Tilvin’s dreams and nightmares

Wimal Weerawansa has issued a challenge to both JVP and UNP. He has challenged them to hold a joint press conference regarding their support for Sarath Fonseka. The play is not hard to understand because in terms of State of ideological preference, the reds and greens just cannot stand (or sit) together. Theoretically, I might add.

I believe this perception stems from an incorrect reading of the JVP. Chosen colour and texts by which one swears are no necessary or sufficient criteria in locating the position of a particular party or individual on the ideological spectrum.

The UNP has long been seen as THE right wing party of Sri Lanka, but then again such things make sense only if there is a capitalist class with a decent sense of its political and ideological location and class interest. What we have is a lumpen bourgeoisie. And of course a lumpen working class movement. Given this, it makes perfect sense for two lumpen entities or their representatives at least to rub shoulders and do what not.

Why they would feel shy about this is that the both UNP and JVP worship the colours green and red and believe that murmuring ‘free markets’ and ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, respectively, over and over again like some mantra is enough to be either ‘right’ or ‘left’ as the case may be.

The truth is that for all salaams dished out to Marx, Lenin and other red names, the JVP is hardly a ‘left’ party. It is an organization that has a better understanding of how to manipulate leftist iconography and trappings but is pretty thin when it comes to understanding the core principles of left politics. They are, as they always were post-insurrection, in the goda wedi kara geneema business. In other words, they are (understandably) fighting to remain relevant in the political equation.

The dilemma of the JVP, which Wimal exploits, is that it cannot admit this. It cannot tell its cadres (brainwashed for the most part and utterly devoid of the intellectual minimums to digest Karl Marx) that the party is only interested in political survival. It cannot couch in Marxist-Leninist terminology or paint in red the decision to bed with Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The UNP has no qualms either. Why should a party (and a leader) that is itself fighting for its political survival and is so down in the dumps that it cannot put forward a credible challenger to Mahinda Rajapaksa worry about petty things such as who it has to rub shoulders with? That’s the least of the UNP’s problems.

The JVP might say that the proletarian revolution has to be put on the back burner at times in the interest of securing democratic space, but that’s all toilet wash. Democracy, in terms of the UNP/JVP wish-list, was effectively written out of the constitution by J.R. Jayewardene in 1978. There is only one way to get rid of the executive presidency and that’s through amendments pushed through Parliament by a two-thirds majority and subsequent ratification of the same through a referendum. This is the bottom line. A name change at the top will not do it. The desire to abolish the executive presidency by the executive president will not do it either. This is why all talk of using Sarath Fonseka to amend the Constitution and do away with the executive presidency is unadulterated nonsense.

The JVP had a chance, though. They were part of the UPFA. They held Cabinet posts. They were positioned to make the difference they claimed they were capable of making. They blew it; partly because they could not deliver and partly because they are better at criticizing than doing. Had the JVP remained with the Government, Mahinda Rajapaksa would have had the necessary numbers.

Consider the path they’ve chosen. They want to elect Sarath Fonseka, whose political vision is a blank page and will remain so until election day; a man who for various reasons, including the prerogatives of vocation, was silent on vision, is hardly ‘believable’ when he jumps into politics and utters some feel-good words about what is and what ought to be.

They hope that if elected Fonseka would do what they want. Well, sorry guys, the man has already distanced himself from both JVP and UNP and it looks like he will be using both parties who have, sadly, put themselves in a position to be played left and right by the man. In any case, Fonseka cannot change the Constitution on his own. The parliamentary arithmetic does not work in his favour and will not even after a General Election. In this sense, the SLMC is more honest: ‘we will take the risk that Fonseka will not be interested in changing the Constitution after six months’, they confessed their position.

I feel for Tilvin, though. He must spend sleepless nights wondering what Comrade Wijeweera would have thought of his followers wining and dining with the people who killed him as well as some 60,000 others including the top level leadership of the JVP.

There is a way of shutting out nightmare, though. Come clean. The JVP has all but given up on Marxist ‘logic’. They still have the ‘red’ and that’s ok since no one has a patent on that colour. All they have to do is to say, ‘this is an api wenuwen api move’, it is for us, the party, or more correctly, the leadership of the party, it is about our future, a desperate attempt to remain relevant at some level. The JVP blew it at the last Local Government Election when they decided to contest independently of the UPFA. They were offered control of 25 Local Government bodies, but asked for 40. They ended up barely retaining the Tissamaharama PS. That’s what greed gives. And takes. That’s what inaccurate estimation of self gives. And takes. Today, the JVP is both pauper and prostitute. They have sinned much and one could argue that this is what they deserve. I wouldn’t be that harsh. I feel sorry, really.

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