Caesar, Antony, Diana and 20A

Monday 26th October, 2020

The Opposition MPs who voted for the 20th Amendment (20A) in Parliament, the other day, are making a vain attempt to justify their action. They would have us believe that they did so without expecting anything in return. There is no such thing as a free vote in the Sri Lankan Parliament. What took the cake was SJB National List (NL) MP Diana Gamage’s excuse. She said she had acted like (Mark) Antony, who, she said, had stabbed Caesar for the love of Rome.

Diana’s version of history has left us baffled. If Antony had stabbed Caesar, Brutus would not have had to flee and run on his sword in the end. Most of all, the question is why Caesar said, “Et tu, Brute?”, and not “Et tu, Antony?” (Diana is fully qualified to head the Office of the United National High Commissioner for Human Rights, for she has the knack for levelling baseless allegations.)

What one gathers from Diana’s statement at issue is that she thinks what she wrongly attributed to Antony—stabbing Caesar—was justifiable because, she thinks, he acted out of his love of Rome. She is apparently given to confusing wrong for right in making decisions. No wonder she voted for 20A!

The NL mechanism was introduced to bring in eminent persons as MPs. But thanks to our political party leaders who act out of expediency rather than principle, we have had some political dregs in the garb of NL MPs. One may recall that the Kumaratunga administration opened a new low in parliamentary politics by creating an NL vacancy and bringing in Mervyn Silva, of all people, to Parliament. The yahapalana government abused the NL to appoint a bunch of defeated candidates to Parliament and even made most of them Ministers. In so doing, it made a mockery of people’s franchise and sovereignty because the people had deemed them unfit to enter Parliament. One of the main arguments that the SLPP government put forth in support of its decision to abolish the Constitutional Council was that it had unelected members, making vital decisions. It remains to be seen whether the government will cause one of its NL slots to fall vacant so that it can appoint to Parliament an outsider who neither contested the last general election nor was an NL nominee, to Parliament, and make him a minister.

It is high time a constitutional amendment was introduced to prevent anyone whose name does not appear on the NL submitted to the people by recognised political parties or independent groups before a general election from being appointed an MP. The deplorable practice of catapulting outsiders to Parliament via the NL is antithetical to democracy and must be brought to an end urgently. True, it was the late President J. R. Jayewardene who surreptitiously inserted a provision into the Constitution to enable outsiders to be appointed MPs via the NL, but those who claim to be ready to lay down their lives to protect democracy can easily amend that provision, can’t they?

Meanwhile, Diana’s reference to ancient Rome reminds us of the danger a country faces when its leaders are torn by divided loyalty, which the present-day dual citizens in politics and key government positions are accused of. After Julius Caesar’s assassination, General Antony neglected his duties much to the consternation of Octavius (or Octavian) Caesar, betrayed his citizenship and forged an alliance with a foreign queen. Finally, he turned against the empire as he loved Cleopatra and Egypt more than Rome. He had this to say melodramatically when Rome summoned him while he was leading a decadent life with Cleopatra: “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space/Kingdoms are clay …” – (Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra).

When MP Diana Gamage said in Parliament that she had emulated Antony in voting for 20A, the irony of her utterance may not have been lost on the students of world history and literature, for Antony was a member of the Roman Triumvirate upon which autocratic powers were legally conferred. The Triumvirate, according to some historians, had its opponents destroyed and their properties seized.