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| Sunday, 4 September 2005 |
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Forthcoming presidential election : The 'Youth Factor' and illusion making by Gotaimbara The youth vote will be crucial, some analysts commenting on the forthcoming presidential election point out. In a presidential election every vote is crucial, but I would not disagree with those who claim that the youth vote would be a deciding factor.
This year some 400,000 are eligible to vote for the first time in their lives. In a closely contested affair this is a large number. Perhaps this is why Ranil Wickremesinghe has tried to portray himself as the champion of the youth, hence the poster "thaarunyaye viplavaya" or "Revolution of youthfulness". He began his political career as Minister of Youth. He replaced Nissanka Wijeratne as Minister of Education under J. R. Jayewardene. That was another "youthful" portfolio. At another time, facing another election, Wickremesinghe called himself "tharuna agamethi ranil" (Ranil, the young premier). The years have gone by and Wickremesinghe is no longer young. This does not necessarily mean he cannot speak on youth, for them or be the voice of their aspirations. Any old man can do it, but only if he has a good understanding of where a young man or woman stands in this world, where the world is headed and the utopias and their approximations that swirl in the minds and hearts of young people. It is still early days in the run up to the presidential elections. Neither of the two main candidates have released their manifestos. We are still at the stage of sound bytes and chest beating. Sooner or later the details must come out and then perhaps a fuller analysis would be possible, not only about their respective plans for the youth of this country, but what their positions are on resolving the conflict in the North and East, their commitment to protecting the sovereignty of the people and the territorial integrity of the nation etc. As of now, we can only comment on track records and here Wickremesinghe is at a disadvantage. He has handled youth subjects as a cabinet minister, has been prime minister twice, presidential candidate twice and the undisputed leader of the UNP for over a decade. Mahinda Rajapakse, on the other hand, can do a Premadasa, i.e. "I was a peon, nay a labourer". The comparisons would be unfair but that's the way it goes in politics. There is nothing free and fair about it. Ranil Wickremesinghe introduced the infamous "White Paper on Education" in 1981, upon the recommendations made by committees on the subjects of General Education, Technical Education and National Apprentice Training, chaired by Bogoda Premaratne, S. Gnanalingam and H. D. Sugathapala respectively. That document gave rise to much discontent among the youth, especially those in rural areas who read it as yet another way of further skewing the already skewed education system in favour of the children of privileged parents, especially those in Colombo. The White Paper was withdrawn then, but the past 24 years has seen it being implemented surreptitiously. Over this time the drop out rates in rural schools, the rate of schools being closed down etc have risen drastically. Small wonder that the political benefits of these and other related "development" measures authored by Ranil Wickremesinghe, his colleagues and later ministers, have largely accrued to the JVP. Then came 1989, but not before 1980 (the brutal attack on the trade union movement with the July strike), 1982 (fraud-ridden presidential election and referendum), 1983 (A "Green July" that was called "Black July" and marketed to the world as the work of Sinhala Chauvinists), 1984 (the killing of undergraduates), 1985 (Private Universities Bill), and 1987 (the Indo-Lanka Accord). The turn of the decade saw what kinds of regard, respect and plans that the UNP of that time had for the youth of this country. Wickremesinghe would know because he was a senior minister by then, so senior that he inherited the premiership when Premadasa was assassinated. He was young then, of course, only a few years older than those his government butchered. Ten years later, one would expect him to have matured. At the turn of the millennium he was not talking about reforms in the education system. Instead it was bracelets, chains and chewing gum. Wickremesinghe had slipped. Badly. He demonstrated that he was not only out of touch with the youth, but lived in such a rarified atmosphere that he felt he could insult their intelligence, their youthful passion and idealism, and get away with it. He didn't. Does Wickremesinghe believe that the world of the youth consists of one-day cricket, internet pornography, casinos, massage parlours, sausages and meat balls? I am sure that there are young people for whom the universe is made up of just these things, but is this true of our youth in general? Who are today's "young"? What do they look like? What were the circumstances of their growing up? Where do they want to go? What kind of society are they aspiring to create? Does Wickremasinghe have answers to these questions? Has his frame of reference changed from that which produced the bracelet-chewing gum solution to the problems of the youth? We have no one of knowing, yet. I believe that Wickremesinghe should understand that the youth of today are no longer wide-eyed recipients of promises. They cannot be shown the free market as a glittering promise because they have seen it all. They were born after the dismal 70's of queues and ration books was done. All that is old hat to them. They are the children of the vivurtha aarthikaya. They have tasted it, digested it, absorbed what was good and evacuated what is not. They know it is not a panacea for their troubles. They know it is a non-factor because it is now a goes-without-saying thing, despite the anti-intellectualism that fuels its defense by certain quarters of the intelligentsia. Wickremesinghe should understand that something radical has happened to this society and especially its youth. He should ask himself why over half a million people, a large percentage of whom were youth, voted for the Jathika Hela Urumaya, a party that was not offering jobs, higher salaries, job security, material prosperity and other things that usually find their way into election manifestos. Perhaps today's youth are more intelligent, more vigilant and less susceptible to the marketing of utopia, than those of a generation ago. They are not fond of seeni bola. When they see a poster allegedly authored by "Tsunami Victims", claiming that they trust the "hora nokana ranil", they are intelligent enough to ask, "if these people have enough money to print and put up a poster all over the country, they can't be in bad shape". When they read "thaarunyaye viplavaya", they will ask, "what vipalavaya?" and "what kind of thaarunyaya?" The vast majority of the tharunayas who would have the guts and the desperation to do any kind of viplavaya are those who were denied the benefits of the free economy and who are offered globalised poverty and idiocy as prized gifts of the market economy. They are more red than they are green or blue. The way things are going, they are as we speak on their way not to the dustbin of history but the dan gediya of utopian agendas of self-seeking politicians. Someone should advise the Leader of the Opposition that the young boys in his inner circle of lieutenants in whom he has invested so much hope are hardly representatives of the youth of this country. Bracelets and chewing gum maybe their cup of tea, but I doubt if that's a cup of tea that will slake the thirsts of H.M. Samantha Rohana of Galgamuwa or W.G. Sumana Malkanthi of Angunakolapelessa and the million other men and women who dream of a better future, a more decent society and a more fruitful engagement with the eternal verities, the ata lo dahama, to employ a more pertinent shorthand. |
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