Gotagogama: Why I’m not a total fan

by Rohan Pethiyagoda

This article is based on an unscripted speech made at the launch of the book ‘Memoirs of 33 Years in Parliament’ (Sarasavi Publishers)

by Nihal Seneviratne, Sri Lanka’s longest-serving Secretary General of Parliament.

Gotagogama has today captured the imagination of our nation. It encapsulates the mood of a people that has had enough of an incompetent and inarticulate leader who has, through sheer ignorance and pigheadedness, presided over not just the downfall of our entire agricultural system but also our economy.

He ignored unambiguous and reasoned public warnings that the tax breaks he announced in December 2019 would make Sri Lanka insolvent. Yet, in the two budgets passed since then, his government stubbornly refused to step back. When he foolishly banned agrochemicals in May 2021, mine was perhaps the first voice to raise the alarm. My 72-minute YouTube video received 28,000 views. But Rajapaksa persisted obstinately in his folly until both agricultural production and the economy collapsed.

So, let me be clear: I fully support Gotagogama. My words to the president are no different from those of Oliver Cromwell in 1653: “You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.”

Gotabaya’s has been the worst government in the 91-year history of our democracy. But it is clear that even in the face of a nation calling in unison for his resignation, he is digging in, determined to sit out the remaining 30 months of his term as the head of a so-called interim government.

I admire the courage and perseverance of Gotago, especially those of Gen-Z, the under-25s, who have their whole future before them. They are in the struggle of their lives. Not just on Galle Face but across the country, the voice of protest fills the air. And most important of all, unlike in 1971 and 1987, this protest is peaceful. To a fault.

Au contraire

But I worry that elements of these protests may be perverse. For one thing, calling for Gota’s arrest once he leaves office is probably counter-productive. What man will voluntarily forgo his liberty? Peaceful protest has not budged him. Perhaps a general strike will, but I doubt it. Meanwhile, the economy is descending into chaos.

We must learn from the precedents of other leaders forced to resign office: people like Ferdinand Marcos, Richard Nixon, Idi Amin, Sánchez de Lozada and the Shah. They quit only after their safe conduct had been negotiated. Or else we risk dragging this struggle out interminably, and dragging the country down with it.

Short of ending the Gotabaya presidency by peaceful means, we risk escalating this struggle to violence, especially if a protracted general strike ensues. The problem with violence is that it rarely ends well, or even as intended. Just look at the outcomes for Egypt, Syria, Libya and Yemen. They all ended up the worse for it. Indeed, I suspect that by any objective assessment, every revolution left the concerned country worse off, with the arguable exception America in 1776. Revolutions are the bedrock upon which dictatorships are built.

The 74-year curse

I see this slogan a lot but am not sure what it means. So, I take it at face value to mean that our 74 post-Independence years have been a curse. I beg to differ. I’ve been around for 66 of those 74 years. These have not been years of uniform progress and prosperity. Of course, we could have, we should have, done better. But we did achieve a lot that Gen-Z should be grateful for: free education, free healthcare, 99% electrification (14% at Independence), a life expectancy that is three decades longer than in 1948, and infant mortality that is lower than several of the United States. We may not have done as well as Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan, but we certainly shone among our South Asian neighbours.

Indeed, it was during these 74 ‘accursed’ years that people like Lasantha Wickrematunge gave their very lives to sustain the democracy under which Gen-Z is free to protest today. It is from the sacrificial slaughter of two generations of our youth, the ‘Gen-Zs’ of 1971 and 1987, that we learned the importance of peaceful protest. Was Mahaweli, which irrigates a million acres of our land and provides a third of our electricity free, a curse? Was the sacrifice of the lives of thousands of soldiers in defence of this land a curse? Was achieving self-sufficiency in rice a curse? Were the hundreds of garment and other factories established by Ranasinghe Premadasa a curse? It was this last innovation that allowed tens of thousands of young women, for the first time in our history, to leave their village, become financially independent, and choose their own life-partners. If all these were curses, may we be cursed some more. And, Gen-Z, please learn to take some responsibility for yourselves: it was you who voted preponderantly for Gota in 2019 and 2020.

