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| Sunday, 22 December 2002 |
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The need for values Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake The much-publicised incident at the Colombo Hilton between the son of a politician and a popular singer again takes us back to a familiar theme which we have pursued in these columns for several weeks, namely the decay of manners and mores in society. This clash between popular politics and popular culture (if we can so term it) opens up other possibilities for our analysis. Is there something intrinsically wrong with certain segments of our political class that they and their newly-aggrandised offspring should resort to violence at the drop of a hat? Of course politicians of an earlier generation too resorted to fisticuffs but that was to make a political or moral point. Sir John Kotalawela for example (surely our most venerable brown sahib) was in the habit of taking on Englishmen who used to cast colourful remarks about his being a black man who dared to be their equal. Similarly the volatile Philip Gunawardena and Sir John are said to have engaged in a famous encounter in the tea room of the State Council. mass media But these were incidents talked of in polite society and forgotten the next day in those spacious times. There was no mass media to blare it forth to the nation. And anyway all these people belonged to a class and a culture which taught them to be gentlemen and forget old grudges. How then did the present decay originate? It is easy to point a finger at 1956, that in many ways fateful year, and say that it was Bandaranaike who started the whole rot. After all was it not in 1956 that the people invaded Parliament and even sat on the Speaker's chair proclaiming that this was their Government, the 'Apey Anduwa?' But the problem is not that simple. Bandaranaike brought into that Parliament men of humble origin but they became acclimatised to the gentlemen's club which Parliament is and although they spoke Sinhala and sported the national dress were able to adjust themselves to their new milieu. What is more this was still a spacious and essentially non-ostentatious time. Most of the MPs did not possess cars, travelled on warrants on trains and used to hop a bus to take them to 'Sravasthi,' the MPs hostel from the Fort railway station. They were basically ascetic men who saw politics as a form of social service and who had largely risen from the ranks as members of Village Councils or Town Councils and then made it to the holy of holies. Hence they had a certain regard for the niceties of the quaint parliamentary culture even if they had never really initiated into its inner rituals. Names which come to mind of this tribe are persons such as the two Tennekoon poets, T. B. representing Dambulla and P. M. K. representing Mihintale and another T.B., T. B. Ilangaratne who rose to the highest office even acting for the Prime Minister. These men made no money. On his death P. M. K. Tennakoon lived in a humble hut while a left-wing journalist visiting Ilangaratne in his retirement was surprised at the frugality of the lunch which he so generously asked to share with him. Political power with money So the problem does not lie in the infiltration of a new generation of Sinhala-speaking natives who might have chewed betel into the portals of Parliament. Rather the problem lay elsewhere. This was the confluence of political power with the power of money which with its combination of the infinite degrees of seduction and corruption to which the average politician is today exposed has led to the present malaise. Again it is easy to point one's finger at another equally fateful year 1977, and say that the rot started then with J. R. Jayewardene. But if we recognise (as most thinkers of all shades seem to have) that the Jayewardene Government was led by the compulsions of the global economy of the times the question is why politicians still could not retain the orderly behaviour of an earlier time even as they had to adjust to a new consumerist milieu. Of course they had their compulsions - the offer of commissions, the patronage of the mudalalis, the need for protection by underworld elements in the face of the threat of political assassinations. Combined with this was the politicisation of all avenues of society and the rise of a Leviathan State under which the average man became a midget. Politicians of all hues assumed in inverse proportion to their capacity a sense of their own invulnerability. Hence the braggadocio of the present political class and of their offspring who have known no different scale of values than merely throwing their weight around. pitfalls of social change Invariably this malaise has spread to other elements of society as well. The installation of a popular culture through today's all-pervasive madia has led to the canonization of a new class of popular heroes and heroines deriving from the ephemeral mass culture of our times. So singers and cinema stars, cricketers and television presenters all equally become celebrities. There is no scale of values or sense of discrimination. While the more worthwhile of these people do not lose their heads the bulk of them tend to do it and this too contributes to the malaise. Are these then the pitfalls of social change, the democratisation of society, the spread of popular culture, the rise of new social segments to the centre stage of society? While certainly these are all contributory factors to what we have earlier termed a sad lumpenisation of the ruling classes the most cogent question which emerges from this unhappy dilemma is this. While the old order has necessarily to change giving place to the new and while new classes and cultures have necessarily to rise how best should they retain the orderliness and sense of decorum of the old order which forms intrinsic part of the way of life on any society? This is not a call for conservatism for change there has to be, whether for the good or the ill, but are we faced with the peril of losing our most lasting values? |
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