The Myth Of The Rajapaksa-Supermen
“We were given a King; Come, Rally, All as One.”
(UPFA Propaganda Song)
By Tisaranee Gunasekara
Last week Sri Lanka won her first Paralympic Medal.
Sooner, or later, the credit for that triumph would be laid at some Rajapaksa-door, though Lankan Paralympic-entrants were left to fend for themselves even more than Lankan Olympic-entrants. As the winner of that lonely Bronze told the BBC, “I have to buy all the equipment, shoes and clothes, everything from my own salary. I did not get sponsorship for my training…” (Colombo Telegraph – 4.9.2012).
That unpalatable truth would be lost in a country where official propaganda labours with Herculean effort to credit the Ruling Siblings with every triumph; and to advance the counterfactual claim that the Rajapaksas (and the Rajapaksas alone) hold the wellbeing of the land and the happiness of the people in their mightily competent grip.
True, there are a few problems in this near paradisiacal land: inflation, a crumbling education system, child rape, disappearances… But we must not harp much on these issues, according to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, because “improper reporting of crime related reports would have a negative impact on tourism and investments to the country…” (Colombo Page – 23.8.2012). Our patriotic task is to believe that life is good and getting better, all thanks to the Rajapaksas.
Those who fail to embrace this ‘correct perspective’ are pawns of national and international conspirators who lurk under every stone and behind every bush, eternally plotting to destroy Lankan security and happiness. Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, only patriots can see this Perennial Threat; and only the Rajapaksas, as the Sole Patriotic Leaders, can deal with it,
Adolf Hitler observed, “If popularity and force are combined, and if…they are able to survive for a certain time, an authority on an even firmer basis can arise, the authority of tradition. If finally, popularity, force and tradition combine, an authority may be regarded as unshakable” (Mein Kampf). A tradition of Rajapaksa Rule cannot be created without implanting the mythical image of the Ruling Siblings as a Trinity of Supermen capable of any feat and essential for our wellbeing.
It is a belief which is counter to provable facts. And it vitiates our sense of self as citizens and as human beings. A Übermensch cannot be, without countless Untermenschen; a Superman to be a superman needs his fellow men to be less than men. Super-leaders do not need intelligent and responsible citizens with critical faculties. Super-leaders need an infantile-populace which can be taught to embrace its inequality and love its subjugation. The Rajapaksas cannot become Supermen unless they can make us believe that we are a nation of political-minors in need of their wise counsel and vigilant protection. The Rajapaksas cannot dominate the SLFP without downgrading fellow SLFP leaders (their peers or superiors of not so long ago) into servile acolytes.
The Rajapaksas can ennoble themselves only by diminishing the rest of us.
The Labours of the Rajapaksas
When announcing Kim Jong Il’s death, the North Korean official news agency claimed that the ‘Dear Leader’ died of a heart attack caused by “physical and mental overwork”, while on an “onsite guidance tour” to provide “field guidance” to some farm or factory.
‘The Labouring Leader’ is a perennial despotic-myth; the Leader as the Supreme Fixer of everything and the Sleepless Watcher of everyone is a key raison d’être of any tyranny.
According to the Daily News, a typical Rajapaksa Day in this election season is busy with Kim-like activities. The President, while engaging in his daily exercises, chatted to Grade 5 scholarship students; toured the Embilipitiya Sathi Pola and instructed the UDA (now under Brother Gotabaya) to remake it; went to the bus-stand and conversed with the commuters; visited the Uda Walawe National Park and charmed the elephants; checked out the Chandrika Tank and gave instructions for its renovation; inspected the Embilipitiya water supply plant currently under construction.
One can almost visualise the President telling Bronze Medallist Pradeep Sanjaya how to win a Gold at the next Paralympic Games; or visiting the Space Training Academy and advising scientists on how best to conquer space.
Winning the war gave the Rajapaksa Familial project enormous traction and credibility; but this claim is subject to diminishing marginal utility. The Siblings would know that the ‘gratitude’ argument has only a limited shelf-life. A replacement myth is thus needed, depicting Generals Mahinda, Basil and Gotabaya as the only leaders capable of winning the developmental war.
Except that development is not a war; it is not about charging ahead single-mindedly, ignoring all consequences but about balancing, reappraising and compromising. The Rajapaksas’ ‘Total War’ approach to development can create cement monstrosities of doubtful quality but cannot build a solid economic foundation nor cause a real improvement in the day to day lives of ordinary people. It can create delusions of grandeur but is abysmal at managing even the simplest of everyday ordinary tasks (such as buying uncontaminated fuel or conducting an error-free exam). It can create islands of prosperity but only amidst seas of want.
That is the reality the Rajapaksa Supermen myth aims at effacing and concealing.
