Review of “Revolution of the Era” by Asoka Abeygunarwardana

How David slew Goliath or how the opposition managed the impossible despite of itself

(The translator’s job is to translate. It is up to others to review a work but in this case, my role as translator and my role as an independent citizen of Sri Lanka got admixed. Here therefore, is the strange phenomenon of a translator actually reviewing his own work)

I have never voted in an election despite the fact that it was my right and my franchise to do so. I refrained because I was not entirely convinced of the truthfulness of modern representative democracy when the word Demokratia (demos / kratos) meaning “people’s power” and direct democracy said that any citizen of a nation or community or group who wished to engage it, could participate in government.

People in my country, in general, over the last seven or so decades have rarely if ever had a chance to participate. Their only claim to civic glory was “I voted for this or that government” or “I hate this or that government because I didn’t vote for it”. In each of the dozens of elections hidden behind a much touted, oft misunderstood, definitely popular democratic façade, the new government voted itself in, riding on the short term machinations of a few individuals keenly cognizant of an individual’s worth either as a brand (saleable) or as a commodity (essential). I do not vote because history has shown me that regardless of, despite of, because of, the people’s aspirations of heaven after a given election, the politic has failed people’s power and I am not sufficiently dumb to believe that the next election would be any different from those that preceded it.

Yet, the civic conscious citizenry of the country, whether they vote or not, primarily, keep their ears to the socio-politic, the political-economic and socio-environment baseline and secondarily, look for extraordinarily ordinary fellows (not as in the derogatory way that term is used in these days but rather in terms of brothers) who are smart enough, brave enough and committed enough to engage in demos-kratos for the social, political and environmental benefit of all. They are at best reviled or at worst snuffed. Such is the madness we call this country of ours.

On the 21^st of December 2014, I met such a one. On Polhengoda road. I was buying groceries. His small office and my small home share the same lane so the meet wasn’t entirely happenstance. He rolled down his window and I said “සිරා game එකක් ගහනවා කියල අරන්ච්ච්යි.”. He said “මහින්දගේ කාලේ ඉවරයි” I said, “මෛත්‍රී ගන්න එක ලෙහෙසිත් නැහැ, රනිල් ඉල්ලන එක නවත්තන්න ලෙහෙසිත් නැහැ. කොහොමද වැඩේ කෙරුවේ?”  He gave me an enigmatic smile.

That man was Asoka Abeygunarwardana, the key political strategist in the multiplayer, multipart drama that brought down the supposedly invincible incumbent President Mahinda Rajapakse. In his recently published book “Yuga Peraliya” translated into English as “The Revolution of the Era” he gives us an electric commentary of the punch-by-counter punch political chess game that should keep people staring sightless, hours after the last page is read, shaking their head in wonder at how something this far-fetched could actually happen.

With a powerful incumbent with near total control of the political machinery of a country drowning in corruption, a fractured and weakened opposition and the citizenry resigned to “more of the same” subsequent to a “sure-thing” Mahinda victory, this world-shocking transition could only have happened if the key moves were made by someone with great civic aspirations and no political ones.

Asoka seems to have fit the bill to the T and as one reads through the incidents, one starts to understand the self-promotional rationale of politicians regardless of the country and becomes increasingly aware that only a relatively neutral but highly civic conscious person could have managed to engineer the enabling conditions for an opposition victory. In the immediate aftermath of the opposition victory, there were many claims made by many people as to how important their role was in bringing about the envisaged change but one realizes as one reads through the book that those claims are highly questionable. Asoka sums this up with a cliché that is nevertheless true in these circumstances “Victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan”.

