Is JHU and JVP on pragmatic approach to solve country's national issues?

Politics & People by Dr. Rajiva Wijesingha

CAPABILITY: When I wrote some weeks ago about the negative capability of the JVP, I dwelt largely on the political aspects of this.

At that stage it was being argued by some commentators that they would, as they had done in 1988, fall in with UNP plans, under the impression that their first priority was to destroy the center, effectively occupied now by the President, as Mrs Bandaranaike had represented the forces of moderation nearly twenty years back.

The argument, to which some if not all its leadership had succumbed then, was that destruction of the center would pave the way for the final struggle against the great class enemy, the UNP, in a context in which many moderate forces also would support the left than an extremist right.

Failed

That type of approach may have worked in Russia in 1917, but in Sri Lanka in 1989 it failed miserably, and Premadasa emerged as an extremely strong President.

Now, I don't for a moment believe Ranil is in Premadasa's class as a politician, and I cannot really see him building up a coalition of the willing, or the unwilling, consisting of Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mangala Samaraweera and Somawansa Amarasinghe and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all those dissidents of different hues whom his adherents in the press thought were ready to propel him to power.

But Sri Lankan politics has always been bizarre, and one cannot discount anything happening, lubricated as the movements of so many are by the movements of the stars even more than by money.

Still, for the moment at least that particular danger has passed and the JVP has realised that, in terms of its long term goals, President Rajapaksa is a safer bet than the current alternative.

Certainly in terms of defeating terrorism that is true, and in that respect he is right to reiterate his commitment to the strategy, of promoting democracy and pluralism in Tamil majority areas too, which he and the JVP jointly formulated before the 2005 election.

And, even if the JVP has not seen this yet, or having seen it refuses to admit it for political reasons, he has certainly done well in convincing the JHU, which seemed to be more irrationally extreme, that adherence to the letter of the CFA, whilst dealing firmly with obvious violations of it on the part of the LTTE, will be more conducive to the above strategy than a mindless abrogation of the Agreement.

Progress

But, whilst progress on that front has been positive, thanks largely to the cohesive and consistent approach of the defence establishment - and I use the word defence advisedly, as opposed to the more aggressive stance as in Muhamalai who fail to understand the strategic sense of working within the framework of the CFA - there is another area in which I fear the current JVP approach is coming to fruition, in a manner that may well damage the long term prospects of the President.

I refer to the attitudes that will help him solve the ethnic problem politically, even while he distinguishes from this the terrorist problem, to which active input from the Ministry of Defence is clearly, given past Tiger practices, the only viable solution.

In that respect I fear that the JVP, which had a much less bigoted approach in the past, as was indicated by its participation in the 1981 District Development Council elections when other opposition parties boycotted them, has regressed considerably.

My worries about this crystallized when I read a few weeks back that Weerawansa, presented in some papers as the softer side of the JVP, had launched an attack in Parliament on the syllabus prescribed by the National Institute of Education for Civics and Governance in this year's Grade 10 classes.

Brainwash

Weerawansa claimed that the syllabus was intended to brainwash students into acceptance of federalism, and that it had been designed by officials in the NIE who were on the payroll of various NGOs. His argument, according to the paper, was that such terrible topics, including conflict resolution, were being introduced instead of tales of Sri Lankan heroes which he thought much more appropriate for this subject.

All this sounded so interesting that I thought I should get a copy of the new syllabus. As far as I knew, the syllabus formulated in 2005, by a committee that was chaired I believe by Prof Gamini Samaranayake, current Chairman of the UGC, had been changed.

This had also happened to the syllabus for Life Competencies for Grade 6, produced by the same committee.

When I got the new syllabuses however, I found that Grade 6 had indeed been dumbed down as it were, with items such as 'Students should appreciate the importance of collecting and assessing information in order to learn, and should practice this actively' and 'a work ethic on behalf of their communities' and 'the importance and positive potential of diversity in society and in their communities had been omitted'.

However, the Grade 10 syllabus had been changed only minimally, and continued at a level that would, if successfully taught, have helped in producing a more intelligent and integrated society.

Far from Weerawansa's condemnation being accurate, it transpired that the syllabus was inclusive in its approach, and simply noted as part of the subject content under Democratic Government

* Nature of the state and government

(a) Forms of the state - nature of the nation state, origins and formation of nation states; basic structure of states - Unitary and Federal

(b) The major organs of government and their functions and powers - Legislature, Executive and Judiciary

(c) Forms of Government - Parliamentary and Presidential Systems

* Role of the State - Maintaining law and order, provision of welfare, developmental activities, conflict resolution

The historical development of the above concepts should be introduced, in the context of social changes within societies.

