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| Sunday, 29 December 2002 |
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Beyond the new class Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake While in the parliamentary opposition during the 1970-77 period J. R. Jayewardene relished taunting the renegade LSSP and CP Cabinet Ministers with Milovan Djila's thesis of 'The New Class'. Djilas, a Yugoslavian Marxist who had broken with Tito, expounded the idea that far from establishing socialism what Soviet Russia and its satellite states had created was a new bureaucracy which was living off the fat of the 1 and at the expense of the vast mass of the people who remained as impoverished as ever. The thesis of 'The New Class' had a peculiar attraction at a time when the socialist paradise had deteriorated into a regimented state where the people had to queue up for the rationed goodies of life while the new class of officialdom was able to gallivant in their swanky cars and shop at state stores which were for their use only and where every kind of luxury good found in the decadent west but which was denied the average peasant and worker of the socialist state was available. populists Since Mr. Jayewardene delivered himself of his indictment of the Old Left Leadership for installing by implication a new class under their aegis an altogether new class appears to have emerged in Sri Lanka during the last three decades or so not least thanks to the open market and consumerist policies which the Jayewardene regime introduced in 1977 and which incorporated Sri Lanka effectively into the international capitalist market and the world monetary system. This is in significant ways a different class from all the other classes and strata which had gone before it. It is a political class (cutting across party political affiliations) which is different from the political classes which had preceded it. Last week we saw how the previous political classes (both pre-1956 as well as post-1956) were essentially men of honour for whom politics was a branch of public service and how they were basically an ascetic set of public men and women who did not scrape the pork barrel to fill their plates. While the pre-1956 generations of politicians were mainly men of wealth who had taken to politics to enhance themselves socially the post-1956 generations though lacking in material means yet did not line their pockets as a result of their careers in the corridors of power. This new class can even be described as a kind of chameleon political tribe. It may not consist of hard-core rightists or hard-core leftists. Some of those who constitute this class may have had their first political fling with the left but this was essentially a flirtation with the left rather than a deep immersion in left politics springing out of intellectual conviction. Of rural origin this class consists of sons of peasants, small traders or artisans belonging to the rural middle or lower-middle classes. They will boast of their class origins when it suits them but watching their antics and the braggadocio of their offspring today they have clearly travelled very far from their roots. Lacking any deeply-held intellectual or political convictions they find it easy to change political labels. However whether they are on the left or the Right they are essentially populists and find themselves most at home thumping political tubs. This triumph of populism was hastened by the diffusion which occurred on the left during the late 1960's and the 1970's. The crisis caused by the LSSP joining the SLFP in a coalition in the mid-1960's, the subsequent split in the party, the rise of the JVP and the April insurrection and new political forces which emerged such as the Nava Sama Samaja Party (which itself has split today) all led to a questioning of the assumptions on which the left had been based. The JVP itself was an ambiguous political formation, an eclectic mix, combining Marxism-Leninism with undigested Maoism and Guevarism with a generous dose of Sinhala rhetoric. This period also saw the rise of such popular politicians as Vasudeva Nanayakkara who had one face turned towards Parliament and the other towards the popular masses. By contrast the JVP which then rejected Parliament and called solely for a Revolution appeared more radical but the JVP itself was constantly changing its stance even flirting with Trotskyism soon after Wijeweera was released from jail in 1977. At one time it pronounced that the destinies of Sri Lanka and India were essentially interlinked but violently branded India as an expansionist power in the aftermath of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987. new chameleon political class This diffusion created fertile ground for the growth and the flourishing of this new political class. During the immediate post-Independence period the distinction between the Left and Right had been fairly rigid but as a result of the dislocations which we have described above this distinction became blurred and it became easier for a new kind of eclecticism or a vulgar kind of synthesis of Left and Right to emerge. The collapse of ideology which took place following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the East European states and the rise of an overarching popular culture centred on the United States all contributed to the emergence of a new chameleon political class during the 1980's and 1990's. Popular culture in turn blurs the distinction between the High Culture and the rest. What originates as a rudimentary folk culture is converted by the academy into works of High Culture - fiction, poetry, art, drama and the cinema. But with the release of the masses into the political arena and the emergence of political parties and other mass movements based on populism a certain vulgarisation takes placer in this culture and a kind of mass or popular culture begins oozing through all the pores of society. This too hastens the diffusion of ideology and culture which gives rise to anew political class. bogus technocracy What then are the contours of this New Class? As we have already indicated their social or even political origin has been no bar to this new class gaining political ascendancy. The political diffusion of the last decade, the blurring of the party political distinctions of recent times, has greatly expedited this process. What is predominant today is the successful pursuit of political power by whatever means may be at hand. The bogus technocracy which prevails provides a convenient cloak for this naked pursuit of power. This new class is basically different from all the other classes which have gone before it in the recourse it finds in political violence, the underworld and security personnel for capturing and retaining power. What is more the system of Proportional Representation has also ensured that it is only persons who can command considerable resources who will be successful at an election. In the past the individual electorate was a manageable entity and a candidate did not require much money to run a campaign and win an election. But today a candidate has to command an entire district and inevitably has to fall back on sponsors in the form of business people (if he himself does not have the required resources) to win an election. This inevitably breeds patronage politics and corruption while the use of violence has become inseparable from politics. This kind of politics has been wittily described by Somaratne Balasuriya in the opening short story of his anthology 'Karattaya'. vulgar hedonism If power has been an aphrodisiac to this new class it has been a veritable shot in the arm to their progeny for whom their fathers powerful positions have become precious playthings. Lacking any roots in any kind of tradition, intellectually vacuous and reared entirely on a technological or business education these ministerial brats seem to spend their evenings exclusively at night clubs on the look-out for a fight. While their fathers might preach socialism they appear to worship at the temple of a vulgar hedonism. It is their exploits which illustrate most dramatically how far their fathers have travelled from their village origins. In the last analysis the thinking and actions of this new class can only be destructive of the political fabric for they will render politics barren of all ideas and blur the distinction between political parties. With all its weaknesses the old distinction between the Left and the Right was meaningful because it bred a contest between ideas. The only way therefore to recover the lost ground is to bring back ideas into politics again. All political parties whether of the Left or the Right should be compelled to re-examined such concepts as capitalism, socialism, liberalism, the market economy, globalisation, popular culture and other such ideological underpinnings of the contemporary intellectual and political debate. It is only by infusing contemporary politics with a fresh crop of ideas that we will be able to counteract the highly insidious influence of the New Class which seeks to show that there is little ideological distinction in politics today and seeks to project politics in terms of efficient management only. |
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