DEMOCRACY: Damage control

Text of a presentation by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, MP at the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats Conference on Transitions to Democracy Managing Burma’s Political Transition: The Challenges Ahead November 16-19, 2012, Bangkok, Thailand

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha, MP

The news from many parts of Asia has been full recently of ethnic or rather sectarian conflict. In Thailand and the Philippines, there have been Southern insurgencies, with Muslim populations asserting a separate identity from Buddhists and Christians respectively. Indonesia has recently found places of worship being closed by a fundamentalist dispensation in Aceh. In both Bangladhesh and Burma, there have been riots, of Buddhists again Muslims or vice versa. And in Pakistan the struggle between Shias and Sunnis seems to be endless, a phenomenon we see in many countries of West Asia too.

In Sri Lanka we could say we were used to this, as we emerge from a thirty year long civil war, often characterized as being between Sinhalese and Tamils. Yet that would be erroneous, for though the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam presented themselves as the champions of the Tamil people, Tamils were among their prominent victims. In setting themselves up as the sole representatives of the Tamil people, they destroyed moderate Tamil forces, killing several leading politicians and browbeating others into submission.

But it would also be misleading to claim that there was no ethnic tension in the country. The Tigers became prominent precisely because there was no harmony and no union within Sri Lanka. Since our democracy was based on a British model, we did not have checks and balances built in, as had occurred with the United States, which had to build up a constitution in the context of conflicting claims, from states with different priorities.

Parliamentary elections

Our democracy was majoritarian, which meant that it could be taken possession of by whoever obtained a majority in Parliamentary elections. Since we had the first past the post system, and since most constituencies were what the British would describe as marginals, on several occasions we had massive majorities in Parliament on the basis of small majorities in the popular vote. And so we had measures that were in theory democratic, ie were based on increasing the power of the people, but which took away power from minorities.

Thus we had language policies that made employment more difficult for minorities, we had educational policies that made higher education less accessible, and we had land distribution that favoured the majority.

The manner in which language became a problem is instructive, for it was also based on egalitarian policies that ended up promoting privilege. Over 50 years ago Sri Lanka decided to make mother tongue education compulsory and, far from Sinhalese being imposed on Tamils, both languages were on a par for the purpose. But this meant that, when Sinhalese became the official language, many Tamils had no knowledge of it, and could not therefore obtain state employment. And, in a context in which the state was the principal employer, given the statist socialism that had engulfed us, Tamils certainly suffered.

The solution to the problem therefore required two steps. In 1987, Tamil was also made an official language. But monolingualism continued to dominate in education, until in the nineties we began to teach children the other language in schools. Most recently we have embarked on a policy of trilingualism, which will make communication easier and enhance employment opportunities for all. But I should note that the state is still not implementing that policy properly, in part because it still commands a monopoly with regard to teacher training even though it has proved woefully inefficient in ensuring an adequate supply of teachers in essential subjects. So, unless this is changed soon, and an adequate supply of teachers provided to schools nationwide, the problem will continue to haunt us.

Infrastructural development

The same goes for educational opportunity. Given that we still have a virtual state monopoly on education, we are depriving many bright youngsters of the opportunity to equip themselves satisfactorily for jobs in the modern world. This causes resentment, and all over the country too, as we saw through two Southern Sinhalese youth insurrections in addition to the protracted struggle of the Tigers in the North. We have also failed to keep pace with modern requirements, and are woefully behind in science and technology, without which our youngsters will not be able to contribute actively to economic and even infrastructural development at the more advanced levels. Stuck still in the mindset of an elite Britain, a mindset that Britain has now overcome, we provide high level qualifications only to a limited number, in terms of academic approaches, rather than the vocational and technical excellence we should be nourishing.

All this causes dissatisfaction and disharmony, and will continue to affect the unity of the country.

To be continued