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| Sunday, 16 October 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Point of View: Ranil 'creates' history by S. Francis Perera In James Barrie's play 'Peter Pan', the boy Peter refuses to grow old. Ranil Wickremesinghe portrays a different tendency - with him it is an inability to attain political maturity. It may be this drawback, is congenital. He opens his mouth only to utter indiscreet remarks or howlers. Instead of enlightening the voters he provides them with cause for mirth. Obviously his knowledge of the history, culture and literature of Sri Lanka - as with most other politicians - is meagre. It is, however not a matter for surprise. the nature of his work and a busy schedule does not leave him with the leisure to acquire culture. Political leaders not acquainted with books or intellectual disciplines such as economics, political science and literature are in the habit of seeking the assistance of experts. The latter supply the politicians with data with which to garnish their speeches, so as to hold the attention of an audience at rallies. A good example of such a leader is the late R. Premadasa. He consulted experts and under their guidance wrote out his speeches. It is said that he was up at three in the morning to commit facts and figures to memory. No wonder he is said to have swayed his audiences - to have held his audiences spellbound. On the other hand the ones that Ranil consults are pseudo-pundits; they make him cut a sorry figure in public. Let us for a moment consider Ranil's performance. Speaking at a political rally at Agalawatte, Ranil has promised to usher in a second Perakum age. Parakramabahu, he went on to say, filled hollow land and planted cinnamon! That both the pupil and the ghost-instructor are both ignorant of Sri Lankan history is the conclusion to be arrived at. Here is a classic instance of the blind leading the blind. Well and good had he stopped at that point in the exercise of flaunting his ignorance. Instead he now proceeded to give a faulty exposition of the emology of the name given to the ancient territorial division: Pasdun Korale. It is a dry and drab world we live in. Now and again people do need fun and amusement to while away the tedious hours! The Romans were given bread and circuses by their aspirants to office, but in our land their counterparts keep the people entertained with their balderdash. No doubt the residents of that provincial town are grateful to Ranil for the diversion he has afforded them with his howlers. It needs to be stated in parenthesis that Ranil could have given the people at least a foretaste of the golden age (Parakum Yugaya) when he was in office for a period of two years. Span cloth Ranil now seems to have conveniently forgotten his grandiose promise to present wristwatches and gold bracelets to young men. This time it is a promise to present mobile phones to coconut pluckers! It would have been more to the point had he promised to provide them with the means to buy a modest attire in place of the span cloth. Suffice it to say that Ranil's understanding of human nature if not his I.Q. is on a par with that of Marie Antoinette. The public would like to know why Ranil does not show as much concern about adorning the persons of young women as he does of young men. I will however, not cynically attribute it to misogyny on his part. Let us be charitable enough to say it is by an oversight. Politicians being all too human are prone to error. But unlike the mistakes of others those of politicians will have an adverse effect on State business. One hoped that Ranil would profit by his mistakes of the past but alas! All the proof is to the contrary. He has not outgrown them; he has not, as it were, graduated himself to political maturity. Such incorrigibility is not compatible with a progressive attitude. A politician misleads the public - may be unwittingly - and he in turn is misled by his officials. Let the fate of the late Dudley Senanayake be a warning to all gullible politicians. He was duped by executive officers and government servants of other categories down to the humblest of clerks. They kept him supplied with false statistics, false information and false news. He was made to believe that self-sufficiency in rice was round the corner, and that as in the days of Parakramabahu the country would become a granary to South East Asia. Thus was he lulled into a state of false euphoria. Came the general election of 1970 and his party was trounced. Like Shakespeare's King Lear, he lived to rue the past. Ranil's promise to usher in a second Perakum era should be as welcome as a shower of rain in a land parched by a prolonged period of drought. For the last three or four decades the nation has had to put up with a long line of mediocrities at the helm of affairs. We have had to pay a dear price for installing them in power. But the question is: Will Ranil be able to redeem his pledge? Going by his past performance one cannot help but be sceptical. Benevolent Parakramabahu on his advent to the throne found the country in shambles. Military adventurers having parcelled out the land among themselves were bidding defiance to the legitimate authority. Weak leaders who had preceded