
This is around the fourth time there is a formidable challenge to the system — a phase of imminent systemic upheaval — since independence. It happened before this in 1971, albeit in much attenuated form when some callow insurrectionist was assigned to assassinate the then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, after watching a movie at some cinema hall in Colombo’s outskirts.
Then of course there was the more virulent version of that attack when in 1989, for a good part of that year the system was teetering on the brink because the DJV which was the armed-wing of the JVP was assassinating one political leader after another, with an overall simultaneous attack aimed at key institutions that represented the citadels of power.
The worse of these systemic crises of course was the long running battle on LTTE separatism which ended with events in the early 2000s that took the country close to the reality of geographical bifurcation. The LTTE seemed just one or two attacks away from making Eelam a reality and the territorial integrity of the country, so called, was imminently under threat.
Now we have the fourth major systemic implosion. This is an economic meltdown it may be said, and therefore there would be those who may not classify the current threat to the system as being as significant as the three historical events described above.
But on the contrary the current threat to the system is in some ways even more significant than the country’s previous three systemic implosions that have been described above.
For the first time, the people have been roused to protest spontaneously, and the situation has sporadically deteriorated to the level of general anarchy being unleashed in such a way that even the Security Forces have been seen to be not quite in control.
What would be the upshot of the events of this year particularly after the incidents that have led to regime-transformation with the departure of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, and the appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe?
UNCERTAINTY
This time as in the previous instances, the fate of the Sri Lankan State depends to a large extent on external influences and how exactly our friends both near and far help us out of this current impasse. On each of the previous instances that have been cited, there were various levels of international or good neighborly input.
In 2009 and the years immediately before that, the battle against terrorism could not have been prosecuted if there weren’t certain friendly nations helping us. This time around that sort of assistance with armaments and so on is not the type of help we need. Those inputs seem relatively marginal in the big picture by comparison with what is needed today to see us out of the present phase of darkness and uncertainty.
Today, more than all we need cold hard cash, and lots of it. We need such infusions of money — dollars — on time so that we could stave off general calamity here in the country because we have run short of the dollars to buy fuel, most significantly, but also other essential commodities including medicines.
The big issue however, is that parallel to the economic meltdown we have a political crisis that is staring us in the face. Will the system implode, and if so with what dire consequences to the people and the state? In other words, despite the fact that we have had battles and insurrections before, is this our ‘most dangerous moment’ since the grant of independence?
It could be. How we face it would as stated earlier depend on how our friends in the international community come to our aid and in what way they do so. But the way international actors react to this crisis could ultimately cause a sea change in the way we consider our own reality as a nation.
BEDEVILS
Would our borders be respected? Those questions too would be important in the mix of issues that come up as we attempt to resolve the current situation of economic meltdown. The people are distracted by their own personal struggles.
Some may say that this type of discontent coupled with the uncertainty in the economic and political sphere, is the worst type of cocktail of circumstances that could portend traumatic systemic change, and all that type of upheaval.
But when the people are distracted, there could be change other than systemic change. Some would put it simply and ask what would be the price we have to pay for ensuring that people get their supplies of fuel and do not have various crises including a food crisis in the coming months?
The newly elected Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in a recent interview with an international television channel stated clearly that by August there could be a food crisis. August seems to be a long time ahead, especially in the light of the current issues such as the fuel crisis that bedevils people on a daily basis because transportation is severely hampered, having repercussions on all other areas of life such as for instance the prices of basic items such as food and other domestic essentials.
The people are totally distracted by these realities. Besides that, there is political uncertainty even though it is thought by most that are supportive of the current regime that this aspect of the issues has been somewhat effectively addressed by the appointment of Wickremesinghe as the new PM.
Are the international actors working to a plan — at least some of them? It doesn’t appear to be so in the context of the fact that many developing countries are facing a debt-crisis or at least a looming debt-crisis after the global economic slump took hold consequent to the changes in the global economy stemming from the pandemic.
The theory would be that if other countries are impacted as well, there could not be a special plan for Sri Lanka. But others are not sure. There has been speculation among certain sections of the intelligentsia at least that while our backs are turned and as we as a nation grapple with our own existential realities, there may be other changes that are engineered that don’t constitute systemic change that could alter the nation’s bearings as it were. Will some of these changes impact boundaries — if not national boundaries, provincial ones at least?
Structural reform
In other words would we have to pay purely in terms of structural reform of our institutions such as the Government service and so on in return for the cash infusions that we would receive? Or would there be other changes that we as a people would have to agree to considering the circumstances that we are in?
All this would depend a lot on our friends but also it would depend heavily on how the political realities play out in the immediate term. How ‘distracted’ would the people be?
Would they be sensitised only to their own pain as in the damage that is inflicted on their domestic fronts i.e. with regard to transportation issues and the impact of gas, food and medicine shortages and so on?
Would the people forget the other political issues entirely and have no inclination to protest about political developments when all their energies are consumed in the struggle to face economic problems — and the efforts to protest about the same?
There is no friend willing to come to the aid of Sri Lanka by going the whole hog and seeing us through the current crisis in the immediate term by helping us with the entire cash component we need. That’s a tall order anyway, but there isn’t even a combination of countries doing that.
In this situation we are left to our own devices far more than we used to be,when we experienced the systemic challenges that were cited at the beginning of this article. Indeed, whether this current impasse is the most dangerous moment or not, what happens in the next few months needless to say, would be extremely consequential.