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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA

Are we really getting down to basics - here and now in the realm of the political? It may seem so. Or, at least, we may be beginning to.

The ethnic conflict, an articulation of the elemental crisis that half a millennium of colonial triage has put us in, is inexorably pushing us, Sri Lankans, to finally confront that crisis. Whether we can make the gigantic effort to resolve it depends on how successfully we have recovered from that triage and how much we have de-colonised ourselves.

When I say 'basics' I mean that I see signs of the current political order disintegrating; of some of the more elemental under-currents being exposed; and, of political dynamics increasingly becoming more the spontaneous, the non-formal, the ad hoc, the de facto and the 'interim'. Political actions are increasingly extra-institutional, as we, albeit more unconsciously than consciously, break out of the constraints of colonial and neo-colonial norms and institutions - in order that we transcend them in our search for genuine post-colonial societal recovery.

If preceding political regimes so manipulated and exploited our so-called 'Westminster model' of democracy as to completely de-legitimise it, the extreme violence that followed took all of us further down the path to the realm of the elemental political dynamics of our contemporary (post-colonial) society. Class interests, socio-cultural antagonisms, ethnic group interests and rivalries, and new political desires created by modern (Westminster) competitive democracy, all broke free of the existing institutions and engaged and are yet engaging - at the level of crude individual power politics, armed confrontation and social group violence.

If many of us naively assumed that the assassination of despots and the parliamentary displacement of one authoritarian regime (in August 1994) and, subsequently, of another (in December 2001), implied a 'return' to an old order (that familiar colonial fantasy), a past stability, then, our illusion must be shattered. The inadequacy of that old order has been such that the forces that it could not contain (or appropriately channel) are compelling us into new uncharted territory.

The tragedy is that (probably due to our post-colonial civilisational debility), we are unable to consciously, deliberately begin charting that territory, but are helplessly blundering along. Hence, the necessity of further elemental dynamics, of the sharp promptings of discomfort from further disintegration, disorder.

Of course, we, Sri Lankans, need not merely blame our selves. Those former colonising forces persist in diverting our gaze - apparently away from our navels, but in reality away from the specifics of our local post-colonial predicament. If, in 1972, we did vaguely realise the need for a republican initiative that took us (however partially) just a little further away from colonisation and stood us, a little more, on our own shaky feet, subsequently, we seem to have made little effort to walk on our own. Instead, we have preferred to (gratefully) cling to the seemingly supportive hand of our colonisers and toddle along, indulging in the simplicity of borrowed 'models' - whether British Westminster, Soviet or Singaporean. (It's all Greek to me. So why not try a little Sanskrit?)

Re-defining our State and Society

The compelling necessity of further re-defining our State and Society post-1948 is only being driven home by the War and the greater crisis it has caused.

When will we acknowledge that the 'democracy' we are trying to preserve is actually non-existent in any stable, deep-rooted, comprehensive, form? When do we consciously and deliberately set about building a new political order, new State, and a new Republic? Can we acknowledge the necessity of ad hoc arrangements in the interim, as we explore new forms of polity? Can we creatively devise some mechanisms for that interim?

For those of us who tire of philosophical rumination (such is our civilisational debility), let me get to the concrete. In doing so, I will indulge. I will explore the disintegrations, and the disorder rather than point to solutions. For it is only with an understanding of the elemental fury of our current social state that we can realise the great need for some fundamental work.

There are numerous signs that we are collectively wallowing in a crisis at a very elemental level; that we are not caught merely in some minor systemic problem that requires only some tinkering with a constitution, some inter-party realignments and little bit (further) repression.

Nothing that I am saying is new. But we must read the signs afresh. The constitutional reform 'Package' initiated by the People's Alliance and which the United National Party helped formulate (although the UNP later disowned it), implicitly acknowledged the need to go beyond the colonial model of State and democracy. But our crisis is such that that very model which still governs us is unable to channel our contemporary political forces into a smooth process of consultation, consensus and compromise (to quote someone who wildly broke the bounds of Westminster democracy).

Rather, our contemporary political forces are happily indulging in a rivalry that far exceeds the norms of competitive democracy. Concentration of power, the grabbing of power and the retention of power have been all that has mattered and still seem to matter. If the 'Package' hinted at that acknowledgement of the need for fundamental change, what has happened more recently, under a new regime, has taken us rather brutally, towards that change in a very sudden way.

The Cease-fire Agreement has taken us one, rather daring, step forward. If the People's Alliance was brave enough to hold up before our eyes the need for elaborate, substantive political transformation, the new United National Front government has been even braver: it has, in a single step, begun that transformation. The bravery of Ranil Wickremesinghe and his colleagues is no doubt driven by a desperation, but nevertheless, their courage must be appreciated.

The Cease-fire Agreement has partially formalised the military-political reality of the deep divisions in our society. The way in which it was done is what is symptomatic of the 'basics' to which we have been reduced. Such a far-reaching agreement came about virtually overnight, and starkly bereft of the niceties of Westminster democracy.

