“The issue that concerns me is something a little different. Why is it that many people still do not grasp that the system in this country has gotten so warped that it is not capable of what is normally known as rational behavior?”
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By Basil Fernando
(September 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) There are several video clips of Dayan Jayatilaka, a former ambassador to Geneva, talking about his removal from his post. He talks about the removal as a virtual dismissal. Further, he points out that the manner in which it was done was irrational.
Why should he find an act of irrationality in the treatment of people in Sri Lanka a matter of surprise? In fact, everyone is treated irrationally all the time. The very concept of merit in the making of decisions about people is alien. This was what the whole debate about the implementation of the 17th Amendment was all about. The parliament made an attempt to introduce some form of recognition of merit in appointments, dismissals, transfers and disciplinary process of all civil servants. The implementation of this amendment was abandoned. The principle now is that irrationality in appointments, dismissals and all such matters is the normal course of treatment for anybody.
Such irrational treatment is not only towards civil servants. Surely there was nothing rational in the assassination of Lasantha Wickrametunge, the brutal attack on Poddala Jayantha, or the 20 years of imprisonment given to J.S. Tissainayagam, just to mention a few cases. As compared to the consequences of such irrational treatment of these persons, the former ambassador has only lost his job. For virtually tens of thousands of others, and over a quarter of a million people in camps for Internally Displace Persons, the treatment is much worse.
The issue that concerns me is something a little different. Why is it that many people still do not grasp that the system in this country has gotten so warped that it is not capable of what is normally known as rational behavior? (Of course there is some rationality in irrational behavior too, a method in madness, but that is not what we are talking about here.)
The related issue is that the downgrading of a person into zero status without any ceremony is very much a part of the system within Sri Lanka. I use the word zero in the sense that Alexander Solzhenitsyn uses it in his masterpiece on repression, The Gulag Archipelago. Millions of Russian citizens were turned into zeros just by somebody knocking on their doors or telling them that they were under arrest. The citizens began to expect such a call at any time.
However, the group that was surprised when such a call came and would never understand it, even after being brought into prisons, were the privileged sector that belonged to the party. Solzhenitsyn devotes an entire chapter to describe the plight of these people who simply could not understand how the system could so irrationally treat them. They never thought about the fact that the rest of the country was treated far more irrationally all the time.
It is the totality of irrationality that the entire country is being caught in that escapes the attention and comprehension of those from the more privileged sections of the Sri Lankan society. For example, Dayan Jayatilaka states that there is no foreign policy in Sri Lanka. Is there any policy about any matter at all except the policy of repression and abuse of power? All the public institutions have been reduced to zero. Can there be public policy without public institutions?
A response to Basil Fernando: Sri Lanka is not a Gulag Island
Ground Views – September 27, 2009 by Dayan Jayatilleka
I am proud of my country, Sri Lanka, which has just been able to vanquish a formidable, ferocious and fascistic foe, despite its vast global network and in the face of considerable external pressure. I am proud that my country Sri Lanka has been able to restore its territorial unity and integrity and reasssert its independence and sovereignty. I am proud of the Sri Lankan armed forces which have achieved that which the armies of major powers have been unable to in many parts of the world. I am proud that Sri Lanka has been able to defeat not one but two armed totalitarianisms, South and North, Sinhala and Tamil the JVP and the LTTE- while maintaining at least the rudimentary foundations of an electoral democracy.
The very fact that I am able to express my criticisms on TV gives the lie to the description of Sri Lanka as a Gulag Island.
In the first place, the defining characteristic of the Gulag is that it was a system of forced labour camps. Sri Lanka is not and not even the IDP camps fit this description. The Gulags also had execution by firing squad.
In the second place there were no multi-party elections in the old USSR the Opposition was IN the Gulag. By contrast there is an election imminent in the Southern province of Sri Lanka , which would be actually competitive if not for the present state of the Opposition, which is cannot be blamed on the Sri Lanka state or regime but on the internal supineness of the UNP itself. ( By the way my betting is that the UPFA will secure over 70% of the Southern vote).
In the third place there is nothing totally, or systemically warped in a country which can be put right by restoring a basic political equilibrium, as can Sri Lanka, by a simple substitution of the current leadership of the opposition, which resonates more with mainstream opinion. There is nothing more irrational in this country today than the non-replacement of an individual who has caused the meltdown of the UNPs earlier irreducible mass base to the point that the Opposition is in electoral and social free-fall, and looks like a tribe facing (peaceful) extinction.
[Editors note: This is a response by Dr. Jayatilleka, at the invitation of Groundviews, to an article by Basil Fernando that was published on Sri Lanka Guardian, titled Sri Lanka, the Gulag Island (2) Zero Status of Citizens- Dayans problem. Mr. Fernando calls Sri Lanka a Gulag Island based on Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s, The Gulag Archipelago and notes that in this work, “Millions of Russian citizens were turned into zeros just by somebody knocking on their doors or telling them that they were under arrest. The citizens began to expect such a call at any time”.]
(A reply to the response will be published shortly.)
