Wimal Politics of desperate times

2015-11-09
imal Weerawansa, our rabble-rousing
politico, fulminates that Sunny Leone, the Canadian- Indian adult
film star turned Bollywood actress is tipped to visit Sri Lanka, allegedly at
the behest of the government. This, he says, is a plot to promote the casino
business and, like everything else, is part of a conspiracy.
In those desperate times, Weerawansa seems to be juicing on Sunny Leone
for his political survival. Those like Weerawansa, who were political hit-men
of the ex-president have found their political lifespan fast running out, since
the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa. It was Rajapaksa who utilised
Weerawansa, Ven. Galaboda Aththe Gnanasara and other least salubrious
individuals to expand the reach of his regime.

Rajapaksa set the agenda and his goons followed it, though, some time,
trying to do better, they drove their myopic campaign to extreme ends,
even inconveniencing the ex- president (in the incidents such as the attack
on Muslims in Aluthgama.)

"Both Sunny Leone and Wimal Weerawansa are part and parcel of
it; Ms Leone, perhaps, the positive attributes of it: freedom;
freedom to indulge and individualism."
Notwithstanding such infractions, Weerawansa and Gnanasara et al were
effective organs through whoom the ex-president thought he could
manipulate impulses of certain core groups of his constituency. However, at
the end, a larger and saner segment of the public, who increasingly felt
disenchanted with his regime voted him out and later denied him the
majority in Parliament.
Now, desperation in Wimal Weerawansa is quite understandable. And he
seems to believe Sunny Leone would give a boost to his waning political
life. After all, the Canadian-Indian porn star is among the most searched
names on Google by the Indians.
However, if we are worried about people who are visiting this country,
Sunny Leone, or for that matter, those Chinese prostitutes, who get
regularly deported, are among the least dangerous. We have welcomed
demagogues, fanatics, hate preachers in the past.
Last year, the Burmese monk Ashin Wirathu, who is accused of instigating
anti- Muslim violence in Myanmar visited Colombo on an invitation by the
Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and addressed a stadium packed with monks and
laymen. Wirathus visit came in the wake of an anti- Muslim campaign
waged by the BBS.
Then, we have quite a number of radical Islamic preachers from the Middle
East and the Indian subcontinent who visit here. In public, they speak about
peace and love, but to their own congression, they preach the polar
opposite, the radical austere Islam.
If we want to keep our country safe and ethnic peace intact, those are the
people we have to be worried about- and definitely not Sunny Leone. They
instigate people to kill.
Those people are particularly dangerous for one reason: they can easily find
a modest receptive audience here. That is exactly why people like

Weerawansa can keep spewing his usual garbage. There are enough people
to root for his every word.
And many of them are unhappy. If you glance through comment sections in
some of the Sinhala websites catering to that audience, you may come
across a bunch of people seething with anger.
Of course, a vast majority of them are harmless, and would not seek to give
practical expression to their words. Still, some can easily be manipulated.
Eleven years ago, when another Bollywood actor, Shah Rukh Khan
performed in Colombo, angry puritans held violent protests and finally
bombed the mega concert, killing two, including a photo journalist. Their
grouse was that the concert was held on the eve of the death anniversary
of Ven. Soma Thera, a pioneering monk of recent Buddhist radicalism.
However, Wimal Weerawansa, Ven Gnanasara et al constitute only one part
of the problem. There are other unholy forces that stand on the way of
enlightenment of vast swathes of public.
One such is an arch enemy of the BBS and Weerawansa; the otherwise
insignificant renegade JVPers of the Front Line Socialist Party which exerts a
pernicious influence in student politics in universities.
Those discarded hard Lefties are leading a sizeable portion of the countrys
gifted minds in a zombie sacrifice to achieve their political ends.
Our universities are not so much the places of intellectual inspiration mainly
because of monolithic student politics of FSP affiliated Antharee, which
suppresses all other dissenting thoughts.
This was what the communists did from Soviet Union to Cuba to China. And
the student leaders, who are in fact naive kids, who seek an identity away
from their desperate village lives that they left behind, and find solace in an
ideologically regressive student activism (Which shuns free market in
education, and by competition and meritocracy) take the rest of students
hostage, and virtually enslave them, in classic Communist style.
Why our university politics are dominated by discarded fancies of Marxist
communism, when the respectable universities in the rest of the world have
become liberal bastions is because a bunch of village idiots are ruling the
roost there, depriving the rest of the lot, their freedom of thought. They
should cease, and perhaps watch Sunny Leone.
We should be concerned more about political bosses who manipulate those

raw youth as part of a myopic political project, than Sunny Leone. They rob
the future of this country.

However, in the past, much of the bigotry is State orchestrated and

unleashed by the governments point-men . It was the covert and overt
government backing that emboldened a few bigots and helped swell their
ranks. After the defeat of Rajapaksa and with the State patronage being
discontinued, most of them now risk falling into oblivion. And, those like
Weerawansa and BBS are desperately striving to remain politically relevant.
They may have a limited success.
After all, idiosyncrasies are part of democracy, and are in fact, beauty of it.
Both Sunny Leone and Wimal Weerawansa are part and parcel of it; Ms.
Leone, perhaps, the positive attributes of it: freedom; freedom to indulge
and individualism. Weerawansa is about how that freedom is exploited and
manipulated to deny and roll back the very freedoms of others. But, he has
a right - a constitutionally guaranteed right, to be specific - to spew his
garbage.
His regular drivel is inconveniencing many, but still music to many others.
The same applies to BBS demigods. Still, that is democracy. Weerawansa is
part of it; so is Sunny Leone.
Follow Ranga Jayasuriya @ RangaJayasuriya on twitter
Posted by Thavam