Chasing illusions futile | Daily News

Chasing illusions futile

Encarta Dictionary defines an illusion as “a false idea, deception or belief about somebody or something”. Often the result of chasing illusions is negative. Or the desired result cannot be achieved. By the time it is realized much damage has been done. Take for instance various pyramid schemes which promise huge dividends. This is true of individuals, as well as of groups or communities. Illusion leads to despair. This may also result in chasing a different illusion.

Today people are looking for an alternative. Some are looking for a Messiah or a Prince Diyasena in the local literary parlance. Some among them even wish for a dictator or a Hitler or Prabhakaran to deliver the goods. They do not have to look far. There are already vendors in the political market selling elixirs for all popular ills just like the ubiquitous medicinal oil sellers who draw audiences at every bus stop, temple celebration, weekend fair etc.

Already several personalities have indicated their desire to contest the next Presidential election since the present Parliament seems to lack a majority that could approve a Constitutional amendment to abolish the executive presidency.

Ego-building exercises

Among them are the Rajapaksa brothers Gotabhaya, Basil and Chamal representing the former regime. The Prime Minister and the President are also in the contest. Several Cabinet Ministers have also signalled their intention to contest as evidenced from their ego-building exercises.

You cannot exclude proxy candidates that would be sponsored by powerful persons as well as candidates from outside the UNP, SLFP, and SLPP triad. There could also be attempts to repeat the 2015 scenario of a surprise common candidate. The door is still wide open.

This chasing after personalities is an illusion based on a false premise that the failures of the present and the past are due to personalities. No. However much they are maligned the failures so far, during the last 70 years is due to the nature of the economic and political set up or the system that exists to date. Personalities could only improve or worsen the situation marginally.

Neither the colonial economy which ensured the extraction of our surplus production by the imperial metropolis and perpetuated our economic and political dependence nor the post-1956 reforms could effect a radical change in the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The rich became richer and the poor became poorer and the gap between them widened with each passing regime despite the achievements and weaknesses of the leaders. The situation became worse after the introduction of the open economy and the neo-liberal economic reforms. The latter has been the credo of all governments since 1977.

Politics is said to be a concentrated form of economics. Political regimes barring those born by revolutions, of necessity follow the dominant economic relations.

Therefore, as long as the fundamental economic development policy remains neo-liberal and hence subservient to global monopoly capital by whatever nomenclature it is introduced the present disparities and shortcomings would continue and wealth and poverty would polarize at the two extremes. There is also another illusion that is widespread. That is it is the incumbent government that is the cause of all ills. The incumbent government is faithfully continuing the same old economic strategy of the former regime or regimes. Hence it alone cannot be blamed. Neither is it correct to blame the former regime alone. When it is a case of birds of the same feather how could you distinguish them? Take, for instance, Sri Lanka’s debt burden. Who is responsible? The fault is not in getting loans from foreign or local sources but in how you utilize the loans and how you pay back. Using loans, especially foreign loans for unproductive consumption or wasting them on extravagant exhibition expenditure is a crime.

The same is with the cost of living. We have witnessed ample instances of the pot calling the kettle black. It is time to see both of them black as they exist.

Our education system is in a crisis. This did not originate with the Yahapalana government.

It is there since we abandoned the Kannangara education reforms halfway and began various amateur experiments, often under World Bank tutelage.

Seventy years after independence we cannot guarantee a school with all the necessary facilities to each newborn. Pre-school education is abandoned to the mercy of mercenary elements and incompetent tutors.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

We wonder at our development. We are excited about highways, macadamized wide roads, luxury vehicles on the road and high-rises in Colombo.

We do not see the poverty and under-development behind the façade of development. We are bombarded with official statistics of GDP growth etc. but often statistics are third category lies a la Mark Twain who said that there are three types of lies- lies, damn lies and statistics.

Or else consider corruption. Did it start with the Central Bank Bond scam? What about the Vat scam, the SriLankan airline frauds, violation of tender and procurement procedures throughout several regimes, the favouritism in appointments to public offices?

These are all endemic in the system. It is the system that should go. We need new policies, policies that are people-friendly or pro-poor, policies that would guarantee an independent economic development within the global division of labour.

No authoritarian regime could guarantee such policies for they require a much wider democracy, much wider participation of people in governance.

It requires the empowerment of the people- of workers, peasants, middle and small entrepreneurs etc. It requires the defence and protection of local industrial, agrarian and commercial interests vis-a-vis their foreign counterparts.

This does not preclude productive cooperation with global capital, especially South-South cooperation.

It is time to stop the futile search for heroes or messiahs. It is time for the civil society to come forward and charter an independent path of development.

It is time that the best brains and hearts of the nation be put together to charter such a course. In such an alternative course lies our future well-being. 


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