When John Stuart Mill wrote his seminal essay of the same title as this column, he set out, elegantly and persuasively, the foundation for much of the political liberalism of the next two centuries all over the world. He was, however, the member of a society and citizen of a country that gave the world the Magna Carta and parliamentary government, and continues to extol, celebrate, and practice the ideal of human liberty as its central and inalienable value. Last week, the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, decided to tackle his recent trough in the polls by making a major speech at the University of Westminster on the subject of liberty. In it, he promised a new Bill of Rights which would entrench and enhance the freedoms of expression, information and association, a review of laws and practices that hinder the full enjoyment of these rights, a new commitment to open government, judicial scrutiny and parliamentary oversight, and in an imaginative new idea, the exploration of institutionalising a ‘freedom of expression audit’ for all new legislation. All of these would be a continuation of the modernisation of the British constitution and public law undertaken by his predecessor though such measures as the Freedom of Information Act of 2000 and the Human Rights Act of 1998. Brown is a cerebral politician and legatee of the Scottish Enlightenment and fine intellectual traditions on both left and right, which include Adam Smith and David Hume, Walter Scott, Daniel Defoe and Fletcher of Saltoun, and in the present, Tom Nairn, Niall Ferguson and Neil MacCormick. His speech on liberty, therefore, was a display of great erudition, sense of history, and a gratifying affirmation of the values of liberalism.
How is all this relevant for us here in unhappy Sri Lanka? It is interesting that a British Prime Minister should choose the subject of liberty in an attempt to regain the political initiative. In Sri Lanka, this would never be considered to be a worthwhile subject even among the few politicians who would have the interest or the capacity to put together a speech on a matter of political principle. Why? Because there is no connection between democracy and liberty in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka, to use Fareed Zakariya’s term, is an ‘illiberal democracy’ in which the dominant discourse of politics which animate the formal institutions and procedures of democracy is ethno-nationalism, not liberty.
If we were a liberal democracy, people would uphold individual liberty, which stems from the principle of self-ownership over mind, body, life and property, over all other competing political values. It would imply a rejection of paternalism and moral homogeneity, a commitment to a notion of objective truth discovered through sufferance of critique, an intuitive distrust of power-wielders, and resentment at the slightest hint that credulity and goodwill is being taken for granted. This is how the value of individual liberty results is such principles of liberalism as limited and constitutional government, the rule of law and fundamental rights, which remain untouchable even by the greatest of democratic majorities. Quite clearly, these are not recognisable features of Sri Lankan democracy. On the contrary, the two Leviathans in the public realm – the Sri Lankan State and the LTTE – are shaped and enlivened by social values of their respective constituencies which are concerned more about the glory of a mythical past and its re-establishment in the future. Thus people’s expectations of democratic government as well as liberation movements are that they would do whatever is necessary in order to deliver the nationalist paradise on earth. The latter condition is one that involves racial purity and religious supremacism, and is necessarily exclusionary for those outside the project. That is how the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism of the majority feels entitled to the exclusive control of the State, and which pushes others into forms of opposition outside institutional politics. In respect of the Tamils, this opposition has evolved into a political and military programme of secession, pursued by an organisation which is itself as much or more autocratic and brutal as the State. In the course of its consolidation, the LTTE has demonstrated violent antipathy to dissent, political pluralism and the individual liberty and self-worth of members of the Tamil community without restraint, and is responsible for the emaciation of a generation of Sri Lankan politicians and intellectuals both Sinhala and Tamil. Moreover, the blatant racism that characterises the behaviour of the State works in favour of the LTTE, for even those Tamils who would otherwise find it repulsive understand that only it has the capacity to fundamentally challenge the State in a way that would make the State take heed.
Yet, the constituencies from which both the State and the LTTE draw sustenance have been largely supportive of their behaviour, largely because the normative premium in the people’s conception of democracy is about the triumph of the ‘us’ against the ‘them’, and not about a form of government (or nascent government in the case of the LTTE) that delivers peace, good government and prosperity in a way that respects the sphere of liberty of the citizenry. Individual liberty is thus a wholly secondary and negotiable value, which can be trumped at any time by the exigencies of real or perceived threats to the wellbeing of the ethno-political community.
Consequently, there is not merely the tolerance but the expectation that power would be exercised autocratically and without limit, because the vaunted ends of communal interest justify the means. How else does one explain what is currently going on in this country, in terms of what appears to be the uncritical acceptance of increasing authoritarianism of the government? Just take three examples of what happened in politics in the past week.
The week began with a spectacular setback for the military and major embarrassment for the government by the LTTE’s attack on the Anuradhapura Air Base. The government’s response of prestidigitation and prevarication in coming out with the truth should have, in a liberal democracy, fatally undermined public confidence in both the government’s capacity and programme. There should have been resignations at the highest levels and transparent reviews undertaken. None of this has happened and there is no public expectation of such either. A week later, the Defence Secretary went on air in what can only be described as a Soviet-style agitprop ‘interview’ to state: (a) that criticism of the government and the military is certainly unacceptable and invalid, if not seditious; (b) there is no value or truth in media scrutiny apart from an unconscionable degradation of the morale of the armed forces; (c) the people do not have to know what the government is doing in respect of military action; (d) the fact that he is the President’s brother should inspire public confidence in the war effort because he has an filial influence over the chief executive that a public official would not otherwise have; and (e) every norm, value and principle of democratic government must be subordinated to support for the government in its pursuit of a military solution to the problem of terrorism. There is little doubt that this display of autocracy, and redefinition of the vices of nepotism and unaccountability into democratic virtues, would be applauded in the rural hinterland of southern Sri Lanka, because here is after all a leadership figure speaking the language of Dutugemunu. Discontent, both economic and political, is largely a phenomenon found among the Western Province middle classes, which as the government’s strategists would know fully well, can be ignored without any electoral disadvantage by a presidency whose leitmotif is ethno-religious nationalism.
Then there was the arrest and harassment of Arthur Wamanan, which would have been a farcical interlude of Ministerial ineptitude and police bungling, had it not also revealed the pervasive racism, incompetence and moronic zeal that characterises governance in Sri Lanka today. Finally, there was the shutting down of five radio stations belonging to the ABC Radio network on account of an incorrect news report (later corrected by some but not all of these stations). The disproportionate heavy-handedness and arbitrary caprice of this governmental response requires no further emphasis.
What do these actions of the government represent if not a pernicious and severe assault on the liberty of the citizenry? The point, however, is that this kind of behaviour is made possible by a democratic mandate and is maintainable by popular support. The overwhelming majority of voters and citizens would not find anything inherently objectionable in an authoritarian government usurping their liberties, provided that enough is done to keep the great vision of the promised land of ethno-religious glory alive. This is how in illiberal democracies, populist tyrants come into and sustain power. In the context of plural nationalisms with a capacity to sustain their political projects through the use of military means, however, the great tragedy of Sri Lanka is that democracy of this nature means conflict in perpetuity.