Impetus for Aragalaya 2.0

 While Aragalaya 1.0 rallied the bravest citizens against the all-powerful central government to protest against the economic disaster caused by Pundit Gotabaya, Aragalaya 2.0 will need to rally brave citizens to stand up for the New Nation we all believe and deserve

Aragalaya 2.0 should start by challenging the status quo and pushing back the old economic structures and values built to extract our resources and serve the handful of elites since colonial times. Secondly, we need to stop the leakages by expelling those who have been stealing from the public coffers by introducing the necessary prosecuting authority and a legal system to prevent rogues who exploit the impunity granted to them. It is only then we can build a free marketplace based on sustainable resources that can centre humanity and the planet enabling all people to participate with their own unique talents and capacities within a common set of laws without letting only a handful to extract public resources by exploiting human labour similar to our earlier colonisers

• Transform from vertical to a horizontal power structure

Since our economy was driven off a cliff, economic revival has become a central topic among many who have left their hearts back in Sri Lanka or are broiling within the crisis. 

Until the crisis hit all our lives, the topic of our national economy was mostly confined to the subject matter experts in the local universities, tuition masters, and to the experts in the Central Bank and Finance Ministry. Once per year we hear few parliamentarians debate on the economy while majority grant a blind vote on party lines for the national budget to be steamrolled. As a result, no government has been held accountable to stabilise or reduce the debt while the political elites take cover to embezzle and misappropriate the wealth of the people. Hence, not much has occurred to increase the top line or to reduce the bottom line in the national budget. In the meantime, people hang on to their political coat tails hoping for any relief or handouts like how prisoners survive in gang ridden prisons.

Bottom line has been that none of the political parties represent people once they gain power and the economy went down a precipice under many shocks caused by bad policies and no growth in production since we gained independence. The economy survived this long primarily on debt taken against the future generations that the pandemic became the final nail on the coffin. Today, Sri Lanka is considered a ‘hunger post’ by the WFP in spite of the fertile soil, educated workforce and natural geographical positioning of the country. 

Like many nations, we too lived off extracting our natural resources but more forcefully and disproportionately extracting our labour to a degree of exploitation. As such, labour has not been viewed as its own valuable natural resource that needs to be applied towards the wellbeing of people, our communities and the national economy. Therefore, our economy often ignores real ecological and social participation and consequences by outsourcing our responsibilities to an elite central government to singlehandedly drive the economy and deliver the goods while people take a long slumber. As a result, Sri Lanka never carved our own economic pie by connecting to the new world nor built a common, inclusive, open level playing field (local market) internally for 22M to participate and create our unique opportunities. 

As a result, political elites without much knowhow about guiding an economy or the political process decayed the character of the country while they built a free market for the political elites to rob from the public coffers that contributed to bankrupting the nation. As the elections since 1978 required large funds to be elected, incentives to steal from public coffers increased across all levels of candidacy and the policy makers granted immunity, tax and custom duty incentives to steal from the central coffers. As a result, a vicious cycle was established with the right incentives and cover to steal public wealth and gain power and use the increased powers to continue stealing that resulted in institutional suicide. 

Collusion among the few business magnates and the political elites magnified the corruption enterprise with limited liabilities that eventually lit the bonfire when the Government could no longer borrow from Paul to pay Peter. It used to be that the politicians required 10% to oil their wheels but with inflation, it increased to 25% and beyond which prevented the arrival of any new investors in spite of the strategic positioning and natural resources the country offers. The dysfunctional economic vehicle built and driven by the central government has been changing its drivers and recently the change of guards occurred privately within the parliament to protect themselves at the dismay of the general public. 

One may wonder what allows the general public to put up with such dismay and that is due to the divided powers among the people due to political, religious, racial and ethnic divisions and the lethargy in the judiciary. But as the ship hit rock bottom, the general public was suddenly awakened and came together with the Aragalaya of one of a kind to throw the ship Captain overboard. But the parliament with its overarching powers filled the void by appointing a replacement to protect their own interests albeit holding no one accountable for sinking the ship. As a result, today we not only have an economic disaster but a human disaster in increasing magnitude.

Looking back, while the past ship Captains would have contributed to our submerging economy, it is deeply engraved that it is the extractive economy that was the root cause for the current crisis. Therefore, we need to stop and ask if we can expect any single branch within the prevailing system of government or a single person with supreme powers to create an economic miracle through the established vertical power structure without levelling the playing field. When things are good, it may even be possible to cruise with no one at the steering wheel. But when things are really bad, it seems necessary that a topic like the economy requires all talents onboard to explore their own unique talents and capacities. 

