Power To The People

Photo courtesy of Hindustan Times

Reflecting on the recent elections in both Sri Lanka and the US is an interesting exercise particularly because, as the two countries now have synchronized election cycles, comparisons and contrasts are readily evident.

The US has presented itself for decades as a beacon of democracy: progressive and inclusive and an upholder of human rights within its borders. However, the prospective 47th president of the US and the team he is appointing seem to be getting ready to preside over the demolition of democracy and the erosion of many rights and freedoms, particularly for the most vulnerable groups in the country.

By endorsing the rights of billionaires, tech bros and capitalists; asserting the rights of those who have committed multiple atrocities against women and girls; prioritizing the territorial and occupancy rights of proud white Anglo European Americans over the multi-hued peoples who have until now dreamed the American dream, the new administration is going to complete what the thugs who assaulted the Capitol on January 6, 2021 began. They play exclusionary politics inciting human fear, focusing on a message of survivalism and thriving on adversarial combat, heedless of the destruction that ensues and even glorying in that destruction, describing any challenge to their bullish, self-serving narrative as “whining” and “fake news”.

This hostile takeover siege of the US mindscape has destroyed what the country has taken centuries to build, in just a few desperate years.

Qualified representatives 

In contrast, Sri Lanka is emerging from a haphazard 75 years since independence with a record number of female politicians in the new government including for the first time several ministers representing the minority Tamil community. These are educated, professional people, ready to lead and mindful of their responsibilities to the people who have elected them. Few of them come from elite or privileged backgrounds and the nepotism and cronyism that characterized the previous administrations are not likely to take hold in what is clearly a meritocracy.

Their first act, now that the results of voting are being finalized, is to request that all incoming MPs undergo training and familiarization with legal and political protocols and procedures during a three day period of briefings and training.

A second positive step is that no MPs will be permitted to hire spouses, children or family members as part of their personal team of advisors or ministerial staff.

The instant recall of politically appointed diplomats and government representatives after the presidential election a few weeks ago was also a clear sign of the consistency with which new policies are being enacted.

Politicians and those claiming to be dedicated to enacting the will of the people are now being held accountable. Performance reviews are clearly being undertaken. Those who demonstrably do not add any value to the political process or the country’s reputation are being disqualified. The swamp, to use a recent American metaphor, is being effectively drained.

There is a lot at stake for both countries. The societal outrage that built up in Sri Lanka in 2022, erupting in the aragalaya, has been effectively channelled in a positive way in the formal election of this new government. The election has completed the dissolution of corrupt and outdated governance that the aragalaya began.

A new accountability 

However, the people have suffered a great deal over the past several years and will be expecting very high standards of performance from the new administration. The abolition of the executive presidency will be a crucial first step and a test of political integrity.

The united scorn of the voters against the previous incumbents was shown not only by the noticeably low number of votes that previous MPs, particularly the loudest and most notable, received at these polls. It was an extraordinary sight to see, posted by every major print newspaper’s social media page, pictures of the unsuccessful candidates with the words Out!, Lost!, Gone! and Failed! stamped over the pictures of their faces. Only the most brazen of these people have sought to get a seat in parliament via the national lists, having not secured enough personal votes at the election.

Authoritarianism is expressed most openly when any individual wields absolute executive power and this has been demonstrated multiple times in many countries. If a leader has the support of a majority, they often believe they can dismiss or ignore the voices of the minority who did not support them. The people as a whole are given lip service and are only listened to once every few years as election dates approach and ignored wholesale for all the years between. If voters are uneducated regarding their rights and responsibilities, the true power of democracy is white-anted until only a facade remains providing no shelter in any storm.

The US is chaotically lurching towards authoritarianism and the cowboys and cowgirls at the helm seem to be glorying in the thrills involved in the public demise of the values of the founding fathers. In the name of patriotism, a return to colonialist settler values is being imposed: Christian prayers are to be said in all schools; the erasure of difference or divergence – whether related to sexual preference or neurological status – which is called dangerous or abnormal or deviant, enforced; and the forcible annihilation of pronouns and gender identity and reproductive choices that challenge the idea of anyone not wanting to populate the country in a binary way undertaken resulting in a retrofitted society with trad wives subservient to masculinist husbands – A Handmaid’s Tale territory. And fueling this retrograde is the backlash against feminism, the rise of incels and the normalization of “high value” and “high worth” standards used to describe men and women but being sourced only in terms of the income a person earns rather than their character and their conduct.

Reprehensible conduct 

The discourse adopted by the incoming team of robo bros is indicative of the way they intend to dominate the Disunited States. Mockery by stereotypes: Childless cat ladies. Disabled people whose vulnerabilities are seen as offensive by those who are not disabled. Darkies. Savages. Trash people. Garbage people. Losers. Failures. All these phrases are fascist projections of disturbed and contemptuous mindsets that identify physical perfection as being exclusively embodied by seven foot tall, super rich, blue eyed blondes.

North America, unbelievably to the people proud to be American in the past, may become part of a protectionist Aryan hegemony like something out of space fiction. Narrowing its citizens’ minds, suppressing books that threaten its sense of historical evangelical destiny, tarnishing its legacy as an upholder of human dignity while shining up the dollar signs and appointing sex offenders as national role models. Calling itself a “First World Country” with an International Dial Code of #1 while its leaders intimidate their own voting citizens and encourage abuse and violence towards those who fall outside the criteria now being imposed on them. It starts with illegal and undocumented immigrants and mass deportations. But as anyone who has ever deep cleaned their own house will testify, cleaning and clearing and de-cluttering can become addictive after awhile. Where does it stop?

