Am I a Sri Lankan? What Went Wrong…?
My birth certificate indicates that I am a citizen of Sri Lanka by descent. Therefore, I have a right to claim the fundamental rights in Chapter III in the 1978 Democratic Socialist Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka. Under fundamental rights, I have the right to express, associate with members of Sri Lankan state and free to move, etc. Though Article 15 says all these rights are valid under the ordinary civil law, with the existence of the Prevention of Terrorism, it is hard to claim these rights. I thus don’t have the right to have rights in the particular circumstances during wartime. But my problem is even after the war has ended, I do not have the right to express and talk freely with other citizens in Sri Lanka.
If I want to visit Killinochchi and talk to Tamil citizens, I must have a permission letter from the Ministry of Defence. I am not a terrorist and I don’t want to talk to any another terrorist. Granting permission by the Defence Ministry in building communal relationships is a formula of rule to monitor and keep an eye on citizens’ behaviour as Foucault, a post modernism thinker, said.
When I heard the latest celebratory speech made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa at a recent event, I wondered whether the freedom he mentioned is prevalent in the post-war society. I am having a paradoxical freedom which is restricted by Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) and his regime. Freedom in a capitalist society is as defined by Marx “limited to a small section of the population while the majority is always un-free”. Marx said that alienation is a common tragedy affected the capitalist and proletariat class. Alienation in a capitalist society has torn away its family sentimental veil, reduced the family relations and every relationship is determined by money.Nowadays in Sri Lanka, the Marxists alienation factor of capital and money is replaced by MR and his power and all the sentimental relationships even in family and society decided by the power of MR and his family clique.
Giorgio Agamben, at Italian philosopher, pointed out that the primitive function of a contemporary state is state security. State security secured a priority over all other tasks of the state. In that circumstance, the state maps various plans and policies to protect the national security and in certain situations declares a state of emergency. Sri Lanka is still in a state of emergency even after three decades’ old war ended.
Even after the end of the war, the defense cost had not come down and the Defence Ministry is directly or indirectly involved in metro city development projects, controlling and dispersing anti-government rallies organized by alternative voices such as university students, workers in free trade zones and fishermen.
After killing three young people in the incident over safe drinking water in the Gampaha district, Weliweriya divisional secretary’s division and the Rathupaswala grama sevaka’s division, a large wave of criticism rose up against the government. The army attacks occurred against the majority Sinhala – Buddhist community and territorially it was near Colombo – the main city of rulers.
Mothers in the south felt the young blood’s warmth. However none of them felt the same blood of anguish flowing in the north over four or five years back and none raised their voice against this calamity.
Instead of forcing the government to accept this bloodshed as a tragedy, the southerners cooked milk rice and had celebrations in each and every junction. No one feels the pain of the war-affected people and no one wanted to weep like the mothers who lost their children as LTTE fighters or victims of the wars. These mothers still wait for justice for their lost children.
Every human has a right to dignity, security, wellbeing and identify. Sri Lanka is signatory to a number of international charters as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant of Economic, Social and cultural rights and United Nations Child Rights convention, etc. The Sri Lankan government has de jure and de facto obligation to safeguard and fulfill the rights in those international documents. Violating these rights will damage the international reputation of the country and enforce the economic barriers in international trade. Sri Lanka already is facing a barrage of questions on human rights violations in the civil war.
What went wrong in Sri Lanka? One of the main reasons behind the pathetic case is the failure of the state and its institutional mechanisms. Institutions for local and national democracy failed due to nepotism, corruptions and family dynastical domination. These institutions are no longer reflecting the needs and wants of the people. All the governmental henchmen and their children privileged to contest in local elections exploit state resources.
Recruitments, promotions and dismiss and regulation in public administration are entirely handled by the politicians. In the public administration system, only a few civil servants have some knowledge of the subject but cannot perform their assigned duty independently.
The State ideological apparatus promotes the kingship and constructs the relationship between king and subjects in the Sri Lankan context. This situation leads towards subject and subordinators and eradicates the democratic values. Cinematic, media and drama endorse the kingship in feudal society and emphasis the loyalty to kingship. As the third factor, abolishing the critical thinking pattern creates the feudalistic society and demise of democracy. For example the family is not a private sphere and it is under the control of the MR regime. The regime-sponsored ‘Bodu- Bala Sena’ influenced the privacy on female reproduction capacity. But none of the women’s liberation movement in Sri Lanka came forward against the suggestion of Bodu-Bala Sena.
Centralized power and dismissing the rule of law and majoritarian democracy in decision-making contributes to the crippling of democracy in Sri Lanka. Equality and freedom for all the citizens is a myth. Instead of commodity fetishism as Marx said, Sri Lanka now has army fetishism. In that sense, living today and tomorrow depends not only on money but also on the army’s power. In that case, how could I claim to have rights which have been constitutionally provided for to me as a citizen of Sri Lanka?
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