He is at his abrasive and honest best in his portrayal of the battle of our times and he makes no excuse for it. Having known him for a decade and having much respect for similar honesty on the part of his father before him, this came as no surprise at all. In a heady narrative, Asoka takes us back to January 27^th 2013 and the determining factor that turned the worm as it were and started the campaign and how Mahinda, riding upon a bucking, over confident bronco, charged forward on a journey towards self-destruction. Describing the aftermath of that decision, he takes us through the launch and public acknowledgement of the Pivithuru Hetak Movement (PHM) and, the simple but brilliant political strategy engineered by Asoka and Shiral Lakthilaka to bring the two nationalist forces under Ven. Ratana and Rev. Maduluwawe Sobhitha who headed up the National Movement for a Just Society (NMJS) together towards the launch of the proposal for the 19^th Amendment to the constitution. He states the high regard he has for Rev. Ratana and how he single handedly wrested control of the nationalist forces from the insanity of the Bodu Bala Sena and how he managed to engineer an alliance between Sinhalese and Tamil nationalists towards a common goal.  Reading like a political thriller, the story takes the reader through the political sharpness of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the role of Patali Champika Ranawaka, the betrayal of Udaya Gammanpila, the tragedy of Dayaasiri, the madness of Tissa Attanayake, the doubt of Nimal Siripala, the actions of minority parties, the astigmatism of the JVP. It barrels the reader through a campaign never started, a campaign undone, a campaign floundering, a campaign resurrected literally from the ashes. From the reason why 300 days were cut to 100 days, through manifesto before marketing, past මෛත්‍රී පාලනයක් vs Unite for Change, money vs no money, cutouts vs no cutouts, the book unravels intrigue upon intrigue, outlines failed strategies giving rise to innovative thrusts and pulls, storms before the calm and loud calls of confrontation, manipulation, confusion, conviction and sacrifice as the variously positioned pieces of this nationwide chess game move inexorably towards checkmating the king.

The incumbent used every undemocratic practice to prevent the opposition message from getting across to the people and yet, that very strategy backfired on a campaign blinded by a totalitarian ideology and an insatiable ego.   

Three facts emerge from this book that cannot be contested. The first is that Maithripala Sirisena, in one of the bravest and most selfless moves in modern politics anywhere in the world, walked out of the SLFP and literally off the political ledge, with only a fleeting glimpse of vague political possibilities as his surety and thereby created by default, the force behind which an opposition could fall in line despite the fact that it was at sixes and sevens with itself. The second is the debunking of the claim that the opposition victory was due to the minority vote. The third is that the floating vote that was created by the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) in 2004 gestated, matured and ripened over a decade and became the key block that swung the election in favor of Maithripala Sirisena.

Hanging over all of these political pyrotechnics, Asoka points out this significant determinant: The people were sick of Mahinda, sick of his high handed ways, sick of the misery he was unleashing on everyone through his henchmen, sick of the opposition and its weak, goalless meandering and desperately searching for a political personality that had been largely unscathed and unsullied by personal desire or personal gain and they found that person in Maithripala Sirisena and voted for him.
 

Yet, despite of all of that, Asoka points out that this is still a work-in-progress and that initial mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the victory have resulted in relative chaos with respect to the executive and the mandate given to parliament and whether or not that mandate is valid. Such is, when one sees the selfless collide with the selfish.

As Bobby Fisher said “Every checkmate is a stalemate at another level” and as my friend, intellectual critic and fellow debater Kumi Nesiah says “The reason why nations use Democracy as the state religion is not because it prevents revolutions through higher satisfaction but because it channels the energies of dissatisfaction into false revolutions called elections. Like any state religion, it's just another façade”. I am not able to contest those assertions either as a master chess player then nor a civic conscious a-political thinker now.

Still, all is not lost. As long as there are people like Asoka who understands the egos and manipulations of the many and the strategy to create democratic spaces that had been severely compromised in the recent past, others who hid themselves in civil society action for the people when the rulers had reneged on that promise are now capable of involving themselves directly in government through demos-kratos.

The hidden message of “Revolution of the era” is that selfless individuals can single handedly make massive changes happen if they are malleable, are not inclined to cleave to views, are willed to know truthfully not blindly, are brave enough to experience directly, are capable of stating the start of such inquiry impartially, are capable of holding its conclusion until the completion of such inquiry, are capable of stating the results of such a conclusion impartially and finally, and most importantly, are capable of understanding that the best compromise is one that makes nobody happy.

The Kindle version can be downloaded here

Revolution of the Era - Asoka Abeygunawardana (Please feel free to download this but if you are a kindle user, please help Asoka cover his costs by getting the kindle version from amazon.com) 

Language... matters

Here’s a story Albert Einstein was fond of telling:

“I was at a tea in Princeton. The hostess asked me to explain relativity theory in a few words”.

