Aragalaya 2.0: What of it?

 

 

By Uditha Devapriya-2022/07/10

“If I see one of those activists – for gay rights or for minority rights – come into the protests on Saturday, I’ll chase them out.” – A protester

What was President Rajapaksa thinking? At a time when people are queuing for fuel for miles and are dying at queues, at a time when vast swathes of his own electorate are calling for his resignation, at a time when the aragalaya is being revived, he decided to come to parliament. It was a calculated move, but one which backfired immediately: for the first time in the country’s history, Opposition MPs stood up and shouted at him to go home. In parliament too, Mr Rajapaksa has become our most reviled public official.

Optics matter. The press photographed Mr Rajapaksa chatting convivially with his Prime Minister. At the same time people were languishing under the hot June sun, waiting for days on end to pump some petrol into their vehicles. Elsewhere, at a passport queue, a woman went into labour. All unprecedented. Meanwhile, the President and the Prime Minister went on laughing with each other, oblivious to the pain and the misery. Such contrasts are hardly in the government’s favour. They can only aggravate the resistance.

At the time of writing this article, people are gearing up for Aragalaya 2.0. On July 9, from almost every corner of the country, they will be walking, cycling, taking the bus, doing what they can, to contribute to what they see as the resistance. The lack of fuel has not deterred and will not deter these people from marching to Galle Face. What happens to the protest movement after that is anybody’s guess. My favourite take is from Tisaranee Gunasekara in the DailyFT: whatever transpires on July 9, the political gridlock will continue.

The gridlock is not entirely the government’s fault. From a strategic perspective, this regime’s biggest asset has been the lack of a consensus within the Opposition. While a number of “sarvapakshika” or independent initiatives have brought together Opposition parties like the SJB and ex-government parties like the SLFP, these have not, in my opinion, borne enough fruit. On the other hand, the government has been able to get away with a number of misdeeds and misdemeanours. Prime among them, of course, has been the fuel shortage, which will continue for at least another two weeks.

The aragalaya itself appears to be heavily divided between those who welcome political formations and those who want to go beyond such formations. Wasantha Mudalige, the convenor of the Inter University Students’ Federation, toes the latter line. Charismatic and deeply inspiring, he has not been able to transcend the limits of his extra-parliamentarism. Dayan Jayatilleka’s critique of this attitude is arguably the most lucid: without engaging with MPs and political parties, the aragalaya runs the risk of eventual collapse.

I have noted before, in this newspaper, that from day one the #GotaGoHome movement embedded within itself two fatal contradictions. The first was the rift between its avowedly non-political credentials and its deeply political thrust. The recently unveiled manifesto, which includes such priorities as constitutional reforms and the immediate provision of fuel, gas, and medicine to the masses, is as political as it gets. Yet the aragalaya appears to have adopted a holier-than-thou attitude, to the very idea of politics.

The second contradiction was more fatal. In her take on the protests, Tisaranee Gunasekara highlights the dangers of letting elements that lent their support to the present regime, including political Buddhist monks, into the aragalaya. She also indicts those who, while critical of the government, fantasise about the military taking sides with protesters and toppling the status quo. In other words, she contends that it would be dangerous, if not counterproductive, to rely on institutions and individuals that once supported Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but are now distancing themselves from his government.

History provides important lessons in this regard. In an attempt to woo over sections of the military, then firmly identified with one of the most authoritarian regimes in Latin America, the Tupamaros drafted a letter offering an alliance in 1970. “We are not enemies,” the letter ran: “How could we be enemies?” Not surprisingly, it failed to convince the military to turn to them. Two years later, the Tupamaros were finished, killed by the bullet.

I would hasten to add, of course, that no protest can limit itself to purist elements. On the other hand, Gunasekara does have a point. That point was reinforced by MP Sumanthiran on Twitter recently: if the reason for the protests in the south of the country are gas and fuel shortages, what will happen when those shortages go away? If the momentum of the protests has been determined by the availability of essentials, can we expect the same level of commitment from protesters once those essentials return?

These are, to be sure, moral niceties. They may even seem irrelevant to discussions about the protests. But at one level, they are valid. Lakshman Gunasekara’s point is significant here: the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist middle-classes, concentrated in and around Colombo suburbs, which hedged their bets on Gotabaya, have now lost faith in the man they once saw as their saviour. Yet they are opposing him not because of his governance, but because of his failure to provide them with the most basic amenities at a time of crisis.

I think it’s important to maintain this distinction. The leaders of the aragalaya – if they can be called leaders at all – have tried to incorporate an ideological line into the protests. But for the many men, women, and children marching to Galle Face on Saturday, the protests seem to be the only way of venting their frustrations at an administration that has failed in its most basic functions. This is why not a few protesters see the intrusion of gay rights and minority rights activists as a distraction: because for them, the objective is Mr Rajapaksa’s resignation, and other priorities like “getting our stolen money back.” For a vast multitude, other aims, however progressive they may be, will at best be peripheral.

The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist based in Sri Lanka who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com