The critically wounded D.E.M O’Cracy

Saturday, 18 June 2022

If Sri Lanka is a computer

I love analogies. If Sri Lanka is a computer, the physical parliament is its Mother Board. The Government’s governance framework is certainly the CPU (Central processing Unit). The computer is powered by the sixteen million voter “cross” cables. Without having sufficient RAM (Random Access Memory) a computer cannot be operated. The Central Bank is the RAM with sufficient forex. Here comes the brainy bit. A computer needs a Hard Disk. It is to be partitioned into a series of drives. The President is the “C” drive loaded with all system operating software. Operating systems are built on good governance procedures. The “D” drive represents the Prime Minister. Although this is a relatively small computer in comparison with the rest of the world, the manufacturers got the design wrong. It has been fitted with 224 USB ports for thumb drives which can be interchanged haphazardly. By the way, the parliamentary session is the Display Screen.

 

System Error

During last 10 years, a number of warning messages appeared on the screen suggesting there was too much power supply for the machine. Warnings were disregarded. Excessive power supply corrupted the hard disk. By the way, the hard disk had inherent over heating issues as well. The thumb drives became unreliable. Suddenly, the “System Error” message appeared on the screen. Millions of voter power cables were melted down in anger. Now the machine is powered with a few old slave cables via 20+ back-up battery pack. Usually, such battery packs have two years optimum life span.

The hard disk and the USB drives are excessively corrupted and a few system files have been purposely deleted. Hard disk was rebooted many times keeping same hardware, expecting the machine will be self-corrected. This effort failed to deliver desired results. RAM the bank has no more forex memory. Old hard disk is sputtering and the Chinese mouse stopped working. Recently, it was replaced with an Indian mouse with limited functions. It is obvious now that all hardware and the old DOS system software need to be replaced. Some says a brand-new machine with a limited USB ports would work. Of course, some USB drives need to be discarded without any doubt. It seems that around 10 USB drives can be recovered by reformatting.

All desperados scream but there is no sign of a solutions. Rather than agreeing on a solution, the daily episodes of the soap opera “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is being screened through a few thumb drives at the parliament, for the public entertainment. Even the display screen has visual glitches. Sometimes it is painful to watch their awful acting. The graphic card is also faulty. Intermittent images of flying furniture, vulgar pornographic movements and chilli powder colour lines appear on the screen.

As the power supply to the computer is limited now, D drive was tactically removed to restore some order of operation. D drive has been replaced with a USB cable connected, heavily used, five times reformatted, old, portable hard drive. When placed near the group of thumb drives, the portable hard drive looks like a grand solitary elephant standing near a bunch of shrubs. However, it is said that an old, solitary, male elephant is a dangerous animal and is prone to charge without any provocation.

Pundits still argues on the causes of the system error. One group assigned it to an “Operator Error”, not a “System Error”. Another suggests that the portable drive could only be operated with “21+ system software patch, in the long run. The problem is that a few corrupted sectors of the portable drive could not be restored with the last formatting operation. One thumb drive with dual circuitry has been withdrawn due to its incompatibility with the portable hard drive. Now, the thumb drive has been converted into a wireless remote to control power supply.

Finally, IMF system administrator’s help has been sought. IMF wants to reformat the entire hard disk and install their operating system. While this circus is going on, the clowns, the Buddhist monks have entered the arena. Although they have no clue about computers or operating systems, they are trying to teach local and international System Administrators, how to operate computers and how to perform system programming. I believe the situation is conducive for an outside drug addict to steal the parts of the computer for scrap metal.

My focus today is only on the system file called “democratic governance”. Currently, this file is fully corrupted and unrepairable. However, we need to know how it was corrupted.

 

Democracy

Democracy has been defined by many. Arguably, the greatest president ever produced by the Americans, Abraham Lincoln said that democracy is “of the people, by the people, for the people”. The word democracy has been derived from the Greek words “demos” (people) and “kratos” (power) which could be combined as the “Power of People”.

However, the mechanisms of transforming the power of people to govern a country varies from country to country. There are presidential systems with various levels of decision-making power separation. Some countries use parliamentary structure headed by a Prime Minister. Some have both the Prime Minster and the President. Others have a Senate, and Lower and Upper house representatives. It is safer to say that there are no two countries with exact same governance structure and decision-making power distribution in place. However, all such governance structures have been designed to achieve a single objective; good governance of humans & systems to serve public equitable manner.

I am not a political scientist or an expert of the constitutional law. However, as a person who enjoys the benefits of a true democracy, I can highlight a few basic features of a democracy. The New Zealand Prime Minster, Jacinda Ardern recently delivered an inspirational speech at the Harvard University and vividly described how NZ has promoted the on-ground application of basic principles of democracy by allowing all ethnic and gender representation in the parliament. While watching it, I felt sad that we, Sri Lankans are not that lucky to have such systems in place and such young leaders. She reiterated the statement made by the former Pakistan Prime Minister late Benazir Bhutto in 1997 at the same venue, “Democracy is so fragile”. This is the very reason that good and delicate democratic gains can easily be diminished in no time by the actions of a few. In a way, Democracy is like” love”. Love is hard to be defined but it is a fragile feeling squeezed between the selfishness and the hate. Too much love shifts one towards the obsession of ownership or selfishness and the opposite push sometimes tips it into the hate domain. The difference between the love and the hate is just a teardrop.

In a democratic society, people should be able to live their lives autonomously which are only to be subjected to the universally accepted norms of humane behaviours. This is called individual autonomy. In democracy, all must have equitable (not equal) opportunity in accordance with individual social contexts, to influence on the decisions taken by others which would affect them.