brand logo

The silence of the sheep

02 Apr 2022

By Kusum Wijetilleke “As for those of us who stood by in silence and apathy as this catastrophe slowly took shape... on what page of history do we find our proper place?” – Noam Chomsky (1967) Ask yourself, in the midst of this economic crisis, with fuel, gas, food and medicines increasing in price and reducing in supply, when some 700,000 Sri Lankans are estimated to have slipped below the poverty line: have you ever caught yourself considering former Prime Minister, MP Ranil Wickremesinghe, as the man to save the country? What percentage of the national electorate would you estimate yearns for the return of the UNP Leader to a position of power? The data from the most recent election suggests that whatever faith or trust the electorate placed on Wickremesinghe’s capabilities has diminished considerably. Yet if you go by the media’s almost constant coverage of the former PM, one might be tricked into believing that a vast groundswell of opinion exists in favour of returning Wickremesinghe to the front row. The truth is that Wickremesinghe never truly left that front row. When votes were not adequate, the Constitution found new ways to justify his entry to Parliament, ushered in by a GOP that is only second to the SLPP (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna) in its subservience to their ‘Leader’. A state of selective amnesia In the days following the departure of ruling coalition stalwart MPs Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammanpila, the media were whipped into a frenzy and a very clear narrative began to take shape. A major news channel aired two long-form interviews with Ranil Wickremesinghe, one in English and one in Sinhala.  The former PM discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Sri Lankan economy with clarity and lucidity, moderate in his thinking, principled in his outlook; all clearly meant to contrast his calm and calculated demeanour with the chaos of the ruling establishment and of course, to the apparent lethargy of the opposition. Of course the interviewer did not press the former PM on his economic policy platform, how it might differ from Yahapalanaya; this was nothing more than a superficial discussion. It was simply meant to introduce and reinforce a narrative around the former PM and the UNP as being a genuine alternative, regardless of what the electorate might think. Most days, some part of the mainstream media will quote the former PM; there was also widespread coverage of the underwhelming UNP-led Satyagraha, including on the front page of newspapers; further proof of the UNP’s inability to mobilise the remainder of their base. We saw the very obviously staged political-media circus during the All Party Conference (APC). There have been various reports of a proposed ‘National Government’ (since our previous experience was such a rousing success) with Wickremesinghe and the UNP keen to “play a major role” as per UNP Chairman Vajira Abeywardene. How does a party and a leader that failed so spectacularly at the most recent election, somehow get to play a “major role” in the country’s governance? This would be further, irrefutable evidence of the complete collapse of representative democracy in Sri Lanka. To be quite clear, there is nothing in the past record to suggest that Wickremesinghe might offer a path out from the various crises. In fact, the record suggests quite the opposite, that a UNP/Ranil Wickremesinghe administration usually results in the installation of reactionary and increasingly ultra-nationalist and undemocratic movements. Yet the power of the media’s narrative can trick the mind into a state of selective amnesia. Not for daytime TV Narratives are all powerful in the modern age. Consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine, since its opening salvos, the media has covered Putin’s every word and the Russian military’s every move. The media coverage might suggest that this violence in Ukraine is unique; even on Sri Lankan television and print media, there has been wall to wall coverage, articles, talk shows and debates. Consider that some 350,000 people have died in Yemen over the past seven years, many resulting from military campaigns by Saudi Arabia; armed and funded by its historical ally, the United States (US). The US is also involved in a civil war in Somalia with fighting dating back to the ’90s and an estimated half a million deaths. The cameras are not on these conflict zones as they involve narratives that are too complex and perhaps altogether inconvenient for daytime television. The Russian invasion provides much more simplistic narratives and today one is able to view the conflict from across the political spectrum: the Western liberal/conservative narrative (BBC/CNN/FOX), the Russian narrative (RTNews), the European narrative through France24 or a more Middle East-centric perspective through the Qatari Government-funded Al Jazeera. In essence, we can choose our narrative; whichever makes us feel better about ourselves, our values and choices. On social media; Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, the debates rage on whether unfettered NATO expansion pushed Putin into war or whether Ukraine is a pawn in a great global game or if the rapidly increasing body count is really just another war over resources. The mainstream media has been building a narrative that the Russian invasion is deeply unpopular in Russia, noting protests across Russia but also quoting the many dissenting voices within the Russian state structure. Peter Dickinson, writing for the American think-tank the Atlantic Council, has noted the polling figures from state and non-state polling organisations, which show that Putin’s approval rating has improved since the invasion. If one considers the Russian polling industry to be suspect, Dickinson points to the pro-invasion letter endorsed by the heads of some 250 Russian Universities and the fact that the ‘Z’ branding used by Russian troops in Ukraine has become ubiquitous across the country as a short-hand symbol of support. There are always at least two sides. It has been reported that Ukrainians living within the country have been unable to convince their own relatives across the border in Russia that there is an actual war being waged, such is the effectiveness of Russian propaganda. One must recognise, at the very beginning, that pro-war propaganda is hardly the exclusive domain of Russia and is in fact a fine art, perfected over time and utilised in liberal