{"id":63622,"date":"2017-02-21T16:40:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T23:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63622"},"modified":"2017-02-21T16:40:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T23:40:16","slug":"congratulations-mister-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/21\/congratulations-mister-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations Mister Prime Minister!"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was conferred an honorary doctorate by Deakin University, Australia.\u00a0He\u2019s not the first premier thus honored and he probably will not be the last.\u00a0 However, an honor it is and as such warranted media coverage.\u00a0 \u00a0 What was newsy, though, was not the event but a statement he had made that was almost missed; it was an add-on that was at once a de-conferring, so to speak, at the tail end of the report.<\/div>\n
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It was reported thus: Immediately after the convocation ceremony Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe directed Prime Minister\u2019s Secretary Saman Ekanayake to ensure that the \u2018Dr\u2019 tag is not attached to his name in official or personal matters.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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That might be called \u2018classy\u2019 if not for anything, it separates him from the many others who have received honorary doctorates.\u00a0 Some people love titles.\u00a0 Indeed titles adorn some.\u00a0 In other cases, the person adorns the title.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the Prime Minister falls into either category, but this mild and minor directive reveals character.\u00a0 Ranil is not about \u2018show\u2019 except of course when he heeds the advice of the near and dear of his inner political circles, and even then more out of trust than out of conviction.<\/div>\n
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He deserves a bit of applause, for both the honor he received and for being humble about it, not least of all because he is heads and shoulders above the vast majority who have name cards with the \u2018Doctor Tag\u2019 courtesy honors bestowed.\u00a0 Intellectually, he is clearly up there among the best of that lot. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Our Prime Minister is reputed to be a voracious reader on a wide range of subjects.\u00a0 He also does his homework before making speeches.\u00a0 The worst he can do is to extrapolate on an error, as he has done for example while making observations at the launch of a book by a loyalist, Sujith Akkarawatte, a few years ago.\u00a0 Yes, he does his homework.\u00a0 This was apparent in the speech he made at Deakin.\u00a0 He observed that Alfred Deakin, the Australian Prime Minister in whose name the university was founded had actually visited\u00a0 Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1893 to study the island\u2019s 1000 year old irrigation system. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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He may very well have taken a wiki-peek but then again that\u2019s much more than many would do.\u00a0 In any event, Wikileaks only mentions that Deakin \u2018played a major part in establishing irrigation in Australia\u2019.\u00a0 Wickremesinghe appears to have dug deeper when preparing the speech or, more likely, had already filed away the fact during the course of educating himself in general.\u00a0 That does not make him a scholar of course, but it does make him a different and even special kind of politician.<\/span><\/div>\n
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His detractors may say he was undeserving.\u00a0 That\u2019s politics.\u00a0 He is, after all, no Mervin Silva or the innumerable doctorate holders who have in word and deed brought much disgrace on all spheres of scholarship.\u00a0 They need to drop the tag, not Wickremesinghe but on the other hand it\u2019s because they cling to it that dropping it demonstrates as much wisdom as it does humility.\u00a0 Let there be no debate over this: Ranil Wickremesinghe is one of the more well-read of our parliamentarians if not the best read.\u00a0 If we consider all the prime ministers since Independence and if we were to assess doctorate-worthiness of them all, on the counts of intellect and vision (and not ideological bent or the balance sheet on delivery), only a handful are deserving.\u00a0 There\u2019s D.S. Senanayake, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, in their own way J.R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa, and there\u2019s Ranil Wickremesinghe.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Let us applaud.<\/span><\/div>\n
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It is indeed a pity, then, that Deakin University got it all wrong in the relevant citation. They were correct in recognizing his long service as a parliamentarian, minster and prime minister.\u00a0 Longevity is certainly praiseworthy, even though it is that same longevity or rather the fact that he survived while others fell to ill-health, old age, assassinations and terrorist attacks, which paved the way for him to become prime minister on multiple occasions.\u00a0 All that may have been fortuitous but let us not discount his tenaciousness and shrewd political skills.\u00a0 His tenure as the Leader of the United National Party may be described as dictatorial but that\u2019s less due to iron-fist than to subtle maneuvering, preying on the weaknesses of would-be ousters and deft footwork to dodge political bullets.\u00a0 None of this requires elaboration.\u00a0 In hindsight, one might argue that had he not done all that he has, the party could very well have disintegrated or at best continued to remain in the political wilderness.