THE DIE IS CAST

In customary quarters, much delight is being expressed over what is perceived to be a debilitating crisis within government i.e.: the perceived fissures between the governing coalition's partners.

Copious column inches are being written about this aspect. Nobody has stopped to ask the question however - if these rifts were as deep and as decisive as they are being made out to be, would the government cast the die, and announce that the proposed amendment to the constitution will be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday?

The point is that a fait accompli has a way of creating a momentum that propels itself. The best example of this is of course what's manifested in the form of the amendment to the 13th now to come before Parliament, repealing the provision granting the President power to merge two provinces.

Any merger cannot be done now -- as the issue was taken off the table a long time back with the Supreme Court judgements to the effect that the North and the East are de-merged. Today, India is mum about the de-merger provision, its repeal and all that it entails because there is certainty in India that there are no takers for the merger of the two provinces, even from among the most rabid Tiger quisling parties, as they too are edified in the knowledge that what's done cannot be undone and that the overwhelmingly popular majority sentiment on the de-merger issue cannot be overridden.

Meanwhile, lame claims are being made about how flawed the Sri Lankan constitutional structure has become with comparisons being made with India and the Indian union's perceived secular character. Professor G. H. Peiris an eminent academic -- a geographer well versed in the science of politics -- argued yesterday in a contribution to a local publication that India may be secular in theory, but is far from being tolerant of other religionists. (India being majority Hindu in practice.)

He speaks volumes for the self evident verity that egalitarian and inclusive sentiments embodied in constitutional documents are quite often, as they say 'shambolic.'

G. H. Peiris may have not had the time or the inclination to go through say the history of the American union for instance. For a century and more after the United States of America came into being, despite the stirring declaration by the founding fathers enshrined in the constitutional document that all men are equal under god, there was slavery and then official segregation practiced against African Americans -- blacks -- sanctioned by the state!

So much for the sanctity of constitutional embodiment!

Sri Lanka is secular enough in practice, and just enough secular not to alienate the majority Buddhists in the name of accommodating the minority Hindus and Muslims, and just secular enough to make the minority religionists feel safe, feel tolerated and empowered in the pluralistic mosaic making up the Sri Lankan social fabric.

As usual those who work to personal agendas of their own attempt to define Sri Lanka in terms of one issue -- the issue of accommodation of ethnic minorities. Secularism or the lack of it, reconciliation or the lack of it and pluralism or the lack of it are the common markers by which these people seek to define the Sri Lankan condition, which they would like you to believe is forever blighted by a lack of these fundamentals that should be a component part of any structured democracy.

What they don't tell you is that we are for the most part more secular than most, more pluralistic than most and more accommodating of each others' ethnicities and religions that most - and that's in the praxis, constitutional document be damned ...

It is difficult to keep a good nation down -- as it is difficult to keep a good man down. This country shall prevail, despite the regular motley crew of pessimists and the obfuscators.