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| Sunday, 13 February 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Old postures in new masks Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake After several weeks this column returns to the tsunami-devastated scene but with a difference. If the immediate aftermath of the calamity had induced a sense of monumental loss and bewilderment even leading our notoriously fractious national political parties to call for a sinking of differences such gestures have obviously been very short-lived. It appears that not even Nature's monumental fury has been capable of making most of us come to our senses. In hindsight this was perhaps inevitable and was part of the contemporary logic. The tsunami hit us at a time of stalemate in national life and both Government and Opposition not to talk of civil society clung on to it as a much-needed life-saver to get them out of their quite different predicaments. The negotiations on the National Question had become bogged down leaving a conundrum for all the major political parties. A Budget had been introduced to which most political parties and interest groups, transfixed in their preconceived positions, did not quite know how to respond. The killing of High Court Judge Sarath Ambepitiya had already cast a pall on the landscape when the killer waves struck. It was almost like a godsend delivered on Boxing Day for everybody since they were able to strike postures of piety and re-examine their own besieged positions. Party banners Initially there was a sense of shock and helplessness, even bouts of agonising introspection. The experience after all was novel to the country and the sheer scale of the destruction and the ferocity of the assault by the sea was something which few could comprehend. But once the first sense of shock began to wane more basic instincts began asserting themselves. Political parties began mobilising themselves under their different banners for relief operations while media organisations (with the electronic media to the fore) girded their loins to be the first in the vanguard of disbursing relief. Soon the competition between the media organisations deteriorated into the familiar dog-fight. Each conglomerate wanted to be the biggest donor on the scene and viewers were inundated with scenes of lorry loads of goods setting forth to various destinations to the accompaniment of hosannas sung to the glory of the great media empires and their presiding deities. There was in truth a sense of genuine participation, a sense of belonging on the part of the volunteers who took part in the initial stage of these operations but there was also some measure of wastage of goods due to duplication and the ill-planned nature of the whole operation. Due rather to ingrained habits of thinking rather than prejudice the first relief was sent to southern Sri Lanka whereas parts of the north and the east suffered equal if not more severe devastation. Relief operation But as the days passed and the principal stars of the pantheon began to get back to their normal stride customary postures began to re-assert themselves. First there was the national trait of self-congratulation. Sri Lanka was the country to re-emerge best from the tsunami debacle. Our relief operation had been the swiftest and the best organised. These feelings of national superiority were buttressed by the avalanche of aid which poured into the country and the regular cavalcade of VIPs descending on the country. The end of the year saw the ingathering of the political parties at the Pedris Park where laudable sentiments of reconciliation were ritually paraded to the accompaniment of a song by the country's best-known vocalists and the blessings of religious dignitaries. If this was the high point of an imaginary reconciliation the ebb was also soon upon the ravaged land. Soon both from north and south familiar belligerent noises were being heard transmitted loud and clear by a media returning to its customary sensationalist role. While the LTTE began accusing the Government of discriminating against the north and the east from the south itself there came charges of mismanagement and corruption in the relief operation. By now these charges and counter charges have snowballed to such proportions that the country is back in the position of the old adversarial politics where the tooth and nail fight is played out to the last. Not only are the political parties bashing each other but also that old bogey, the NGOs, has been brought out for the ritual castration. Not only have the Government and the LTTE failed to arrive at a common mechanism for administering relief to the north and the east but the Government and the UNP have also got into the familiar political dog-fight. If it was thought that the LTTE's demand for an Internal Self-Governing Authority would be subsumed in the tsunami onslaught driving it towards a common relief arrangement with the Government such hopes have obviously proved to be illusory. On the same token political one upmanship has proved to be a greater imperative for the national political parties than any common effort to transcend the present misery. NGOs What this betokens is that Sri Lanka's difficulties are far from over. The failure of the Government and the LTTE to arrive at a common mechanism to administer relief reflects the wider failure of evolving a mechanism for the devolution of power to the north and the east which will satisfy Tamil aspirations while not hurting the susceptibilities of the more assertive sections of Sinhala opinion. That the tsunami waves have not been able to heal old wounds was demonstrated by the controversy over linking relief aid to the peace process. Here again old battle lines were redrawn with a fresh bout of NGO-bashing prompted by the remark of Dr. Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu that the Sri Lanka Government was incapable of handling the huge aid flow. Has Dr. Saravanamuttu, who is one of the more urbane pillars of civil society, been guilty of an unpatriotic act by this remark made to 'Newsweek?' Or was he merely mouthing the sentiments which come easily to the urban opinion-making elite which sees all governments as inept and all politicians as venal in comparison to the civil society which they represent? For the point is that in this era of globalisation and the multi-national corporation nation states and the governments administering them are often helpless in the face of the larger forces of international commerce. This is particularly true of Third World governments which are often one-party oligarchies. Even in multi-party democracies such as Sri Lanka the old colonial machinery inherited at Independence has been severely eroded without anything worthwhile replacing it. The result is that these governments particularly if they are run by powerful personalities are driven more and more to fall back on a small circle of urban technocrats generally considered to be loyal to the regime for their day-to-day administration. This brings us to the question which was raised in this column a few weeks ago about the nature of the administrative machinery. What should be the ideal relationship between the politician and the administrator? Is there too much political interference in the administration or should the administrators be given a degree of independence and autonomy? In that column we quoted Daniel Bell who in his book 'The Coming of Post-Industrial Society' foresaw this conflict between the populism represented by the politicians and the elitism represented by the administration as being central to and indeed the chief problem of the emerging post-industrial society. This is particularly relevant in areas such as disaster management and contingency planning to which countries such as Sri Lanka have to adapt themselves in the face of fresh developments such as the threats of tsunami and earthquakes which will increasingly order our affairs in the years to come. Although there has been much tall talk down the years under the aegis of government of various political complexions of the need for preparing and planning for natural disasters there has been a pathetic failure to evolve a national plan. Even if it is argued that the tsunami disaster was utterly unexpected it is clear that the country lacks a plan even for disasters such as floods to which it is accustomed. Political leadership Now with the massive flow of aid and the need to rebuild and rehabilitate large areas of the country the need is for technocratic skills, central planning and a massive act of engineering, both physical and social. While the necessary political leadership will have to be given to this effort the political leadership will have to act in close harmony and consonance with the technocracy in this national endeavour. Any breakdown in the relationship between these two segments can only be at the national peril. Central planning is necessary to ensure a rounded rehabilitation effort for otherwise there is the danger of the more favoured sectors such as tourism and business benefitting at the expense of the other areas equally affected by the disaster. While the tourist sector and industries involving foreign investment need to be revived the same treatment should be meted out to the fisheries sector badly hit by the December disaster and the thousands of individuals rendered helpless by the fury of the sea. This should be true both of the south as well as the north and the east, town as well as countryside. While the reconstruction of big towns such as Galle and Matara has already commenced the same treatment should be extended to the periphery as well. Otherwise an unhealthy and insidious wedge can be driven between town and countryside. For this it is necessary that all rehabilitation efforts should be led by those who are in touch with the realities of the affected areas rather than bureaucrats ensconced in urban sanctums. |
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