So I said, “I once had a friend who was blind from birth and one day we went for a hike in the country. It was hot so after a couple of hours we sat down to rest”.

“How thirsty am I” I remarked to my friend, “I wish I had a cool glass of milk”.

“What is milk?” my friend inquired.

“Milk? Milk is a white fluid”.  

“I know what fluid is” my friend responded but what is “white?”

“White is the color of the swan’s feathers”

“I know what feathers are but what is a swan?”

“A swan is a large bird with a crooked neck”

“I can understand that” my blind friend replied, “Except for one thing. What is crooked?”

“Here” I said seizing his arm and stretching it out. “Now your arm is straight”. Then I folded it against his chest “And now your arm is crooked”.

“Ah, now I know what milk is.”

This is a story not of the foolishness of a blind man but rather, the gulf that separates individual cosmologies from each other and the essential uselessness of attempting to explain one of them with the tools available to the other. Einstein was capable of recognizing that and that is what I like about him the most. He was not the world’s greatest mind nor was he the world’s greatest scientist – those assertions are highly debatable except to those to whom Einstein is the equivalent of Jesus. Well marketed ideas mind you but like all marketing, to be taken with very large mountains of salt. No, what I like about him is the fact that he played the violin and considered that a greater achievement than his work in theoretical physics.

Here then is another “tea-party story” in similar vein although in this, instead of two disparate entities talking irreconcilable languages, this one is about a common language and its importance to everyone. It is a personal testimony of journalist Jerome Weidman. There are many versions of this story but this is the one I like best:

“When I was a very young man, just beginning to make my way I was invited to a talk by a great scientist at one of the more upmarket addresses in the Princeton area. The ride was difficult, it was raining, and I ran in breathless and very late. The hostess, slightly harried, says that the talk is over but they had retired to the drawing room so could I please fix myself a drink and get my late-ass in there without delay?”

It was an enormous room and the other guests were coming in in twos and threes and my eyes beheld two unnerving sights: Servants were arranging small gilt chairs in long, neat rows; and up front, leaning against the wall, were musical instruments.

Apparently I was in for an evening of chamber music.

 I use the phrase “in for” because music meant nothing to me. I am almost tone deaf—only with great effort can I carry the simplest tune, and serious music was to me no more than an arrangement of noises. So I did what I always did when trapped: I sat down, and when the music started, I fixed my face in what I hoped was an expression of intelligent appreciation, closed my ears from the inside, and submerged myself in my own completely irrelevant thoughts.

After a while, becoming aware that the people around me were applauding, I concluded it was safe to unplug my ears. At once I heard a gentle but surprisingly penetrating voice on my right: “You are fond of Bach?”

I knew as much about Bach as I know about nuclear fission. But the old man who was sitting there next to me was irksome and had decided to compound my misery it seems.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably and hesitated. I had been asked a casual question. All I had to do was be equally casual in my reply. But I could see from the look in my neighbor’s eyes that their owner was not merely going through the perfunctory duties of elementary politeness. Regardless of what value I placed on my part in the verbal exchange, to this man his part in it mattered very much. Above all, I could feel that this was a man to whom you did not tell a lie, however small.

“I don’t know anything about Bach,” I said awkwardly. “I’ve never heard any of his music.”

A look of perplexed astonishment washed across his countenance.

“You have never heard Bach?”

He made it sound as though I had said I’d never taken a bath.

“It isn’t that I don’t want to like Bach,” I replied hastily. “It’s just that I’m tone deaf, or almost tone deaf, and I’ve never really heard anybody’s music.”

A look of concern came into the old man’s face. “Please,” he said abruptly. “You will come with me?”

He stood up and took my arm. I stood up. As he led me across that crowded room, I kept my glance fixed on the carpet. A rising murmur of puzzled speculation followed us out into the hall but the man seemed not to notice.

Resolutely, he led me upstairs. He obviously knew the house well. On the floor above, he opened the door into a book-lined study, drew me in, and shut the door.

“Now,” he said with a small, troubled smile. “You will tell me, please, how long you have felt this way about music?”

“All my life,” I said, feeling awful. “I wish you would go back downstairs Sir. The fact that I don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean I deprive you of it.”

