WHY I FIND MYSELF AT VARIANCE

13 October 2015 06:43 pm - 0 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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“Well I’m older now but still running against the wind” – Bob Seger
As a boy, I grew up reading a column in the Ceylon Observer called “Off My Beat” by “The Outsider”. The writer was my father Mervyn de Silva and his choice of pen-name, the English translation of the title of the famous book by Albert Camus, was quite deliberate (the French original was “L’Entranger”, “The Stranger”). My new fortnightly column exclusive to this newspaper is entitled “At Variance”. While it was my choice of title, it wasn’t my choice of phrase. It is a phrase that a senior Cabinet Minister of the previous administration used to describe me, or rather, my suspected stance -- the implication being that it was “At variance” with the thinking of the Government.

That conversation took place in Paris in late 2011, after I had warned Colombo that Sri Lanka was about to lose India’s support, and that of a significant fraction of our base, the global South at the UNHRC in Geneva. As events have indubitably proved, my cautioning was prophetic, but at the time it had put me “At variance” with the myopic rigidity of the dominant hawks and hangers-on of the establishment of the day.

We now know how that went, and quite a lot of water of the Seine has passed under the Alexandra Bridge since then, but I grew rather fond of the phrase “At variance”and promised myself I’d use it as the title of a newspaper column.

Being “At variance” is not the same thing as being a “contrarian”. Almost as a reflex, the contrarian tends to take the opposite view of whatever is said. I do not. I question the dominant views when they do not accord with my knowledge, experience and reason. I tend not to accept orthodoxy, convention and tradition at face value. I tend to look through, beyond and beneath them. I also try to look at things from above and in a wider context. That puts me “At variance” with the conventional views, the orthodoxy, of the Establishment, be it the Government establishment or the Opposition establishment. Therefore even when I am determined to settle in and settle down, the Establishment is never quite at home with me, not knowing exactly how and where to place me, sensing that I am not really one of their tribe,and suspecting that my loyalty will not extend to keeping my mouth shut when I encounter “unacknowledged ignorance” (the most dangerous thing, said Socrates) or plain bullshit.

The inevitable consequence of this is that I am never quite at home, or am not at home for too long, with the political conventions and stagnant orthodoxy of this or that camp. While duty and discipline do not permit me to dissent when a battle is raging, I am not a camp follower. In a different kind of society that would not be a problem. In other countries, establishments actually place considerable store on critical intellects which can think—and most crucially analyze—independently or at least autonomously, and present a Track B. It is that oldest of establishments, the Catholic Church, that invented the role of the “Devil’s Advocate”. In Sri Lanka, the Establishment (of Government or Opposition) is an echo chamber. I tend to sound discordant in echo chambers.

In other countries, even when the Establishment is allergic to non-conformist thinking, civil society is not, and welcomes it. Sri Lanka used to be that way. Today, pro-Western cosmopolitan-neoliberalism, evangelical human rights fundamentalism and a missionary minoritarianism constitute the intolerant doctrine of not only the governing elite but also of Sri Lanka’s civil society elite.These twin elites have morphed.

In the spirit, and at the risk, of remaining “at variance”, I question the dominant postulates and self-righteous postures. I think that the UNHRC resolution dangerously violates Sri Lanka’s hard won sovereignty and runs contrary to the national and the public interest. I also think it profoundly hypocritical on the part of the West, and deeply unethical and amoral on our part to turn on our military (and its Tamil allies) who saved us from the suicide bombing fascist terrorist army that ravaged the country. I know in my bones that any attempt to implement the US-UK resolution would worsen rather than improve things. I think it has too many moving parts, asymmetrical with each other, to work simultaneously or in sequence. Going by the global evidence I do not think that an invasive, lacerating accountability process is a prerequisite for reconciliation or that the former helps the latter. In most post-conflict societies, the prudent assumption has been that it would be counterproductive, especially if precipitate and externally propelled. I think that new and special laws, a Special Court and a Special Prosecutor’s office with foreign participation, will only make for political polarization and ideological radicalization. Far from creating the atmosphere for Constitutional reform which yields political reconciliation among our constituent communities and builds a united Sri Lanka,the entire enterprise may prove toxic or incendiary.

I was a loyal dissident within the previous administration because I thought the path it was on in the postwar period/second term (not the wartime presidency), was a strategic mistake especially in the intersecting and interactive external and ethnic realms. I think that led in some considerable measure to the present debacle -- though the new Government had far better options than embracing the US resolution. I do not think that the Opposition, with which I remain in broad sympathy, has done the necessary self-criticism of its past or is about to. My support for the Opposition is not uncritical.

Though it may be remarked that my stance is reflective of an (inherited) individualistic temperament, and this is partly true, it is at a conscious level, far more reflective of the role I think I have to play and the function I fulfil in our society: that of the political writer/critic, intellectual and analyst; what is termed in the West, the “public intellectual” (tangentially coinciding with the role of the “policy intellectual”). More than most, an intellectual is attracted and motivated by thought and ideas, sometimes fashioned into and manifested in what Jean-Paul Sartre called “projects”. The challenge of the intellectual is translating those ideas into action, those projects into practice, which means moving from the understanding of ideas (usually global and universal) to the grasp of reality (usually local and particular). That takes time and maturity.

The role of the public intellectual in no way presupposes neutrality or equidistant. It was Sartre who insisted that the intellectual must be “engaged”, “committed” to ideas and causes, insisting in his famous polemic with his one-time friend Albert Camus, that the intellectual cannot situate himself “outside history”. Sartre’s recommendation is by no means that the intellectual join a political party, but that he/she must take sides in the actual, ongoing struggles and larger dynamics of his/her time. However, Isaac Deutscher for his part suggests that there are times in history when the alternatives are so unpalatable, the intellectual must stay above the fray (“au dessus de la melee”). For Sartre, by their projects ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves. For a quarter century my project has been the defence of national and state sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity; the advocacy of a strong, smart state; the synthesis of a Smart Patriotism.

The role of the public intellectual distantly derives from and echoes that of the Old Testament prophet. As the supreme realist Machiavelli said, perhaps the most dangerous of vocations is that of the unarmed prophet. All in all, it continuously finds me in a stance that is “At variance”. So there we are; you, the reader, and I.

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WHY I FIND MYSELF AT VARIANCE

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