The Siblings want a nation brainwashed into trusting Rajapaksa claims implicitly. They want a nation incapable of seeing any anomaly in a regime willing to spend billions on facilitating space-jaunts for a First Son while refusing to pay the lawyers fighting for the life of Rizana Nafeek, the Lankan housemaid sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. They want a nation which does not see a contradiction in the hype about moral regeneration and the statement by the Asgiriya Mahanayake Thero that his opposition to monks in politics is likely to “antagonise some people and they would send him abusive letters” (Daily Mirror – 13.6.2012).
Like Walter Mitty, the James Thurber character who leavened his banal existence by daydreaming of heroic adventures, the Siblings want us to cling to delusions of grandeur, even as we sink ever lower into depths of indignity.
The militarization of society is a vital component in this psycho-political project. In the military the Rajapaksas have an ideal weapon, an uncritical, unthinking mass whose only credo is obedience; and a militarised society is a society unaccustomed to thinking for itself, a society of ‘patriotic’ Chinese Monkeys. As Charles Simic, in reminiscing about his days as a conscript, stated, “being in a military is like being in a totalitarian state” because military ethos teaches that the “true sense of the self can only come from obedience, from submitting to an organisation like the army which works for greater good…” (The New York Review of Books – 3.7.2012). That is why in Rajapaksa eyes, ‘Leadership Training’ in military camps is more relevant for undergraduates than English or IT lessons. (Plus in Rajapaksa Sri Lanka, educational attainments are handicaps, unnecessary baggage in life’s journey towards the stars; the phenomenal success of the Family is living-proof of this). The Rajapaksa goal is a nation manipulated into accepting the Myth of a Family of Supermen without whom it is lost economically and damned politically; a nation which can be choreographed into supporting any absurdity. Like those North Koreans who hailed the twenty-something son of their late president as the ‘Great Successor’.
Brilliant, Tissaranee. The Rajapakses were never good;only now ther stand naked
Thisaranee
Ypou may write every sunday hundred thousands of words against Rajapaksa family and the current Sri Lanka Ruling party. But yet, they have won the three provincial elections with a thumping majority. YOU ARE A LOST CASE.
Thumping majority? Are you okay?
Only 50% turn out and you call this a thumping majority? Real UPFA silly nitwit yiou are. those people who didnt vote were not regime supporters at all. Even in the 50% voted there were numbers of significant UNP votes. So if you nitwit put one and one together you can see the end result.
This bogus king’s exit is around the corner and you better start count down.
Welldone Tisaranee – Please keep writing, we do enjoy your articles.
Going by the sheer volume of unsubstantiated allegations and other forms of misstatements published daily in the name of journalism I am satisfied that freedom of expression is well protected in Sri Lanka. And let us hope this will continue into the future when the opposition parties someday come to power – and will not decide to send the police personnel on well earned leave to allow their supporters “celebrate victory” …
You are absolutely right. Why don’t anyone anlyze or calculate, what percentage of the 50% that voted this time at the PC elections, voted for the UPFA? I am sure it will be just over 30%. So, the UPFA won by just over 30% say. So, how can any one say that this is a landslide victory for the UPFA. This has been in the case in all previous elections won by the UPFA. No one cares to analyze in this manner and reveal the truth to the people.
Cos our sri lankans are fools
Thats because Sri Lankas full of uneducated ignorant idiots just like you !…with a mind set of “destructive indiffernce”
So people like Rajapaksas can build their dinasty.
(there should be a law that two people from the same family cannot contest or get elected to the parliment in the same time………..)
Dear Malin.
NO . Malin , Thisaranee is NOT the lost case . Its all SRI LANKANs who are losing with a robber ruling the country and all his family in it …Time will tell but then it will be too LATE …………..
Sri Lanka is run by a third world world genocidal thug regime who should be hung by their balls. Who would want to live in this beggarly country?
@ Malin
Do you know what sycophancy means?
@bambusara hamu
Does it mean the same as being a sycophant for Gunasekera’s articles ?
Ebenezer Thurairajah:
Is that meant to be a joke? What you keep sticking into web editions of newspapers eminently qualifies you for a position in the Presidential Guard of Sri Lanka. Then it would be easier to shine or lick its boots!
A good article, this is the barefaced truth, what most of our deaf & blind voters fail to see!! Malin’s no exception! It’s also foolish for people not to use their right to vote, people of Sri Lanka be bold like the writer, use your vote to defeat a regime run by thugs & hooligans, Country first, then self, We still have hope, Dictators like MR & his siblings had been there before, but these types end up in DUST, & forgotne by time! But we the citizens should not be lame & importent like Ranil Wickramasinghe, our incompetant opporsition leader, let us unite, other Nations like Libya. Egypt, Tunisia, and now Syria had sent their dictators to bite the dust, let’s do it to the Rajapakses and save this beautiful Country, our Mother Lnd from petty dictators!!