democracies and totalitarian dictatorships alike. The Russian people are to one extent or another, victims of propaganda and many in Sri Lanka will readily admit to this. Under the shade of propaganda A chart by Verité Research and PublicFinance.lk, making its rounds on social media, showed graphically the dramatic deterioration of Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves during the pandemic against the substantial growth in reserves experienced by many peer-group countries during the same period. Ruling party politicians, the President and even some sections of the media continue to utilise the pandemic as the main driver of Sri Lanka’s economic collapse. The CEO of a major Sri Lankan conglomerate was being interviewed on an American news-media channel and was asked to comment on the country’s economic crisis. The answers were smooth and compact, the Easter attacks were mentioned, the effects of the pandemic, the drastic reduction in tourism, Sri Lanka’s structural problems of twin deficits, everything but the President’s tax cuts that provided CEOs of major organisations with a tax windfall bonanza and led to the dangerous and unprecedented drop in Government revenue. The CEO in question even noted that floating the currency was a “logical” move. This is an astonishing statement considering the consequences, and perhaps, time restraints prevented a more substantive response. Any responsible corporate citizen should at least have noted what economist W.A. Wijewardena and many others have been noting for some time – that floating the rupee without simultaneously installing a number of other policy decisions such as: restructuring debt, taking-on fresh borrowings and adjusting interest rates was not actually logical. Ultimately, the Rupee was floated when there was no other option because it was left too late. The Sri Lankan people are, like their Russian compatriots, victims of State propaganda; under the influence of a highly-sophisticated network of media spin and political personalities all working overtime to create a necessary façade to protect the voting public, ostensibly from themselves. Writing in a daily English business paper, a leading economist who heads a vital CBSL committee linked the free-float of the LKR to IMF prescriptions, blaming the ad hoc policies that led to the sudden free-float on those calling for an IMF bailout package. This article failed to mention that all commentators who sought to engage with the IMF prescribed multiple, simultaneous policy changes to coincide with the free-float. For the record, Dr. P.B. Jayasundera is a former Treasury Secretary and Ajith N. Cabraal is a former Central Bank Governor; despite allegations of being underqualified, inexperienced, or simply not suited to these roles, both aforementioned officials must surely have had some understanding of the economic issues that were seen coming. There simply is no excuse for the multitude of policy decisions that have been taken against expert advice, ignoring an overwhelming consensus; be it the fertiliser ban, the tax cuts, monetary/fiscal policy, and now, the currency. Prof. Noam Chomsky’s 1967 essay, ‘The Responsibility of Intellectuals,’ was a reflection on a series of articles by American writer Dwight Macdonald entitled ‘The Responsibility of Peoples’. Macdonald asked the question: “To what extent are the German or Japanese people responsible for the atrocities committed by their Governments?” (1945).  Prof. Chomsky extends the argument to the “privileged minority” of intellectuals and makes an elegant case that they must bear a higher burden of responsibility: “With respect to the responsibility of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyse actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions... For a privileged minority...democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the ‘responsibility of people,’ given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy.” Indeed, as Prof. Chomsky notes, intellectuals can be utilised, even weaponised by political forces. This has never been more transparent than during the ‘Gota’ administration, whereby a number of ill-conceived policy proposals were given an air of respectability by many otherwise respectable corporate citizens. The post-truth era Academia and scholarship have been under attack for many decades. The more recent trend towards postmodernist thought has lent itself to a sort of ‘post-truth era’; a moral-relativist renaissance if you will. It allows for distortions of data, within reasonable boundaries, but distortions nonetheless. Martin Heidegger is considered one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Yet writing in a pro-Hitler declaration in 1933, stated that: “Truth is the revelation of that which makes a people certain, clear and strong in its action and knowledge; it is only this kind of ‘truth’ that one has a responsibility to speak.” Dwight Macdonald and Noam Chomsky have identified those crucial drivers of public and popular opinion and their work shows that even the most tyrannical and oppressive regimes cannot survive and thrive without the acquiescence or indeed the support, of specific classes of society that the remainder of the populous look to for clarity. When the 2019 tax cuts were implemented, it set in motion a sequence of events that led to a domino effect, the results of which have materialised on the streets of Sri Lanka. The corporate citizenry knew this was coming, the Finance Ministry too; their internal projections and budgets will likely have predicted many of the present outcomes. The fact remains that many saw this very specific set of outcomes arriving from many miles away and were either powerless to prevent the economic crisis, or were complicit. Throughout history we have seen that “Overwhelmingly, intellectuals have laboured in the service of power... That’s the job of intellectuals, round up the chorus so they all sing praises to your leaders... that’s the historic task of intellectuals...” (Chomsky). Sri Lanka is in the midst of a once-in-a-generation economic crisis due to the failure of not just its political classes, but also its intellectuals. (The writer has over a decade of experience in the banking sector after completing a degree in accounting and finance. He has completed a Masters in International Relations and is currently reading for a PhD at the University of Colombo. He is also a freelance writer and researcher, and can be reached on email: kusumw@gmail.com and Twitter: @kusumw)  


More News..