Pendulum party

Though it was known that the UNP and the JVP would support the same candidate at the Presidential Election, the news of the two parties conducting the campaign from a single platform came as a surprise to many, especially to the sympathisers of the latter.

This was because the UNP was rightly considered to be the party of the extreme right in politics while the JVP was considered by many to be the extreme Left. Naturally one would expect them to be as far apart as the earth and the sky.

However, if we assume the world of politics to be spherical as the physical world then the extreme right and the extreme left would naturally coincide.

This coincidence of interests could not be viewed as an accident. In order to understand the reasons for it one has to analyse the genesis and development of the JVP. It was born in the mid-1960’s.

That was a time in which revolutions were frequent and a tidal wave of revolutions had taken place, beginning with the end of the Second World War and culminating in the Cuban Revolution.

In the harsh realities of the 1960s in which a global economic crisis was felt heavily in Sri Lanka the traditional Left was unable to show a way forward for the restless youth. It was an ideal condition for the birth of the JVP.

The first JVP insurrection of 1971 was an attempt to imitate the Cuban Revolution and it failed for the simple reason that no revolution could be copied. Besides the attempt was more an adventure, an instance of playing with revolution.

The JVP revolted against a popular government in its first year of Office while its popularity was still in place. The result was the sacrifice of thousands of youth who paid with their lives for a cause they believed in despite the premature and suicidal nature of the attempt.

It was evident that the leadership of the JVP was in a hurry. The attempt smacked more of petty-bourgeois revolutionism than theoretical and practical Marxism.

Once again in the aftermath of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 the JVP started its second insurrection on a vehement anti-Indian platform. It was once again an attempt to force events and coerce people to submit to their will. It ended with President Premadasa hijacking the JVP political platform and decimating the JVP. All these were movements to the extreme left.

This time the movement is to the extreme right. The UNP, as is well known, represents the bourgeoisie that is allied to the neo-colonial monopolists. It is an open secret that the neo-liberal economic policies and their concomitant politics serve not the people but foreign monopoly capital.

There are plenty of instances in the developing world when such collaboration between local and international capital has given way to autocratic regimes that oppress the working class and other mass organizations, including the democratic political parties.

The United National Party recently published its manifesto. It is a repetition of their unpopular economic and political policies. It is not for nothing that the Fredrich Naumann Foundation has thought it fit to fund that publication. The JVP is in fine company. Perhaps the same Foundation could even fund the revolution!

The JVP, it could be seen thus, oscillates from Left to Right just like a pendulum.

An ancient tale

Once upon a time there was a naughty little boy who lived in a tiny little hut in a far off land. He was whining all the time, not pleased with whatever comforts he was given. With an insatiating greed and pride he would demand more and more. He always wanted the bigger piece of cake, the bigger and better toys than his brothers.

Fed up with the unceasing whining of the boy his parents wanted to teach him a lesson. They put him in the cradle and placed it on a tree top and sang the following lullaby:

Hush a by baby on the tree top
When the wind blows the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall
Down will come the baby cradle and all