Aragalaya betrayed? ‘The treason of the intellectuals’ in the age of populism – Part II
The JVP/NPP conceptualisation of the ‘Jathika punarudaya’ (national renaissance) interpreted the Sri Lankan Renaissance as the aspiration to regain the moment we lost in the global modernisation project, which is believed to have emerged in the twentieth century as a result of the Western European Renaissance and Enlightenment imagination. Jathika punarudaya values modernity as the era of citizens based on a representative democratic model founded on a common social contract. It values human rights, civil rights, and political rights as the core of modernity. It values social interventions based on the values of social justice and collectivism. But is the current government acting on the basis of those renaissance beliefs that they claim to believe in?
This government came to power within the framework of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. However, the opposition alleges that the government is working to limit the right of the opposition to question the government’s actions within that framework, and within Parliament itself. The continued postponement of provincial council elections by the government has been criticized as a delay in the implementation of decentralised political power, especially in provinces inhabited by Tamils and Muslims.
The promise to abolish the executive presidency and restore a parliamentary-based political power structure continues to be postponed. This has drawn attention as a possible way to suppress trade union activities and intimidate political activists through repressive laws such as the Public Security Act and the Emergency Law, which are continuously implemented through the authoritarian use of the power of the executive presidency.
‘Honest party leadership,’ not the institutional system
The JVP, the core political party of the current government, which insists that its members are honest, claims that even if they violate certain rules and regulations in the course of governing, there is nothing wrong with it because it is not done for personal interest but for the common good. This implies that this government does not rely on rules, regulations, and a system of institutions built to last, but rather on the leaders of its own party, the JVP, whose leaders believe themselves to be honest. The system of institutions established on rules and regulations is for the rest of the people.
Attempts to subjugate institutions and public opinion to the government’s opinion
It is apparent that the government wants to implement its pre-designed agenda without any hindrance. To that end, the government is trying to subjugate all institutions and public opinion to its sole opinion. The most striking example of this approach is the government’s attempt to implement, without any genuine public discussion, neoliberal reforms formulated by previous governments regarding national education, which will have a decisive impact on the future of the country. The leadership brags that the proposed education reforms will be implemented as originally designed, regardless of any criticism or objections.
The government sets up committees at the local level claiming to represent the public, but people complain that they exclude anyone who does not conform to their way of thinking.
Freedom of expression
Civil rights activists say the current government’s continued use of the Online Safety Act, which was passed by the previous government despite public opposition, poses a serious threat to freedom of expression. Freedom of expression has been suppressed under the guise of legality. The government has made it a policy to summon and question individuals who criticise the government—even national-level politicians—at the CID. This amounts to intimidating its critics.
The government has not only broken its promises by failing to repeal the existing PTA but is also attempting to pass a new anti-terrorism law that local and international civil rights organizations have unanimously condemned as even more repressive. It has been stated that there is scope for the proposed new law to intensify the current use of anti-terrorism law as a weapon to suppress freedom of expression.
“The Arts Council has become an arts police!”
The latest instance of the government’s attempt to curb freedom of expression that has come under serious public criticism is the detention of four books by a Sri Lankan writer, Theebachelvan, who writes in Tamil, by Sri Lankan Customs when they were brought into the country from India. Later, a statement issued by the Director of Customs said that two of the novels would be released based on recommendations issued by the National Arts Council and the Literary Council, while the other two would not be released based on the recommendations of those boards and the Ministry of Defense.
The statement that “The Arts Council has become an arts police!” sums up the public protest that arose questioning the “legal and moral rights of the members of the Arts Council and the Literary Council who have received political appointments” to “measure and mark the boundaries of freedom of speech and expression at their own discretion” by giving such recommendations and assuming a power that they do not have.
Going beyond this general situation, the serious question that has been raised is: on what basis did Customs consider the views expressed in the two books by Theebachelvan that have been censored to be equivalent to the crime of ‘sedition’ under Section 120 of the Penal Code, which was cited as the reason for the detention? A related question is whether there is a connection between the allegation of sedition and the fact that the writer is a Tamil from Kilinochchi.
The irony here is the intervention of the current government’s Minister of Culture, the heads of the Arts Council under the Ministry of Culture, and its own literary sub-council in deciding this matter, along with the follow-up statements defending the government’s decision made by the same authorities, as well as by writers, artists, intellectuals, and academics who have been holding positions under the current government and those who have not.
There was strong public criticism that these individuals—who were believed to have held radical, liberal views on freedom of expression and ethnic rights before the current government came to power—have been appointed to various positions under the current government and now approve its repressive decisions in the name of ethnic reconciliation.
The following sentiments extracted from the comments made by Sumathy Sivamohan on her FB page, expressing her shock at a statement made by one of the leading Sinhala writers involved in making such statements, encapsulate the essence of the public criticism of the issue:
” I am shocked at [name of the person]’s words on the detainment of Theebachelvan’s works by Customs. … The radicalness, the liberalness, are just thin veneers of their Sinhala-only stances. …. Now, they talk of Reconciliation. Reconciliation via Repression. …. Reconciliation, my foot! …. reconciliation is in your head, I think …. [I am] outraged. But now, [I] am certain of one thing. This is the bluff and bluster of liberals. …. That [name of the person] and others think, when Sinhala people think there’s reconciliation, there’s reconciliation, smacks of very deep-rooted racism
I don’t understand the argument, ‘we have to protect this government’ sentiment, touted by many liberals, who in intimate circles voice criticism. And these are the same people who supported the LTTE too, when it suited them—their liberal Sinhala agendas. … Now, they are blubbering …. it is shocking, for it whisks the mask off the faces of these liberal faces. There is a side of Sinhala liberalism that slavishly supports sentiments pertaining to the LTTE. They are the same, they are all the same. Those radicals, those liberals, those everybody, who think because they are Sinhala they have superior knowledge of matters. Sickening.” (reproduced with permission). (To be continued)
by Kumudu Kusum Kumara
from The Island https://ift.tt/L5xAjrU
