Sociology of the Rajapaksa phenomenon

Class and opportunity as explanatory categories

. . . One Leader! Mein Fuhrer!

by Kumar David-August 1, 2015, 12:00 pm
The Dutugemanu syndrome, by itself, is not an inadequate explanation for
the persistence of Rajapaksas popularity. Of course the defeat of the LTTE
is one determinant of todays Sinhala-Buddhist psyche, but alone it is
insufficient explanation of the Rajapaksa phenomenon. For example,
though it does account for the 2010 result, it is tangential to the sea of
blue that painted the January 2015 results map and does not account for
the frenzy in recent months. Disposing of Prabaharan six years ago is now
a secondary factor that needs to be contextualised with sociological
explanations.
The MR regime is universally reputed to be the most corrupt in our history
and when I say universally I mean the common man of SLFP blue, UNP
green or Buddhist yellow knows it. Still the faithful will trek to the booths
on the 17th wanting to make MR prime minister though they are more
aware than Colombo society that his regime was gunk. The paradox is
superficial; scratching below the surface reveals a deeper story of class,
ideology and social mobility. However, I first need to dispose of the "MR
personifies the struggle against imperialism" myth; a Dead-Left fig-leaf to
hide its cerebral excrement. This theory engenders its propaganda variant:
MR is a rampart against Western designs to undermine Lankas
sovereignty. The trekkers ingest this too, but they also know that the
Rajapaksas stashed away billions in Western (not Chinese!) banks. The
masses are fiercely nationalistic, we are told, and no scandal matters when
the sovereignty of the nation is at stake.
Imperialism as it was

Imperialism, as it was, is no more; the world now functions through

processes loosely called globalisation; imperialism has receded.
Colonialism, which came before, was pillage and slaughter initially - recall
Spanish plunder of South and Central American gold and genocide of
hundreds of millions. (Pope Francis had good reason to apologise and seek
forgiveness). Then came colonialism proper, dominated by England, from
the defeat of the Armada in 1588 to the apogee of the Industrial
Revolution (1840); it was mercantilism, trade-with-predation (t-w-p),
finally territorial colonisation. Merchant companies fortified by a Royal
Charter led the way. Here are three examples that illustrate t-w-p: (a) The
triangular trade, English cloth and trinkets to the West African coast,
slaves from there to the Caribbean and Southern not-yet-USA, thence a
sugar, rum and raw cotton laden return home; (b) chopping off weavers
hands in India to halt the production of the finest cotton cloth of the day
(calico) and open a market for Lancashire; (c) opium wars to force the
Chinese to puff.
This is well known stuff from agitated historians, but historians miss what
economic historians dont. Maturing under Lancashire cloth and Far East
spice was shipping and ship building, insurance and logistics, credit and
banking; in short, the underwriting mechanism of world trade. No nation,
before or after, reigned supreme over the worlds oceans as England did in
the century after Nelson and the Napoleonic wars. On the technical side
electricity and chemistry complemented steam and steel. The financial
pivot servicing this multitude of global transactions was London. A
foundation was laid for classical imperialism and gears shifted in about
1870 from high colonialism to a more complex modus. The logistical reset
facilitated the movement of vast capital accumulated in Europe. Banks,
engineering firms and commercial houses built railroads in America and
India, the Suez and Panama Canals, mines in South Africa (gold,
diamonds, minerals) and Australia (copper, gold, minerals). Imperialism,
as it was called, was about investment and logistics; it superseded colonial
extraction by pure predation. The thrust was led by joint-stock companies
and merchant banking houses with royal navy protection; the symbiosis of
capital and state reached new heights.
It reached its zenith in 1913. Imperialist war (1914-18) for the division of
Africa and the Middle East and the occupation of the Balkans was its
denouement. Afterwards, the interwar period (1918-40) was soaked in
economic depression, fascism, Stalinism, revolution in China and swaraj in

India; altogether appalling! The big technological step, with profound later
political consequences, was oil. Post-WW2 imperialism Stage-2 was a
markedly different affair from classical imperialism; the world passed
under US political and military hegemony and the Cold War descended.
Domination by American capital (symbolised by the ability of the Seven
Sisters to overthrow regimes and control global oil) replaced European
influence.
The point that Lankas bogus leftist and pseudo-intellectuals, some still
locked in Fidelista shallows, cannot fathom is that Stage-2 also is wornout. The decline of the US economy, the defeat of neo-liberalism and neoconservatism, bursting market bubbles and economic recessions in the
1990s and 2001, the 9-11 event, the great recession (2008, to who knows
when), and the shift of global growth to Asia, have conspired to emaciate
imperialism Stage-2. Our quixotic leftists though still fight a pyrrhic antiimperialist war under the MR escutcheon. Forgive me for this longish
diversion, but it was needed so as to dispose of the theatrical, not
theoretical, fairytales of the semi-literati in MRs retinue.
Late-nationalism in Lanka
Before late-nationalism was Ceylonese nationalism of the anti-British left of
the 1930s and 1940s and, after a pause, the burst of Sinhala-Buddhist
nationalism under the 1956, SWRD, or Sinhala Only nomenclature. 1956nationalism was different from the topic of this essay, the Rajapaksa
phenomenon, though both, to a degree, have their base in Sinhala pettybourgeoisie society. The former prospered silently in the in the post-war
boom, before its political emergence. Despite its blatant anti-Tamil, but not
anti-Muslim chauvinism, it had a progressive side; a mixed economy,
educational opportunity and social mobility for the rural middle-classes,
non-alignment, and opening avenues for indigenous culture, define 1956nationalism. Paving the way for ethnic conflict and mindless damage to
English language abilities are two its downside features. That in a few
sentences is the scorecard of early nationalism.
The late-nationalism propelling Rajapaksa has superficial similarities to it;
both have petty-bourgeoisie class roots, but situated in utterly different
layers. The class itself has evolved and there has been a huge
demographic shift to urbanisation. A rising Sinhala intelligentsia stood at
the helm of the 1956 movement and its children were the winners. To use
a personal illustration, of my colleagues and those who in the next decade

