So much theater for you this season
It was sad, the death of Ven Soma Thera.
It took some time to sink in, and it was a sad commentary on our times that the good appeared to be dying young, or so the editorialists were telling us.
But the beer manufacturers, I heard they had a sneaking sense of comeuppance. What was the morale of the story. "He didn't drink, he didn't have the occasional tot - and he didn't do anything, you know, anything else that was banned in the five precepts either….''

Of course they were very apologetic about it, the beer manufacturers. It was heard that they were quoting medical statistics for it. They said Ven Soma Thera showed toys which took the shape of beer cans in his TV shows - - but he neglected to say that doctors feel some alcohol in moderation was good for the heart. This comeuppance on the part of beer sellers and those who peddle the less Spartan things in life however got the goat of the moral police.

They soon took to saying the exact opposite. That Ven. Soma Thera’s death was a conspiracy by various religionists and subversive elements. They didn't need a post mortem or anything like that -- perhaps they just couldn't stand the beer manufacturers getting some accidental mileage. In the end battle lines were drawn over Ven Soma Thera’s body, before it was announced that he died of a heart attack.

Maybe in the end it will be good for the manufacturers of a few modern US made exercise machines to say that even the virtuous need some good vigorous exertion. But other than that those who sought to benefit from Ven Soma Thera’s death were left nodding their heads saying that people like Ven Soma Thera cannot be dying of heart attacks. Not only was it too good to be true -- it appeared to them that a virtuous monk needs necessarily to die a martyr's death. At least he should be a martyr to the cause of beer -- which the beer manufacturers are still saying he was, anyway.

Politicians took the chance to say that too much virtue is not a good thing. It leads to heart attacks -- look what happened to Ven Soma Thera. So Malik Samarawickreme went abroad, Mano Titawella went abroad, Ranil Wickremesinghe went to Arcadia and Chandrika Kumaratunga went to Dickwella. Not that they are not entitled to their holidays like the rest of us.

But it is beginning to look like a perpetual holiday, a vacation that sees no end at all. It is a permanent vacation from solving the people's problems. At year's end the people are faced with a 'problem.'' What is it? It is certainly not of nature's creation, no earthquake or tsunami or at least a perfidious mudslide. It is also not a calamity visited upon us by an enemy, not Prabhakaran, not the Chola empire, not even Chris Patten.

It is not a disaster brought on by a morose and rebellious people. There is no uprising, there is no unrest and upheaval. It is on the other hand, a problem created by a leadership that sees no sense in being virtuous, that had taken a permanent vacation from serving the people. It is an own goal against Vox Populi. On November 3rd of this year, when the issue was first precipitated by a President who took over three Ministries, it was seen as a problem that was needless.

But the Sri Lankan psyche undergoes quick and strange transformations. Now it is seen as a problem that the people should partake in. In other words, it is seen as something of a natural calamity -- like a flood a Tsunami or a very bad earthquake that registers 6 on the Richter.

It is now seen as a national problem, that's even larger than the ''national question.'' Copious papers are written about it already, and with so much gravitas that the word cohabitation is acquiring a respectability that would not have embarrassed Ven Soma Thera if he was alive.

With time the people have come to accept the function of Sri Lankan politicians. Which is to create problems out of thin air and keep those problems going, with a stress on the latter part. Professor Pieris had said recently that the ongoing crisis will have a deleterious effect on the flow of aid to the country. He may be right. But hidden among these apprehensions is the fact that only 14 per cent of the aid that accrued to this country was used in the last financial year on record.

The truth is, politicians do not have time spending money for the public good. They do not have time envisioning infrastructure projects and development plans. They have only time to untangle the problems that they have created.

Meanwhile, so, the New Year dawns with (a) the accidental comeuppance of the beer manufacturers. (b) The creation of deeper traffic snafus and the creation of conditions for more loss of man hours due to lack of infrastructure (c) the creation of more unemployment and societal angst and the creation of more conditions that makes a breach of the peace (i.e: war in the North East ) a real possibility. But yet, there is no social movement that is calling for the politicians to fix it. There is no people power that calls this a political problem that is for the politicians by the politicians and of the politicians.

What is there instead, is a structural legitimization of the 'problem.'' It is as if the academics the pundits and analysts - - and by extension the people who listen to them are saying now that cohabitational acrimony of this magnitude is a necessary constitutional exercise for a developing country. It is as if this country will not develop if Mano Tittawella and Malik Samarawickreme do not sit for months on end until they get red in their behinds.

It is true the politicians are an incorrigible lot and that all their time is taken up solving problems of their own making. But it's also a sad pitiful chronically apathetic and wretched lot of people who cannot muster the people power to make the politicians solve the problems -- at least the ones of their (the politicians') own making. On the other hand it's as if the national absurd theater can be reduced to this one rudiment: the people are telling the politicians "okay, you create the problems, we will sit back and watch the fight' …..

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