Parakramabahu paved the way for anarchy. This powerful monarch routed the unruly hordes in battle and restored stability. As had been done by Vijayabahu I, Valagambahu and Dutugamunu, he united the country under the rule of one king. Being a benevolent monarch he saw to it that his subjects were free from want. He repaired tanks that were in a state of decay and he built new tanks. Buddhism which had suffered under a succession of Hindu rulers, was given its rightful place. With the blessings and guidance of the Buddhist clergy he helped to raise the moral tone of his subjects. Under his aegis the land rose to heights of prosperity not known before or after. Historians speak of the long stretches of rice fields extending to the far horizon. Not only was the country self-sufficient in rice, the staple food, but there was also a surplus of the commodity available for export. The king was also the patron of arts and letters, and these flourished during his reign. the king's name is associated with the efflorescence of arts and learning that took place at the time. In his book 'Seeing Ceylon', R. L. Brohier says that during Parakramahabu's reign the land was a cultural oases which attracted Indian, Chinese and Arab savants. Realist Parakramabahu is innocent of the vile charge levelled at him by Ranil that he filled up wet land in Pasdun Korale and planted cinnamon. Parakramabahu was too much of a realist to indulge in such an exercise of folly. At that time cinnamon was not a commercial crop. The cinnamon growing wild was sufficient to provide for the domestic needs of the people. The Arabs held a monopoly of the trade in spices, including cinnamon. It was after the advent of the Portuguese and the Dutch that cinnamon was grown extensively to meet the requirements of the foreign market. It needs to be reiterated that before the arrival of the Europeans there was sufficient cinnamon for the domestic needs. Cinnamon grew in the wilds and there were professional peelers who went out to fetch the bark. Cinnamon plants have a way of springing up in home gardens and the good housewife tends them so as to ensure a permanent supply for the kitchen. The Dutch who ousted the Portuguese to become the overlords of the maritime provinces were the first to grow cinnamon in large plantations on a commercial basis. Cinnamon was declared a monopoly of the Dutch East India Company, and the penalty for destroying a cinnamon plant was death. Cinnamon peelers in the coastal areas were kept in semi-bondage for the duration of the harvesting season - the time when the mature bark was peeled off the trees. In the foregoing account I hope I have shed enough light on the subject to enlighten Ranil and his comrades who have been misinformed. Indignity Let us now turn to Ranil's achievements, if any. Parakramabahu stood for, and during his reign built up a united Sri Lanka. Whereas Ranil has all along encouraged the divisive forces, and entered into an unholy alliance with them to undermine the unitary nature of the Sri Lankan state. According to S. L. Gunasekera, the eminent constitutional lawyer, under Ranil's effete premiership one fourth of Sri Lanka's land surface has been ceded to the Tiger terrorists. Nowhere is it recorded that Parakramabahu countenanced those who stood for the fragmentation of the land. Instead of pandering to their greed for territory he gave them short shrift. It is Ranil's boast that he brought peace to Sri Lanka when he became a signatory to the ceasefire agreement entered into with the Tiger terrorists. The umpteen violations of the conditions of the agreement since placing their signatures to it has reduced the agreement into a scrap of paper. With the killing of opponents and politicians who have had the courage to denounce them, with incessant firing at police stations and many camps, with the covert and overt encroachment on government held territory, with the abduction of miners for their juvenile brigades, the Tiger terrorists have made a travesty of the ceasefire agreement. Ranil will go down in history as the man who subjected Sri Lanka to the indignity of signing a ceasefire agreement with a ruthless terrorist gang without first getting them to surrender their arms. His name will be forever coupled with that of Don Juan Dharmapala who like him sacrificed his honour in return for being spared the torture of living in fear for his life. The common people are the best judges of what is flaunted as a cease fire agreement. They say that the assassination of a great number of national leaders has struck fear into Ranil's heart, and reduced him to the state of a bundle of nerves. It is clear that it was in a state of morbid fear that he signed a ceasefire agreement favourable to the tiger terrorists. Poltroonery is not the stuff of which statesmen are made of. Only a quisling would have done so great a disservice to his country as has been done by Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Leader of the Opposition. A series of defeats is humiliating and may cause frustration. Repeated failure to attain one's ambition may bring about tedium vitae. Such a man is not to be entrusted with the task of guiding the destinies of a people. |
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