He scowled “You can go through life knowing nothing of mathematics or physics or science. They are not all that important to life or enjoyment. However, you cannot possibly go through life without music so, tell me if there is any kind of music you like?”

“Well,” I answered, “I like songs that have words, and the kind of music where I can follow the tune.”

He smiled and nodded, obviously pleased. “You can give me an example, perhaps?”

“Well,” I ventured, “almost anything by Bing Crosby.”

He nodded again, briskly. “Good!”

He went to a corner of the room, opened a phonograph, and started pulling out records. I watched him uneasily. At last, he beamed. “Ah!” he said.

He put the record on, and in a moment, the study was filled with the relaxed, lilting strains of Bing Crosby’s “When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.” He beamed at me and kept time with the stem of his pipe. After three or four phrases, he stopped the phonograph.

“Now,” he said. “Will you tell me, please, what you have just heard?”

The simplest answer seemed to be to sing the lines. I did just that, trying desperately to stay in tune and keep my voice from cracking. The expression on the old man’s face was like the sunrise.

“You see!” he cried with delight when I finished. “You do have an ear!”

I mumbled something about this being one of my favorite songs, something I had heard hundreds of times so that it didn’t really prove anything.

“Nonsense!” says he. “It proves everything! Do you remember your first arithmetic lesson in school? Suppose, at your very first contact with numbers, your teacher had ordered you to work out a problem in, say, long division or fractions. Could you have done so?”

“No, of course not.”

“Precisely!” he made a triumphant wave of his hand. “It would have been impossible, and you would have reacted in panic. You would have closed your mind to long division and fractions. As a result, because of that one small mistake by your teacher, it is possible your whole life you would be denied the beauty of long division and fractions.”

The hand went up and out in another wave.

“But on your first day, no teacher would be so foolish. He would start you with elementary things—then, when you had acquired skill with the simplest problems, he would lead you up to long division and to fractions.

“So it is with music.” He picked up the Bing Crosby record. “This simple, charming little song is like simple addition or subtraction. You have mastered it. Now we go on to something more complicated.”

He found another record and set it going. The golden voice of John McCormack singing “The Trumpeter” filled the room. After a few lines, he stopped the record.

“So!” he said. “You will sing that back to me, please?”

I did—with a good deal of self-consciousness but with, for me, a surprising degree of accuracy.

He stared at me with a look on his face that I had seen only once before in my life: on the face of my father as he listened to me deliver the valedictory address at my high school graduation ceremony.

“Excellent!” he remarked when I finished. “Wonderful! Now this!”

“This” turned out to be Caruso in what was to me a completely unrecognizable fragment from Cavalleria Rusticana, a one-act opera. Nevertheless, I managed to reproduce an approximation of the sounds the famous tenor had made. The old man beamed his approval.

Caruso was followed by at least a dozen others. I could not shake my feeling of awe over the way this great man, into whose company I had been thrown by chance, was completely preoccupied by what we were doing, as though I were his sole concern.

We came at last to recordings of music without words, which I was instructed to reproduce by humming. When I reached for a high note, his mouth opened, and his head went back as if to help me attain what seemed unattainable. Evidently I came close enough, for he suddenly turned off the phonograph.

“Now, young man,” he said, putting his arm through mine. “We are ready for Bach!”

As we returned to our seats in the drawing room, the players were tuning up for a new selection. he smiled and gave me a reassuring pat on the knee.

“Just allow yourself to listen,” he whispered. “That is all.”

It wasn’t really all, of course. Without the effort he had just poured out for a total stranger I would never have heard, as I did that night for the first time in my life, Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze.” I have heard it many times since. I don’t think I shall ever tire of it. Because I never listen to it alone. I am sitting beside a small, round man with a shock of untidy white hair, a dead pipe clamped between his teeth, and eyes that contain in their extraordinary warmth all the wonder of the world.

When the concert was finished, I added my genuine applause to that of the others.

I was still in my own dreamworlds when the hostess came up to me sighing “Oh it was a wonderful talk you missed” but I hardly heard her. The music was in my ears and I was staring across the room at the old man who was talking to the other guests. I pointed him out to the hostess and asked “who is that man?”

“Why you chump” she cries out. “That’s the man who gave the talk. That’s Albert Einstein”.