On Federalist ululation and ‘ululators’

Last week I wrote about ululation, i.e. howling, wailing or lamenting loudly. It refers to a loud emotional utterance. I used the word to comment on the whining that followed the announcement of the National Lists. I predicted that we were not done with ululation.

At the time the Cabinet had not been announced. A few days later, it was. Most of the ululating that happened was in private, naturally. We are told that there weren’t many happy faces. The arithmetic rebels against happy faces, but that’s hardly consolation for people who have staked much on getting elected and getting a ministerial appointment. As I said, some were downgraded and some sidelined. Some may have wanted one thing but would have got something else. Some may have wanted to be ministers but ended up as deputies. Mahinda Rajapaksa clearly enjoys a lot of popularity across the nation, but it is clear that he is less liked by the MPs of the UPFA than by the general public, percentage wise.

Now MPs can whine. It’s a right. And in many cases an inevitable when a Cabinet it cut in half. One gets used to perks. One gets used to being called amathithuma, amathithumani (Mr. Minister) etc. It is not easy to go from amathithuma to ‘Sir’ or just ‘Mr’ or nothing. It is not easy when you’ve got used to addressing media conferences and then having to watch others on TV doing things like that. It is not easy when one once believed that one made a difference and has to acknowledge that one is a nobody. Yes, from somebody to nobody can be a long or short distance and although the body can move, the mind and heart are slow to follow.

I sympathize. I don’t find it funny. I find it all quite pitiful. Yes, I sympathize. What I do find funny is not the ululation, stifled or otherwise, engaged in by those who lost out, but the whines of the bystanders. I read such an ‘ululation’ in the daily on April 27, 2010. Jehan Perera’s ululation is titled ‘Living in wishful hope of a new beginning’.

Poor man, he’s had his little federalist/devolution toy taken from him and trashed and just can’t come to terms with what has happened. He tried hard to say nice things about the UPFA and Mahinda Rajapaksa in the hope that they will listen to him and implement what he believed and probably still believes the UNP (under Ranil) or Sarath Fonseka would have carried out: the undermining or total dismantling of unitary structures in favour of a federal arrangement. He’s upset now because he doesn’t see any sign of any of that happening.

In this instance Jehan is ululating about Tissa Vitharana not being made a minister. That was the last hope, I suppose. Tissa Vitharana was the federalist man in the Rajapaksa camp.

He didn’t quite understand his mandate and instead of overseeing deliberations and advising the President on various issues pertaining to the conflict, he thought he had been asked to formulate ‘solution’.

The President, for reasons best known to him, let the man believe whatever he wanted to believe. The bottom line is that the document with which Mahinda Rajapaksa went before the people, ‘Mahinda Chinthana - Idiri Dekma’ did not mention devolution of power as a means of resolving the so-called ‘ethnic issue’. He said clearly that he would seek a broad consensus. In other words, he left the issue open. He could have been specific but chose not to.

Jehan says that Tissa had said that President Rajapaksa had assured him of a ministerial position. That’s once the President returns from Bhutan and the SAARC Summit. Jehan, batting for Tissa and the interests of the federalist camp hangs his hopes on this alleged ‘assurance’.

He says this means the President’s position on the ethnic (sic) conflict is still open to change. In other words, he is admitting that President Rajapaksa has basically not purchased the federal option but hopes the President has changed his mind. All this is based on the fact that Tissa Vitharana was in charge of the APRC.

Now why on earth should Jehan or anyone else think that Tissa has to get that particular subject? What’s been ‘assured’ (if assurances have been given; we have only Jehan’s word and the word of an NGO operator who consistently batted for the LTTE and Eelam is not worth much) is a portfolio. Tissa could be made Minister of Sorting out I/NGO Angst for all we know. Jehan is expressing ‘hope’ and he’s admitted that he’s not very hopeful.

Jehan ululates, therefore, that the opportunity for a new beginning is passing us by.

Well, we ‘began’ didn’t we in May 2009? We moved forward didn’t we in January and April 2010 with respect to the so-called ethnic issue if not anything else? The world didn’t turn according to Jehan’s whims and fancies, that much is clear and no amount of ululation is likely to make the people of this country want to embrace uncritically that meaningless and blood-drenched thing called devolution.

Tissa Vitharana didn’t contest. He couldn’t. Let Jehan stop ululating and be honest for a change. Let him tell us honestly how many votes he thinks Tissa Vitharana would have got had he contested from, say, Kegalle? The same goes for DEW Gunasekera.

This is not to say that these gentlemen are not decent individuals incapable of delivering if they were offered important portfolios in the Cabinet. That’s a different matter. But let me pose the question in this way: ‘How many votes do you think Vitharan, Gunasekera and any others who bat for devolution would get if they contested and made ‘devolution’ the focus of their respective campaigns?’

In those lovely days of the 1990s when Jehan and his ilk were basking in the federalist sun, those of us who believed it was pure rubbish didn’t ululate. We fought the ideological battle. Against all odds. We were vilified. Called names. We didn’t have much space in the media. We won. Today, Jehan has to stop whining. Ululate if you must, but in private and please remember that it is quite funny when you ululate on behalf of someone else.

Tissa Vitharana is a big boy, I’ve heard. I am sure he doesn’t need a character certificate from Jehan Perera. Indeed that might be the last thing he needs at this point!

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