Columns

That was a bold move. Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his faithful ‘Tonto’ had picked up their passports again, this time to head for the United Nations, though this time round a much less united body.

Not that it would hurt ‘AKD’, as he has come to be commonly known, for a few twists here and a few turns there, and it is not going to disturb his more than Hamletian ways.

But surely there are quite significant segments of our own population which must have their eyes turned sky-high at the NPP’s moves in a world of mounting concern.

So while the world watches with growing trepidation as big powers and the small turn their muscles and their missiles on each other, in Sri Lanka the more perspicacious too must view with concern whether the NPP has decided to change gear and reverse some post-independence policies even in the world of international affairs.

Those who have watched the NPP rewrite its domestic and regional policies and now try to fashion its world relations must be equally concerned about where it is heading outside its borders because it is still not clear. That seems to be because today’s NPP is not what it used to be but a mixture of the past and the present. Clutches of the more hardened and ideologically mature JVP have seen more battles on the streets than the NPP.

That is why when AKD and his international handyman stepped into the skies the other day headed for Trump’s country to deal with large issues, our own citizenry was worried more than when they took to playing with Mr Trump’s bits and pieces that do tend to hurt.

What could cause more hurt is what AKD could tell the other blokes who have been gathering their ire over the actions of other more vicious neighbours who believe that bombing a few hundred inhabitants on the other side of the wire is no serious crime, as some warlords appear to think.

We might have expected some others with more vicious intent to step into the General Assembly chamber and damn those who condemn others for turning their guns on others who find solace in different solutions.

One major issue—and that ends up in the UN General Assembly and not Trump’s lap—is the Gaza fiasco, which has turned into one of the greater tragedies of modern times.

Many in this world try to satisfy their people and others by softening the bitter blows that one side launches as terrorist activities that deserve nothing but justifiable retaliation and moral counterattack. The majority of the world has seen and accepted the callous disregard with which Israel did and continues to treat the people of Palestine, a piece of which they have been ‘cordoned’ off as Palestine territory but are still liable to occupation by Israel as and when they please.

But the ready tragedy is that since the war, larger pieces of Palestinian land have been seized by Israeli citizens and incorporated as Israeli territory, no longer Palestinian land.

But over the years the world’s people have denied a damned people a life of their own, to live in dignity and peace. They as a people have been denied the rights and independence that other nations and peoples have been permitted.

Yet from the hallowed halls of the General Assembly chambers we hear so much moral trivia and garbage that one wonders how many bags of litter are filled each day to entertain the public and those who fill the seats.

I do not know whether AKD has already delivered his ideologically twisted mantra. There was a time when the JVP stood strongly against fascistic governments and a ruling class that crushed democratic rights.

But I wonder what today’s Sri Lankan leaders would tell their people where they stand when they are called upon to answer for the ever-widening killing fields of Gaza. Will they appear before the people and say that terrorism must be eliminated, whether it be in Gaza or any other society where a nation’s people are denied their human rights?

So where does the AKD government stand on the Middle East conflict? Does Sri Lanka support a free and independent Gaza but condemn those who stand against those who support advocates of such policies, even with armed intervention, and those who condemn the right to resist?

Similarly, Sri Lanka evolved a foreign policy that, with the expansion and strengthening of nonalignment, hardened Sri Lanka’s own belief in and support for the Third World cause.

It might be recalled that Sri Lanka—then still Ceylon—attended the first-ever Non-Aligned Summit in 1961 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Interestingly, Ceylon was led by the then Prime Minister, Sirima Dias Bandaranaike. Since Mrs Bandaranaike’s first presence at a NAM summit, the country gained quite a lead role among the non-aligned nations, particularly as the country’s “Left” movement extended its support to the government on and off the field.

One will remember from the past that left-right coalitions or alliances often split on domestic differences, as happened during the Bandaranaike regime of the 1970s. It also happened when the Communist Party pulled out and then the LSSP at the tail end of the Bandaranaike era.

Nor should it be forgotten that President Jayewardene’s rule was not as smooth as it may have seemed.

The NPP must remember that though it may appear right now, there have been fissures in the past. As somebody said, jovially perhaps, those fissures might not last the pressures. So as the years drag on, it could make governance more difficult than right now.

If ethnic and religious divisions begin to tell and other issues start to tell, those early differences surface, and ideological and international differences could also well become a splittist workload.

For a former fighting force on the streets, the choice could be testy if the time comes.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)