What really is denoted by ‘SF’?

Election campaigns are moments for clever word-play. It is a fun time certainly. People come up with nice lines, silly ones, words that are made for parodying and statements that sometimes wreck campaigns. It is usually a case of people over-reaching. Too many people over-reaching, I should say. Spoils the soup.

This was clearly evident in 2004 and 2005 when the campaigns of the UNP and Ranil Wickremesinghe respectively essentially self-destructed thanks to overkill. It happens when there is too much money and too many loyalists wanting to do the extra bit for the party and leader. When this happens, coherence is severely compromised and the electorate, bombarded with so many messages, some of which contradict others, decides to say ‘no’.

These are early days and the frontrunners are still in the parry and thrust mode. As the weeks pass we will no doubt see more intense exchanges of fire, slips of the tongue, moronic statements, lampooning and what not. Still, a poster did catch my eyes. It was clearly a teaser about Sarath Fonseka: SF meheyuma sudanam (translatable as ‘the SF operation is ready to go’).

‘SF’ of course stands for Sarath Fonseka as well as the Special Forces. It looks like the campaign managers believe that the military metaphor is best retained, perhaps to play off the former Army Commander’s medals. It doesn’t sit very well with the man’s restoring-democracy promise though, but then again who am I to question the wisdom of people like Mangala Samaraweera and Mano Ganeshan?

Nice poster. Caught my eye. I remembered it. I made the connection. Successful communication? Not necessarily. I don’t like military metaphors and undertones outlining the engagement in a democratic process. Still, as I said, these are early days and candidates and supporters have ample time to shoot themselves in the foot or mouth or whatever. Violent, these war-like words, don’t you agree?

Regardless of all these things, the ‘SF’ part got me thinking. The Special Forces, everyone knows, refers to an elite band of soldiers, highly trained and deployed in the most dangerous battlefield missions. Fonseka, at one time the chief of the Army, must be a highly trained soldier, I have no doubt whatsoever. That training was good for that task not for others. A highly trained pilot who excels at precision air-strikes is quite likely to be out of his depth if deployed in a Naval vessel, right?

But Fonseka has men and women of ‘experience’ to do his political work. He has resources. Money. Media. Poster-boys or rather, poster-pasting boys. Things like that. All ‘special’ and all amenable to description by the word ‘force’. So me may say ‘spent force’, just by looking at the JVP and the UNP. ‘SF’ = ‘Spent Force’...hmmm....now that’s something that someone could play with.

I am thinking of other kinds of forces, special ones of course. Presidential elections are not affairs where candidates shoot it out. They have supporters, people and groups that endorse, fund and in other ways operationalize their support. There are lots of forces out there, come to think of it. Let me elaborate.

There are the nationalists, all those who championed a military approach to dealing with the LTTE. They’ve made their choice. Then there are those forces that tried to derail the military effort. They’ve made their choice. There are shadowy creatures who operate as though they are value-neutral and above petty politicking, yes, the NGO/INGO brats. They are a bit lost these days. There are also those meddling diplomats who think that a posting in a developing country is akin to being made Viceroy. They’ve clearly made their choice. Such people are really not concerned about the character of a candidate, his/her background, party etc. All that matters is whether or not the particular candidate will toe their line. For them what’s important in this election is not charisma or track record but where each candidate stands in relation to the having their interests served. So if you want a tip about how to cast your vote, it might be useful to keep your ears open to what’s coming out of those cells of subversion that we call foreign diplomatic missions, especially those representing Western countries.

Then there is the filthy rich. They constitute a ‘Special Force’ too. We know where most of them stand and we know that they are for the most part swayed by the profit motive.

Another Special Force would be those who are ideologically committed to selling off the nation’s assets and signing off sovereignty to foreign interests. They’ve clearly stated where they stand.

All in all, it is not a bad idea to keep an eye on all Special Forces. Not all of them are exactly ‘spent forces’ and they typically buy insurance by lavishly funding all campaigns. Well, they do pump in a few millions more to the kitty of the preferred candidate, but they are not stingy when other candidates come with the begging bowl. We need to understand that candidates are typically mere puppets of the Special Forces. Yes, it is not like it is in the Army. We need to know which Special Forces we want to run our country. These are early days, I say again. It is good to keep our eyes open for some of these ‘special forces’ are deadly creatures. Ruthless, endowed with singular determination and utterly dispassionate, they really know what they are doing. In a military task they do it for their comrades, their commanding officers, their President and their nation. In politics it is all about doing things for themselves. Not api wenuwen api but mama wenuwen mama.

‘SF’. Keep that in mind. Not ‘Sarath Fonseka’. Perhaps ‘Spent Force’. Most certain ‘Special Forces’ and not the kind that were garlanded and hailed as national heroes not too long ago.

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