Aragalaya anniversary: all hail it! or another nostrum?

Until the arguably ultimate objective of the erstwhile Aragalaya – that is to say a truly equitable milieu in city, town and country; nation and state; parliamentary precincts and among the hoi 

polloi; etc – eventuates, one can never conscionably urge or utter ‘thus far, no farther’

• As a riposte to the sluggards who sat at home and threw brickbats at the boys at the barricades, let us even belatedly assert that there would have been no change – whether system or regime – if some brave protestors hadn’t manned up in the mouth of a hawk-eyed (yet, surprising un-hawkish) military and stormed the gates of the presidential palace

I was arrested by a social media post recently, which had the author of it claiming to have supported the Aragalaya ‘up to a point’ but ‘not more’.

The author in question is a former journalist, social media hacktivist and would-be (or is it wannabe?) influencer. But the nous of her claim does not rest at that finite ‘thus far, no farther’ point. She warbles on to aver that the juncture at which she withdrew her valuable support was when the objective of the unprecedented people’s protest was achieved.

Shall we press her on this? Or take the laissez-faire (‘let it be’), laissez-passer (‘let it pass’) approach? Or is it not incumbent on us who take these and other such pseudo-political posts semi-seriously to interrogate her, and other like-minded essayists?

Who

For one: What constitutes ‘support’? Banging a makeshift utensil (and giving ‘kettledrum’ a new meaning) at the top of one’s suburban lane in the so-called ‘kitchen shadow cabinet’ protest? 

Funding or feeding and watering the stalwart fellows at the fearless Gotagoyaya in a neighbouring borough?  

Turning up without fail at every hue, cry (literally) and shade (often none in the noonday sun) of a march or parade, sit-in or improvised pedagogical exercise (remember the teaching sessions for teens and other naifs at Independence Square); flag in hand and ire alike raised?

Appearing in court for those arrested by the local constabulary pressed into service for the then Lord High Pooh-bah?   

For another: How visible is the ‘withdrawal’ of the same? 

Absenting oneself from the barricades after having haunted the environs of the Aragalaya’s ‘protest village’ at Galle Face for weeks? 

Not tuning in religiously to the nine o’clock news every night on the understanding that ‘now, it is over’? 

Sharing a status update to the effect that the ‘original’ protest was not what it once used to be? Or that a glory had passed away from the earth after the people’s struggle was ‘hijacked’ by other people quite unlike oneself and not to one’s liking at all?

Spreading unsubstantiated rumours about the genesis of the islandwide struggle and its spontaneous combustion – such that everyone from Jamis Chutimahaththaya to Julie Chung was suspected of setting it up, off and running?

Then again: Was there a singular, over-arching ‘objective’ of the protest? 

To demand, together with the nation’s farmers, ready access as before to subsidised chemical fertiliser (or at least an adequate supply of the overnight-gazetted organic alternative) in the face of failing harvests and mouths hungry for months, to feed in darkened homes during the enforced protracted power cuts? 

To urge an expeditious end to fuel and other queues? 

To oust a sitting president on the grounds of an arrogance and incompetence that brought Mother Lanka to her bankrupt knees (thus far, and no farther)? 

To effect a more meaningful and sustainable regime change than asking ‘all 225’ to ‘go home’ together with ‘Gota’? 

To collar the corrupt cabal of criminals who had laid waste to nation, state and country? 

To facilitate the recovery of national assets raped, pillaged and relocated over the years?  

And last but by no means least: Was the “people’s protest” a single, monolithic event or a hydra-headed movement; the sum of whose parts was larger than its whole? 

Farmers setting fire to effigies in the fields, kitchen kerfuffles, suburban street protests, elites showing up sporadically at iconic places, violent inter-university students federating their fires under watercannon and sometimes live ammo as the mandarins brought in the military? 

Few

To interrogate her Aragalaya – or anyone else’s, for that matter – with the hermeneutic of suspicion can be a satisfying undertaking, wouldn’t you agree, dear fellow Facebook warrior? 

As long as in this addictive enterprise, one bears the suspicion of one’s own volition and is free to define the parameters of the hermeneutic sans interference from authors of social media posts or sanguine armchair critics and sundry academics!

But seriously, folks, as much as ‘one man’s terrorist is another widowed mother’s freedom fighter’, it behoves us not to beg the question. 