Those simpletons who yet champion the retention of that political model but who are protectively silent about the completely un-Westminsterian, un-democratic way in which the Agreement was concluded the Agreement must wallow helplessly in their hypocrisy. These simpletons are the very people who insisted on a formalistic "transparency" for the PA Government's process of formulating the Package - a transparency which only helped those opposed to power-sharing resist the package.

Transcending formalistic politics

What must be acknowledged is the terrifying necessity of transcending formalistic politics - because that formal politics is what helped cause the national crisis and prevents its resolution. This necessity is terrifying because it means we must let go of the security of the legal protection of democratic rights, of mere constitutionalism as it is. Rather, we must rely on our own moral integrity as we search for a new constitution. This search is being done in the midst of a collapse of the old constitutional framework and a surge of spontaneous political dynamics. The Cease-fire Agreement squarely places us on this path into the unknown.

Today we live in a world in which we take deadly seriously someone who says that the constitutionally elected Prime Minister is not the Premier of a large part of the country and a significant part of its population but that, instead, it is he who is both President and Prime Minister of those parts. Normally, the consensual faith in the Constitution should be such that this kind of utterance would be dismissed as that of a madman or an eccentric. Today, however, not only does the world's mass media hang on to these words but these words are the subject of serious debate.

It is not so much Velupillai Prabhakaran, then, who has split the foundations of our current constitutionalism. In taking him seriously, we, ourselves, have freed ourselves from the shackles of this constitutional fetishism.

What more extra-constitutional political spontaneity than this? And it is not just a few Sinhala ultra-nationalist 'misfits' who take the Balasingham-Prabhakaran utterances seriously. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party seems to be leading the way. Its long-awaited "Statement of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party on the Current Status of the Peace Process" issued on Friday dwells obsessively on the Prabhakaran press conference. Paradoxically, however, the primary 'condition' that the SLFP imposes for its support for the current peace process is nothing to do with constitutionality or national security, but rather the security of itself as a political party!

For myself, it is important that we consciously acknowledge that we do take Prabhakaran seriously; that the serious recognition of this single utterance made by the LTTE leadership is, consequently, the serious recognition of the concrete reality of the total, national significance of that political movement.

The Government, in concluding the Cease-fire Agreement has done so. The UNP in doing so in such an ad hoc, unconstitutional manner has set us on the path toward a new constitutionalism. One does not need to recall the un-democratic and unconstitutional manner in which the UNP did many things in the past. All one needs to do is to acknowledge that that non-constitutionality, that non-democratic behaviour as being symptomatic of the larger collapse of the existing constitutional framework.

The UNP has made the break. Some may argue that, being the quintessential political force of the ruling elite, the UNP will always remain above constitutionality, and I might agree. But then, if all Sri Lankans are sovereign and not just the ruling class then, we are all, at some point, "above" constitutionality. The JVP certainly was at one time, but in recent months I have heard the JVP quote the Constitution in criticism of the UNP! Its statement indicates that the SLFP, like the JVP, seems to be clinging to the old order. And that includes clinging to the Sinhala hegemonism implicit in the emphasis on "territorial integrity" as defined by the current constitutional order with its heritage of ethnic majoritarianism.

The Tamil militant movement, however, has long transcended constitutionality and, indeed, it has been its militancy that is compelling all of us down that dangerous path. If we did so timidly and in a limited manner in 1972 (1978 was mere gimmickry), it is time that we do so far more radically now. And it is vital that all sections of society engage in the search for a new constitution and a new polity so that the weaknesses and the self-interest of just the LTTE, the UNP and a few others will not hinder progress.

The SLFP's statement has an added significance. Further signs of the elemental can be seen in the weakening of the People's Alliance itself. While the United National Front (and not just the UNP) has a co-ordinated stance on the current peace process, the PA does not. Instead, the old Left parties have taken one position - that of an unequivocal support for the current peace process - while the SLFP has now taken up a different position of strong criticism and a conditionality.

While the conditionality - that of the political right of security for its activists and the party itself is indeed very valid, the content of the criticism of the Government's peace effort is nothing more than obstructionist. The larger part of the statement takes the SLFP down the old path of Sinhala hegemonism and thereby, its legitimate protest at the on-going political harassment of its cadres and leadership is greatly diminished. In fact the flames of Sinhala ultra-nationalist paranoia the statement fans serves to divert the attention away from the far more serious issue of that harassment.

The harassment of the SLFP itself is also another sign of the elemental nature of politics today.

Yet another sign is the way that so-called "bastion" of democracy, the mass media, beautifully 'co-ordinated' its news operations to collectively suppress that joint statement of all the Venerable Mahanayaka Theras of all Buddhist sects in the country two weeks ago. Just how did all the mass media organisations press, radio, TV - which are supposedly in competition with each other to get the latest and most important news first, act in such concert, I wonder. When a major news item can be suppressed on such a comprehensive scale, the people can never know. Such total suppression has probably never happened here before.

Yes, the crisis is elemental. It is tragic. It is painful. But then it has taken a lot of pain to get this far. Maybe we need to wallow more in the morass of our crisis before we go beyond.

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