{"id":95168,"date":"2019-11-13T17:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T00:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95168"},"modified":"2019-11-13T17:00:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-14T00:00:28","slug":"gotas-citizenship-a-political-red-herring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/13\/gotas-citizenship-a-political-red-herring\/","title":{"rendered":"Gota\u2019s Citizenship: a political red herring?"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUWAN RAJAPAKSE Malabe.Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

There are problems we must overcome if we are to accelerate Sri \nLanka\u2019s socioeconomic progress. As such, my well-intentioned \nprovocations in the media have been about fundamental issues, such as \nintolerance, vengeance, and superstition.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I feel \ncompelled to step out of this neutral frame of mind, to counter some of\n the asinine thought processes surrounding Gota\u2019s citizenship, in which\n the underlying concern can be traced back to racist or sectarian \nintuitions. I think a good many decent, ordinary folk whom I know and \nlove subscribe to this “worry” about Gota, simply because they haven\u2019t \nmeditated on this matter deeply enough. Perhaps I might be able to open\n their eyes to this brazen political red herring.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gota is a\n natural born citizen of Sri Lanka, deeply imbued with a Sri Lankan \noutlook, more than many of us and certainly far more than someone like \nmyself. He is attuned to Sri Lanka\u2019s culture, politics and development \nneeds. His love for Sri Lanka was amply demonstrated, not by his having \ncome back to help his brother after a stint in the USA, but by the \noutput of his efforts after he came back.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His fearless \nstrategic contribution to winning the war against terrorism, the \ntransformation of Colombo under his supervision into a garden city, the\n innovative way in which he facilitated the reduction of Global Sea \nPiracy, and his commitment to the eradication of organized crime are \nsome excellent reasons for believing in Gota\u2019s sincerity of political \npurpose. I don\u2019t wish to discuss other candidates here, but I have to \nsay that I don\u2019t see a “pro-Sri Lankan” track record of such magnitude \nin any one of the other candidates vying for presidency.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I \nsay this while acknowledging that the present government and their \nconstituent members have indeed done useful things, contrary to popular \n opinion, such as passing the Right to Information Act. But as a civil \nservant, Gota\u2019s record is truly exceptional for recent times.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\n interested parties who didn\u2019t like Gota\u2019s candidature challenged the \nvalidity of his Sri Lankan citizenship last month. The case was \ndismissed by the Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka. The Elections Commission \nof Sri Lanka endorsed his candidature shortly thereafter. So, as far as\n the law of the land is concerned, Gota is entitled to contest for the \npresidency, and take office if he wins. Period.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps out\n of sheer desperation on seeing the tide move against them, we now have\n an 11th hour attempt at discrediting Gota, by political forces on the \nopposing side of the campaign. The gist of their argument is that “Gota \n still retains US citizenship”. The “basis” for this latest \nconflagration is that A) His name has not appeared on an annual \nregister of persons who relinquished their US citizenship, prepared by \nthe US Government, and B) The fact that his legal team and his nephew \nshared a visual of his passport, stamped with the grammatically \nincorrect pronouncement “Cancel” (instead of “Cancelled”).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\n could easily be an innocent explanation for both of the above \nfrivolous concerns. I\u2019ll let Gota and his political opponents thrash \nthis point out, if they feel it\u2019s worthwhile doing so. I don\u2019t.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why\n are we worried at all about Gota\u2019s passport? As I said before, he is a\n native born Sri Lankan, who decided as an adult to live in the USA, in\n all likelihood for sound personal reasons. He lived out his experiment \n and returned to Lanka after some years, and performed exceptionally for\n his country as a civil servant, and more recently as a political \nleader. If there is some pending paperwork regarding relinquishing US \ncitizenship, which is taking time \u2013 and mind I don\u2019t say so \u2013, then by \nall means let him sort it out quietly! He is a human being who merits \nour patience, on account of the services he has rendered to our \ncountry.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as any impropriety is concerned, the \nimpartial judgments of the Elections Commission and the Court of \nAppeal, which concluded that he is a Sri Lankan and can contest for the\n presidency, is good enough to bury this concern and move on. No one, \nother than Gota himself, was hurt by this unsubstantiated bureaucratic \nconcern. This is not a White Van; and whilst White Vans too were \nunsubstantiated concerns, at least they involved someone being hurt, in\n principle. So this concern is a category error, in a scientific sense.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n motivation underpinning this 11th hour “passport conspiracy” theory \nruns deep. In a country with many burning issues, which possibly \nrequires a sturdy, proven candidate like Gota, we must ponder why some \nof us eagerly latch on to such a bureaucratic technicality to try and \ndisable his political movement, instead of allowing a fair contest.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\n suspect that at least part of the reason for this rather \nuncharacteristic love of bureaucratic details takes us on a journey away\n from reason, and into the realm of our tribal past, to instincts \nevolved on the African plains. “Gota might be one of them, not one of \nus”, and worse, “HE\u2019S LYING!” It is these two voices in our heads, and \nthe anachronistic instincts behind them, that also make us racists, and\n propels us towards vindictiveness and punitive justice. It is these \ninstincts that stifle progress, through the shallow, inflexible social \nposture that they help create.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As former US president Barack\n Obama once said, “This idea of purity and [that] you\u2019re never \ncompromised and you\u2019re always politically \u2018woke\u2019 and all that stuff. \nYou should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are \nambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you \nare fighting may love their kids.”
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are we afraid of, \nultimately, if Gota is indeed half-American (which I think he isn\u2019t)? \nAre we afraid that Gota dreams of relaxing in the Rockies smoking \ncigars and listening to hillbilly music? Is that what we fear?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why,\n ladies and gents, we had such a president before. Good old Mr. Yankee \nDickie, who loved Buffalo Bill and smoked Hawaiian Cigars. \nIncidentally, unlike his able nephew, he was not such a bad performer, \nhe liberalized our economy, raised our GDP, and took us away from \nabject poverty and Gantara Sarongs.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, there was social \nupheaval during his administration, which led to violence. Some of this\n upheaval might have been influenced by poor decisions of his, like the\n lapse of policing on 25th July 1983. That\u2019s why we say that no one is \nperfect, and certainly no politician is. Similar lapses occurred in \nApril this year, under his nephew. We should look upon politics and \npoliticians with a touch of pragmatism.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a voter, I \npersonally will ignore both Gota\u2019s passport and Sajith\u2019s cement bags, \nand not yield into my primitive, vindictive instincts. These types of \nconcerns get amplified unnecessarily because of the competitive nature \nof the election process, and are difficult to judge at a distance. So \ninstead, I\u2019m going take a good, hard look at each candidate\u2019s intentions\n and past contributions, and vote for the relatively better one.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RUWAN RAJAPAKSE
Malabe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUWAN RAJAPAKSE Malabe.Courtesy The Island There are problems we must overcome if we are to accelerate Sri Lanka\u2019s socioeconomic progress. As such, my well-intentioned provocations in the media have been about fundamental issues, such as intolerance, vengeance, and superstition. But I feel compelled to step out of this neutral frame of mind, to counter some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95168","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=95168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}