The unholy trinity of coup politics’ realpolitik

TRIAD: Cloud ‘Coup-Coup’ Land

– Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

Much has been made of Sri Lanka being a sort of ‘anti-Cloud Cuckoo Land’… a nation in a state of absurdly overoptimistic fantasy or unrealistic idealism where everything is perfect. And once upon a time, this was never if ever true. But things change. And thus, we do too. If our position seemed partisan before the contretemps, it was because we loved the state of Rome more than its republicans.

Today, though, if we can ever again claim to be in the ranks of Tuscany – where the true patriots and genuine democrats sit – we must willing to suspend belief in the greater congregation of democratic-republicans who sit (or do not sit yet) in the House. Like them, we too must go – not gentle into that dark night – for all the good we might have done. But ASAP!

But not before we may essay an observation or three on the state of the nation. There is an unholy trinity at work in the corridors of power, to bring our land full low in one fell swoop. Here we do not mean the muddle-headed trio of president, prime minister and would-be premier. Nor the troika of brothers three who would be prophet, priest and king among the pseudo-patriots. Or even the trifecta of democracy, social-liberalism and republicanism ruled over by realpolitik. It is the three-pillared stool on which our political persona itself perches.

Tradition

It dies hard. From the customary behaviour of MPs before elections to the fatuous lamentations of the polity upon closer inspection of their candidates’ track record after the fall… Can civil society – academics, professionals, big business in the shape and form of champions of the bourse, SMEs as much as chambers of commerce and industry – ever cease and desist from inviting sundry two-bit political thugs to ‘grace’ their events, occasions, openings and myriad functions? Would they see even now that it is a national ‘disgrace’ to tolerate our law-breaking lawmakers one iota of a moment more?

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Politicians are the lubricants of our society. Births, baptisms, big openings, bright future! Four wedding-like events may as well be one large funeral for the nation, no?

DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: No, they’re dirty grease: an unpleasant damp spot; so stop lionising them sooner than you can say ‘honourable’ backwards in Hansard-expunged speech.

Authority

By this, I mean the tendency to accept political norms and mores as being more than ‘normative’ – but as ‘desirable’. If chicanery and corruption are par for the course, so be it? All civil society can do is to grin and bear it! They are our political masters rather than us being theirs. Where is the sense of service, accountability and transparency that was the hallmark of old? It went out like a dimming light with the Grama ‘Sevaka’ (servant of the village) who desired to be apotheosised as Grama ‘Niladhari’ (an official or bureaucrat). Which is neatly encapsulated in that venial grasping of a ‘common candidate’ (common enough, by any civilised standard) whose ambition could or should have been made of sterner stuff.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Acton was spot on!

DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: Great men are almost always bad men – that’s why we keep falling for the ‘keep the executive intact in some form’ trap. The presidency must go – lock, stock and barrel. That canard that it is good for the minorities, and protecting sovereignty and integrity, must be shot down! Like a mallard in a southern sky far from home and winging it alone over troubled waters.

Revelation

The folly of a cross section of demographics in fervently believing in their respective parties, personages, and political planks – to the exclusion of principle and practical common sense! The problem with good sense is precisely that it is not common. Thus the uncritical acceptance of fairytales, tall stories and folk legend as cardinal truths, which range from new discoveries such as the lineage of a modern Dutugemunu to the urban legend of Mr Clean. We once thought he was a king but found out to our detriment that he was nothing much more than a churlish tyrant. The other we felt was a prince among men; but rather than a statesman, he proved himself a pauper among the people both morally and politically bankrupt.

These are the remnants of dreams from our democracy’s childhood. We must grow up from infancy and into a more sterling republicanism if Sri Lanka is to be stalwart enough to face its future – caught between the Charybdis of China and the Scylla of a combined US-Indian desire for hegemony in our local pond.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: We must be diplomatic about the regional power blocs and international plate tectonics of shifting power.

DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: No – we can and must assert our sovereignty, independence, civilisation… even if it means starting all over again at the bottom of a non-aligned grouping spanning uniting ideologies, not individual and undermining nation-states. As long as we don’t end like Marshal Tito’s “former Yugoslavia” but rather Vaclav Havel’s Czech Republic.

It is these three boards that are at bottom the fundamental cause of our troubles today. It has made our MPs ‘men without bottoms’ – those with no fundamental ethos. It has made our mandarins singularly lacking in ‘logos’: the ability to think and act critically. It has made every man jack in power, from ambitious presidents to premiers tolerating moral turpitude among their supporters, spectacularly wanting for ‘ethos’. That credibility which so eludes their respective political monuments. It has made the pathetic politics of our realpolitik bereft of the ‘pathos’ that appeals to true patriots.

The men and movements and machines which base their activity on these three planks would do well to inspect them more closely if they desire a stronger stand at future exercises in the art of the possible. The polity from which they draw power to serve and run amok in the delusion of such service should also examine the undergirding of their own body politic more closely. To see if our society is so rotten at the core that it is only capable of throwing up woodworms to eat away at these boards overnight. The author of this piece has done so and it is only the gnawing away at wood rot that he hears all day long. The brush of tradition, authority, revelation, has tarred him to the soul and queered his pitch. So until the patch is fixed, the rest is silence for the nonce.  

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)