The 225 Must Go

I haven’t quite grasped what this means, but at face value it suggests that there should be a new general election. If so, fine, that is a legitimate request, in which case, ask explicitly for a dissolution of parliament. But I see vague calls that the 225 must be replaced by ‘intellectuals’. I have even seen my own name in lists of prospective ‘intellectuals’. I’m flattered, but I disagree. So-called intellectuals who dabble in politics hardly have a stellar track record in Sri Lanka. Just look at the dismal performance of G L Peiris and Tissa Vitarana who, if nothing else, have outlived their years.

The catastrophe that has befallen us happens to be entirely the work of ‘intellectuals’. The hyperinflation we see today was caused by Central Bank governor W. D. Lakshman, PhD, a professor of economics, printing trillions of rupees. Viyath Maga’s economics guru, Kenneth De Zylva, PhD, denies that there exists a causal link between money-printing and inflation (see if that works in your local Food City). And don’t forget that Dr P. B. Jayasundara, the father of this calamity, is also an ‘intellectual’. The architects of our agricultural downfall too, were intellectuals: Anuruddha Padeniya and Priyantha Yapa. It was the latter, by the way, who led Sri Lanka into becoming the only country in the world to prohibit the burial of covid victims, thus angering the entire Arab world, if not the civilized world.

What this government lacks is not intellectualism, it is common sense. Some of Britain’s most successful prime ministers, such as David Lloyd-George, Winston Churchill and John Major didn’t so much as have a university degree. Gordon Brown, PhD, on the other hand, was a dismal failure. But the fact remains that Sri Lanka is still to have a nominal head of state with a university degree. Except for Sir Henry Monck-Mason Moore (1944-48), that is.

Constitutional Reform

Many people see constitutional reform as a cure for our national ills. I am not so sure. We have had several constitutions in the past 70 years, and none of them really worked. To imagine we’ll have better luck next time is perhaps wishful thinking, but that isn’t to say we shouldn’t try. Likewise, our penchant for blaming the executive presidency for all our ills: Sirima Bandaranaike managed to reduce the country to ruin and penury without it (aided, to boot, by eminent ‘intellectuals’ such as N M Perera, PhD and Colvin R de Silva, PhD).

What I find vexing about Sri Lankan constitutionality is that it seems to lack a philosophy. The UK’s ‘unwritten constitution’, for example, is based on 800 years of custom, tradition and precedent. Its philosophy through the centuries has been to constantly erode the power of the Crown (the so-called royal prerogative) in favour of the people. As recently as 2019, the UK’s Supreme Court overruled the prorogation of parliament decreed by the queen, in effect amending the Constitution without even saying so.

The American Constitution, by contrast, rejected custom and tradition in favour of aspiration. Based on the philosophical writings of thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Paine, Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence not for the world as it was, but for the world as he wished it to be. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”, he wrote, while still owning slaves. Some may call that hypocrisy; I call it aspiration.

It has never been clear to me what the philosophy of our constitution is. The precedence accorded Buddhism, harking to the Kandyan Convention, recalls custom and tradition. And then, we are awarded a bunch of aspirational rights and liberties such as Speech, Assembly and Association (though, to poor Prageeth Ekneligoda’s cost, not Life), none of which amounts to very much given that “All existing written law and unwritten law shall be valid and operative notwithstanding any inconsistency with the preceding provisions of this Chapter”. In other words, none of those rights actually amounts to much.

In my view, this philosophical muddle is because our constitution is written not for the people by the people (or else how would Ranjan Ramanayake end up in prison?), but by politicians for politicians, or worse, by lawyers for lawyers.

To Gen-Z out on Galle Face then, my unreserved admiration. Don’t ever stop thinking about tomorrow. But you must find consensus in your messaging. Anarchy only causes problems: it does not solve them. Be careful what you wish for.