Furthermore, with regard to Decentralization and devolution of power the aim was to enable students to analyse structures of government in the context of facilitating achievement of governmental goals throughout a country and promoting effective administration with the following competencies

1. Identifies the differences between concepts of decentralization and devolution.

2. Explores structures, functions and powers of various units of decentralization and devolution.

3. Evaluates the necessity of making structural changes in a modern state.

Interestingly, after study then of Multi Cultural Society the syllabus goes on to Economic systems and relations which may also have upset Weerawansa since its subject content includes

* Definitions of economic activity and related problems

* Introduction to various economic systems - Socialist, Capitalist and Mixed

* The concept of the market economy, and its various forms

* Present economic system in Sri Lanka in the context of development

* The relationship of the Sri Lankan economy to the world economy

* Impact of technological developments and globalization on the world economy as well as Sri Lanka.

Understanding

Students should be introduced to an understanding of indicators, economic as well as social, that facilitate analysis of economic systems. Individual study of different economic systems should be encouraged, with comparative case studies of other countries.

Finally there is Conflict resolution in a democratic society which deals with

* Types and sources of conflicts - Political, socio- economic, ethnic

* Various methods of anticipating, containing, resolving conflicts

* The advantages of avoiding conflicts and of resolving them peacefully.

Case studies of at least a couple of other conflicts should be explored, with students making comparisons and contrasts to the Sri Lankan situation. Instances of successful conflict resolution, as well as the opposite, should be considered. Students should engage in role plays to facilitate understanding both of the causes of conflict, as well as the difficulties and possibilities of peaceful resolution.

Such a syllabus, which goes on to Law and Human Rights and Environment Issues and a taste of International Relations in Grade 11, seems to be extremely sophisticated, though it would obviously require good textbooks and sensitive teaching. It is based obviously on encouraging greater awareness and developing discriminating judgments, within a framework of understanding social needs and developments.

Old-fashioned

But this, it seems is what a diehard Marxist approach rejects. The old-fashioned Marxist approach stressed absolute values and one-dimensional heroes, and this sadly it seems is what Weerawansa wants for the masses.

The fact that modern Marxist parties, in China for instance or in India now, understand the need for educational systems that develop thinking skills in the context of wide general awareness, seems sadly to have passed the current leadership of the JVP by.

Instead, they remain stuck in the mindset that perhaps only North Korea now promotes.

However, it is also possible that this approach is more strategic than moral. Weerawansa is supposed, to send his son to an International School. Now this certainly should not be a matter for condemnation, since after all no parent can be blamed for wanting the best for his or her children. What is sad is the determination that a similar educational system should not be extended to others.

Or, rather, it would be sad were it not in line with what obtains in North Korea, where the nomenklatura have distinct advantages, whereas the masses have to be satisfied with a very limited education, that is intended to keep them happy with their lot.

From a selfish point of view this may be sensible. The Koreans know after all that China and Russia moved towards reform after a new relatively well educated generation simply refused to accept a command system.

A technologically competent society, benefiting from advances in communication, simply could not be kept in the dark. But in North Korea, where mobile phones are still the preserve of the politically chosen, a judicious mixture of ignorance and absolute values may allow the status quo to go on for some years more.

But there is reason for sadness, because such an approach contrasts with the much more enlightened attitude of the JVP way back in 1988, when I first came across them officially as we developed the manifesto under which Mrs Bandaranaike contested the Presidential Election.

I did not go for many of the meetings, and so I was astonished when Chanaka Amaratunga told me that the only other party to support his plea that English be an official language, was the JVP.

Clause

It may not be remembered now that that particular clause in the Indo-Lankan Accord was the only one that did not become law.

The reason was that the old left, whose support J R thought essential for the Accord, was still fighting the anti-colonial battles of its heyday, and insisted that only Sinhala and Tamil be official, with English described as just a national link language.

On one of the few occasions on which I was able to talk to him quietly I asked the JVP representative, a bright young man called Dhammika who was to be killed the following year when the country was polarized, what was the rationale for the positive approach of the JVP to English.

His answer was that they understood English was essential for the future, and their objection was to a system that kept it as the preserve of the rich.

To my further question, as to whether this was not a totally different position from that advanced by the Inter-University Students Federation, which had acted as it were as a stalking horse for the JVP (introduced to the larger group, entertainingly enough, by Rukman Senanayake), his answer was that the JVP was a very different political entity from the IUSF.

The principal IUSF representative to those talks was Champika Ranawaka, who was to break conclusively with the JVP some years later.

At the time I thought him worryingly extreme in his views, much more difficult to talk to than Dhammika, and over the next decade his political trajectory seemed to confirm this view.

It is doubly ironic then that he now represents in cabinet the JHU, which seems to have adopted a more pragmatic approach to resolving both the terrorist and the ethnic problems than the apparently more dogmatic JVP. Dhammika, I feel, who belonged to an older and apparently more cosmopolitan generation, might have thought differently.

But that was in another country, and those thinkers are dead.