{"id":41998,"date":"2015-03-04T10:44:07","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T17:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=41998"},"modified":"2015-03-04T10:44:07","modified_gmt":"2015-03-04T17:44:07","slug":"kafkaesque-politics-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/03\/04\/kafkaesque-politics-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Kafkaesque Politics in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>R Chandrasoma<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Let us begin with a story of Bees and Wasps. A flourishing colony of Bees is sometimes \u2018captured\u2019 by an invasive group from another colony. The events are roughly as follows \u2013 the Queen of the invaded colony is killed and replaced by a Virgin fancied by the aliens.<\/p>\n<p>Next the \u2018battle force\u2019 of the invaded colony is made compliant by certain \u2018ectohormones\u2019 released by the invaders. The invaders take charge of the colony and henceforth direct its affairs in consonance with their aims and wishes.<\/p>\n<p>This brief history history serves as a model for the unfolding Kafkaesqe politics in Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Nobody was killed, of course, but the Triumphant Leader of a flourishing land found himself suddenly outcast and condemned.<\/p>\n<p>The \u2018invaders\u2019 had a choice based not on political principles but on expediency and compliance \u2013 as to who replaced the former Boss, A \u2018Hamlet\u2019 was found and anointed leader amidst the hallelujahs of a partisan crowd.<\/p>\n<p>The astonishing aspect of this strange \u2018chapter\u2019 in politics is the ease with which it was done \u2013 the overthrow of an esteemed leader and the cowing of his once-stalwart colleagues in Parliament.<\/p>\n<p>The received story is that \u2018corruption\u2019 destroyed the man and his following.<\/p>\n<p>There is a paradox here \u2013 the so-called corrupt leader was removed by maneuverings that reeked of intrigue and corruption. <strong>We must add the weight historical evidence \u2013 that honest political leaders rarely survive while abuse and corruption are\u00a0 the \u00a0more secure foot-holds in climbing Mount Politics.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>R Chandrasoma Let us begin with a story of Bees and Wasps. A flourishing colony of Bees is sometimes \u2018captured\u2019 by an invasive group from another colony. The events are roughly as follows \u2013 the Queen of the invaded colony is killed and replaced by a Virgin fancied by the aliens. Next the \u2018battle force\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-r-chandrasoma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41998\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}