Photo courtesy of Anadolu Agency
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Victor Frankl
The US and Sri Lanka are in synchronized election cycles. Eight years ago I wrote an article called “US And Them” about certain correlations which were then observable. So much has happened in the interim.
Terror attacks, accusations of election stealing, a catastrophic global pandemic, economic crises and attempted coups. Democracy is on a flight, and we who want to meet it at the arrivals lounge do not know what sign to put on the placard to indicate how it can recognise us.
Now the scenarios seem to have fewer similarities. Kamala Harris seems to be poised to bring about a change for the better in American politics: its first female leader, highly educated and well qualified, able to actually self-regulate her parasympathetic nervous system, representative of several minorities and capable of building community in an inclusive way.
What would be really great is if the US became in time a truly inclusive and progressive meritocracy. And if people in elected positions were provably committed to service above self, in action as well as words. The radical alteration in the Republican Party, indicated by the chorus of endorsements from their members for Kamala Harris, seems unprecedented and possibly world changing. Long held generational beliefs and preferences are clearly recalibrating.
In Sri Lanka, what is unprecedented is that there are more than two contenders for presidential nomination and that none of the three individually have sufficient numbers as yet to assure a strong win. This means that the second and third preferences of voters will count very strongly and therefore we are seeing a great deal of how to vote videos, diagrams and graphics on social media, aiming to educate the voting citizens on how to exercise their rights and fulfill their responsibilities.
Voting in Sri Lanka is not compulsory and a sizeable proportion of the voting population is not well educated. A large section of the citizenry at this point are facing food shortages, unemployment and challenges in meeting their basic needs. This has been going on for the past three years.
The combination of these factors may bring about system change in ways that disrupt the country in ways that many people who wished for change two years ago may not enjoy. In the buildup to the election on September 21, it is noted that several sitting politicians are being relieved of their ministerial positions and many are believed to be wishing for greater personal mobility.
Qualified candidates
Politicians throughout history and all over the world have been infamously expedient and short term in their thinking. Few have the self discipline to see beyond the demands of their own gratification to the needs of the people they lead. Very few have the vision or grit to lead a diverse populace to make step by step alterations that will bring long term, collective benefits. It’s far easier to play on the people’s sense of drama and their volatile emotions for short term personal gain.
This is a grievance-led election. Much is broken and the processes that have been in place until now have been seen by many to fail to deliver. Frustration has grown and it is being – inevitably – utilized. But if we want a more balanced outcome, we need to make more mature and less impulsive choices.
My own personal preferences are simple. As an academic and a teacher, I would like to see education programmes being thought out and consistently developed and delivered. Critical thinking, first and foremost, must be taught by people who themselves implement it. In all three major languages. Ministers who resort to falsifying their academic credentials should not even qualify to be in any leadership position. And a working knowledge of civics, and of consent should be taught at every school, with a rights and responsibilities approach. As a woman, I am disappointed that there is not a single female contender for the presidency in this election.
The low calibre of many of the candidates who are presenting themselves for election is an area of discredit for both the US and Sri Lanka. It is amazing to see that such great countries with such impressive powers and capacities have not put adequate succession strategies in place by educating and preparing their younger generations to lead in the future.
Succession plans
The voters are technically enfranchised but morally disenchanted by the sight of MPs brawling in parliament, by the violence being endorsed both overtly and tacitly by those in authority, by the verbal disrespect and impulsive, flippant and dismissive words of those who are supposedly leading or attempting to lead each country out of chaos into a more secure future.
There are certain fundamental truths we must surely understand today. The first is that people who feel deprived will never share power. Building community and recognizing others’ rights is not their aim. Compensation and a sense of personal entitlement are fuelling their words and actions. The greater good is not in their field of vision.
The second is that ego-dominated politics do not bring benefit to any country. The cycle of love bombing at election time, flashy promises and fervent speeches followed by distancing and disengagement – or worse – after the short term goal is reached is one which even long term victims of narcissistic abuse eventually see through and get tired of. It is a cycle we need to discard and step away from.
Residual meritocracy
The mass exodus of qualified professionals from the country leaves a residual citizenry whose divisions and limitations and complacencies are exposed. The notable professional success of many Sri Lankans in overseas countries shows what the talent and drive of people from this country can achieve in favorable circumstances, in contrast to what they leave behind.
