If politics is a force for good, for whose good is it? Politicians have been accused of advancing the interests of oligarchs and vested-interests and almost the entire history of insurgent movements such as the Castro-led rebellion in Cuba were aimed against alleged third forces that ‘used’ politicians for their own ends.
Our politicians have been accused of being the agents of capitalists at various points in the arc of history, but more tellingly they have been faulted for being water-carriers for foreign forces. President J.R. Jayewardene was called Yankee Dicky because he forged close relations with the US, led in those days by the arch-Conservative ex-Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan. Jayewardene visited the US on an invitation extended by President Reagan.
But politicians can be puppets too. Without any additional comment, the recent comment by the sitting US President characterising his former boss President Barack Obama as the ‘puppet master’ can be cited here as an example. The New York Times (NYT) stated in a recent article that “he (Biden) considers Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, the main instigator, but is irritated at Obama as well, seeing him as a puppet master behind the scenes.”
That was ironic because several political commentators saw Obama as pulling the strings behind the Biden Presidency in the first place. The outgoing President now accusing others such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of being puppets of Obama sounds rather rich in this context.
Of course, the above are accusations and counter-accusations that are common in certain political contexts. Back here, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was once upon a time accused of doing the bidding of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the Left parties were feuding with one another in the distant past, not being able to decide whether they are better off as the Peking-wing or the Moscow-wing.
So who is puppet master and who is the puppet is a perennial question in Sri Lankan politics. The current dispensation has also being accused of “being in the pocket’ of somebody or the other, though the merits or otherwise of any such accusations shall not be discussed in this article.
NONCHALANT
But the pointing finger points and then moves on, and it is always left to the others including the voters and commentators to sift through the fallout. Is it fair that in politics some players are in fact agents and puppets of various hidden forces?
Of course, it is not, but neither is it fair to accuse persons not fronting for anyone or any organisation or country as agents or proxies. Eugene McCarthy accused so many people of being Communist in the US in a bygone era that red-baiting became almost a national political pastime.
McCarthy accused people on mere supposition and rarely had the proof, but he succeeded in portraying his methods as a dire need of the times. Most people accused of subversive activity by McCarthy were unable to keep their jobs and were blacklisted by employers including in Hollywood, where an informal cancel-list existed. Eventually, it required the US Supreme Court to step in and end McCarthism by outlawing certain Acts that allowed McCarthy to go on his rampage.
Accusations have often damned persons in all parts of the world, and sometimes Governments, and most of the time it has happened rather unfairly. But at other times it turned out, often very much after certain events had transpired, that there had been collaboration between certain politicians and vested interests.
Today’s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was in the past accused of being bankrolled by North Korea during the 1971 insurgency. This allegation was a blot on the JVP copybook for a very long time.
Today the JVP is being accused of being bankrolled by a different source, the Sri Lankan Diaspora, meaning mostly the so-called Sinhala Diaspora, in countries as far afield as Spain, Italy, UK and South Korea.
But the JVP leadership is nonchalant and most opinion-makers would say rightly so. It is theoretically impossible for anyone to be a ‘catspaw’ of the Diaspora, because these scattered Sri Lankans are taken to be as Sri Lankan as the rest of us that live here in this island.
DECLARED
However, it is probably somewhat strange that the Tamil Diaspora did not have the same leeway in funding various armed activity in Sri Lanka from their various vantages in Australia, Germany, France, the US or wherever it was on the planet. They got branded as traitors and foreign agents and worse.
Both Diasporas are now invited to contribute to Sri Lanka’s economic development, and in this context there are conspicuous swathes of the Sinhala and Tamil Diasporas, that support the JVP from abroad. So can the Diasporas be accused of making a cat’s paw of the JVP?
No, but such a framing of facts could be a part of the politics of making people and political parties appear to be agents or water-carriers for others. But where does reality lie in various efforts to paint politicians as agents and proxies for external entities? One thing is clear. If the ‘agency’ in the relationship is clear and stated, not much could be said about such a connection being inimical. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in those days had the Peking-wing. No subtleties there. But, say if, certain entities supported the LTTE and that was never declared, that becomes a different kettle of fish altogether.
The most pronounced political effect, however, of the proxy-syndrome, is that the accusation can always be deployed to good effect. ‘They are working for some other people and not the people of the country,’ certainly has a way of getting the hackles up, of certain people.
It may be because people are primarily bored and want to be excited about conspiracy theories. Or it may be that they have been convinced through the power of the media that some persons are dangerous proxies for various forces.
A constant drumbeat that certain parties are acting in the interest of others, as in other organisations, countries or even mysterious unnamed others, can have the bogey-effect of damning a legitimate political movement beyond redemption.
INTERLOPERS
But what if the accusations are true or have a modicum of truth attached to them? Sometimes the allegations could sound bizarre. Both, India and China have been accused of interfering in Canadian elections for instance, and early this year there was a serious inquiry into these matters in Ottawa, even though both countries have summarily rejected charges of being involved.
Sometimes, the allegations of foreign interference come after an election, predictably from the losing party. It is not a mere face-saving exercise, but could be mounted as an attempt at de-legitimisation.
To be fair, this election season, there have been no sustained allegation against any party of any connivance with a foreign power or any other entity, and nobody has seriously faulted the JVP/National People’s Power (NPP) of being beholden to foreign interests, in the form of the Diaspora or other foreign interlopers.
But, campaigns have not got under way in earnest yet. When they do, the story could be entirely different. Come to think of it, there has almost not been a single recent election or major political upheaval in this country without accusations of interference from outside, and one party or another being used as a cat’s paw by forces inimical to the country.
This is stated as fact, and not as something that should reflect on any outsider, be it a foreign power, agency, or whatever. All that could be said in this context is that people would be having their antennae up. They are keen to have their politics unadulterated, but find that most often someone is keen to adulterate it for them. When the history of this period is written, it would probably be said that the people went through a most sedate pre-election phase, and that is something we could currently be happy about.
Is that almost too good to be true? It could be. Campaigns, heaven forbid, notoriously turn ugly. Let us hope it doesn’t happen this time around. But this civility is almost killing us. No, that’s written in jest.
The problem is that politics is always complicated. The people would tread cautiously. More often than not, they are presented with facts about election interference by the various contenders in a way that makes them feel as if they are damned if they believe them, and damned if they don’t.