And in less facetious vein than that assertive poster’s interlocutors on Facebook, it would be germane these days (9-13 July) – when the world and its brothers are reminded of ‘the once and future struggle’ (2022 on), courtesy memories on Facebook among other inconvenient reminders – to essay a few pertinent points.

All

First, a reply to those who aver that the Aragalaya failed irrespective of what point at which the aunties and uncles and teenagers in souped-up sports cars stopped supporting it. 

Take a dekko at the state of your purlieus, dears; do: Any grand panjandrums swanning about in superfluous militarised convoys? Any fuel queue in the offing? Any shortage of bread and butter, or caviar and champagne if your tastes and budget could bear the burden? No? Good... there you have it.  

Then, a rejoinder to those would argue that it was an ‘organised spectacle’ and therefore lacked legitimacy from the first ‘Gota go home!’ to the last-hurrah ‘All 225+1 must go!’ 

Who organised YOU? Was it your friendly neighbourhood MP or Grama Sevaka Niladhari? Or some secret coven connected to an international conspiracy to topple a democratically (and fearfully) elected government? Scurrilous opposition politicos? None of the above? We rest our case, madam.

And, as a riposte to the sluggards who sat at home and threw brickbats at the boys at the barricades, let us even belatedly assert that there would have been no change – whether system or regime – if some brave protestors hadn’t manned up in the mouth of a hawk-eyed (yet, surprising un-hawkish) military and stormed the gates of the presidential palace. 

Thank you IUSF! Now: if only you would quieten down and get with the civilizing programme of your parent organisation – i.e. the JVP-led NPP – and cease and desist with that animalistic, atavistic act of ragging you perpetrate on the innocent in the name of tradition! Preferably before it is criminalized... That would be kudos indeed, redounding to you as much as your patrons.

If, in response to the contention that the Aragalaya succeeded ‘thus far’ but didn’t nearly go then as farther as it could or should have gone, someone essayed, ‘Yes but, look how far it has come now’ – well, yes and no.

On the one hand, it went as far as evicting something entirely rotten in the state but not entirely getting rid of the rotten political culture that had propped it up for so long with impunity.  

On the other, and riding the crest of the wave that the Aragalaya generated, a new regime has swept into place. 

And, banking on the metaphorical floodgates of the cleansing waters of the Kala Wewa, which he invoked, a fresh-faced president and his team appear ready – even as Sri Lanka remains poised on the cusp of paradigmatic change – to deliver the goods for genuine system change. 

If only the benefits of the uncritically accepted and implemented IMF reforms programme will not outlast the hope, trust, favour and goodwill of the people it is intended to bless, rescue and benefit.

Why

So, why then do I still feel ill at ease among an alien people clutching their gods of perpetual struggle in words and pretty few solutions in deeds? 

Is it a nagging sense of unease that the revolution – as it did after July 2022 – only entrenched the status quo? 

And that even the turning of the wheel in September and November 2024, and the up-ending of a long-lived and loathed political culture of cronyism and criminality has only replaced the greasy wheels of government with squeaky cogs who can’t tell their grass apart from their rainbow? 

When will the government get on with drafting the much vaunted new social contract to abolish the odious executive presidential system (as promised, as my Facebook interlocutors would remind us)?

Where will this persistence with the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act and insidious Online Safety Act take us except ‘into the red’ with UN Human Rights chief Dr. Volker Türk at best and the EU’s much need GSP+ preferential benefits at worst?

Whither the long-envisioned and trumpeted classless society that is blind to so-called race, birth, caste, creed and other utterly dispensable ethno-linguistic markers in the new ‘ethos’ envisaged?   

Therefore until the arguably ultimate objective of the erstwhile Aragalaya – that is to say a truly equitable milieu in city, town and country; nation and state; parliamentary precincts and among the hoi polloi; etc – eventuates, one can never conscionably urge or utter ‘thus far, no farther’.

Time past to stop seeing the Aragalaya as a nostrum: the silver bullet that slew the state’s vampires and set the stage for a cleansing of the Augean stables. 

Time present to beat our swords into ploughshares: dismantling the militarised milieu and reinvesting money ill-spent on matters martial into issues educational, social, cultural.

Time going forward to keep pressing the powers that be – even if we think they mean it (and especially if we think and feel so) – to deliver on promises made... 

Ergo, the ongoing revolution: the dream never dies... Also, the questioning: big asks! 

It is what any truly civic-minded citizen of Sri Lanka can, must or shall continue to do. 

     

(Editor-at-large of LMD | Speaking truth to power.)