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How intransigent nationalism breeds separatism

by Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga

(Continued from yesterday)

Unlike in India the Spanish or Filipino Governments have no power to dissolve Provincial Legislatures, or to dismiss governments, but the two Houses of the Spanish Cortez and the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Philippines have exclusive authority over constitutional legislation.

With these distinctions, those between pure unitary states, unitary states with provincial autonomy, quasi-federal states and federal states before me, I shall approach the task of this paper, that of advocating the establishment of a federal state in Sri Lanka which will also constitute a check on the unmitigated exercise of 'democracy'.

It has been a distinct liberal contribution to political theory that there is a distinction between democracy and that form of political order which placed the greatest importance on individual and political liberty. Democracy is as it existed in Athens, that form of government based upon the will of the majority. But it is at once clear that the will of the majority can be as tyrannical as the will of a despot, if tyranny is to be judged by its effects on individual human beings.

A political majority, if it does not recognise the right of all human beings to the expression of their ideals and to live their lives according to their wishes, provided that they do not deprive other individuals of similar rights by so doing, would be an expression of tyranny. It is a distinction made clear by John Stuart Mill when he wrote: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would no more be justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power would be justified in silencing mankind."

What is asserted by Mill is the primacy of individual liberty over the will of the majority. In the contemporary era another liberal thinker Professor Friedrich von Hayek has further clarified this distinction:

"The Liberal is concerned with the extent of government, the democrat with how a government is composed... The current misconception of democratic theory derives from the practice that whatever the majority decided on particular matters was to be binding law for all. There is, however neither need for such unlimited power, nor can its existence be reconciled with individual freedom."

It is the recognition of the limitations of democracy that has led to the evolution of a political order that gives expression to the will of the majority provided that this is compatible with the protection of the rights of the individual (and hence those of minorities, political, ethnic, religious etc). This form of political expression is liberal democracy and those modern states which are genuinely free are liberal democracies. It is in the interest of a stronger liberal democracy that I argue that 'democracy' must be checked.

The outlook of the political mainstream in Sri Lanka has been at best, democratic rather than liberal democratic and some of the advocates of the pure unitary state base their views upon a devotion to the ascendancy of the majority rather than the respect of individual rights. When the apparent devotion to the triumph of the majority's will, is manifest not only in terms of political majorities but also of ethnic majorities, the stage is set for ethnic conflict. When the majority's will is enforced in political terms, regardless of the views of political minorities, the stage is set for authoritarianism. Sri Lanka's current crisis is then to a considerable degree the result of unchecked 'democracy'. It is therefore important that political forms be devised which sharply divide and restrain the power of the state and its instruments, the politicians and their minions.

A unitary state is highly conductive to the concentration of power and has contributed to the creation of a monopoly of power. With the increasing dominance of Parliament by a single political force, this tendency has become further exacerbated and has resulted in an excessive partisan politicisation of Sri Lanka. The concentration of power in a single source of political decision-making has, as the experience of 1970-1977 and of 1977 to the present demonstrates, led to authoritarianism and intolerance, to incompetence and corruption.

The increasing control of the economy by the state (and in any event the expansion of economic development) has led to growing opportunities for patronage and its corollary political victimisation.

The concentration of political power in a single party or group of parties (the SLFP, LSSP and CP from 1970-1975, the SLFP from 1975-1977, the UNP from 1977-1988) has also led to increasing political authoritarianism and a feeling among supporters of opposition parties and those belonging to minority ethnic groups that they are excluded from the mainstream of national life. By such means and by the evolution of increasingly centralised and authoritarian structures within political parties the prospects for a sharing of power which in turn will result in greater political harmony and less bitter and divisive antagonism have been systematically undermined.

Such tendencies can be, if not wholly eliminated then at least reduced, by the devolution of power to elected Provincial Councils and Governments.

The sense of complete denial of access to the political mainstream that infected the Northern and Eastern Provinces, principally because the parties that represented a majority of the people of those provinces were by their regional nature condemned (with the exception of 1965-70) to a state of perpetual opposition and the sense of discrimination and alienation felt by supporters of the United National Party from 1970-1977 and by those of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party from 1977 to the present can considerably be mitigated by the possibility, particularly in the context of the terms of Provincial Councils not being co-terminus with that of Parliament, of the SLFP or the TULF or other parties of the Opposition being able to constitute Provincial Governments while being in Opposition at the central level.