came on to the Peradeniya staff, a great majority across disciplines,

Sinhalese and Tamil, would never have been there but for the opportunities
that 1956 created. State enterprises created employment opportunities at
a lower level, while protectionism bred mudalalis among the business
minded.
In contrast, the petty-bourgeoisie now gravitating to Rajapaksa is
visionless and regressive. It is being left behind by the prosperity of the
city, by capitalist growth to whatever extent it has occurred, by
competition of Muslim businesses, and also by the new global ethos. Its
cultural dregs are the Buddhism, if you call it that, of the BBS; contrast
with the vigour and freshness of Sinhala drama, cinema and writing in the
post-1956 decade. The leadership of the 1956 movement and the
Rajapaksa cronies belong to sharply different ideological layers of the
petty-bourgeoisie. This time Lanka is haunted by a personality cult; a Mein
Fuhrer trance around a leader, but sans programme, vision or content
beyond personality, quite unlike its 1956 predecessor.
A politicised kleptocracy, strong-arm miscreants and power wielding
malefactors, collectively known to economists by the term rent-seekers,
exploited their alignment with the Rajapaksa state. What we are
witnessing in the Rajapaksa surge is a last ditch effort of this rent-seeking
detritus to hold on to power. The MR-mass receives from higher up an
antediluvian nationalism that it grasps only dimly; on the ground it is led
by the dregs, by a localised rent-seeking excrescence.
On economic policy, it is false to say Basil had a policy that was adrift from
PB Jayasundera.. Yes PBJ did have a policy, the wrong one, but Basil had
none! Basils decisions were steered by commissions; the bent to China,
airports in the wilderness, highways to heaven if you count their cost, were
just that. There was no policy, systematic or unsystematic, conscious or
unconscious; the Rajapaksas are rent-seekers par excellence. Therefore
they blended emotionally with a petty-bourgeoisie alienated by modernism
and ignorant of democratic values and governance. The anti-Tamil nature
of the war facilitated this bonding. It is entirely natural that a nihilistic
petty-bourgeoisie rallies to a personality cult, a one man pantomime.
Lanka has not seen such a thing at full-throttle ever before; a demagogue
leaning on an only recently dispossessed robber-thug political Mafiosi,
which in turn rides a fuehrer-adoring plebeian mass. Terrifying?
Does the UNF-GG have an economic programme?

It is just as wrong to say that the UNF-GG has no economic programme as

to say that Basil had one. Any political scientist worth his salt knows what
the UNFs orientation will be. The Rajapaksa regime, steeped in swindles,
could neither deepen metropolitan capitalism nor promote small
businesses (SME). This is where the UNF-GG will want to go, though the
success of plans to simply deepen and to spread capitalism more evenly, is
moot.
Across the developing world only one economic model currently survives; a
mixed economy with a dirigisme (state directed with some state
ownership) structure. In Korea, Taiwan, China and Vietnam it works; Raul
Castro and Narendra Modi gravitate there from opposite ends. That is
where Lanka should have gone, but did not, after JRs neo-liberalism
fizzled out. (Was Premadasa drifting that way?) That is where the UNF-GG
will willy-nilly have to go, otherwise it will flounder; a mixed economy
managed by directive principles, ensuring opportunity for the middle
classes and mass economic security to deflate the Rajapaksa appeal. And
ground level programmes have to be woven into a global context.
Whatever projects and targets are written in words into Ranils Sixty-Month
Manifesto, the programme must be embedded in a directive strategy or it
will run aground.
There are three economic options for Lanka; a Rajapaksa-style retainer
economy, the dirigisme option and the left JVP-option. Each has its class
base, but 50% of electoral fortunes depend on contingent circumstances,
that is situations, personalities and tactics. Only comments on the UPFA
fall within the scope of this essay. The UPFA scores on personality cult, but
exposed as corrupt, without the advantage of incumbency (denied use of
billions in state funds for election purposes, without power over the
police), disheartened and disoriented by Sirisenas "I will not appoint
Rajapaksa as PM" bombshell, contingent circumstances have moved
against it. I am no expert but thats how it looks to an amateur eye.
Posted by Thavam