Therefore, what is required is to fundamentally transform the way things are structured by breaking the concentrated powers at the top by a handful of elites and liberalising the stranglehold of the economy by developing a participatory economy with the least obstruction from the Government to realise growth. 

We need to understand that the prevailing concentrated powers will do everything possible to obstruct any changes even by colluding with the opposition powers to selfishly hold on to their centralised authority. Therefore, we cannot expect those holding powers to voluntarily distribute power to the people and free the people to participate and realise their own economic benefits within a free market and rule of law. Even if those at the top have libraries of Milton Friedman, David Racardos or Adam Smith, they will unlikely relinquish their concentrated powers and immunity from the laws, as they have no incentive to relax their comforts when they can continue to expropriate public wealth. 

Furthermore, as they are blinded by the concentrated powers, they cannot see the potential for a brighter economic future. It is only by levelling the playing field and opening the floodgates for everyone to play within a common set of laws and shared set of values can we create an open economy. Even though we are facing at least a two generational economic problem, we are in fact standing on the brink of a technological opportunity which we can leverage to rapidly grow our economy with dignity rather than continuing to export or exploit our mothers and sisters. 

The technological opportunity can not only rejuvenate our economy but also alter the way we all can live, work, govern and relate better with one another. As the establishment has no incentives to change, people themselves will need to find new and innovative ways to break the concentrated powers and the walls they have built surrounded by the cartels that have been strangling our economy, if we are to build a new ecology that can harmonise with the living world around us.

When things hit rock bottom, youth who recognised the social and political trap which the past generations were conned into, came together by championing the Aragalaya and demanded to expel the leadership. Even though the Aragalaya accomplished many wins for the people, eventually the Aragalaya was infiltrated by the existing poisonous political machinery that caused rifts among the hardliners and had to be aborted prematurely. As a result, an undemocratically appointed (not elected) new President came into power who ordered troops and tanks rather than addressed the demands of the Aragalaya resulting in many demonstrators being arrested for violating their rights and freedom. 

Aragalaya 2.0

Months have passed but it looks like the same or worse seem to be percolating in the country and trying to solve all economic problems by begging. It is time now to demand for real change in rule of law, individual freedom, human rights and with independent institutions that are essential to serve the people, rather than exclusive reliance on a mob of political gangs. As it’s never too late to learn life lessons, it is an opportunity to start a new conversation on how Aragalaya 2.0 could be championed. 

Aragalaya 2.0 should start by challenging the status quo and pushing back the old economic structures and values built to extract our resources and serve the handful of elites since colonial times. Secondly, we need to stop the leakages by expelling those who have been stealing from the public coffers by introducing the necessary prosecuting authority and a legal system to prevent rogues who exploit the impunity granted to them. It is only then we can build a free marketplace based on sustainable resources that can centre humanity and the planet enabling all people to participate with their own unique talents and capacities within a common set of laws without letting only a handful to extract public resources by exploiting human labour similar to our earlier colonisers. 

Therefore, we need to rethink how we utilise our natural resources by recognising that all wealth is created by work whether it is work by a janitor or a surgeon within the finite time and planet we live on. When we take our labour of dignified people and apply it towards economic wellbeing, we create sustainable new economies based on regeneration rather than on exploitation or extraction. Such transformation requires new ways of imagining how we need to strengthen the individual dignity of all people by ensuring fundamental human rights, stronger individual freedom, common rule of law, and a shared set of values within an inclusive and participatory democracy. Therefore, it is essential we shed the indifferences from race, religion or other ancient tribal identifications by respecting and relating to each other as one human to another, so we can all play fairly on a level playing field.

These are not age old forms of extremist isms used to fool the peasants which people despise today, but a new ecology which we need to find that sweet spot suitable for all people in Sri Lanka to live and participate as humans and harmonise with the living world around us. This transformation is not only essential as we have hit rock bottom but the only alternative is to rise from the ashes and be able to become a rapidly developing nation that can be sustained.

Aragalaya was a great success story as it achieved momentous radical changes especially as it gave hope and confidence that “We the People” can become the agents of change without having to rely on an almighty superhuman or wait till the 225 could even understand the aspirations of the people. Similar to the Civil Rights, Occupy Wall Street, Me Too or the BLM Social Movements who stood up and protested multiple iterations to gain attention and expose the exploitation, it is important to champion multiple iterations of Aragalaya to expose the false social, political and economic mythology that prevail and realise real change by empowering and organising the duped, hoodwinked and misguided people. 

