cat’S eye

Oh what a web is woven by vaulting ambition and unbridled undercurrents!

A couple of slogans from the past keep going through Menika’s head as she listens to news on TV; discusses matters with others; and has her mind preoccupied with the elections and whether the previous president of this country will contest like any ordinary citizen.

When you read about her thoughts, fears and hopes, on Sunday morning, you will know how the all important matter of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s contesting the next election has been solved, resolved and decided upon. But as of this Thursday morning, as Menika sits at her computer, she can only think of the elections to be held in August and the questions that swirl around. Crucial, all important, ultimately decisive.

The sayings that chase each other in Menika’s muddled, but not befuddled, mind are: “Will he, won’t he”; “Who is he? What is he doing? What has he become?”

The first saying applies to both the President and the Ex. The papers said tentatively, and Susil Premajayantha most definitely that Mahinda Rajapaksa was to be given nomination by Maithripala Sirisena, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. But this President, showing coming colours of becoming the statesman Sri Lanka cries for has not, up to Thursday, July 9, said a definite yes, he can contest; adding from which party – the SLFP or the coalition UPFA.

He, the President, has been silent on this matter. While many have already decided he betrayed the six-point-something-million Sri Lankans who voted for him, this feline Menika, with millions more compatriots asserting as she does, says he has not betrayed us; he has not let down his followers and the country.

His is a most difficult and unenviable position. He will give the correct answer though the circumstances are dire. We fully recognise what a fix, (to use common parlance), Mahinda Rajapakse has placed him with his ambition to enter Parliament, though we believe his desire to be Prime Minister is dashed. Jolly good! Serves him right!

What is he doing?

The second series of questions that have been streaming through this feline’s mind of course applies squarely to Mahinda Rajapaksa and the question “What is he doing?” has been asked by many, even in newspapers. Who is he now? The ex-president or a mere citizen of this country having hopes of entering Parliament? What party does he belong to?

The specific SLFP or being unwelcome there, is he hoisting himself on the shoulders of some members of the UPFA to that coalition? Well, that is his choice. We ordinary citizens of this country have no right to censure him on these counts. But we definitely do not like his making a temple a political headquarters. It is bad enough having monks like those in the BBS but to have a temple being identified as his headquarters and political pronouncements emanating from the Abhayarama Temple is just not acceptable.

What is he doing? The answer is obvious. He is trying to enter Parliament and become the Prime Minister who now, after 19 A, has much much more power. No longer the peon that Premadasa said he was to JR’s all powerful executive presidency. And why this terrible desire, doing almost the unthinkable to get a Parliamentary seat? He says, and his acolytes echo him, that it is to serve the country and its people.

The people shout out he should retire and stay retired eschewing politics and once and for all giving up power. Because people suspect he wants to return to power to do some sweeping under the carpet.

If this Island of ours can talk she too will tell him gently: “My son, you enjoyed unlimited power for ten years, ever increasing. So now rest and relax and don’t upset me and turn the situation from becoming peaceful, drug free, and ethnically amenable to strife tearing me to pieces.

“You say you love those who live on me and are loyal to me. Show it by retiring. And let’s take away shouting and rabble rousing and being corrupt from those close followers of yours. They are causing me a lot of worry wondering what they will do next.” So spake Mother Lanka.

What has he become?This is my last question, he being the ex Prez. Very sad to say after leading the country to defeat Prabhakaran, aided by his brother Gotabhaya and General Sarath Fonseka who led the men who gave of life and limb to the country, he developed a rage against his army commander and had him imprisoned and all that and then went on to getting more power hungry.

What happened to Macbeth in Shakespeare’s great tragedy will happen to him where “vaulting ambition, which o’er leaps itself, falls on the other”. We will see him land on his face if not his bottom since too much ambition leads to downfall as hubris leads to shame.

Pride goeth before a fall and pride mixed with unreasonable ambition is deadly. Sycophants boost him up; if he fails they just leave him to lie there.

People drew Menika’s attention to an article by political commentator D. B. S. Jeyaraj who usually is in the know and writes sensibly, not on surmising but on truth. He wrote MR is being given permission to contest the upcoming Parliamentary elections with severe conditions placed before him. OK. He will agree to the conditions.

Will he adhere to them? I suppose MS is no fool. He is proving himself to be very wise and sensible and almost all knowing. I suppose we just have to wait and see. As I mentioned before, you and Menika and all the rest of Sri Lanka will know whether Mahinda Rajapaksa is contesting the August elections; from which party; from where and with or without conditions styming his style. The now sphinx-like Maithripala Sirisena would have spoken in the next two days. So we have to move on from there with sighs of relief or worries renewed to watch what transpires.

If MR contests with prime ministerial ambitions still intact, the opposition forces should all gather together and present one adversary against him. Let the people decide is what this cat meows, as they all say.

Menika