Blinders are coverings placed over a horse’s eyes which prevent the horse from seeing anything that isn’t straight ahead. When wearing blinders, the horse can’t see anything to the sides. This helps prevent a horse from being scared by things it can’t see. Lankan legislators have cultural and psychological blinders that narrow their world and personal experience. It isn’t that they can’t see the solution just that they can’t see the problem with their blinders on – for ‘none are as blind as those that will not see’. Wearing blinders, you have a very narrow view of things, and you aren’t aware of everything that’s happening around you. If one tells that these legislators needs to take their blinders off, it is really telling them to look at everything around and make an informed decision based on all the information available, instead of just making decisions based upon what they know by only looking at a small part of the problem.
Lankan legislators are creatures of a very particular making; to understand them, need to know the cultural and psychological blinders that narrow their world and personal experience. These legislators should put People first; as it was they who elected them; instead for over 69 years these elected representatives again and again putting to the wind the promises they make at the election time and work on their own agendas until the next election. As the next election nears they dream up things and spend on anything just to please their voters to get votes; after getting themselves elected they get involved in all sorts of devious activities to recover the cost of their election first and thereafter make more money. It could be said many voters supporting them also get rewarded in the process. It has got to a level that these legislators’ immortal behavior spread across to other sectors that has taken the country to such a low rating in the world. However, they still continue to enjoy all privileges and many don’t really care what’s going on in the rest of the country; just focusing only on their personnel life with their ‘just me’ mentality utilizing the career in parliament.
It was these legislators who came up with top down ideas of colonization based on ethnicity, Sinhala only language policy and the new delimitation of electorates plan; all collectively cooked up to work against the very all inclusive policy needed for a multi-racial and multi religious country that is Sri Lanka. To consolidate their positions went to the extent of messing many times with the constitution, which caused the legislature to lose the executive powers. Although the head of state and his cabinet of ministers should rid of their blinders and serve the whole country, as they are appointed for the whole population; this did not happen in Sri Lanka and it took several uprisings including a bloody civil war for the people to realize the mess the country was heading and people collectively dumped the faulted past president and his government at the 2015 elections.
Today, the there is a President with a difference, who is ready to serve the whole population irrespective race or religion; is heavily hindered by some of his past political alliance legislators now in opposition working against the government; perhaps the President in 2015 should have disassociated from his political party and gone neutral. Now the little island nation is waiting to see at what point, if at all will these legislators take off their partisan blinders to start supporting the President’s plans to resolve the ethnic issue and the war against corruption? For they should realize that among many problems faced by the country, the most impacting people is the cold war going on calling for more devolution of power and least acknowledged problem that there are people in their own electorates struggling to make ends meet every single day. If they did support the president to resolve these and all other problems to bond the people together as one nation then the country could regain its paradise status in Asia.
Northern Breeze 