I have written in the past about Sri Lanka’s deteriorating democracy, with corrupt, nepotistic family dynasties that enriched themselves while pursuing chauvinistic policies that discriminated against minorities and brutally suppressed both an insurgency and a separatist movement. Those governments also systemically undermined the institutions that underpin democracies such as an independent judiciary, police force, the media, and other non-governmental institutions, and using thugs and other means to intimidate opponents and critics. I have written that I observed the US heading in that same direction, and Trump more than anyone represented that trend towards creating a government that merely paid lip-service to democratic governance while in reality making it into a corrupt personal fiefdom.
The situation has now reversed itself.
In September, the Sri Lankan presidential elections saw Anura Kumara Dissanayake (known as AKD) get elected, defeating two candidates who belonged to the past nepotistic dynasties while AKD came from very humble origins. AKD had been a member of parliament but his party held only three seats. After his election, he dissolved parliament and in the new elections held yesterday, his party won 159 seats in the 225-seat parliament, with 62% of the vote.
The 55-year-old earlier told reporters that he believed this was “a crucial election that will mark a turning point in Sri Lanka”.
Sajith Premadasa, the man Dissanayake defeated in the presidential elections, led the opposition alliance.
Dissanayake called for snap elections shortly after he became president to seek a fresh mandate to pursue his policies. There was “no point continuing with a parliament that is not in line with what the people want”, he had said.
Nearly two-thirds of former MPs had chosen not to run for re-election, including prominent members of the former ruling Rajapaksa dynasty.
The previous parliament was full of people from the previous governments who were seen as utterly corrupt and thus their exit is to be welcomed. They had clearly seen the writing on the wall and thus decided to not be further humiliated by being rejected at the polls.
What is even more extraordinary is that AKD’s party even won in the regions where the minority ethnic group of Tamils are the majority, something that had never happened since independence in 1948 and where Tamil-led parties had routinely won. The reason this is remarkable is that AKD’s party the JVP had once waged an insurgency against the government and also gone through a period of promoting chauvinistic policies favoring the Sinhala Buddhist majority and supporting the genocidal war against the Tamils. Such policies had proved in the past to lead to electoral success in the majority Sinhala Buddhist areas. While the next generation of JVP leadership led by AKD has renounced that policy, the memories are still raw and Tamils could have been forgiven for harboring deep skepticism as to whether the new direction was genuine. That they were willing to support him gives me some cautious optimism that the country may be emerging from its disastrous ethnic antagonisms.
Ryan Grim of the excellent Drop Site news comments on this remarkable turn of events.
In September, the left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake stunned Sri Lanka by winning the presidential election, the first time the corrupt families in control of the country since independence had been successfully challenged. But he had effectively no power in parliament (just three seats) so dissolved the chamber and called new elections, which were held yesterday. Here’s how Reuters described it: “Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition won a thumping victory in a snap general election, gaining power to push through his plans to fight poverty and graft in the island nation recovering from a financial meltdown. The sweeping mandate, which included surprise backing from the north and east of the country which is home to the minority Tamil people, is an unprecedented vote for change and indicates that Sri Lanka is in sync on moving ahead, analysts said.”
The Sri Lanka victory comes 15 years after the crushing of the so-called Tamil Tigers by the Sri Lankan government. In 2009, at the end of a civil war, the government massacred some 40,000 or more Tamil civilians in a genocidal finish — and upwards of 170,000 total. The broad lack of accountability for the perpetrators of the massacre resonates today – and certainly did not go unnoticed by would-be perpetrators elsewhere around the world. Mass slaughter as a political solution to contemporary disputes was given a boost by that massacre and the world’s acquiescence.
Dissanayake won the Tamil region with a promise to end the ongoing occupation and release political prisoners, but it’ll be a fraught relationship worth watching closely.
Dissanayake’s next fight will be with the International Monetary Fund, which put shackles on the country’s government and economy in exchange for a bailout.
We’ll keep an eye on Sri Lanka for the gathering Western reaction to this demand for dignity and independence. It’s likely to get rocky, but keeping eyes on it will help. If you can help by upgrading to a paid subscription, now would be a great time to do it.
Even with a big parliamentary majority, AKD has a very tough path ahead in overcome decades-long corruption and the undermining of democratic institutions that have left the county impoverished and teetering on bankruptcy. One can only hope that AKD will succeed and reverse that trend. But international financial institutions such as the world Bank and IMF are dominated by the US and other western powers and are notorious for favoring right-wing governments and undermining left-wing ones.
As I have said before, I had observed that the US was following Sri Lanka’s path and steadily sliding towards corrupt autocratic government. Right now, the US seems to be heading further in that direction while Sri Lanka shows promise of reversing that trend. Sri Lanka provides hope that however bleak the current situation may be, it is possible to change course. The problem is that in Sri Lanka’s case, the country had to hit rock bottom before that happened. Where that floor is in the US is hard to tell.
