-By Virgil
(Lanka-e-News -12.July.2024, 10.15 PM) “I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” ~Vincent Van Gogh
Sometimes it's too optimistic to set your expectations too high. It pays when your opponents could be held to the same tier provided that you are sure of the opponents' potential failure; but if the opponents are presumed to be too formidable that could be a blunder beyond repair. The National People's Power (NPP) is today confronted with that stark reality; the challenge too is rather enormous. The question is: can the NPP handle that reality? Can they handle the truth, that their rivals are as competent and equipped to outdo them in a hard election campaign where the rivals had been more successful than the JVP/NPP had ever been.
NPP's National Renaissance program is exceedingly impressive; its substance and the processes are well thought out and spelled out clearly; its philosophical content is superior in appeal and substance. Yet is it realistic for average Sri Lankan to read, absorb and digest all in one single gulp? It's never too early or late to dream too big. Its alluring fantasy is an invitation to fly in search of hitherto unbeknownst lands and meadows that make even a solitary hermit to emerge from his trance and seek mundane indulgences. The aphrodisiac, that is political power, is all-embracing and all-consuming.
The length and breadth of the appeal could be above average for the average rural voter. But who has the time and leisure to settle down and ascertain the ordinary and extraordinary stuff? Does he have the time to analyze and dissect the various policy programs presented by various parties for the digestion of the voter? Does he worry at all. Or has it already been decided that the status quo has to go and a different and fresh system needs to be introduced and instituted. Is there any validity in the numerous polls and their unbelievable results? Questions are many and answers are none.
They are engaged in selling a presumably expensive item at zero price. The real price is assumed to be paid over time after the NPP is installed in the seat of power. NPP, even though has had enormous influence and impact on the mindset of the masses during the last four to five decades, they have never been successful in transforming that influence and impact into real countable votes come election day. People gather to attend their mass rallies; they sit in their cow-dung-floored verandas and listen and watch their tiny television sets and try to assimilate what the speakers try to convey in the simplest of simple terms; they chew their customary beetle followed by a full glass of water and exchange their views and opinions with their families and friends. That, of course, is the scenario in a rural hamlet where electricity still is a luxury and four-wheel vehicular traffic is sparse.
Out in the big cities the atmosphere is totally different and it's more tense and those who are keen to know as to what is at stake, are more anxious and even panic-stricken and terrified. They are panicking because they have much more to lose than the not-well-to-do people in the remote corners of the land. They do not know that the current crop of NPP leaders are not what the JVP leaders were in the past. Wijeweera is not AKD, period. The difference between the two, one belonging to the past and the other looking forward to the future could not have been starker and more pronounced.
But in politics, image and optics do matter more than in other endeavors and in any other profession. The National People's Power (NPP) is very competent and proficient in projecting themselves as a tangible and authentic alternative to the status quo. The way they have defined and shaped the current crisis and its projectile over the next few years has had no match amongst a mix of politicians whose past has been much more despicable and damaging to the land than the one the NPP is projecting itself to be. The basic picture changes when one is asked to substitute AKD with Ranil Wickremasinghe of Sajith Premadasa and examine if either of them is equipped and ready to take the country on lines as prescribed in the National Renaissance program.
The people are getting increasingly convinced that what had been used in the past decades, in fact, since we obtained Independence from the British colonial powers right up to the time we were declared bankrupt, cannot be used again. Albert Einstein said 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'. I do not think that we Sri Lankans would want to be classified as an insane nation, far from it. But when it comes to politics it's a completely different tune that we have been used and trained to dance to. Distributing goodies on the eve of an election has been a trademark of all our political parties when the elections are called when that party is the incumbent. Those who are not in power, on the other hand, would move heaven and earth, even 'rice from the moon' as Sirimavo Bandaranaike pledged on the eve of the Parliamentary Elections in 1970. Our voters have time and time again have fallen to that hole and they seemed to have not minded to be in that piteous situation.
Is NPP's National Renaissance a winning product in the marketplace of politics. Even if the consumer is willing to buy it, will he become entangled with the notion of buyer's remorse before he even buys it? How big are our minds and how expansive are our absorption powers to understand the direct and nuanced aspects of the said program? Questions, questions and questions...unending questions and we simply cannot leave it to the whims and fancies of some advertising agents to run their election ads and close our minds to the vagaries of vitriolic politics to dictate to the electorate. That electorate has changed. It's not the same that existed prior to the Aragalaya-22.
The electorate has shed its false garb; its development as a progressing and a progressive community is showing its unmistakable signs of its intent. Scientific or not, many surveys that are being conducted have shown incredible propensity on the part of the masses that they are indeed happy to be governed by a power that has not been tested and tried before. A craving for a change, a desire for a fresh look at the trajectory of the country's future and a definite promise of a 'new' world for our young men and women will be taken as a new venture not only for our younger generation but for the entire nation. The promise is daring and bold. The vision is endearing and alluring and the men and women who are charged with the task seem to be equipped and ready.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected]
Virgil's Collection
https://www.lankaenews.com/category/21
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by (2024-07-12 16:54:55)
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