Why I want Mahinda to win.

Muse

Now there's a shocker.

Here I am, calling Mahinda Rajapaksa The Beast, attacking him and criticising him at every step, and all of a sudden I do a complete Heel Face Turn?? What the fuck is up with that? Why, oh why would I want him to win?

The answer is simple.

Revenge.

Revenge on The Beast for sure, but also revenge on the people who voted for him, the people who supported him, and the people who maintained that he was the Glorious Leader. But mostly for revenge on The Beast.

So how does a victory mean revenge? That is, logically speaking, a contradiction.

To understand that, you have to understand what Jeeves used to call the psychology of the individual.

The thing I have noticed about The Beast is that he is a very insecure man. Insecure in his position, insecure in his place in things, and most of all insecure in his self-image. His high level of superstition that led to - amongst other things - his removal and dumping of a 120 year old statue of Queen Victoria and his (in)famous arrest of the astrologer who predicted that he would be ejected from office. But, as with all such beliefs, this is because he feels that he is inadequate. How else would you explain it?

He just wants to be loved. OK, not just loved, but adored and adulated. The cult of personality he created around himself was not just the means to an end. It was an end in itself. I admit, I am not a psychologist. I can't read peoples' minds. But when you look at the things he has done, it seems painfully obvious. But he is a charismatic guy. Everyone who has met him agrees on that. Me, I haven't met him, so I can't say anything. But the way he acts is like he wants to be loved by everyone, and he would do anything to get that. And coming from me, that's practically a professional opinion.

So yes, The Beast is insecure. Very much so. Which is why he had astrologers on TV predicting to the world that he would win. Which is why he wants to be met by adoring and cheering crowds everywhere he goes. Which is why he sits and watches people adoring him like you and I would watch the animals in the zoo. I still remember this news report of him leaning on a railing with an adoring crowd separated from him by 3 feet and a chainlink fence. It looked so much like the Dehiwala Zoo its not even funny.

I want him to know how it is to be hated. Not simply hated, but truly loathed. I want him to be in power when the prices go up because we have to pay off the USD 500 million loan (at 8% interest) that is coming due in 2012. I want him around to hear his name being cursed.

I want him to win so that when all this goes to shit, then people will know who to blame. I want him to be able to steal a lot more sore that when everything comes crashing to the ground, people will remember him. So that neither he, nor his brothers, nor his sons, nor anyone who has the name Rajapaksa can ever enter into politics again.

Can you tell that I hate him?

I want the people to suffer. I want the people who cheered him on, who proclaimed him the saviour of Sri Lanka, who were willing to excuse and accept his illegal actions to feel the results of their actions.

And I'll be right there, suffering with them. But I will have a smile on my face. Because I know that as much as I suffer, it is nothing compared to the suffering of those who will feel betrayed by him, and have no-one to blame for it but themselves.

Mahinda's Legacy

Muse

Usually it is when people die, or move on, or do something significant that you talk about their legacy. But The Beast is no ordinary man. He has forever changed the face of Sri Lankan politics. He has made more changes to Sri Lanka's political structure and political system than anyone ever has.

Too bad for us those changes are for the worse.

I knew things were going to be different when The Beast did his saatakaya cheat in the run-up to the presidential elections of 2005. Does anyone remember that? When the Elections Commissioner told people to take down their posters and cutouts in the run-up, The Beast complied - technically. In every place that he had a cutout he placed a picture of Sri Lanka with the saatakaya around it.

When he was accused of stealing LKR 800 million from the tsunami relief funds he filed a court case asking that the investigation be suspended until the end of the election. After he was elected the investigation continued and - surprise, surprise - found that he was not guilty and that it was an attempt by the UNP to discredit him.

This was just the beginning.

From the first day he came in he started creating a personality cult around himself. The little kids wearing the saatakaya, the athletes at the SAF Games wearing the saatakaya, pretty much everyone wearing saataka. A strip of red cloth became the unofficial must-have fashion accessory for any event that was even remotely connected to the government.

And then there was the war. When he decided to go to war, his actions created a whole new meaning for the word terrorism.

The Government itself spread terror at a level that we had never seen before. The media had a field day with various threats to the people. There were fake bombs planted. Bomb panics were initiated where schools were shut down because the LTTE is going to bomb 5 schools. The Government engaged in the creation of a fear psychosis in society that was unparalleled. Even the establishment of checkpoints - which even the IGP testified at the Supreme Court had not managed to capture or stop a single bomb-laden vehicle without other information - patrols, various fear-inducing advertisements, the establishment of a general sense of paranoia, and of course the security theater that goes along with it was done so that the Government could have a free hand.

Of course the checkpoints did nothing to stop the actions of the extra-judicial killings and assaults that happened. Lasantha Wickrematunge was killed within sight of an armed checkpoint and the killers managed to escape. And on a more personal note, the presence of a checkpoint less did not stop the Pajero/Montero that performed a hit-and-run on me. But they did their job. They kept people scared on one side, paranoid on another, and secure on a third. Of course the feelings of fear were amplified by the white van abductions and - for those of us who remember the Black Cats vigilante squads of the late '80s - the establishment of armed military personnel on motorcycles who routinely zipped through traffic. All for our safety of course.