Until people’s voices are heard and transformational changes occur, we should not accept temporary or band-aid fixes or changing the same guards to merely cover the foul odour in the broken system until we can rebuild with resilience. Now that the trial run is over and we all learnt lessons, let’s not allow the established political mafia of any kind to pollute the purity of people’s Aragalaya nor have any form of violence infiltrate as it will only play to the hands of the establishment. As politics in Sri Lanka is established to prevent the good from entering through impenetrable gates, so the bad could gang rape the country with impunity, we should not allow the status quo to repeat politically made catastrophies. 

Change the political system at its roots

Therefore, it is time we change the political system at its roots starting from changing the cultural values that influence how our institutions were weakened that eventually caused the bankrupted economy by the failed state. We need to find that right balance to self-govern than outsourcing governance to elite institutions with supreme powers and no accountability or oversight and electing the croniest mafia families to result in a national suicide of 22M. Therefore, we will need to find that right balance of individualism essential to follow our own paths, while promoting collectivism to let the needs or desires of the population at large without allowing humanity to be broken into pieces. 

In terms of collectivism, we should ban the existence of all forms of public institutions (political parties, schools, sports clubs, etc.) based on exclusivity or superiority on race, religion or ethnicities that dehumanise everyone else but grant the right of place of inclusiveness and equal humanity to everyone. Only exceptions to identification should be applied when physical strength is the determining factor among the genders and public policy making to be represented from different age groups proportion to population in each region, so our parliament doesn’t look like a home for the aged. Structurally, we should reduce the distance of power among the electors and representatives and transform power horizontally to embrace a higher form of democracy without tolerating inequality, hierarchy or authoritarianism. 

Unlike those holding power and acquired wealth benefitted from an authoritarian power structure, the marginalised, underprivileged and vulnerable majority with no individual power need to come together to strengthen their individual powers from stronger democratic rights and inclusive institutions. 

Therefore, the underlying transformation will need to embrace true values of democracy with unaffiliated institutions coupled with a truly free market economy within a shared set of values and common laws to protect and serve ALL people, so ALL people (not only a few) could play on the level playing field. As such, people need to first understand the underlying reasons and effects of the prevailing failed nation and its dysfunctions and then commence a conversation how we can champion a long-term transformation for the sake of our future generations as there are no quick fixes for seven decades and three centuries of rape, torture and looting of our nation. Therefore, we will need to restructure and redesign how we play (ownership rights and responsibilities) and how we learn to pass and play, how we determine winners and losers and settle our differences through an independent judiciary. 

Therefore, we need to move away from outsourcing the political process lock, stock and barrel to a mob of corrupt leaders (kleptocrats) to continue expropriating the wealth of the people. In spite of the nation’s name as a Socialist, Democratic, Republic, we have allowed corrupt politicians to create a kleptocracy to enrich themselves outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes, special favours and even directly stealing State funds. Hence, the restructure should limit the powers in the centre essential for a limited role in national governance. Transfer powers and resources to the provinces/regions to encourage autonomous self-determination while introducing independent oversight so governing entities too will not go astray by acquiring excessive powers. 

We need to establish a shared set of values and common laws to bind all the people together while granting freedom to thrive and take pride in their contributions in a competitive economic environment to profit from their own efforts. Which means, new methods of laws and law enforcement will need to be introduced to curb bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, influence peddling, and embezzlement, misuse of government power for repression of people and brutality. We will need to move away from monopolistic ownership, autocratic rule and embrace new democratic structures in governance and business. As more people start to see what is on the screen through the dark smoke and begin to reimagine the possibilities and opportunities, more people will develop their own appetite to change towards a new social, political and economic environment to ensure no person will be left behind. 

While Aragalaya 1.0 rallied the bravest citizens against the all-powerful central government to protest against the economic disaster caused by Pundit Gotabaya, Aragalaya 2.0 will need to rally brave citizens to stand up for the New Nation we all believe and deserve. Therefore, Aragalaya 2.0 will consist of two pronged demands: demand the prosecution of all responsible for sinking the nation and to strengthen humanity, citizenship, political rights of all citizens and introduce shared values to bind ‘all’ people together to realise a new future. The awakening through Aragalaya 2.0 will need to be born with new and bold ideas to lift the collective and moral consciousness of all people based on a shared sense of destiny. Therefore, all citizens who yearn for a change must join hands irrespective of their individual political preferences and dogmatic convictions to level the new playing field to build a new nation we all deserve with rights and freedom for all to participate.

(Please share your thoughts ([email protected]), positive or negative as our new nation should be built on new ideas, thoughts, aspirations and solutions we can bring forward as we need to take back the nation we all deserve.)