומת יד מרדכי, צעירים משדרות מתעמתים עם מפגיני שמאל על רקע ארועי הגדר. pic.twitter.com/saxHbZwK6Z

— יוסי יהושוע (@YehoshuaYosi) 13 April 2018

יוסי יהושוע@YehoshuaYosi

הסכסוך הישראלי : צומת יד מרדכי, צעירים משדרות מתעמתים עם מפגיני שמאל על רקע ארועי הגדר.

7:23 AM - Apr 13, 2018

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Translation: At Yad Mordechai Junction, young people from Sderot confront left-wing demonstrators against the backdrop of the fence.

Nomika Zion, one of the members of Other Voice, a Sderot-based group calling for an end to the Israeli military blockade of Gaza, told MEE that its demonstrators have been on the receiving end of violent reactions from fellow Israelis in the past few weeks, including thrown objects and an attempt to run them over.

"We come from Sderot, and we see first hand the vicious cycle of violence," she said. "We have a responsibility towards the people of Gaza. It is my moral obligation to raise my voice even though it's unpopular."

Gaza medical services strained 

The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that hospitals and medical personnel were on high alert as of Friday morning to deal with the anticipated influx of casualties.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has raised concerns about Gaza’s capacity to handle thousands of wounded in the past several weeks, highlighting the besieged enclave’s already strained resources.

“Gaza’s health sector has struggled to cope with the mass influx of casualties, due to years of blockade, internal divide and a chronic energy crisis, which have left essential services in Gaza barely able to function,” the UN agency said in a statement on Friday.

OCHA reported 2,870 Palestinians wounded between 30 March and 11 April.

“The large number of casualties among unarmed demonstrators, including a high percentage of demonstrators hit by live ammunition, has raised concerns about excessive use of force,” it stated.

Israeli army forces have been stationed along the fence separatingt Gaza from Israel for the past two weeks, using tear gas, snipers firing live ammunition, tank shelling, and air strikes.

Palestinian demonstrators have burned tyres and thrown stones in the direction of Israeli troops. No Israeli casualties have been reported.

Organisers of the protests have maintained that the demonstration is largely peaceful, and rejected Israeli accusations that Hamas is behind it, saying the rallies are independent and the Islamist movement is one of many groups involved.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the European Union and others have called for an independent investigation into the killings, including that of Palestinian journalist Yasser Murtaja, who was shot while wearing a vest clearly marked “Press”.

Israel has rejected calls for a probe and insists its open-fire rules for Gaza will not change.

Amnesty International called on Israel to “urgently reverse their policies and abide by their international legal obligations” on Friday.

“For the past two weeks, the world has watched in horror as Israeli forces unleashed excessive, deadly force against protesters, including children, who merely demand an end to Israel’s brutal policies towards Gaza and a life of dignity,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“Israeli authorities must respect the Palestinians’ right to peaceful protest and, in the event that there is violence, use only the force necessary to address it. Under international law, lethal force can only be used when unavoidable to protect against imminent threats to life.”