Where’s your floor? You’re on record about how bad it already is, and how quickly it seems to be getting worse. Your predictions for the near future (the next four years) are very gloomy. And yet you still live there and give no hint you’re considering going living somewhere else, despite evidently having the resources to do so. How bad would it have get in reality (i.e. not in the dire predictions of those who didn’t vote for Trump) before you’d consider moving somewhere not run by a convicted felon and proven sex offender surrounded by anti-vaxxers and actual Nazis?
(This question open to any other residents of the US who have the resources but not (yet) the inclination to go live somewhere nicer).
sonofrojblake, the US is a very geographically, socially, and legally diverse place. On many topics USians tend to believe the country as a whole is doomed, but their local corner is doing very well, or improving. Maybe because people sort themselves into communities they like, or maybe because news and other reporting (which is how people learn about other places) tend to emphasize the negative.
So for my family, the western half of Washington state is an ideal location -- it suits our values (though there is some place for improvement), we like the climate (we like the wet, we like not needing air conditioning, we like that there is no extreme cold) -- and we like that it is likely to not get terrible in our lifetime even under pessimistic scenarios, we love the access to green spaces and hiking trails even in the city, there are good jobs in our areas of interest (biology research for my wife and myself, healthcare for my son and his partner) and so forth. And specifically for my family, our area is very trans-accepting (even the homophobic the Christian compound practically next door doesn’t give us trouble, they only police their own).
If it were just my wife and myself, there are likely places we could retire to right now, assuming healthcare is accessible to non-citizens. But how many of these places are trans-accepting? How many will be stable wrt climate? And we really wouldn’t want to be far from our son and his partner.
Then there is the fact that my wife is a long time practitioner of secular Buddhism. As a result she refuses to spend time and energy worrying about things that haven’t happened yet. (I do the worrying for all of us.) So right now, our floor is rioters at our doorstep.
Or, put another way, you are actively planning to wait until it is incontrovertibly too late.
I do wonder how many Jewish people in Poland in 1938 didn’t fancy moving somewhere where Jewish people might be subject to harsh language.
History demonstrates that in Europe in the 1930s there were two kinds of Jewish people -- the ones who got the fuck out before it was too late, and the ones who were shipped off to camps and gassed. You appear to be stating clearly that your plan is to be in the second group. Alternatively, you’re stating that although
-- all the liberal media, the left, and even former associates of Trump are regularly comparing him to Hitler
-- he has literally stated in so many words he intends to become a “dictator on day one”
-- he plans to start deporting immigrants (and although he says he’s aiming for undocumented ones, how likely is it to stop there?)
-- he admires Hitler and wishes he had generals like Hitler had (presumably ignorant of the multiple assassination attempts Hitler’s generals planned)
-- he has deliberately surrounded himself with certified wackjobs, science deniers, paedophiles and actual Nazis, and actively rid himself of all the grownups and handrails that constrained his first stab at Presidency.
… despite ALL that, you consider the threat TO YOU overblown to the point that you’ve NO plan to leave until Kristallnacht is at YOUR door.
Bold. I honestly hope you’re right. I admire your confidence.
sonofrojblake, there were also Jews who thought they had gotten out in time, only to have their new location become just as dangerous than their original one. As the Buddhists say, ‘Good? Bad? Who knows?’ IOW in the moment we lack the perspective to understand how things will turn out. If Trump ends up tanking the global economy, all my calculations about where we can retire are out the window, and we are better in a place where we are permitted to work for a living (chances of getting work visas are dropping as we speak). Well, for that our alternatives are… (drumroll) eh… Israel and Argentina. ’nuff said.
Or if Trump’s foreign policy ends up handing Ukraine to Putin, leading to more Russian aggression in Europe, and who knows what kind of chaos. Or more European countries continue the fascist and anti-immigrant trend.
Or the Gulf Stream could stop and sink Europe and the eastern US into an ice age.
Yes, things can turn pretty bad for us. My wife’s position is federally funded. She might lose it. She might lose access to certain essential medication. She might die. She is at peace with this. This doesn’t mean she likes these possibilities, it just means she doesn’t let them occupy her mind until anything more concrete is happening. (At any case, our US passports are valid. We also got vaccinated for whatever we could think of, in case RFK’s policies result in outbreaks.)
A few months ago a colleague and dear friend died after a prolonged illness. He too was a Buddhist practitioner. Once the doctors told him they have no more curative options to offer, he stopped taking any safety measures. At the same time, he was quoted as saying, “I am just happy to be alive”. This is my wife’s inspiration. Living each day to its fullest, not letting worries about the uncertainties of an unknowable future detract from enjoying the present.
I am not anywhere there yet (though I have been equanimous about my inevitable death for quite a while, being a two time cancer survivor), mostly because I am a generally less happy and more pessimistic person. OTOH I am looking out for things I can do to strengthen my local community, which has been very kind to us and which has many people more vulnerable than us.
Let us not forget the war crimes culminating with the final massacre in the north. The idiots documented it with video, and the video leaked.
My @ 6 was about the previous oligarchy in charge of Sri Lanka, I forgot to mention it. Typing while being distracted…
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The orange rapist and the hebephile have (so far) not been implicated for massacres, even if they are proposing ‘concentrating’ undesirables in camps.
The armed forces have some Trump fans but as we have seen, proximity to Trump leads to rapid disenchantment.