Its like being elected president, on this platform of promise and hope and coming into office with idealism and a grand vision of how one will implement change, save the world, renew, rejuvenate. And then just like getting bogged the fuck down during the presidency. Having to push through bills that are compromises, farcical pork-pie legislation. And then realising that your constituents are disaffected,unmoved. Then coming to the end of the Presidency and looking back at the legacy you've left, the successes, the failures, the compromises. Older, wiser, sadder. And then in the last 100 days, counting down. Vowing to do as much as possible to set in stone irrevocable, positive change.
That's how I feel right now. I'm in the last 100 days. The countdown begins. I had started this term of office with such energy, vision, hope. The ensuing months saw me bogged down in a haze of bureaucracy, battling against the inertia of local culture to inject dynamism, capacity-building on every single level, unable to work in the areas of most need due to legal complications and donor complications, battered on every side. Days when nothing seemed to work and my entire tenure just seemed like a long timespan of futility. And then days like today, when I knew, for a brief shining moment, that this country had entered my blood (and broken my heart time and time again) and that I never wanted to leave, and that my work here was far from over.
Today I had a meeting with a politician that is tipped to take over the leadership of the main opposition to the current coalition government. We are doing a large amount of work with his local NGO, through a financial intermediary. It was the first time I met him. For the record, his father was the President of Sri Lanka when he was brutally assassinated by a suicide bomber, a 12 year old Tamil boy in his own house, amongst his retinue of servants. A boy who had been with him since he was five years old. I can’t even imagine the betrayal, the sadness, the alteration of a nation’s destiny and a family’s tragedy when such a thing happens. This is what one calls the national arc of narrative. All the post-colonies have it, transition, confusion, the emergence of a broken national identity, the internecine strife in the subcontinent, the poverty, the struggle for definition. The religious turmoil, the political fundamentalists, the socialists, the conservatives, all fighting to own the national narrative. In countries like India, the Nehru dynasty captures and loses it time and time again, and that family is wedded to the concept of India no matter what, from the moment Jawaharlal Nehru said at the stroke of midnight that that was when the soul of a nation ‘finds utterance’ . The concept of Sri Lanka is just as alien, a national identity as difficult to form, and the assassination of P* is a vital moment in Sri Lankan history.
And to meet the man who was aboy when it happened, like JFK Jr in the pictures when Kennedy was shot, to have him not mind that I was Tamil. To talk equally and hopefully about development, poverty, need. To see a glimmer of hope that there were at least some politicians in the country like this, politicians that were able to transcend class perceptions, intelligent politicians that could maybe unite the country one day, or change its destiny, was extraordinary. The man had charisma too, a hard-charging, hard-working, ambitious, young, educated politician with a hope of winning both the elite urban vote and the rural vote, with a hope of bridging the segregated parts of Sri Lanka. It almost made me want to sign up for UNP and come back here next year campaigning for them. It made me realize that my work was far from over. And the way the meeting ended was funny because he was talking about Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore of all things! And how it was necessary to rule at times with an iron fist. And I countered and said, “but an iron fist in a velvet glove” and he paused and stopped and looked at me. I could see he was surprised and he said that is a good line, did thatcher say it? And I said Churchill, actually. (it turns out both of us were right)
And as I left, he said “we should get together more often”. And I turned back and said “definitely”. And we walked out, free, happy, thinking about the future and the nation and wanting to be involved. A man who can inspire such thoughts, is an extraordinary man indeed. And I thought, this is it, this is my job, this is what makes it worthwhile, to be able to work with people like this, reaching the poorest of the poor, having my destiny intertwined with Sri Lanka’s. Grandiose? Perhaps.
(a little later)
OHMYGOD he just called me. The son I mean. Personally. To talk. We talked personally for half an hour. And I offered my services. To him at any time. I mean, you know. Not that kind of services! . This has been a very strange day. I’m going to stop now.
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