The delicious ironies of idiotic democracy

Friday, 28 July 2017

Life, as a musically-inclined poet of a previous age once essayed, is what happens

when you are planning to do something else. Well, the same may be said for the
intentions of Good Governance: that the best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft
agley; as another poet-philosopher had it. There they are perhaps still planning
to do what is best for themselves, their near and dear, and the nation at large
and not necessarily in that order.

Where once they had (or seemed to have, and said they did) the grand plan, the
master strategy, the governance ethos to end all governance ethos, they now
seem to limp along. Their swagger turned into stumbling, their firebrands lisping
stale platitudes and mouthing clichs even the propagandists will find it hard to
swallow. Or strangely silent, slumped sullenly in some dark and dusty corner of
the corridors of power. No sage or savant can come to their rescue now; those
hollow men, leaning together, their headpieces filled with straw.

I pity them but not because Im particularly fond of them in fact Im especially
averse to some of their more cantankerous or chicanery-practicing pundits,
despite their not being ogres like certain representatives of another regime one
could mention but I wont. However, as a body politic one must retain a sense
of priority, as well as perspective, and proportion to boot

Priority

At present, we are struggling to immunise ourselves against a plethora

of infections. One need not mention dengue, or the simultaneously heroic and
horrific spectacle of civil society having to take up arms against a sea of
mosquitoes to help a beleaguered government fight a losing battle. If you are
privy to a single citizens private enterprise to publicly engage a national issue and
motivate a broad spectrum of stakeholders against the spectre of death in the
marketplace, youll champion the cause of Death to Dengue in the same breath
as constructively engaging the emerging nexus between a panoply of citizens and
debilitating national issues.

Be that as it may, on the way forward qua our march towards a leaner, meaner,
more meaningfully public-spirited democracy. Perhaps the tender-minded may
spare some sympathy for an embattled state and its elected as well as appointed
officials as much as the peoples representatives. From student protests to sundry
trade-union action, fuel strikes and irate lay and clerical demonstrations, the
coalition government is no doubt nodding in assent with the Bard that when
troubles come they come not single spies but in battalions.

In this context, it is only the cynical who will sardonically mutter under their
breath (for fear of displeasure at the lips of those who advocate a positive spirit at
all times) that even the sop to Cerberus in the shape and form of a high-profile
cabinet minister being thrown to the wolves at the gate is only part of the
scenery, another instalment in an expertly-managed spectacle.

Perspective
One swallow does not make a summer. As Aesop said to the bird-watching boy
or was it the actress to the bishop? All of Colombo and, if were lucky, parts of
the rest of Sri Lanka for whom the world is their paddy-field or the beach is agog
with the damning indictments being mounted up like a Meethotamulla garbage
dump against the portly bulk of a former finance minister.

Their sentiments range from rage to outrage to outr naivety that nothing out of
the ordinary will come out of it. (It seems so at the time of going to press, with
the absconding financial grandee cum laid-low arraignee being absent by dint of
pressing security concerns in peacetime taking priority over revealing
developments in a more secure court where war is being declared on fraud and
other fiscal and fiduciary wrongdoings.)

We see glee in the camp of grim-faced senior bureaucrats now in semi-enforced

retirement or among the crooked of a corrupt regime evicted by righteous anger
not many moons ago. We hear crocodile-tear-crying deposed dictators singing
that there may be weeping overnight but that joy cometh in the morning. We
sense fierce vindication and maybe some temporary relief for the vindictive
out-of-joint political opposition.

Banal and blas as the boys in green may have seemed that no mark of scandal
would tarnish the sorry hides of one of their own blue-eyed boys, their
disreputable bulwark of a fink, er I mean finc min, now seems to be the only man
standing on the burning deck. But as the bishop said to the actress or was it the
poet Burns to another philosopher-king nothing good can come out of it if it is
another sad case of bread and circuses.

As usual, we the people will have to possess our souls in patience as yet another
charade perhaps is played out in public and in private. While the voiceless in
these matters fulminate on Facebook, even the champions of justice being seen
to be done if it is in fact to be done might have to resign themselves to the reality
that no resignation much less arraignment, indictment, prosecution will ever
take place in this case Unless, of course, it is a case of realpolitik requiring a
fattened-lamb sacrifice and this is a scapegoat grown fat enough to satisfy the
blood lust (oops, perhaps it is better to venture to say the justice) of an out of
joint opposition and their double-jointed regime-leaders to say nothing of a
vengeful cabinet-leader masquerading as a head of state.

Proportion
That things could be better goes without saying. Pity that it doesnt go without
saying, that is. That things could be worse goes without saying. Pity that it doesnt
either. That we have short memories goes without saying pity There are
three things we cant seem to remember. We cant remember the vagaries and
vicissitudes of a vicious civil war and all the privations it brought the public in the
guise of good news of delivering them from our oppressors. We cant remember
the vim, vigour, and vitality with which our war-victory-touting saviours from
terrorism and its rigours persecuted their political and social opponents in the
same spirit in which they prosecuted the war. And I cant remember what the
third thing is.

The point is that in the blood rush of baying for a fallen finance ministers blood
and the head that once was crowned with laurels whose decapitation is on the
cards if justice plays out true and doesnt play the public out of a rolling head
we have failed to remember a few things. Which it would be good not to forget
for the sake of our future long-term welfare once the fleeting pleasures of the
present sporting exercises are done and dusted.

Firstly, that for every grotesquely visible fat-cat that appears to be getting his
comeuppance, there is a ship full of rats whose sinking feelings have been
temporarily stayed by the sacrifice made on the high altar of expediency.
Secondly, that the high moral ground being lost by a government that thumped
its tub (until their champions were hoarse and hurt by the soapbox chest-
thumping about their ostensibly squeaky-clean ethos) does not mean that the
principles espoused by the coalition government on a now long-forgotten
campaign trail were wrong. Thirdly, that there is still an albeit rapidly dwindling
space in marketplace as much as town square and town hall for critical,
constructive, civil-society engagement to push, pull, pillory, politicians into
keeping their promises. And seizing what remains of the day and the incumbent
three-legged regime to press the rest of the reformist agenda through.

Last but not least, to enjoy lifes little ironies under our hamstrung democracy. For
Id rather (be able to) rant and rave and let off a head of steam about the idiocy of
the incumbents and face the firing squad of their defenders and champions, than
be carted off in a Defender somewhere conveniently private or horrifyingly
public, like some late great dead champions of justice and have the air let into
my head.

We as a civic-minded public need a sense of priority that corresponds to national

and not partisan needs; a sense of perspective that can see through the smoke
and mirrors of managed spectacles and yet not grow so cynical for virtue of this
that we close the doors and windows on every passing, increasingly fleeting
opportunity; a sense of proportion which reassures us that in a democracy no
matter how idiotic by dint of incumbent realpolitik there is still a seed of sense
which tells us that this form of governance is the worst except for all the others
in general and one other in particular.
Posted by Thavam