The Rajpal Abeynayake column:

It is dissent - not despondency

What is good about the current state of democratic dissent in Sri Lanka is the fact that there is a method in the organised dissent that is quite different from the madness without method that was the signature strategy of mischief makers sometime back, say, late last year for instance. At the moment anarchists and other desperados seem to have gone into the realisation that grease yaka antics, spreading stories about crime waves and generally creating mayhem is no substitute for organised dissident activism.

That way, the FUTA march was organised dissent at its admirable best -- and watching thousands of theme T-shirted academics, students and fellow travellers snarling traffic in Colombo for almost one full day was the best indication yet that democratic dissent is alive and kicking in the country. This writer saw Dr Vickramabahu Karunaratne, for instance, getting into a three wheeler perhaps to get to the head of the marching hordes, his face a study in dogged purposefulness.

The fact that 90% of the marchers on that day were able to wear custom-made theme T-shirts was an indication of the sophistication of the organised FUTA dissent -- it begged the question 'what were the real forces behind this march that gave it this kind of heft?'.

But that does not matter. If there were oppositionists and opportunists behind the FUTA march, that was better than them trying to create mayhem and the anarchy by creating grease yaka bogeys and other assorted mischief.

The fact therefore that the quality of democratic dissent has improved is an indication of a tacit acceptance that the system has its own inbuilt safeguards. It is true that the opposition was cowed by the enormous power of the government, of the government juggernaut which is double-barrelled -i.e: the enormous power of the presidency, coupled with the steamroller majority in Parliament.

The breakout of anarchic and subversive 'dissent' in the form of grease yaka scare stories and hyperbole about a non-existent crime wave was the first sign that the opposition was beginning to crack under the pressure of numbers i.e.: the sheer political weight of the government's majority.

But almost inexplicably, anarchic dissent petered out, and gave way to disciplined and organised protest.

This is the first indication that the system is working. It is working because all of the stakeholders including those such as the denizens in the World Bank for instance, and that quixotic quantity known as the international community realised that it is better to recognise the functioning Sri Lanka, rather than cater to the myth of the 'failed Lankan state.'

Coincidentally, it can be seen that the TNA, and perhaps even that almost mythical quantity known by the misnomer ' Tamil diaspora' have come of age. There are no more unguarded statements about separatism etc., after Mr Sambandan's now rather infamous speech where he made that memorable gaffe earlier this year about the TNA's alleged commitment to separatism.

The Diaspora so called is almost shell-shocked by the fact that enormous flexibility has been shown, post-Geneva, on the part of the Sri Lankan political establishment in taking some of the dissenting views aimed at the government in Geneva, and making them part of official state policy. Of course this is the best indication of the fact that the Sri Lankan government would have implemented the LLRC recommendations with or without the Geneva resolution that was aimed against such state policy.

In other words, what this writer is trying to put his finger on really -- at bottom -- is the fact that there is a total lull in the kind of manic dissent that was aimed at the 'system' (i.e.: Sri Lanka as a country), both from frenzied and almost unstable elements from within, and seen and unseen elements from without.

It is in one way a positive development that all the dissenters including the rather voluble/subversive variety have channelled their energies into the FUTA effort, though certainly this writer does not agree with at least a good part of the FUTA plank. But what we have here is organised dissent for some real purpose in contrast to 'dissent' with the sole aim of bringing down the government.

That kind of anarchic dissent that was seen earlier had more to do with a panic attack by an emasculated and almost moribund opposition, which feared sudden-death in the face of the enormity of the government's power.

This kind of unproductive and subversive dissent has given way to the more tempered variety due to the fact that for the most part the fear of a malign system resulting from the State juggernaut was mostly a figment of the imagination of the paranoid.

Curiously, sometimes this writer thinks in moments of almost heady reverie, that one person who is vindicated by all this is probably also the late J R Jayewardene, who certainly was not among yours truly's list of favourite people. But the fact remains that despite all its obvious flaws, what JRJ envisaged by a strong presidency which is political stability, has come to pass several years after the demise of the Constitution's creator.

Of course the institution of the presidency may be flawed -- and of course there's hardly anything that is perfect in any functioning political system either here or abroad. But at least one aspect of contemporary Sri Lanka's pressing needs is met by JRJ's vision of a strong presidency -- which is to establish the political stability that is necessary to take a country forward after years of stagnant economy due to war and social unrest.

Therefore, least of all the 'Colombian' UNP set that should be unhappy about the fact that tendencies towards anarchy and subversion have been checked to be replaced by a certain degree of organised dissent, channelled towards making improvements in specific aspects of governance and administration.

The FUTA march - T shirts and all --- is an indication that post-war Sri Lanka shows hope for a more sophisticated brand of democracy, and this is even as the NGO intellectuals keep telling us that democracy as we know it is under threat.