70 percent leaders, 30 percent failure

10 Jan, 2010
Source: Srilanka Guardian

(January 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) So Prabhakaran’ father is dead. The fact went by almost unnoticed in all the frenzy of the up coming presidential election. It registered in my mind and I felt sorry for the man, left with only part of his family, not having his daughter coming over from Canada to see him. People reading me might be shocked at my feeling sorry for the father of the fiend. My contention, however, is that we cannot visit the sins of the son on the father. He would surely have undergone intense trauma particularly at the end of the war caused solely by his son. Probably he suffered stress and worry at the way his son turned out and very probably gloated with pride too as the son was treated like a demi-god and ruled the Wanni.

He would surely have been inordinately proud of the son who was leader of the Tamils in the north. To me what is significant is that here was a father, who probably gave his all to bring up his children. We know that the Jaffna parent is extra sacrificial and also more ambitious about his/her children. And see how his children and he ended their lives; all because of an over ambitious, megalomaniac, inhuman son. We suppose Velupillai Senior’s body was cremated. Who lit the pyre? He had no remaining son?

Asia’s 70 percent Gods

The thought that cremation is so clean and good came to mind as I read an article by Roger Cohen who, while in the Far East, visited the mausoleums of two great Asian leaders, whose methods of leadership are now seen to have had slight flaws. In an article titled Asia’s 70 Percent Gods, Cohen analyses very briefly the contributions made by these two leaders and how their nations have gone forwards following different paths after their demises.

He first visits the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the great leader of Vietnam. As Cohen ays it: "First in Hanoi, there was Ho Chi Minh, worldwide wanderer (including a spell in Brooklyn), impish nemesis of French and US armies, unifier of an independent Vietnam, ‘Uncle’ to the nation; now embalmed despite his wish to have his ashes scattered."

We know that Ho Chi Min (1890-1969), actual name Nguyen Tat Thanh (and others given in biographies) was the founder of Vietnamese communism, and also the very soul of the revolution for Independence from the French. He worked as a cook in a French steamship and thus his visits and stays in western countries including France. He got his communist training in Russia and worked in China and Hong Kong before returning to Vietnam to lead the North to spread its influence to the South against the might of the United States. Ho Chi Minh was known for his qualities of simplicity, integrity and determination.

Cohen then proceeds to China and in Tiananmen Square gazes at the preserved corpse of "Mao Zedong, the Great Helmsman and Teacher, looking a little more florid than the waxen Ho Chi Minh"

Who doesn’t know about this revolutionary- Mao Zedong (1893-1976) - considered only second to Lenin. Mao reshaped political and social structures in the ancient, heavily populated China and led it in its first steps to becoming a leader of the world. He started off as an assistant to a librarian in Peking, went on to teaching and then to greatly strengthen the Chinese Communist Party. He dominated the country with his personality and his sayings.

Cohen asserts the two men definitely did immensely for their respective countries but at what cost? The long march of Mao; the famine instigated by his policies; the countless deaths during the Cultural Revolution (1960 -69), being solely his idea of cleansing the nation, cost the nation so much in men, their morale and material goods. Less lives were lost in Vietnam of course, and not so much due to their leader but due to American invasion – the Americans taking it upon themselves to stem the tide of communism. Why are they revered still is a question Cohen asks. His answer: "Because they asserted their countries’ nationhood, unity, pride and independence against western colonization and foreign invasion, and delivered the people from facing humiliation."

We remember another Asian leader – Cambodia’s Pol Pot (1928-98). Why and how did he fail so miserably? He was solely responsible for the deaths of two million of his own people. Just visiting the war museum in Pnom Penh and seeing the skulls of those he ruthlessly eliminated, and standing by the Killing Fields and being told how hundreds were buried alive, consolidates the truth that Pol Pot was nowhere near Ho Chi Minh and Mao. The former was loved by his people, otherwise how earn the sobriquet ‘Uncle’ – a term of affectionate familiarity. Mao was more ruthless but his ruthlessness was to achieve his aim for the country and paid dividends. His methods were not cruelty for cruelty’s sake. These two were anti-western and questioned the authority of the West. Pol Pot was against his own people – the intelligentsia and the rich. He leveled them down by sacking the big cities and getting everyone into fields to grow rice or into the jungles to cut timber.

Cohen calls the two leaders he writes about in his article 70 percent gods because they failed 30 percent in their aims. Their omniscience is curtailed, he says. China changed and Deng Xiaoping pushed China on a path of rapid development abandoning the stricter norms of socialism. Mao was deemed to have failed in certain matters and areas and so a path slightly different to what he advocated was taken by China and, consequently, the country is now one of the major economic powers of the world. Vietnam too has veered away from strong socialism to capitalism with the emergence of a dynamic people more united and wealthy. But Cohen adds that the people’s aim goes far beyond the desire to acquire a bigger car or a better apartment. "They start wondering whether they should determine who governs them. They wonder about freedom of expression. They get irritated by corruption, they wonder why they can’t Twitter," censorship being so strong.

He quotes two examples to show that rigidity and strict government control are still present in the two countries. China has sentenced Liu Xiaobo – writer and political activist - to 11 years in prison for his Charter 08 where he advocates that the people should end the practice of ‘viewing words and crimes’. Vietnam has sentenced Le Cong Dinh, lawyer promoting pluralism, charged with collaborating with domestic and foreign reactionaries

There is however an Asian leader who is still revered totally though minor quirks of his have been brought to light. Mahatma Gandhi mercifully was cremated, and so only his memory and what he said and did remain.

The article has relevance to us in Sri Lanka. We have had great leaders who were freedom fighters but not alone, nor rising so very much higher than others like Mao and Ho Chi Minh did. D S Senanayake comes to mind, of course. Mercifully he too was cremated so no embalmed body on display, not even a mausoleum.

Further relevance is that habits die hard in former communist countries. Dissent is still not tolerated. Unless we the people are very vigilant and do not bow down, freedom of expression can be crushed. It is a fact that people are afraid to freely discuss the political situation and particularly the leader and his chief contender. Change is needed to this state of affairs and vigilance to any suppression of rights.