To my mind, the most compelling argument in favour of federalism lies in its very firm limitation and division of power which makes it impossible even for a numerical majority to exercise a tyrannical political intolerance. Such arguments, of course apply too to a unitary state with devolved authority as exists in the Sri Lanka of today. But a unitary state still contains the danger that populists and centralisers of power will sweep away or alternately chip away at the division of power and revest it in themselves.

These dangers exist even now, when some political parties and some persons in other political parties have declared their determination to abolish Provincial Councils that have been created. Equally given the crude partisanship which has characterised much of Sri Lankan politics, the danger is all too real that a Government possessed of power at the central level, if confronted with Provincial Governments of a different complexion may be tempted to undermine if not wholly to destroy the structure of devolution.

The restraints that are placed on constitutional amendments have much to recommend themselves in the Sri Lankan political context where partisan manipulations of the constitution have disastrously undermined liberal democracy. The limitation on constitutional amendment that a federal constitution would make inevitable is another check on the untrammelled will of the majority that is exceedingly welcome.

The opponents of federalism and indeed of any kind of devolution have their own powerful arguments. It is contended that in a developing country a single firm source of decision-making is essential for economic development to be able to take place. It is argued too that even devolution within the context of a unitary state, more so federalism is the thin end of the wedge that ends in total separation. It is further argued that devolution is quite unnecessary as a majority of the people (at any rate in ethnic terms) never asked for it.

The necessity of a single, firm, even an authoritarian, political structure for rapid economic development in the Third World is much over-rated. The only possible examples in favour of this contention are a handful of Far Eastern states such as South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore.

It should at once be emphasised that all these countries have of late been in a considerable political firmament and that both in South Korea and Taiwan a firm political liberalisation has taken place. Besides in both these states, rapid industrialisation and construction took place not so much because of the political structures as because these states were of crucial importance to the United States in a particularly significant phase of the Cold War. Singapore on the other hand is a city state that has therefore long been able to contain the inevitable reaction to political authoritarianism but there are signs now that if reforms are soon not undertaken the situation will deteriorate rapidly. It is equally significant that the new liberal democracies of Latin America such as Argentina and Brazil, and the Philippines, which emerged out of dictatorship have adopted federal or quasi federal constitutions.

Even in terms of economics centralised planning is no longer believed to be a panacea. On the contrary, an increasing proportion of economic decision-making at a lower level and the encouragement of private initiatives is rightly believed to be a better basis for economic progress.

It seems to me that the argument that devolution and federalism will lead inevitably to separation is profoundly a historical. It has been part of the tragic short-sightedness, if not the bigotted absurdity of nationalists throughout the world and over the centuries to believe that the sharing of power with those whose cultural, racial or religious experiences and affinities are different from their own, would lead inevitably to separation and to the destruction of the nation to which they proclaimed their loyalty. Yet on almost every occasion history has demonstrated that it is intransigent nationalism and the refusal to share power that has led to separatism and to political catastrophe.

If George III and his Ministers had granted a freer and more generous authority to the American Colonies, the United States of America may have yet been in the British sphere of influence, if Gladstone's and the Liberal Party's policy of Home Rule for Ireland had been adopted in the 19th century, Ireland would in all probability have remained an integral part of the United Kingdom and the modern tragedy of Northern Ireland may have never been enacted.

Ungenerous solutions that are based upon the dominance of ethnic minorities by ethnic majorities are the surest means of achieving separation. For example it was the overthrow of the relatively moderate Greek Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios by the fanatic Greek nationalist soldiers led by Nicos Sampson that led to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and a permanent partition of the island. By the same token it is the Sri Lankan Government's narrow minded and selfish intransigence, and its determined pursuit of the intolerant course of a 'military solution' of the Tamil problem that has led to the current crisis.

The experience of successful federations, on the other hand, has almost always demonstrated an advance of national unity and political harmony. The United States, Australia, Canada, India and the Federal Republic of Germany have demonstrated that the successful operation of federalism, by protecting and even enhancing that diversity that most often craves expression, tends in the long run to build a greater national consciousness than would have been possible amidst the hostilities of a unitary state that was constructed in the image of the numerical majority.

(To be continued)

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