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| Sunday, 23 May 2004 |
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Politics and the land of one's birth Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake How does one pick on a topic in a week so rich in material from philandering to the ridiculous? Both print and TV media play a leery role in politics. A political party is shaken not by a crisis in politics but by an alleged romantic affair of its leader. A Buddhist monk MP, a renegade of the JHU, is reported to have been abducted. While police inquiries are on, the monk arrives in parliament and hands in his resignation from his seat, and it is accepted by the Speaker. The monk later denies he was abducted, something he could have done earlier very easily by contacting the police and saying where he was. Parliament is again in commotion. An SLMC member on the UNP's National List crosses over to the Government benches. The Speaker impugns an entire speech made by the JVP's Wimal Weerawansa, and speaking on TV the Speaker shows concern for the cholesterol levels of MPs and says he is contemplating having Green Tea and "Kola Kenda" on the menu in parliament. I was ruminating on all this when Yovun Deshapala, who has definite plans for a political future only if this electoral system remains, asked me what was so important about the land of one's birth, in politics. "What made you think of that?" I asked, with genuine surprise. "Well, in case you don't know, I follow foreign news too. Why all this fuss in India about Sonia Gandhi not being born there?" "Why are you worried about that, when you can prove you are born here both by your birth certificate and intended political behaviour of taking the people for a ride on promises and then cheating them?" "Forget my political intentions, what I want to know why anyone cannot give leadership to a country unless one is born there?" "Well if you must know, the best explanation I can give is to say that such a person 'is not to the politics born' ". "But the people chose her to lead, so what's in her birth?" "Don't forget that in South Asian democracies it is not what the people choose, that they get. Even if most people want her to lead, there are other people who don't, and it is they who claim to have their feet on the earth with strong feelings against those born abroad." "I don't understand all this," he said with a feeling of despair. "Just take a look at our own situation. Can anyone who is not born here give leadership to our style of politics, or what we have been practising for more than fifty years?" "Why not, what's so special, our politics has been one of fooling the people. Any foreigner can do that, even better. What's the big deal?" "Aha, there you are. You think it is easy for a foreigner. Nonsense, they must have a proper understanding of our political culture. They must be able to grasp that special culture of corruption; the standards of political chicanery. Just look at the past two years, although what I say is not confined to that period. Could any foreign born politician have been able to ignore the people to such an extent and only keep telling them of how the Colombo Stock Exchange was faring? Not even Berlusconi in Italy with all his media empire could have done all that. "You are giving me a lot of hope about my future," Yovun Deshapala said, ordering another foreign beer for himself. "No doubt it must be encouraging to you. Do you think anyone who is foreign born can establish the connections that home born politicians have gradually built up with the local underworld? Can someone who is not born right here understand how a person rejected by the people at the polls can yet enter parliament as a member? This is all homespun politics that is beyond the scope of anyone not born here." "I'll explain a few things more. Do you think a foreign born person can know all the intricacies of running down a state institution, so that it could be sold to some cronies at what amounts to a garage sale price, or even sell state organizations to a foreign consortium that seeks funding for it from a local state owned bank? All this needs what is known as the native cunning in politics, it is not in the genes or the DNA of a foreign born politician". "That makes it more interesting. What you say is that one must stress on one's connections to the grass roots," Yovun said with some delight. "Of course I am well aware that people who talk most of their grass roots connections always tend to trample the grass. But do you think that anyone who was not locally born could have helped create so much doubts and mistrust among our communities that we have come to the stage when foreigners are offering us millions in funds to help solve our own problems. One must have that special local knack for divisive politics, of opposing everything the government does, preventing any government from implementing genuine policies to solve the ethnic crisis our home born politicians have created for us, and also opposing any constitutional changes aimed at overhauling the political structure of this country for the better." "You make local born politicians seem real awful people". "I can't help it if they are, or at least most of them. Can you think of a foreign born political leader having the patience or be so cussed as to relax in one's seat in the legislature when the draft for a new constitution is torn up and even burnt inside all round him? That requires a special native opportunism that cannot come from foreign birth." "Come on, now on which side are you the foreign born or the local born. You sound more in favour of the foreign born?" said a puzzled Yovun. "You're getting me all wrong. I'm all for the local born. That's because I know that it is only the local born who can ultimately get us out of all this mess that the local born have brought us to so far. We have to get back to our native values and wisdom to get out of this continuing crisis we are in." "Isn't this exactly what the Jathika Hela Urumaya offers as a solution to all our ills?" "It looks as if they will have to solve their own problems and possibly even get the advice of a respected foreign Buddhist monk about the role of the Sangha in politics, as they turned a deaf ear to the pleas and advice of many a senior and respected Sri Lankan Buddhist monk. Buddhism is something that one lives, not just a life-style and certainly not what one mouths. I think the people will help them solve their problems with the native wisdom I spoke of, and that can't take very long." "What about the foreign educated?" asked Yovun, with great curiosity. "Why what makes you ask that. You were not educated abroad, were you?" "No, no. I just managed to walk out of the gates of my local school without being thrown out. But I am curious". "Are you thinking of India again?" "Well it has been reported that the new Prime Minister there has a doctorate from Oxford. Do you think those who opposed Sonia's foreign birth may also object to Manmohan Singh's foreign doctorate?" "Who knows, anything is possible in a volatile situation, when those who were defeated lick their wounds and instead of healing them and try to wound and hurt those who won, instead of helping them govern. Although Nehru and his daughter Indira both benefited from foreign education, there could very well be voices of the defeated opposing a person with an Oxford doctorate being the Prime Minister of a party, still led by the foreign born Sonia. But in our own instance, we have recently seen some disadvantages in being seeped more in foreign education than in the local." "What do you mean?" "Just a simple question, did Milinda Moragoda have any real solutions to his ministerial subject of Science and Technology? What made him say we must follow the lead of the US of A and George W Bush to boot?" "There you are, you come back to my first question. Isn't George W Bush a born American, because one must be born in the USA to be its president? If it's good for the USA why should that rule not be good for other democracies too, with Bush trying so hard to spread democracy all over?" "The problem is to identify the real reason for the mess that George W Bush has brought the USA to. Is it his American birth or some weakness of his own? I think it is the latter and the people of the USA will decide on that quite soon. But he does stand out as the exception to the belief that a nation is best served and led by a person born to it and not one who acquired that nationality later. Sonia Gandhi certainly has something to think about, and feel pleased." Yovun ordered another foreign beer and I had my own local spirits of coconut. |
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