National re-construction is a belief
"Some people must cry -- so that others can laugh all the more louder.''
No right thinking woman or man would believe that, but yet in the ancient troves of worldly wisdom, that was defined as nature's way.

The country's frontline policy makers, though not consciously, have perfected this wisdom to a fine art. Their main line of attack is that "the tsunami is helping the economy," even though they may be loathe to say it in so many words.

Note that the harsh way of nature, as defined in the ancient wisdom, is that "some people must cry" so that others may laugh all the more louder. In this context it means that those who lost their jobs, their parents and their loved ones in the tsunami must cry -- so that others who are seeing more foreign buckshee coming into the economy can be ecstatic about the "new chances'' for the economy due to the "vast flow'' of foreign aid.

This is why somebody noticed that Sarath Amunugama wears a perpetual smile on his face these days. There is a chance that all foreign debt may be written off. The movers and the shakers are smug.

They feel the war has been wrenched off the scheme of future things for the nation. The tsunami was undoubtedly a dampener for many UNPers who were hoping that a war will break out, making the UPFA look like the godfathers of another furious bout of fighting.

But, the tsunami changed their calculations. It has brought US marines to our shores, and also made the President rely on the military for relief operations in the North and the East. All this can be called tsunami expediency. We almost hear echoes of "some others can cry, so that we can laugh all the more louder'' ringing in our ears.

Some expediency can be tolerated by the body politic, but such expediency might then extend to the point that it sacrifices the moral base of our policy. The net result will then be to say: "those who lost lives and property due to the tsunami are unfortunate, so let's move on."

It's in this vein that the Minister for Science and Technology says "the Pallekele geo-station officers do not work on a Poya Day --- do you journalists work on a Poya Day?'' What doesn't seem to have gone through that thick skull of the Minister is the notion that it's not the Pallekele officers who should resign, but he .

This is utterly glib, all this talk about "do you work on a Poya Day?'' when realistic estimates have it that over 40,000 died in the calamity -- and over two million lost their livelihoods.

Tissa Vitharana has always come across as being arrogant without ever really having a modicum of a qualification to be arrogant. By no means even close to being a genius, he is just another doctor who squeaked into power almost vagrantly. Does he know the ways of the world -- that people believe in the system, that the system needs to take the rap, even though no one person can be directly blamed for the absence of a tsunami warning? For example, does he know that the Thai Prime Minister sacked the Head of the Thai Met Department for not issuing a tsunami warning, a gesture that has been deeply appreciated in Thailand?

Vitharana's bigger failing is that he looks a talking-head, a blabbing and nattering Ministerial waif, utterly devoid of any perspective on things. He epitomises the notion: "some should cry, so that the others can laugh all the more louder.''

But modern society cannot bear the strains of such feudal thought and Vitharana's brand of Feudal-Marxism depicts non-accountability, and repulsive insensitivity in the hour of reckoning.

It's a disaster almost as bad as the disaster itself. It's the kind of thing that's well left behind before the nation embarks on any journey of recovery. Everybody including the JVP is in the meanwhile talking of efficient management, and "data collection', and a "subsuming of all political agendas in place of a national journey of reconstruction."

But first the country needs to define itself, to set its goals according to a moral compass before going onto the technical areas of a managerial coup d’etat, ?

For example, when the Japanese rose from the ashes of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they didn't start doing so with the blueprint for the Honda Accord automobile in their hands. On the contrary, they started with a blueprint for a new Japanese national orientation, a whole new code for Japanese thinking.

As a first, they determined that the Japanese army will in the future not be a fighting army, period. Did the Japanese people raise hell? No, because they knew that the national catharsis had forged a radical new persona for the Japanese ethos. But yet, with change, they maintained continuity, and despite all pressures to the contrary, they chose to maintain the primacy of the Emperor, even though metamorphosing the country into a modern parliamentary democracy in the process.

But most importantly, the Japanese started with principles, not with management gobbledygook. They didn't say "we should build so many houses'' at "such and such a cost'' and "re-build the fisheries industry'' which is what the state think-tanks are saying now in this country, while taking out full page advertisements to say so.

All that came as part of the big picture, after the Japanese had first re-defined their nation and set about acquiring a born-again Japanese identity. Which is exactly what we have not done after the calamity.

That's probably because in a typical way, the national leadership still doesn't feel in their guts that this is a calamity. If they feel it's a calamity they feel it as a calamity that happened to others. Hence shades of the notion "some have to cry so that the others can laugh all the more louder.''

That may be nature's way but for a nationality, nothing seems to come right unless there is a collective reckoning - - something to say that we all need to cry, not just some of us - - so that everybody can laugh all the more louder on a later date. Therefore noises about a "strengthening rupee'' or a "weakening LTTE'' or a "refreshing debt freeze'' have to be subsumed in favour a national atonement.

Perhaps one could start by chastising all glib and insensitive talkers such as Vitharana and by going one better and making him and his sorry bunch resign first. It's a small price to pay for a righting of the ship of state, and for imbuing the system with a sense of accountability and balance when it is most needed. As for Vitharana himself, he asked for it. (And by the way, journalists do work on Poya Days.)

But all that's just a sop. From there on, to envision a set of national beliefs takes more substance than to say "we should bury our political agendas.'' Bury our political agendas to what end, is the question that has not been asked yet. Is it to gloat over Prabhakaran's imagined loss? No. Is it to welcome and enthrone the American marine? No no and no. Instead, the country should get itself out of debt, and call the LTTE for what it's worth, to lend its troops for a re-construction effort along with the forces. That's the way for the government to put its money where its mouth is. And call for a written moratorium on the war of words with the LTTE to boot. Any nationalist rhetoric on both sides will be counted as a ceasefire violation.

Sounds like satire? But, that's what a national challenge is all about. Make the unthinkable real. Real and workable, and not make it governance by committee, which hankers after something as vapid and spirit-chilling as "efficient management'' (also called nisi kalamanakaranaya).

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