Whose poster-boy are you?

Even in the worst of times there’s one relief that human beings can count on. Humour. There was humour during the terrible days of the UNP-JVP bheeshanaya, throughout the 30-year war to rid the country of the terrorist menace and even in the dark days following the tsunami. These are not the best of times and neither are they the worst of times. These are election days. Days of loyalty and passion, praise and blame, aggrandizement and ridicule are naturally made of and for humour, biting and merciless wit and such things that keep spirits up and (hopefully) demoralize the ‘enemy’.

In days gone by such barbs as are ‘natural’ in the run up to Election Day were limited to the political stage and random editorial comment. Times have changed. Today the politics of reason, substance and ideology has been replaced by the politics of media machination, spectacle and triviality. In a sense the ‘fun’ has been taken out of its traditional homeland and dumped in emerging residencies such as emails, text messages and websites designed specifically to vilify opponent.

Much of it is in bad taste and forwarding such ‘humour’ only indicates the mind-set of the forwarder. Some, on the other hand, are rare gems, enjoyable regardless of one’s political preferences. Cartoons, especially those appearing in newspaper, are my favourite laugh-source. For wit, irreverence, the play of line and word, topicality and caricature cartoons are seldom bested by any other form of expression when it comes to political humour.

I generally keep my finger on the ‘delete’ option when I get dirty humour and these days I’ve been doing a lot of deleting. Got one yesterday, though, that was irresistible (see picture).

The cartoon depicts the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) as professionals in putting up posters, setting up stages, distributing handbills, organizing media conferences and other things related to political/election campaigns. The cartoon also implies that ideology has been dumped by the JVP in favour of commercial gain or at least maintaining relevancy in the overall political equation.

Comrades Tilvin and Somawansa are shown with a paappa baaldiya and posters. Three dates referring to three elections and three Presidential candidates: 1999, 2005 and 2010 and Chandrika, Mahinda and Fonseka respectively. The cartoon is in the form of an advertisement. The jaathakaya is telling: ‘Somawansa Saha Sahodarayo: Vrththeeya Poster Alavanno’ (Somawansa and Brothers/Comrades: Professional Poster ‘Pasters’).

Tilvin wonders who will contract the party to put up posters when the next election comes around. Somawansa replies, ‘Mani Ganeshan, Rauff Hakeem, Karuna, Thonda.....it doesn’t matter who it is’.

Is this what the JVP has been doing? Is this what its political role has been reduced to? A compelling argument could be made either way. Perhaps the problem is not limited to the JVP. All small parties suffer the fate of the proverbial puwak gediya that get’s trapped between the blades of the giraya whenever there’s a major election. They don’t stand a chance and therefore have to bet on possible consolation prizes.

Some parties, like the Socialist Equality Party (formerly the Revolutionary Communist League or Viplavavadi Komiyunist Sangamaya better known by its Sinhala acronym, Vi Ko Sa) operate in the don’t-care mode. They are too small to be spoilers and are too dogmatic and principled to be lackeys of the big players. Comfortably cocooned in the ‘someday’ time frame, they use elections to say their piece to whoever is willing to listen.

The JVP is impatient, thinks big and don’t care too much about preserving ideological virginities. They are up for purchase, therefore. Their problem is that they have not reconciled themselves to admitting to themselves that they are nothing but poster-boys. No, not ‘poster boys’ in the pin-up sense, but the more drudgery-laden sense of going around with the paappa baaldiya and posters looking for public spaces to desecrate and vandalize.

The cartoonist is spot on: the JVP ‘went to market’ (kade giya) for Chandrika in 1999 and did the same for Mahinda in 2005 and now are doing it for Fonseka. The three candidates are almost like three species rather than being three persons belonging to the same species. That alone shows how chameleon-like the JVP has been: blue to blue-red-yellow to green-red (well, for all intents and purposes ‘green’ one could say, but let’s be kind here) is a colourful political story, what do you say?

But then again, why point fingers at the JVP? They are not, after all, the only poster-boys, the only market-goers. Anyone and everyone who offers direct or indirect support to one of the candidates is in fact a poster-boy is he not? We can laugh at the JVP because they are visible; others do the same thing but get away because they are small-sized players, their contributions small or else they work behind the scenes and are nameless as far as the public is concerned.

Some see it as investment, thinking of future benefits should the candidate supported wins. Some are contractors, they are of the pay-me-here-and-now kind. Some want to be paid at the market rate, some would settle for less, happy to be compensated for loss of income rather than being paid the true value of relevant corporate time. The latter would be those who are persuaded to support a candidate for ideological reasons, even if it is a simple matter of rooting for the lesser of the evils or the better consolation prize.

Is there anyone who is not a poster-boy (or poster-girl) among us? Well, there are the voters. Should we call ourselves ‘suckers’? Perhaps not. ‘Victims’ of a strange situation called ‘absence of real choice’? Perhaps. The rest of us are complicit, one way or another, aren’t we? So what is the consolation prize? I would say that if we can retain sanity, continue to be conscious that we are more often than not short-changed, retain our ability to laugh (especially at ourselves) and protect fervently our ability and will to be critical of our preferred candidate, now and after the election and if our love for nation remains greater than our affection for this or that candidate, then we would be sufferable poster-boys (or girls). If not, we would be slaves. It is, after all, better to be a poster-boy for a cause and not a personality, for nation and not party, for ideology and not slogan.

There is a question we need to answer: ‘Am I somebody’s poster boy?’ We can laugh at the JVP’s antics (or anyone else’s antics for that matter), but are we ready to laugh at ourselves? If ‘yes’, I think this country has hope. If not, we are a bunch of lazy bums, a nation of slaves, who deserve to be played every which possible by every two-bit joker who thinks he deserves to be President.

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