Independence Not An Accident: Muslim Leaders Put ‘Country Before Self’

Featured image courtesy Reuters

by Lukman Harees 

- on 02/01/2016 

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.–Hubert H. Humphrey

 ‘A Small Island of many people’, wrote  S.J. Thambiah, in his lucidly written book,’ Sri Lanka–Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy ‘ whose political machinery is running down in an environment of increasing fragmentation and factionalism . The hopes of yesterday.. have become fast evaporating fantasies’ .

Peter Kloos in Democracy, Civil War and the Demise of the Trias Politica in Sri Lanka attempts to understand  how and why such hopes and aspirations of the people of Sri Lanka, became mere fantasies. The author starts by noting that in 1947 Sri Lanka seemed to have all that was needed to transform itself into an independent democracy and few post-colonial states had such a favourable point of departure: It had already had an elected parliament for more than a decade and a half. [It] had universal suffrage earlier than several European states. It had a high rate of literacy and also a newspaper tradition of a century and a half. It had a well-established, island-wide legal system and it had, inherited from the British colonial government, a Public Service that was virtually free of corruption. It was finally, one of the most affluent countries in Asia. This made possible a welfare state with island-wide free medical care and free education.

He queries ‘So how does one explain the transformation from a promising democracy in the 1940s to the state of the present?’ and continues, “the introduction of the majoritarian model of democracy rule in Sri Lanka chosen already during the late-colonial period paved the way for political forms that were undemocratic in the moral sense of the term. In the end this led to violent opposition – and to dismantling of democracy…. The democratic process as a way of handling conflict failed and government rigidity led to violent opposition. The government answered in kind and in the ensuing life-and-death struggle began to manipulate both legislation and the judiciary, presumably to create greater freedom to fight its enemies. By doing so it contributed to further escalation of violence. Far-reaching decisions regarding the political process are based on political expediency rather than on fundamental discussions of democratic rule”. This note aptly sums up the pitiable situation faced by the people in our Paradise Isle.                                Continue Reading →