Gota – The Necessary Evil

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa

Nanda Wanninayaka [email protected]

The controversial former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, considered a moron by the West and the rest of the sensible world died a few weeks ago. Had Mugabe stepped down after two or three maximum presidential terms gracefully, he would have gone down in the history as a legendary leader who saved Zimbabwe from the…

අද ජනාධිපතිවරණය. 

True that this was supposed to be a [Tech] post, but not even a preschool kid seems to be escaped from the hype created by the presidential election or #PresPollSL as we all know.

Democracy and people's sovereignty; no matter how many times these terms/phrases are repeated everyday, as citizens we are nowhere near being conscious of these and acting accordingly. A fair portion of the society seems to be still waiting for Prince Diyasena to appear from nowhere and make the country prosperous. Only thing changes is the face of Diyasena (even names rhyme this time!) from time to time or more precisely from election to election which always ends with disappointment of all. We are voting for a king, not for another government worker. As long as we follow this vicious cycle there will be no true victory for us but only for them.

Probably it is native to the eastern part of the world that we tend to believe more in someone else other than in ourselves. We are not ready to believe that we can make the change we want and we should be the change we want to see. Most of us prefer just to live our lives just because we are here. This negative prospect seems to be running in our veins no matter how much experienced or educated we are. We just let history to repeat its dark ages again and again doing nothing for a change. Or simply we are too lazy to change the way it is. This nature is evident in every aspect of this society from innovation to politics.

On the grounds of above we can take a look into our habits towards politics of today. There is no need to waste much of words to explain how corrupted our political system is when it is very explicit in every detail of the society, especially with an election around the corner. Incumbent party which has lost its popularity in an alarming rate seems to be doing literally anything to defend their power. We as citizens keep watching all these drama without making the noise that should be raised. It is true that everyone talks about that everywhere, but it doesn't make the change we need. Or in another way, it is not what we have been offered by this term called democracy. No matter from which party these politicians are, all of them are just greedy human beings same as we are. Probably more greedy and corrupted since most of them lack even the minimum education level required to be a lowest ranked government worker. So our definition of democracy means voting for some of these maniacs and expecting each of them to be Diyasenas, an utter daydream in reality. How can we expect such from them? How dare? But that's what exactly we are doing right now and keep on doing. Besides, whatever the party we vote for at the end of the day same set of bandits will be there at notorious Diyawanna residency after few jumps.

So how can we make the change we want to see? No doubts that it should start from ourselves. It is we are that corrupted and greedy. Even the bus conductor is corrupted. Most of the government organizations are corrupted. We complain about the dad who imports Lamborghinis for his son. But no one talks about thousands of dads who bring office stationary home for their kids. There is only a quantitative difference. It is said that we get leaders for what we are. Both parties who are involved in misconduct and who are indifferent towards them are equally responsible for whatever the situation we are facing now. That's when our attitudes come into the play. True change should occur within ourselves than in anyone else. What matters is not the fact whether it is Maithri Palanaya (Maithri governance) or Mahinda Chintanaya (Mahinda vision), as far as we blindly follow our ancestral instincts, we will never be lucky enough to see the change we are dreaming of.

Above paragraphs contain a summery of few things I had to say about today's politics. Those things take time to materialize and we have no time! After seeing few recent incidents from a particular political campaign and for the sake of this very word democracy it is much needed to change the regime. Only because of appointing a new mastermind is somewhat better than letting the same to make things worse exponentially.