{"id":67173,"date":"2017-06-22T15:08:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T22:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=67173"},"modified":"2017-06-22T15:08:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T22:08:40","slug":"after-asgiriya-orange-is-the-new-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/06\/22\/after-asgiriya-orange-is-the-new-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"After Asgiriya: Orange is the new blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

By DR. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The day before yesterday\u2019s impassioned, strongly worded statement issued by the Asgiriya Chapter meant that the writing is on the wall. But there is more than one thing written on the wall, and there is also something written between the lines.<\/p>\n

What the writing on the wall clearly says is that we have reached a point similar to that of 1955 when the Buddhist Commission issued its report. Already the government (effectively) of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe looks like that of Sir John Kotelawela in the famous Mara Yuddha cartoon, except that this leadership clique as well as its lifestyle isn\u2019t seen as symbolized by the macho Sir John in the cartoon but more by Zou Zou Mohammed!<\/p>\n

How do we understand the Asgiriya Chapter\u2019s statement\u2014because the crucial challenge is to comprehend it, whether or not one agrees with it in whole or in part (and I for one, do not). The statement is a throwback to the 1940s and 1950s, and is a nationalist cultural backlash against a perceived erosion of the national by the alien. I am greatly helped by the writings of my late father Mervyn de Silva in understanding it:<\/p>\n

“Already, by the forties, the sensitive ear could pick up the first rumblings: the free education agitation, the Swabhasha movement, the Buddhist Commission. The challenger, the \u2018new class\u2019 which was to lead the assault was sounding the alarm, choosing the battleground and shrewdly creating the casus belli which would best rally the masses behind it. This was the necessary prelude to 1956…<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the masses lay dormant; watching, waiting, resentful. By 1956 the equation was complete, the issues, the new class, the leader, the political alignments, the socioeconomic forces which would jet-propel the masses into action. In 1956 they moved: they moved with such a terrific momentum that it shattered the Right\u2026<\/p>\n

Language was not only an issue in 1956 but its banner, and it was more than a contest between parties: it was a far more fundamental clash of the “two nations”\u2026 It was more than party politics; it was social ferment…<\/p>\n

\u2026 How do a people assert their national identity, especially a people who believe that their own way of life has been willfully neglected, disrupted or partially destroyed? How does a man do it? He searches for marks of distinction and (because his emotional need is so compulsive) stresses and overstresses them. So do a people. They find these “marks” in religion, language, customs and ceremony. This is the traditionalist impulse; it looks back.”(Mervyn de Silva, “1956: The Cultural Revolution That Shook the Left”,Ceylon Observer Magazine Edition, May 16th & 23rd, 1967)<\/p>\n

The dominant ideology of the newly formed SLPP and perhaps increasingly the dominant ideological line of the JO seems to be the same as that of SWRD Bandaranaike after he shifted to accommodate the Sinhala Only slogan. All that\u2019s missing from the pre-1956 scenario is the Hartal of 1953 but that too will come, though it may assume or be diverted into the grotesquely distorted ethno-religious form of 1915 unless the Left trade unions, the student unions and the JVP and FSP unions are able to dominate it.<\/p>\n

This present government is doomed. The only question is does it happen the easy way or the hard way; does it go head first or feet first? If it (A) goes for a new Constitution any time soon or within the rest of this term, with a referendum inevitably in train, or (B) if it strives to implement the Geneva resolutions, the Asgiriya chapter\u2019s recent move will prove only the tip of the iceberg and there will be a unified Sangha-led nationalist social avalanche which will bury the Government.<\/p>\n

This Government can go home at a referendum or an election. But it can survive or reduce the margin of defeat (avoiding a landslide) if and only if the Ranil-Mangala-CBK crew is dumped not only by President Sirisena but by the UNP as a party, and substituted by a new “Macronist” centrist-moderate alliance consisting of the patriotic UNP, SLFP and moderate progressives of the JO.<\/p>\n

In the alternative, the ethno-religious radical Right that has mobilized can be counterbalanced somewhat and the ratio of the gathering forces modified, only if the official SLFP cuts the tie with the Ranil-CBK Govt and goes into Opposition, taking with it dissident UNPers and drawing a moderate JO faction, thereby constituting a moderate progressive center within the opposition space.<\/p>\n

If neither of these outcomes materialize, then we are indubitably looking at a 1956 and 1970 scenario, perhaps closer the latter than the former, given the probability of a violent post-election backlash against the UNP and collaborationist SLFP.<\/p>\n

Since the Tamil and Muslim minorities haven\u2019t had the prudence to hedge their bets by being shareholders of both the Government and the Opposition, backing both the UNP and the Rajapaksas, the inevitable replay of 1956-1970 will bring into office a majoritarian administration.<\/p>\n

This in turn will benefit neither the Sinhalese nor the Sinhala Buddhists, nor the country as a whole. Just as the minorities will realize that this isn\u2019t the country it was in 2015 still less in 1947-1956, the majority will learn that this isn\u2019t the world and the region, of 1956, 1970, 2005 or 2009\/10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By DR. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA\u00a0Courtesy The Island The day before yesterday\u2019s impassioned, strongly worded statement issued by the Asgiriya Chapter meant that the writing is on the wall. But there is more than one thing written on the wall, and there is also something written between the lines. What the writing on the wall clearly says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67173","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=67173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}