\u00a0 Whether it deserves doctoral recognition is of course another matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Deakin University cites \u2018the role he played in steering the country to a high status in the economic, education and human rights fields\u2019. \u00a0 Prof. Jane Den Hollander reading out the citation in the presence of the Chancellor of the University, Prof John Stanhope, said several factors including Prime Minister Wickremesinghe\u2019s contribution towards steering the country to a high international status, tactfulness in getting LTTE terrorists into the negotiating table, creating the groundwork for obtaining financial assistance from the international community and dedication towards setting up good governance were taken into account.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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If one were generous, one might say \u2018contentious\u2019 or if less generous, \u2018tendentious\u2019.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take the economic, educational and human rights fields separately.\u00a0 He was in charge of the economy in 2001 and is in charge of it now (for all intents and purposes).\u00a0 In 2001 he inherited an economy in its death throes.\u00a0 He was hemmed in on the one side by the chief executive, Chandrika Kumaratunga, who belonged to a rival party, and a seemingly never ending battle with terrorists.\u00a0 Kumaratunga didn\u2019t really let him carry out his \u2018Regaining Sri Lanka\u2019 program, seizing three key ministries by the end of 2003 and dissolving Parliament a few months later.\u00a0 In April 2004, the UNP was routed in the 2004 General Election.\u00a0 That was probably less about the economy than his demonstrable naivet\u00e9 regarding the LTTE.\u00a0 We\u2019ll come to that presently. The bottom line about his economic policies was (and still is) selling off national assets.\u00a0 That might tickle the fancy of the like of Hollander who might call it judicious and enlightened, but stripped of sanitizing terminology used by economic pundits with dubious agenda, it\u2019s pretty simple and simplistic thinking.\u00a0 Today, once again at the helm, his thinking hasn\u2019t changed.\u00a0 National pauperization can only be hailed by the beneficiaries, not be the pauperized.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Another thing that pretty much undressed Wickremesinghe\u2019s economic \u2018wizardry\u2019 is the downright stupidity in believing that pleasing the USA and Europe would result in those countries backing his economic program by putting money where their mouths are.\u00a0 Someone who does not know that these countries\u2019 national debts are essentially owned by China and Japan is not an economic expert.\u00a0 The \u2018Brexit Moment\u2019 saw Wickremesinghe suddenly realizing the existence of China.\u00a0 He said \u2018We\u2019ll look East\u2019.\u00a0 That\u2019s, incidentally, where the previous regime had been looking, a gaze-preference that was ridiculed by Wickremesinghe.\u00a0 The gaze-change clearly indicates a certain myopia.\u00a0 Applauding him on his economic thinking says as much about Deakin as of Wickremesinghe.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Education.\u00a0 Whether one agrees or not with the thinking, it\u2019s Wickremesinghe\u2019s vision on this subject that has prevailed.\u00a0 What we\u2019ve seen over the past 35 years is the sometimes open and sometimes subtle implementation of the White Paper on Education that he presented in the early eighties.\u00a0 Whether this alone accounts for the current crisis in education, it is hard to conclude, but certain things have to be acknowledged: a) we still don\u2019t have an occupation classification which takes into account economic realities, policies and projections, so that the education system is in line with these, b) much of the agitation and controversies that have troubled this sector comes from the absence of a national education policy, c) incompetence and corruption override all else in this sector. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Human rights.\u00a0 That\u2019s a favorite term used by those who want to rap Sri Lanka on her national knuckles, especially those who either violate human rights or look askance when their friends do so.\u00a0 Let\u2019s leave Batalanda out of it.\u00a0 Wickremesinghe was a minister during the eighties, i.e. when the most serious human rights violations took place with over 60,000 people being killed in the course of two years.\u00a0 That was a time when the government unleashed the security forces, police and vigilante groups on the population, a time marked by proxy arrests, abduction, torture and assassination and was rightly dubbed \u2018thebheeshanaya<\/i> (terror).\u2019\u00a0 He can\u2019t complicit, he was an approver and it is hard to claim that he has no blood on his hands.\u00a0 The eighties, let us not forget, was the period when the security forces had next to no discipline.\u00a0 That\u2019s when the greatest atrocities were committed against Tamils in the country.\u00a0 Let us not forget either the decisive role played by the trade union of his party in the attacks on Tamils by mobs in July 1983 nor the fact that his government deliberately reined in the law enforcing authorities during those terrible days. He was a junior minister back then, but if he is the principled man that Deakin paints him as, he could have resigned.\u00a0 He did not.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Let\u2019s now consider the more specific factors that Deakin claims contributed to the decision: contribution towards steering the country to a high international status, tactfulness in getting LTTE terrorists into the negotiating table, creating the groundwork for obtaining financial assistance from the international community and dedication towards setting up good governance.