To create optimal conditions in this country of our origin, with its complex history and stratified structure, will take time and tolerance and long term thinking. It can only be achieved incrementally and with patience. The situation of the country has gone beyond the scope of any one individual to remedy. But the end result of a true team effort will be well worth the wait.
Building community
Over the last eight years, I have seen the admirable work of community service organizations in every sphere of society, working together across boundaries of race and religion to uplift the vulnerable and enable those who have felt the impact of economic downfall most severely to live with some dignity and hope. All these organizations are led by women and the work of helping, hearing, understanding, assisting and healing those affected by violence and abuse is done by women. Any government worth voting for will recognize the consistent and vital input of women and value such capacity accordingly.
We cannot take very seriously any democratic socialist government that ignores the essential work done by citizens to fill the gaps created by the shortfalls of the governing process in health and education and glosses over, ignores and replicates or reiterates the irresponsible decisions previously made by those in a position to decide how a country’s resources are allocated. A government that appoints competent advisors should listen to them and act on their advice. Relying on facts, not fiction. And an educated citizenry should be welcomed by any accountable leadership.
True representation
The situation in the US in the past four years has showed us that the consensual values that hold a democratic system together are more fragile than we had previously imagined. Accountability is needed and that includes true presentation of credentials and asset ownership and respect accorded to the democratic right of voters to question those in power, not from a servile position or as fearful supplicants, but as citizens whose energy, hope and resources are being given to the country in which we live and work on a daily basis. That energy should not be extracted from citizens with no reciprocal benefit coming back to improve our lives.
This is probably the most important election this country has ever had. Are the voters in a state of ignorance and relatively uneducated? Are they unmanipulated? Or are they being stirred up, stung into action and thus casting their vote under various forms of duress, the greatest shortfall of all being their ignorance of both their rights and their responsibilities as citizens?
Service above self
People emerging from desperate crisis are not in the best frame of mind to make long term decisions. In that situation, the IMF program was a positive intervention and the importance of recognizing that our adherence to it must continue will keep us on the path to restoring economic stability.
Before even individual people can make good decisions after a personal crisis, they must first feel a sense of calmness from which center of gravity they can consistently implement actions to consolidate and improve their position in a planned direction. On a national and political scale, they would choose long term improvement and overall stability instead of grabbing at provocative ideas and offers of impassioned action and performative, dramatic overturnings. A more thinking group of voters would vote to minimize sensationalist, systemic disruption. Extremism and its fallout and consequences are very harmful to overall progress.
I would advise every citizen of the country at this juncture to join a community service organization this coming week, as well as exercising their right to vote. Uplifting the country should be done in actions, on a daily and weekly basis, not in words asserted through megaphones every four years.
Are we going to vote like children or like adults? Reactively or responsibly? Dramatically or calmly? What will our votes deliver? Chaos or consolidation?
Infrastructure and development of any country’s capacity must include not only plans for economic growth but also provision of better and more inclusive and responsive governance, which impacts our younger generation not with the current sense of grievance and frustration but a sense of innate worth rather than a false sense of desperate entitlement.
Ideally, citizens would feel upheld and supported to achieve their best and become their best selves, by those with their best interests at heart. They would understand that a quick fix brings no lasting benefits. That there is no point waiting for a savior. That the power to change the quality of their lives lies in their own choices.
Words and action
Intention and action must be in alignment. Every New Age manifestor tells us this. And there is a way to make this election day auspicious. To vote with thought, insight and awareness. To grow up. To evolve. To develop foreseeability as a voting group, which is the legal measure of maturity and self governance.
Any great leader of Sri Lanka today must understand the volatile reactiveness of our youth. And those leaders with a long term commitment to the country as a whole would inspire its energy to build long term instead of harnessing it to destroy. They would encourage us to see beyond the frustration and urgency of the moment to the future that we are creating by the choices we make today.
And so, to apply the law of causality: to pay it forward, to design the future we want, to not act on our grievances like a group of adolescents but to make real our best aspirations and to make our lives as well as our hopes sustainable. There seems to be a high degree of virtuosity in some of the analyses of the contrasting qualities of the presenting candidates. My favourite is the one designed like a dating app, the Manifesto Matchmaker that encourages us to match the candidates’ credentials and capacities with our own needs and wishes. My advice is the same as I give to those using dating apps – look beyond the face and the words of the profile that is presented to their character and track record and consistent conduct. Look at what your own real needs are and understand the value of what you yourself bring to the transaction.
Their authority to act needs our consent.