There were other actions too that showed that the government was learning how to manipulate the people. The teacher's strike on the 13th of September was overshadowed by a tsunami alert on the 12th. Of course this is not an attempt to say that the Government caused the earthquake. But note that the quake was of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter Scale. Which is 100 times weaker than the 2004 quake that caused the tsunami. Of course that did not stop the media - especially the state media - from telling people that there might be a tsunami on the way even a whole day after the quake occurred.!

Then there is the corruption. The Beast's stooges and henchmen have been robbing the country. But that kind of robbery is a pittance, a mere drop in the ocean compared to the actions of Rajapaksa Brothers, Extremely Private, Totally Unlimited. After the death of Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, the job of Minister of Nation Building went to T. B. Ekanayake - who was given the authority to deal with any building project valued under LKR 40 million. All other projects go to Basil (aka Beast Junior). If the other politicians were shoplifters and armed robbers pulling a gun on the cashier, The Beast's family is akin to the manager of the store pulling a 40ft container up to the loading dock and emptying the store into it. If you're lucky, he'll leave the shelves.

The war was used as an excuse too. In order to stop the LTTE from finding out what weapons the Forces were acquiring the tender process was made a secret. No-one knew what was being asked for, who was bidding for it, and what it cost. There is, as yet, no way that we can get that information even after the war is over. The war was used as an excuse to stop the investigations into corruption, flagrant abuses of power, and human rights violations. It was used as a way to muzzle any and all critics of the government. It was used as a way to divide Sri Lankan society by branding all those who opposed the way the LKGov was handling the war as traitors.

The cult of personality went forward with the creation and distribution of the new LKR 1,000 banknote. It has The Beast in a blatantly campaign-poster-like pose on the obverse and an image representing the Forces - in a pose reminiscent of (ie a direct copy of) the raising of the flag on Iwo Jimaon the reverse. He is not the first person in Sri Lanka to do that. The JR and Premadasa 1 Rupee coins are still in circulation, though they are rapidly dwindling in number. But the image in the front is clearly a propaganda/publicity image. It seems conceivable - nay, inevitable - that the next president will put his image on the currency too, and since he has to go one better, it would be the LKR2000 note. And the next would want the LKR5000 note (we don't have one yet? we will, and soon) and so on and so forth.

The other legacy is the USD 500 million sovereign bond issue at 8.5% interest of 2007. Does anyone remember that one? The one that had Ranil the Ineffectual running around the world trying to stop? The one that had The Beast calling Ranil a traitor to the nation? Well that comes due in 2012. Welcome to the legacy.

Of course, there will always be those who claim that his greatest legacy is a Sri Lanka without a war. The destruction of the LTTE is worth all the corruption they say. But is it? Yes, the war continued because the people involved we making money. They were milking that cow for all it was worth. But the cow was getting old. The people were starting to ask why are we keeping this old cow? So The Beast did the thing you do with old cows. He milked the cow, then killed it, and sold the beef (what he didn't make a curry out of). And now the people are cheering that the cow is gone. There is more room. But - to quote an old advert and the basis of a US presidential election campaign - Where's the beef?

So The Beast has left a legacy. A legacy that comes from the people who came before him. The cult of personality, the corruption, the outright robbery is not new. The others did it too. But The Beast took it to a whole new level. What he has done is multiple orders of magnitude worse than his predecessors. We may never - hopefully - see his like again. But all that he has done will be learned from, carried forward, and built on.

So The Beast's legacy is not just what he has done, but also what he has shown the people the way to do. And that is a legacy worth fearing.

Why the Army should vote for Sarath Fonseka

Muse

Before you ask, I am still spoiling my vote.

But there is something that needs to be said. Something worth thinking about.

There is lots of talk about the Army not voting for SF. There is talk that the people in the forces have become disillusioned with him.

This may or may not be true.

But if the Army wants to maintain its status - and let's face it, who doesn't - they should vote for SF.

The Beast is very scared of the Army. He fears an Army coup, which is why he had SF removed from power as soon as the war was over. And that kind of fear doesn't go away just because he gets rid of SF. It's going to go much further than this.

When The Beast wins (and I have laid bets he will, by hook or by crook) he will take on the Army. There will be downsizing, there will be mud-slinging campaigns, there will be a lot done to lessen the place of the Army in the people's esteem. And all through this The Beast will be on TV, on the stage, on the media wringing his hands and screaming about how the foreign conspirators who don't like seeing Sri Lanka rise up are trying to tarnish our image. He will claim this is done because he, the great and victorious and glorious leader, won the war against terrorism - something the other countries could not do.

He will come out with a line of bullshit via his PR flacks that would make the most histrionic posturings of a TV evangelist preacher look wooden and dead. He will cry his crocodile tears in public, while orchestrating all this in private.

The Beast fears the Army - not so much the other forces, but definitely the Army. And he will do his best to destroy the threat to him. And since we have all seen how wonderful a manipulator of the public psyche he is, he will do it by destroying the public's opinion of the Army, and by extension, the rest of the forces.

The SF coalition hasn't mentioned this. Maybe they don't see it. I had to have it pointed out to me as well. But it seems extremely probable when you look at it.

So tell the Army people you meet, if they want to maintain their status in the mentality of the people, vote for SF.

But I'm still spoiling my vote.