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Deakin cannot be faulted for delusion about the \u2018international community\u2019 and the relevant moral high horses that its principal movers and shakers often ride.\u00a0 We live in a world where those countries enjoying \u2018high international status\u2019 include Saudi Arabia and that such character certificates are dished out by countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK and the EU.\u00a0 Salutation is all about complying, about being an Uncle Tom, genuflection and all that kind of thing.\u00a0 That\u2019s pretty old.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Tact.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s a laugh.\u00a0 There are two broad justifications for the choices that Wickremesinghe made regarding the LTTE in early 2002.\u00a0 The first is that the economy was in such a bad situation that the Government had no choice but to come to some kind of agreement that allowed for recovery.\u00a0 The second is the view carefully orchestrated by those who were and still are soft on the LTTE and the Eelam Project that the LTTE cannot be militarily defeated.\u00a0 Neither of these \u2018reasons\u2019 go with \u2018tact\u2019.\u00a0 The truth is that the LTTE had its own problems at the time.\u00a0 The LTTE badly needed time and space to recruit, regroup and re-arm.\u00a0 Wickremesinghe\u2019s \u2018tact\u2019 allowed the LTTE to do just that and in fact more since the government facilitated the movement of equipment and arms directly or indirectly to LTTE-controlled areas and also severely compromised its security forces by betraying the intelligence units to the enemy.\u00a0 That\u2019s not tact.\u00a0That\u2019s at best stupidity; the more appropriate terms would be betrayal and treachery.<\/div>\n
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Deakin claims that Wickremesinghe had \u2018[created] the groundwork for obtaining financial assistance from the international community.\u2019\u00a0 That\u2019s difficult, now?\u00a0 All it takes is say something like \u2018whatever you say\u2019 to each and every proposal tossed with disdain at you. It\u2019s a yes-sir or yes-ma\u2019am business.\u00a0 It\u2019s about getting the script from the US State Department, for instance, and reading it out to the letter.\u00a0 Any idiot can do it.\u00a0 But what really happened?\u00a0 True, one could claim that the international community provided financial assistance, China after all is part of this \u2018international community\u2019.\u00a0 China never needs any country to do any \u2018groundwork\u2019.\u00a0 China is also about business.\u00a0 The only difference is that China has money.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the Rajapaksa regime knew. They didn\u2019t the only ground work necessary \u2014 they asked and were given (for terms that were clearly poor but still richer than what the Wickremesinghe-Sirisena dispensation have apparently got).<\/span><\/div>\n
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Finally, there\u2019s this claim about \u2018dedication towards setting up good governance.\u2019\u00a0 He gets a lot of brownie points here.\u00a0 The 19th Amendment fell short of what was promised to the people, but it did erase the negatives of the 18th Amendment.\u00a0 The Right to Information Act finally saw the light of day.\u00a0 Things took more time than promised, but that\u2019s easily forgivable.\u00a0 Things haven\u2019t changed much, but legislation alone will not dramatically change political culture.\u00a0 There is still corruption, there\u2019s still nepotism, there\u2019s still wastage and abuse of state resources.\u00a0 In any event, the brownie points, as such there are, should be shared between Wickremesinghe and Sirisena.\u00a0 Neither talks of electoral reform; this too should be thrown into the overall assessment.\u00a0 The balance sheet is nevertheless positive. On \u2018good governance\u2019 that is.<\/span><\/div>\n
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All things considered, Deakin seems to have failed to do the necessary homework and this makes us think that the honor has more to do with \u2018liking\u2019 than about what\u2019s deserved.\u00a0 Deakin University got it wrong or rather made some iffy things sound solid, \u2018iffy\u2019 being a kind word here.\u00a0 Alfred Deakin, on the other hand, got it right.\u00a0 He had his country at heart.\u00a0 He came to Sri Lanka, got what he wanted and enriched his own country.\u00a0 Wickremesinghe, considering his entire track record and that of the Governments he has served and led, is the polar opposite.\u00a0 What is surprising is that it was Deakin University and not Johns Hopkins University that has conferred an honorary doctorate on him. \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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Still, as we pointed out above, he is deserving.\u00a0 In a relative sense.\u00a0 In a comparative sense.\u00a0 He is deserving, most of all, for the quick, intelligent, damage-controlling and diplomatic instructions to his media point man, namely the decision to disavow it without disavowing the title \u2018doctor\u2019.\u00a0 Now that we can most certainly call ‘tact’. \u00a0Congratulations Prime Minister!<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was conferred an honorary doctorate by Deakin University, Australia.\u00a0He\u2019s not the first premier thus honored and he probably will not be the last.\u00a0 However, an honor it is and as such warranted media coverage.\u00a0 \u00a0 What was newsy, though, was not the event but a statement he had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63622","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=63622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}