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by Rajiva Wijesinghe

I am delighted that the word federalism seems to have acquired great respectability, because it expresses an idea that seems to me extremely laudable. This is the idea that power should not be centralized. Since it is a cardinal principle, if not the most fundamental principle, of liberalism that absolute power is an absolute evil, any idea that contributes to the diffusion of power is much to be welcomed.

At the same time, while lots of power is very dangerous, so is little learning. Regrettably, where the LTTE have obviously studied their briefs and realized that one interpretation of federalism brings them to the very threshold of their demand for an independent state, the jolly old UNP has decided only now that it is time they learnt all about it. Someone else is of course willing to pay, so off go several Members of Parliament on a study tour of various federal states. If the situation were not so sad, one might have found it quite amusing.

Like students discussing which girls succumbed to advances after just one drink, I can imagine Westborg and his fellow ambassadors working out which politicians need just a single trip to respond as required.

In all fairness I should add that at least one minister, I was told, had no desire to go. Since however he is academically I think the most distinguished amongst them, I could see why Ranil was so desperate that he make it. At least a couple of intelligent questions might be asked, while the others are enjoying an unexpected perk of office. Whoever would have thought, during those arduous election campaigns, that the reward would be travelling to so many countries to learn so much, with no need to prepare beforehand or do anything afterwards except raise their hands when Ranil and Prabhakaran want them to vote.

For I do not think that these simple souls will come back any better equipped than they are now to discuss the different models of federalism, or to understand the purposes they are meant to serve in relation to the Sri Lankan situation. In Germany they will be told that federalism can promote economic development and hence unite a country (Ranil's current catch-phrase: a year ago it was the other way around).

They will not be taken to neighbouring Czechoslovakia where the opposite happened. They may not get to Canada, but if they talk about it they will be told how wonderful compulsory bilingualism is, without being informed of how immigrant children have to be schooled in French in Quebec. If they want English, the language of opportunity in the country as a whole, they have to be able to afford private schools.

That without federalism we developed such a self destructive policy ourselves will doubtless not occur to our happy wanderers. And I certainly don't suppose anyone will explain to them what happened in Yugoslavia, that model of a federal state, where fatal combinations of arrogance and insecurity, such as Ranil understands all too well, created such bloody chaos.

Now this doesn't mean I am against federalism. I am all for it, if the purpose is ensuring representation and rights for minorities oppressed or neglected by majorities, and for regions oppressed or neglected by central governments. But its basis then has to be general principles, not a situation involving binary opposites which build up their own centres of absolute power.

The government's, or rather Ranil's, current glib espousal of asymmetrical devolution, arrived at without I think a proper understanding of what that means, seems to me a recipe for disaster of the sort that afflicted the federal states I mentioned that broke up so easily. Federalism on the Swiss system would make a lot of sense here, based as it is on a principle of subsidiarity that endeavours to empower small units.

Of course we would need to develop a sense of accountability in our citizenry, as well as the ability to look at the outside world and learn from it. These I am afraid our present system of education does not inculcate. Nevertheless the success Premadasa had with his Pradeshiya Sabha system suggests that people can take up challenges successfully if they are given opportunity and encouragement.

And apart from the principles involved, Switzerland also has some practical lessons for us. It has a couple of distinct groups which both have considerable strengths, and which dominate particular areas. But where there is intermingling of populations, a fundamental basis of mutual respect and recognition ensures that no group is exclusively privileged.

The situation there is very different from what obtains in Germany or the United States, ideal federal states one would think, but without fundamental rivalries inasumuch as the populations are generally homogeneous. India, on the contrary, has a heterogeneous population, but it is diverse enough to avoid confrontation based on binary opposites.

When that did take place, in the fifties when there was conflict between a Hindi speaking North and a Dravidian South, there was serious talk of the country splitting up. And though Kashmir is obviously a special case, it is the sense of otherness against an overwhelming majority there that provides the strongest motive for separation.

My argument then is that, in trying to devise a satisfactory federal structure, we should avoid entrenching a two state system in which each state is conceived of as embodying a particular nation (where the word approximates to race or distinct group). That would be the surest way to ensure two nations in the more commonly understood sense of country.

Rather, in accordance with the arguments recently advanced by the Vice-Chancellor of the South-Eastern University, I would think the best way to avoid de facto separatism would be to proceed on the basis of the existing nine provinces, without subscribing to the notion that two of them constitute a distinct homeland. Certainly the current division into provinces is simply an administrative device of the British, and to calcify it is historical nonsense.

To calcify it on the basis of a wholly different preconception, that of separate homelands, would be even greater nonsense. But to revise boundaries would be to play the homeland game to an even more divisive extent, while totally ignoring the minorities, Tamil as well as Muslim or Sinhala, that would form irredentist groupings within the two state system.

Of course any such suggestion needs to be discussed and details worked out. But if Tiger intransigence is to be met only by the combined intellectual input of the parliamentarians who saw so much so soon, I fear that soon enough the border patrols will be out in force.

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