Pragmatism at 70

When party leader, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, told his party colleagues last week that the United National Party must build a new leadership for the future, he was reflecting a long-standing trait of the 'Grand Old Party' of Sri Lanka: pragmatism. In contrast, many of the UNP's rival political parties are known for powerful ideals that have, sometimes, clouded the strategic thinking of those parties, leading them away from the immediate, practical goals of capturing power and governing.

The principal rival, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, for example, has sometimes been unable to resist the ephemeral glamour of popular nationalism, straying into ethno-centrism, even supremacism, in its effort to present the purest version of that nationalism. Many Left political parties have clung blindly to political-economic doctrine at the expense of practical approaches to the challenges of under-development and post-colonial recovery. Other parties have pursued the glamour of political office by means of opportunistic political manoeuvres, failing to evolve policy platforms that meet actual development challenges and societal needs.

The UNP, however, has not had to perform merely to please an adopted narrow social base in terms of either a specific socio-economic class interest or of ethnic or religious community interest. Unlike some other parties that adopted specific constituencies as their key vote banks, the Grand Old Party, true to its multi-constituency origins, continues to rely on a broad mix of social classes, ethnic communities, castes and other demographics for its vote base. Also, true to the class origins of the prime movers in the colonial freedom movement, the UNP, whose leaders were among those prime movers, has tended to be closer to the interests of the country's capitalist class - the class that took over the reins of nation-building handed to them by the departing colonial rulers. This was less a calculated choice and more the logic of political circumstances within which history-makers must act.

It is perhaps this very modern goal orientation that enabled the UNP, which celebrated its seventieth founding anniversary at its Convention in Colombo yesterday, to consistently engage with the nation at its broadest common interest level - the economy, and basic social needs, irrespective of ethnic, religious or cultural specifics. Hence, it was the UNP which led the way in both building the post-colonial social welfare State and also firmly setting the national economy on a market footing so that the fledgling nation could better engage with the larger world rather than languish in a back alley.

Throughout decades of governing the country, the UNP has been able to triumph electorally without leaning too much on coalitions precisely due to its inclusive conglomerate of social constituencies. At the same time, UNP regimes in the past have also resisted the temptations of dogmatism. Even though the 'open economy' was its key policy plank, neo-liberal economics was not allowed to displace the other major policy pillar of social welfare.

President Premadasa, even while vigorously taking forward the export-led market economic policy, created a State-led, targeted, social safety net programme that addressed the needs of the poorest classes. This was done despite budget-pruning commitments made to the IMF/World Bank. Hopefully this pragmatism will keep doctrine at bay in the future as well.

True to this pragmatism, party leader Wickremesinghe is categorical in his prescription for the future - the grooming of new party leaders based on merit. In this, the UNP is in contrast to its chief rival which cannot yet escape some neo-feudal elements inherent in its resort to ethnic nationalism: loyalties to clan and family as criteria for leadership succession.

The citizenry, then, will wish the GOP well for its future and will look with expectation of more creativity from this party that has made innovation its best practice.

That 'G' word

An ad-lib remark by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his speech in Colombo during his recent visit has stirred a hornets' nest. Nationalist sentiments - of a certain kind - seem to have been hurt by the UN Secretary General's somewhat carelessly casual comparison of Sri Lanka's civil war experience with that of some other countries in which certain types of social violence are being described as examples of 'genocide'.

The recent tactic by pro-LTTE groups to equate inevitably high civilian casualties in a fierce war with 'genocide' is spurious, given that the concept of 'genocide' is formally defined with a much broader meaning than simply the mass killing of people. 'Genocide', after all, means the elimination of a 'genus' - that is, a type or identity.

In response to actual world events, 'genocide' has been enshrined in international law as a crime that seeks the elimination of a whole identity of a community and not just the physical elimination of members of a community. Physical elimination of members of a community may be considered as 'genocidal' only if it is seen or acknowledged as being an action that is part of a project to eliminate that community as an identity. In the light of this internationally accepted legal definition of 'genocide', it would be wise for those who are trashing Mr. Moon's offhand remark, to avoid a complete state of denial in the light of this country's history of ethnic conflict. Who can deny that significant elements of a community, such as language, religion, and settled territory, have been systematically denied or belittled?

True, ultra-nationalist ideologues may bring forward arguments to question the 'right' of these aspects of that community to receive recognition or equal treatment. In the light of international law, such arguments risk classification as genocidal ideology. When the LTTE identified the Muslims of Jaffna as 'enemy' and chased them out, this 'ethnic cleansing' too may be similarly classified. More significant to us, Sri Lankans, is the Secretary General's appreciation of the 'self-scrutiny' that is now under way, thanks to the policies of the current National Unity government. We should take pride in Mr. Moon's recognition of the practice of 'paccavekkhna' as taught by the Buddha.