by Sachi Sri Kantha; originally published February 24, 2004
[an up-dated version of what originally appeared in the Tamil Nation website, 24 January 2001]
I have a message to posterity in Sri Lanka. If 100 years from now, someone wants to know what was the situation in Sri Lanka at the beginning of the 21st century, please don’t bother to read the bloated presidential news releases or partisan editorials from Colombo. I would say that Bob Dylan had summed it all, in his song, ‘Everything is Broken.’
The American bard of peace protest, Bob Dylan (born 1941) is a man of unusual talents. He has been called the ‘Voice of a Generation.’ Here are his lyrics, which has an eerie appeal to the current Sri Lankan scene.
“Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Ain’t no use jiving
Ain’t no use joking,
Everything is broken.
Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.
Seem like everytime you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground.
Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin’
Everything is broken.
Everytime you leave and go off some place
Things fall to pieces in my face.
Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.”
I wondered how Sri Lanka has come to this pathetic plight? One possible clue is that Sri Lanka has become a crucible where the Peter Principle works perfectly. What is the Peter Principle? This principle was popularized in 1969 by Laurence Johnston Peter (1919-1990), a Vancouver native residing in California. It states, ‘In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.’ It appears that, Sri Lankans made a deal with the devil in 1960 to become the test subjects of this Peter Principle. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, a competent housewife of 20 year standing, was plucked from the kitchen to sit in the prime ministerial chair; and it has been a down hill since then. Now, 40 years later, with Sirimavo’s daughter at helm, Peter Principle is being consistently proved, not only in her pontifications and performance, but also in that of her personal retainer Mr.Lakshman Kadirgamar. Here is a guy who was a competent lawyer. But after receiving his curtain call as a token Tamil in the Cabinet in 1994, Kadirgamar (serving a constituency of one megalomaniac lady) had performed numerous roles – LTTE-baiting Foreign Minister, unsuccessful protector of Bamiyan Buddhist statues, Indo-centric snake oil salesman, glib-tongued human rights activist, Secretary aspirant of Commonwealth Nations, and now the Minister of Mass Media and Communications. It need not be stressed that, when impartial political history comes to be written, his epitaph would only read as ‘a Sri Lankan political clown par excellence’.
Yes, Bob Dylan had hummed it aptly, “Ain’t no use jiving- Ain’t no use joking, Everything is broken.”