Patriotism: The Trump & Sirisena Delight 

September 28, 2018, 8:56 pm

Will the US State Department have a special flag of recognition for Sri Lanka?

Cheers Sri Lanka - keep flying the Stars and Stripes. President Trump may even raise your issues at the next Security Council session.

Just now we are the loudest supporters of the Donald Trump

policies on international affairs. We have gone beyond US allies in the West, and away from NATO, with our President Sirisena echoing Trump at the

UN General Assembly to call for our own patriotism against globalism.

This was the key Trump line: "America is governed by Americans. We reject

the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism".

Is it much different to Sirisena’s call for the world to keep out of Sri Lankan affairs when he said: "as an independent country we do not want any foreign power to exert influence on us… the right of the Sri Lankan people to find solutions to their problems should be respected?

That is Patriotism having its big day. The hugely powerful US and Donald

Trump has small Sri Lanka to sing the praises of patriotism. Sri Lanka is governed by Sri Lankans. We reject international influence or interference – globalism. The right of the Sri Lankan people to find solutions – Patriotism – should be respected.

It is not only Sirisena who has a song of praise for Donald Trump. There is Ranil Wickremesinghe, too. He sees the continuing and deep fall of the Sri Lankan Rupee being due to the success of Trump economics in the US. He is certainly following his uncle JR Jayewardene’s own theme of American and capitalist economics, when he was glad to open the door for Robber Barons in Sri Lanka.

That is the patriotism of the crooked. Bring in your money, exploit our natural resources, and carry away your profits. Is there any big change today? We are opening our doors wide, waiting for investment. Handing over our national assets and natural resources to international crooks – and cheering about the continuing fall of the rupee. That is today’s Trump Doctrine of Patriotism!

President Sirisena’s patriotic call directed against - but not in so many words –the UNHRC Resolution on post-conflict Sri Lanka, has a major catch in it. Could he have forgotten that Sri Lanka joined the US (before Trump’s election) to co-sponsor the resolution. Can we ask the international community or foreign powers to move away from it, when we are still the co-sponsors? Not very likely.

Maybe Sirisena (and even Ranil Wicks) could be thinking of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council as an escape route for Sri Lanka. But that is the bunkum of local, patriotic politics. We are stuck at the UNHRC with other countries that voted for the Resolution, which we co-sponsored with the US.

The UNHRC apart, isn’t it time that we looked at our own problems, without having side glances at foreign countries or powers? The rupee keeps crashing down against the Dollar, and all other major currencies. Are we ready to ask our people, especially those with power and privilege to curb their expenditure?

While we ask the world not to look at our problems, what are we doing about them? How long more must the IGP perform with meditation and dancing, while Law & Order are going down just like the rupee?

How long are we to keep watching the perks and privileges of the elected representatives of the people, at the Diyawanna Parliament and other councils, carry on mockingly wasteful expenditure of public funds? Is it patriotic to spend so much on luxury cars for Members of Parliament

(Ministers included)?

What is the patriotism that drives MPs to sell their duty free vehicle permits to make untaxable fortunes?

How much more of patriotic waste should the people tolerate as we approach more postponed provincial council elections. Can we now be sure that presidential and parliamentary elections will also not be postponed –whatever the Sports Minister has to say about, in his unsporting approach to democracy?

Whatever President Sirisena said at the UN General Assembly, with that photo-op with Donald Trump and wife Melania, can the world look the other way and remain silent when democracy is under threat over here? Is the continued delay of electoral democracy in Sri Lanka, a matter only for our people and nation? Are we to set aside the Human Rights aspect of democracy, in keeping with the cardinal thinking of an apostolic religious preacher?

We are caught in a huge web of political patriotism today. Both the Government and the Opposition are wedded to the patriotism of the crooked.

They are both followers of Donald Trump – to keep the world always beyond our shores. Keep us in this islandic isolation, away from Human Rights and the true growth of Democracy.

Let the courts drag the probes into corruption, killings and abductions of journalists; and the legal and political system never gets any nearer to the crooked and corrupt. That is the stuff of patriotic delight, which Donald Trump must also delight in.

It is time to remember Samuel Johnson’s words that – "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". But, Johnson was not born here. Is it patriotic to respect the words of a western foreigner? Keep thinking.