The Past Is Never Dead 

By Sarath de Alwis –DECEMBER 30, 2020

Sarath de Alwis

“The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” ~ William Faulkner (Requiem for a Nun) 

The government recently announced a decision to import 6,000 metric tons of Basmati rice from Pakistan under the provisions of the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement.

Responding to a question from the press, Mass Media Minister and Cabinet Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella offered his explanation.  

“Our “Paddy Farmers” were not getting a high price for their crops. The idea is to import Basmati rice for those who seek it which in turn will “reduce the competition for local rice variants. “ 

Almost immediately, a quipster on some social media which I don’t recall ( I am not savvy with the stuff and rely on my granddaughters to follow these gems)  responded: 

“Why not permit the import of more BMWs for those who seek it? It will reduce competition for Altos!” 

Said Thomas Carlyle “Teach a parrot the words ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ and you have an economist. 

It is a shame that the Minister in charge of the subject of Information missed this excellent opportunity to explain how free trade agreements help regional trade. Perhaps the import of Basmati would have helped our Betel exporters. 

The SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry has published a review of the FTA with Pakistan. 

“Pakistan’s exports to Sri Lanka grew from US$ 97 million in 2004 to US$ 355 million in 2018. Similarly, Sri Lanka’s exports to Pakistan grew from US$ 47 million in 2004 to US$ 105 million in 2018. “  

Instead of informing, the Minster peddled propaganda. In this age of fake facts, this gambit is known as ‘Spinfluence’.

It is the use of language to peddle biased idea. It is the art of interpreting events to shape perceptions. It is the voodoo that, manipulates cognition. It is the wizardry that directs behavior. 

It is called the battle for hearts and minds of the crowd and the mob. Some call it populism. Its disciplined exponents call it authentic democracy. 

But the magic works. Weak arguments become counter thrusts of immense force. All that is required is the language that can invade the mental and emotional territory. It obliterates the space between fact and fiction. 

A few days before the Parliamentary Elections in August 2020 I penned an essay – “A super majority is a bad idea”

I was way off the mark. An emphatically persuaded constituency, vast in size, strong in its determination to be on record, thought that a super majority was a damned good idea. 

This explains why this writer has ceased his once frequent explications on democracy and good governance. That grand wide eyed naivete of a just society no longer summons the passion it once commanded.   

But something happened that compelled me to write this missive. I got a new year’s gift of two books.

One is the Autobiography of Sarath Amunugama- the ‘Kandy Man.” The other is Arundathi Roy’s ‘Ministry of Utmost Happiness.’ 

As is the case with books, curiosity coerced a little browsing of both.  

The blurb on the back over informs that Arundhathi Roy lifts the veil on India’s chaotic beauty with her radical anger and warm compassion. 

My preference was to read ‘Kandy Man’ first. My hometown is nearby Matale.  Reading it is easy and restorative. After all, Yesterday is today’s nostalgia. 

His recollections of days in Trinity, set up by Anglican Missionaries to make Gentlemen out of the genteel class in the Kandyan heartland is heart warningly instructive. It reminds one of V.S. Naipaul’s autobiographical novel ‘Mimic Men’.   

Receiving both books at a time when the pandemic has reduced normal life to watching shadows in a cave was unnerving. It alerted me to abandoned and a forgotten world. 

As Faulkner says “memory believes before knowing remembers.  

This digression I hope will explain the melancholic meandering that follows. There is no greater sorrow than to recall happier times when one is miserable. And I am miserable. 

This is an anguished effort to get some weight off my chest. A few weeks ago, I read an observation made by Professor Rohan Samarajiva in a webinar on the 20th Amendment.

He spoke in Sinhala. Rendering it to English, I have followed the dictum that the ‘translator is a ‘faithful accomplice.’ 

The good professor offered a marvelous analogy in explaining the purpose of a constitution and how constitutional provisions differ from ordinary legislation.  

“A constitution of a state is different from ordinary, regular law. A constitution stipulates what is possible and what is not possible within the accustomed political process. It is analogous to the rules of a game of cricket.  Cricket rules are not determined by the winning team. Those rules are decided by either the International Cricket Council or by the Decision Review System of Umpires. “

This forthright, faultless, analogy made in Sinhala is a master stroke. Pun intended. It has the power of metaphor. It has the drive of an authentic narrative. 

It captures our present predicament. This is about civility and common decency that Sarath Amunugama recalls during his days at ‘Trinity’.  

The game of cricket must have two teams. It is played on an agreed set of ground rules. Both sides comply with the ruling of the umpire. The winning side doesn’t claim the right to frame the ground rules.  

These simple home truths constitute the fulcrum that upholds the principle of debate in a democracy. A democracy is not determined by laws. A democracy has a simple choice – to be decent or indecent. 

It all depends on the ‘demos’ who make up the democracy – we the people. 

George Orwell the intellectual of the common man who gave us the ‘Animal Farm ‘and 1984 often used the term ‘common decency’ in his essays.

Simplicity, honesty, warmth, respectability, stoicism and grit were all embodied in the catch phrase called common decency.  These attributes are no more! 

The word ‘democracy’ creates problems to elected leaders who happen to be closet autocrats. A closet autocrat still claims proprietary rights over the cadaver of the party that was formed by the natives to claim independence. Not that it matters.   

 A country calls itself a democracy when it needs to show a veneer of respectability. Often it is used as praise of a country. All types of regimes can and do claim title to democracy.

 But when the term democracy needs to be tied down to any one solid meaning, the theatre stops. Puppetry begins. 

Let us not take refuge in humbug. These common decencies were not observed by the drafters of the 19th amendment. We must not allow history to perpetuate distortions.

One of the architects of the 19th Amendment told this writer some time ago why Justice Mark Fernando then the most senior judge in the apex court was bypassed. The 1994 reformers who promised to abolish the executive presidency discovered that JRJ’s market economy can be humanized. 

They did not want a doctrinaire jurist at the helm to hamper their proposed constitutional reforms.  

We must learn to live with the 20th Amendment.  

The committee stage debate on the 2021 budget revealed something that Plato discovered in his famous tract – The Republic written in 380 BC. 

Plato describes the democratic man.  

‘The ‘Democratic process would replace moderation with grand slander and abuse. Insolence would be substituted for good breeding. Self-gratification would be regarded as magnificent.’

No autocrat can succeed alone. It can be done only with the acquiescence of ‘we the people.’ 

The moral psychology of the state cannot be far from the moral psychology of the citizenry.  

It is our desire for freedom that creates the space for genuine democracy. When we abandon that desire, we slide to tyranny.

We do not know, for certain what happened with sovereign bonds before 2015. But we do know what happened with sovereign bonds in January 2015. 

A multitude of interests unleashed in haste, under the guise of a reform agenda unleashed a skirmish that snowballed into a washout that couldn’t be contained. The 20th Amendment was inevitable. 

The people or most of them were convinced that only a strong leadership could unite the plethora of passions. 

It is the authentic process. This  genuine product is called  populism. 

Stanford University Political Science Professor Josiah Ober explains Plato’s reading of populist tyranny in lucid contemporary terms. 

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