In contrast, Sri Lanka appears at last to be positively embracing diversity and opening itself to the reality that people of varied experiences and capacities can grow in leadership. The active and dynamic citizens’ justice movements that have emerged in adverse circumstances have created an ecosystem which has determinedly brought increased awareness of human dignity and the rights of the vulnerable into the social and cultural landscape, questioning the traditional patriarchal values and the feudal class systems which have suppressed the contributions of many talented individuals. The economic hardships suffered by the citizens over the past years have tested their resilience and they take nothing for granted. Social division and the politics of contempt and derision is something that no one wants, having been collectively jerked around like puppets by racist ideologues for decades.

Unlike the citizens of the US, most Sri Lankans do not feel entitled to anything they have not earned including international recognition and respect. On a personal note, US citizens engaged in international discussions on social media seem to automatically assume that every post on FB is referring to them and that they and their concerns are the center of every thought and conversation. It is over-reach. The whole world is not a backdrop for their narcissistic motion picture. Any nation which ceases to look beyond its borders will stagnate.

I predict that, if Sri Lanka’s financial and economic situation continues to improve, through collective focused effort a far greater autonomy can be achieved by this small island nation, which consistently punches above its weight in the talent, creativity and capability of its people. It will be possible for a better awareness of human rights and the dignity of citizens to grow in a more stable country where corruption in all its brazen and insidious forms is stymied.

Once the swamp is cleared and the sovereign soil reclaimed, we could find that very soil, steeped in decades of mud and mire, offering fertile possibilities. The national flower, the lotus, which famously emerges and flourishes in the most dire conditions, will then become an even more meaningful symbol for us all. Then people seeking better prospects need not look overseas for them.

What could we see happening, if the brakes and limitations that have operated on this country are summarily dissolved and removed?

What will we see when people frustrated by corruption, cronyism and normalized low standards of conduct, are incentivized and supported to become their best selves? This will be the self governance that a former colony has always wanted. In shining contrast to nations who have built their wealth on colonial exploitation and forceful slave labor and laid the foundations of their societies on the oppression of others.

Examples of what to be, what not to be 

Sri Lankan people today are going in a sociopolitical direction that will place them in a better position than bigger and wealthier nations in the years to come. 22.4 million people are far easier to manage, educate and effectively resource than 334.9 million. And after everything we have collectively experienced, we will hopefully start to unshackle ourselves from the horrors in our own history, both imposed and self-created.

Lessons have been learned by Sri Lanka, which we hope will not be forgotten in the years to come. However, the US is likely to be an example to the world, over the next few years, of the dangers of indulging in the compulsions of our baser selves. We can watch it all on television as an example of what not to be. When Elon Musk boastfully tweeted “Game. Set. And match” in the immediate aftermath of the US election, it was the crowing of a death watch not only over the Democratic Party but the heralding of a new dark ages. America the self-styled beacon of democracy will see many of its cherished values wither in that darkness. Its much vaunted wealth and economic force are now being marshalled by grabbing individuals to whom a sense of inclusive community is anathema.

The country that gave us 150 years of great literature, cinema, art and culture, which housed and supported some of the greatest expressions of human talent and artistry the world has ever seen, which embraced people from all cultures and races in the 20th century and provided a place in which they could reach their fulfillment, is now shutting its borders and dumbing itself down, preparing to be presided over by a bunch of stormtroopers who learned their moral values from computer games and pornography.

It’s not entertainment. It’s a tragic display. We in South Asia have endured this kind of abusive politics for decades. We would not wish it on anyone.

In Sri Lanka, we used to call ourselves a resplendent land. In the years to come, we are set to shine again. We will be over here, being our best selves, raising the value of our passports. And questioning anyone who tries to come here illegally. After 500 plus years of colonisation, we know what bullying looks like. We have a right to defend ourselves and a right to prosper. The true enemy of the people until recently has been our own misplaced aspirations, learned helplessness and the ease with which we have been manipulated.

Recent events have shown us the capacity of people power to change the trajectory of a country’s future. Vistas of splendor and prosperity proved to be mirages and evaporated in Sri Lanka in the heat of 2022. A sense of awareness of the bitter suffering and frustration of the collective was felt throughout the country and is now being acted on in a unifying way which recognises and respects individual difference and diverse experience.

In contrast, in the US and in contradiction of every principle of democracy, hierarchy and social division are evident: public discourse is increasingly acrimonious and incendiary and people are being labelled as “The 1%” and “The Rest”, as winners and losers. The sneering and contempt which have become normalized in the past decade between adherents of the two major political parties are being modelled by its leaders.

The next few years will see one country course correcting, engaged in self monitoring and conscious reform and the other violently sweeping away many advancements in the name of “strength” and “national pride”. Actions will speak loudly and it is the actions of both sets of leaders that will impact the citizens of both countries.

The people who have tried to game the system will lose. Politics is not a game played for entertainment. It is people’s lives and hopes that are at stake. The winners in this new era are those who will care for something more than themselves and their own fame and aggrandizement. Any leader who does not embody and enact the best values of the whole populace is a loser before his own inauguration, no matter what demands and delusions are bellowed through megaphones and magaphones.