It is all a numbers game. How was yours compared to mine?

The numbers game! I received requests from Eksath Samawadi Tharuna Peramuna, Sajith’s youth wing, a contravention of party rules, to come at noon on May1st to go in procession, to the Premadasa Statue at Aluthkade from nearby Sugathadasa Stadium. This is a competition with the earlier procession of UNPs joint opposition front May Day procession & rally that is expected to commence in Jaffna at 10am.

They expect to get a larger number of people to their event. SO WHAT! it is in Colombo, and just the people in old Premadasa’s Colombo Central Constituency should bring out at least 50,000 people before any of the others come. Anything short of 100,000 will be useless in the scheme of things. So for the UNP to go to Jaffna, every head should at least be equal to 1000 in Colombo, due to the cost, commitment to take about 3 days off, and the effort to get there. So if the rally has 5,000 it will be a roaring success, which even the Govt. cannot match, except with the paramilitary groups that are roaming the streets there forcing people to come.

It is important that the people realize that it is only the Sajith faction, who are determined to get as much publicity as possible by sabotaging anything the party does. If they do not agree, they should shut up. Airing their dirty linen in public is not a nice thing to do and in the end will come back to haunt them. It is the S faction that has succeeded hitherto in giving the government all the power to do as they please, and I believe they must answer to this accusation. There is no way of sliding out of this as it is the country which suffers from the greed of one!

There is NO way in hell or heaven that SP is capable of taking party leadership let alone lead the country. RW has lost a few elections, but that was more as a fault of others than on his. The Rajapakse administration resorted to underhand tactics of lying and fooling, and in the presence of people easily fooled by promises, has survived this long. The UNP use the lack of cohesiveness to blame their losses, but it is a series of factors including that which has left the party in this mess.

It is a matter of time when the UNP will come back from the dead, take over the administration from the rogues and govern with transparency and governance, within the democratic framework that permits dissent. It is better to wait awhile for the sins of this government to take full effect, for people to realize the error of their betrayal and to vote in a party that enjoys the support of all people irrespective of race creed and economic status.

We can only see the recent religious disharmony incited by the Government to solidify this claim, and we hope that before too long we can assume a clearer and cleaner start.

Do watch out in a day or two when the Government announces that there are only 300,000 Tamil speaking people in the North and there is no need to take account of the desires of such a small segment of the population as the majority of Tamil speaking people live amongst the Sinhala people. This kind of gerry mandering of the numbers are always used by political forces to expound their prejudices, usually to the detriment of the minorities.

I am at a loss to understand why human beings get so much satisfaction in oppressing minorities, especially when they hold little threat to the majority. Is it an insecurity complex? or a far more deep rooted sense of racial hatred, instilled by an intolerant society. I am not pointing a finger at Sri Lanka only as this is common to most countries with this sort of population dynamic. I just want Sri Lanka to set an example to the world, not follow other countries prejudices to the letter and say we are better than so and so. The latter reasoning is given in this country for every ill, be it bribery, racial discrimination, human rights violations, pollution, violence, road accidents, environmental degradation, quality of education, just to name a few.