Searching a common candidate for 2015 Presidential election and campaigning for the victory of Mr. Maithripala Sirisena
is a unique political experience. In this campaign activists who are
labeled as “leftists” (whether old or new) played a vital and massive
role in criticizing Mahinda Rajapaksa
regime and the familial rule. On the other hand two frontline Jathika
Hela Urumaya( JHU) MPs Patali Champika Ranawaka and Rev Athuraliye
Rathana who fired initial salvos against the regime also possess a left
orientation . Janatha Vimiukthi Peramuna (JVP) being outside the
mainstream of common candidate platform courageously slammed the
Rajapaksa familial rule in and out. The political bureaus of Lanka Sama
Samaja Party (LSSP) and Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) split and Dr
Jayampathy Wickramaratne, Lal Wijenayake(Attorney-at-Law) and Raja
Uswetakeiyawa were in forefront of the search of a common candidate and
subsequent campaigning.
Most of those former leftists who involved in the presidential campaign, thought that Ranil Wickremesinghe as a reformed personality. Former editor of the ‘Ravaya” newspaper senior journalist Victor Ivan is also one of such persons.
However JVPs stance from the beginning of the campaign for
presidential election was controversial and as they did not contest the
presidential election their support base voted for Maithripala. The JVP
appeared as a partner of victory after the election and became a
participant of national executive committee. Its campaign also directed
at parliamentary election and had already decided to contest alone.
General Election
Maithri votes at the presidential election were distributed among
United National Party (UNP,) Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchhi (ITAK) and JVP
at the recently held parliamentary election but the latter’s performance
at parliamentary election was below 5 percent. One argument prevailing
is that as the people were polarized between pro Mahinda and
anti-Mahinda duality a significant section of people who associated with
JVP voted for either to betel leaf or elephant symbol not to the bell
symbol. With this electoral set back JVP‘s manifesto also became
insignificant.
LSSP
being the oldest party in electoral politics was unable to get a
parliamentary seat because of their unprincipled policies. For Communist
Party there is a seat in Matara. Though Wimal Weerawansa managed to get
5 seas through UPFA, I don’t categorized National Freedom Front ( NFF)
as a party representing Marxism or Socialism.
With this Sri Lankan background the pertinent question that comes to
my mind is whether there is a correlation between the failure of JVP
including the left and failure of socialism in world scale.
Socialism
Scientific Socialism is the doctrine introduced by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels in the 19th century to replace capitalism as the next
historical stage of human society. One of the features of socialism is
to create a political party by proletarians to seize political power
from the capitalists and following the teachings of Marx and Engels,
Vladimir Iliyich Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin led the Russian
October Revolution in 1917 and applied socialist ideology to specific
conditions in Russia and created the first socialist country in the
world. In the 1930s a major theoretical split occurred in the Bolshevik
party popularly known as Trotskyism and Stalinism. Sri Lankan left or
socialist movement was pioneered by LSSP , was basically a Trotskyite
movement and Communist Party followed the Stalinist model. Early left
parties in Sri Lanka instead of hard line revolution embraced
parliamentary politics and their contribution to the political discourse
is great.
The new left that was formed in the mid sixties was an assault of old left. VLSSP of Edmond Samarakkody, Ceylon Communist Party (Revolutionary) of N. Shanmugadasan, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna of Rohana Wijeweera, Peradiga Suanga of Gamini Yapa, Ginipupura of Kalyananda Thiranagama and later Nava Sama Samaja Party of Dr Vickramabahu Karunaratne are considered as parties of new left. These new left parties wanted radical social change but among these the JVP attempted to grab state power in 1971 following footsteps of Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Ming , Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guerra.
Second insurrection of JVP between 1987 and 1989 was suppressed by
then UNP government in ruthless manner and however in 1994 it
participated in the parliamentary election through a different party and
got a seat in Hambanthota. JVP politics since then is known to the
public.
Democratic Revolutions
A great change sometimes called as democratic revolutions took place
in late 1980s across Eastern Europe starting from Poland and ended up in
breaking the Soviet Union into number of states. In parallel to this
great change, Communist China under Supreme Leader Deng Hsiao Ping
introduced economic reforms deviating from the socialist model but
retaining the power of the Communist Party of China and ultimately China
was able to maintain a high growth rate surpassing 8 percent
continually for more than a decade. Now it poses a great challenge to
USA to become another economic super power.
After the fall of socialism the countries in the Eastern Europe
embraced the liberal free market economic model and social model with
multi party representative democracy. Many of these countries are
members of NATO. The national liberation movements against colonialism,
neo colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s prevailed in Asia, Africa and
Latin America gradually disappeared. Non- Aligned Movement (NAM) became a
non entity and major countries in the NAM like India, Indonesia and
many embraced free market. The cold war between USA and USSR ended and
USA was identified as the sole super power. Western countries thought
that after the fall of socialism the major threat to western system was
posed by Muslim fundamentalism and one party dominance states in the
Middle East. As at present Cuba is emerging from its international
isolation and established diplomatic relationships with USA. Francis
Fukuyama; contemporary liberal thinker wrote in his “End of History and
Last Man” that multi party representative democracy will be the last
social and political model in the world.
So the failure of socialism worldwide is now sealed and in this
context a question arises as to whether there is any significant role to
play by the socialists in Sri Lanka when state capitalism and socialism
is obsolete and non functional.
My feeling is that the changes that had taken place in the above
mentioned countries s were not properly followed by the left and
socialist intellectuals of this country. JVP’s failure is also part and
parcel of failure of socialism as a political ideology and instead
democratic norms are respected and taken by people more seriously.
People of Sri Lanka and specially the younger generation have understood
the effects created by ongoing communication revolution and process of
globalization in the digital age.
During the last five years we witnessed the rise of democratic
movements in the Middle East beginning from Tunisia sometimes called as
“Arab Spring”. The political change took place on the 8th of January
this year in Sri Lanka resembles Arab Spring. People saw Mahinda
Rajapaksa as an authoritarian( sometimes called as soft dictator) and
Maithri-Ranil as democrats and on August 17 people rallied round
democratic forces and not under obsolete socialist world outlook of JVP .
Fredrick Von Hayek
Liberal philosopher Fredrick Von Hayek who twice won the Nobel Prize
for Economics was the first person to visualize the failure and collapse
of socialism from a theoretical perspective. In his popular work “The
Road to Serfdom” written in 1944 at London School of Economics,
dedicating the book “TO THE SOCIALISTS OF ALL PARTIES” Hayek posed an
important question when he said that do people believe that the economic
planning can do within the exiting democratic institutions?. Hayek saw
that central planning makes it inevitable that large amount of power is
concentrated in the hands of the controlling authorities. He said that
socialist system degenerates in to one of power, personal discretion and
unequal treatment under law. In general, his view was ideals of
socialism have faded into tyranny and if central planning policies
continue to be pursued totalitarian forces will get the upper hand.
Hayek believed and theoretically emphasized that capitalism did not
create poverty it provided the mechanism that would cure it.
In conclusion it could be decided the fall of socialism in the world
scale had also an impact on the electoral failure of JVP and “the left”
as many of our citizens are well informed about the realities of global
political trends in a one polar world. (By: Kamal Nissanka)
*Kamal Nissanka is the Secretary General of the Liberal Party. Read his more articles from here>>>
Home Sri Lanka Think Tank-UK (Main Link)
No comments:
Post a Comment