@Pacha Epa
No joke.. My point was that sycophants exist on both sides of the fence, motivated by various reasons. You (and @bambusara hamu) are motivated in your slavish fawning over Tissaranee’s articles by your simple dislike of ‘Rajapakse’… rather than by any other higher motive..
That 50% turned out is neither here nor there…One cannot measure an election by the number of people who did not vote.. in 2010, only 56% of voters turned out in the US elections.. does it invalidate Obama’s presidency ?
I still recall your grandiose claim that Gurkhas are only (nobly) deployed by the British Army or some such unresearched nonsense… I have already seen YOUR qualifications !! You are of course, eminently qualified to lick Gunasekera’s (The LTTE Can Never Be Defeated Militarily) leather boots…. of course, you have to make a trip to the UK to do that !!
As an example of Malin calculation so far out of 8 comments score thus far 1 :7 negative. .Malin can work out which side has the thumping majority in the comment field so far assuming he got all his fingers (5 x 2 in both hands simplification for Malin) he should be able to work this out shouldn’t he or am I been to optimistic ?
@len
Malin’s calculation is still valid. Not everyone who voted has a PC and internet connection and feels (like you perhaps ?) that Sri Lanka must always be administered by it’s hereditary ruling families..
Iam the Percy, Not the King will exit, it will be Tisaranee who will be exited like that stupid Ekheniyagoda fool, the Jansz woman escaped luckily otherwise same fate of Lasntha would have fallen on her, now in our country we have no choice, only Rajapakses are kings and they will remain king for some time; all these rubbish statistics and percentage games are pure garbage. The present situation is much better than having rogues and drunkards like Ranil, Sajith, Karu, Tissa, Ravi and traitor and anti-buddhist pro-LTTE christian crusader white man arse licker Jayalath j’wardena bastards.
Rajapaksa was able to defeat the LTTE by adopting tactics of the enemy in a huge scale.
Now He is adopting to control the entire country to benefit his familial rule.
This woman should change the name first before writing this type of hatread filled false allegations against the only Leader of a statethat eliminated BRUTAL LTTE TERRORISM FROM SRI LANKAN SOIL.Her name is a DISGRACE FOR THE BUDDHIST RELIGION as she is DEAF,BLIND & DUMB before the TRUTH and also on endless crimes committed by LTTE rumps!!!
@Jay
Gunasekera is neither Buddhist nor Sri Lankan – She is a UK citizen. Living and writing there. Her pre-2009 stance was very much pro-LTTE which she categorically stated, “could NEVER be defeated militarily”
Now that her prediction has rather spectacularly run out of “hulang”.. she spends her time making these attacks on the architects of her humiliation
Can you really blame her ? :-)
Tisaranee such a treat to read, unfortunately I undestand that only 3-5% can read and undestand what is written in English, can some one translate what you write to Sinhala? so that the misinformed millions can undestand the tragedy that is unfoldind with grave consequences for the future?Most people who are not directly affected by this corrupt regime are non participatory in showing their disgust and mumble in silence rather than organising and taking to the streets.I hope people like you, the Friday Forum, S.L.Gunasekara,Hema N and other patriots will band together to dislodge these corrupt bastards out for ever and then bring them in on high Treason charges.
I could only say the country is run by ….I hope you all have herd the ever famous Charlie Chaplin and the people are having a humorous time.
What must dumbfound Tisaranee Gunasekara why with all her confused, nonsensical and “analytical” input is that the nations has a whole gives her much attention has bull gives to a hovering fly.
Her talents lie in re-feeding back the already processed heads through another article such as this.
The elections last week further solidified the Rajapaksha government. How would she explain those election results?
I hope that at least by these results she understands that she has no grasp of reality. She can not understand the fundamental forces that moves policy and power in this country. She has much understanding of culture and people of this country as Hilliary Clinton did for Libyans. (I would love to talk of our international relations in another comment).
She understands none of the social sciences, evolutionary physiology of societies and groups. Her arguments fail to find any grounds what so ever in evolutionary social tendencies of a human society.
What she is nothing more than a English school teacher not befitting the role of a political historian that she claim to portray in her writing.
While we enjoy the strong wording of an increasingly frustrated individual who is slowly loosing touch with the country that she lives in, for the sake of democracy and and free speech, i do hope that she will continue.
But i hope that at least she will have the good sense to not humorously tie everything good or bad that Sri Lankans will win, loose, do or say as another example of a dismal failure of our country’s (lets face it) very popular president.
Tisaranee MY HEARTFELT CONGRATULATIONS.As usual a brilliant analysis of the Rajapakse administration & as always u have hit the nail on the head.
This is how many people except for sycophants & bootlickers see them but no one can express it as well as u!