Maithris Mandela Moment: An open

letter to the President

by Nalaka Gunawardene - on 01/17/2015

Dear Mr President,
Please accept my good wishes on your election victory on a platform for good
governance, justice and fairness.
During the past few weeks, we watched first in astonishment, and then with
mounting hope how you set out as the underdog yet resolutely worked
towards election victory.
Your short and swift journey to become the seventh Executive President of Sri Lanka
was fraught with challenges and hazards. You won. You are now President of all 21
million Lankans, from all walks of life and irrespective of any labels assigned by birth
or culture.
You have been elected for a fixed term of six years. And as you quickly pointed out, you
are not a king, and we shall not treat you as one. Two centuries after the Lankan
monarchy ended (1815), we must at last exorcise its lingering ghost.

A popular slogan during the election campaign promoted by apolitical groups and
citizen journalists like myself was that we want to live ascitizens, and not subjects.
We are counting on you to ensure this happens, fast. No more pseudo-monarchies!
Dear Mr President,
While I respect your high office, I shall not use any deferential honorific such as Your
Excellency, or , , to address you. These have been highly
misused in the past; in any case, they are a relic of our feudal past that we must let go.
Modern times require that we update such traditions, and our neighbours with an
even greater heritage than ours have recently done so. In late 2012, Indian
President Pranab Mukherjee changed protocols so that he is no longer addressed as
His Excellency within the country. Mr President is sufficient.
I urge you to adopt a similar approach. And while at it, please also end the disturbing
habit of school children and public officials kneeling in front of the president and other
politicians. Some might claim this is part of our culture, but surely there are other
ways to greet and show respect without prostrating?
Adversity into advantage
As a communicator, I followed your election campaign with interest. You didnt have
the seemingly bottomless budgets for media advertising or outdoor displays. Neither
did you have any access to the state owned, public-funded radio/TV channels that have
the widest signal coverage. Your outreach was largely through sympathetic private
radio/TV channels plusthe web and social media.
Yours was the classic David vs Goliath struggle how your campaigners turned
adversity into advantage deserves to be studied in detail.
Optics (appearances) do matter in todays information society dominated by mobile
phones and social media. You seem to appreciate this going by your consistent
gesturing, soft speaking style, reconciliatory tone and sartorial neatness.
Tough as it must surely have been, that was the easy part! Campaigning is one thing;
governance is quite another. Your challenge now, heading a coalition government, is to
go well beyond image management.
As head of state, we expect you to strive for accuracy, balance and credibility in all

communications. The last government relied so heavily on spin doctors and costly
lobbyists both at home and abroad. Instead, we want you be honest with us and the
outside world. Please dont airbrush the truth.
Managing Diversity
Your campaign projected visions of a united country and an inclusive society that
celebrates diversity a rainbow nation of sorts. That certainly is an ideal all moderates
can aspire to, but pursuing that needs careful and sensitive handling.
There are different models for integrating diverse societies. Leading Indian dancer and
social activist Mallika Sarabhai once put her countrys diversity challenge in these
words: We are a salad-like mlange of cultures and not a soup where all variations get
reduced to a homogeneous pulp this, to me, is our greatest strength.
I realize that salads and soups are not very native metaphors, but this highlights the
need for choosing the right model.
In doing so, I hope you will study how India and South Africa two countries with
much greater diversity than Sri Lanka have tried to maintain unity amidst diversity.
Your campaign carried allusions to the two great leaders Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson
Mandela. These struck a chord with many Lankans fed up with divisive and greedy
politics. I hope you will continue to draw inspiration from Gandhi, Mandela and other
iconic leaders of our time.
Dear Mr President,
Your election victory and the first few days in office evoked strong feelings of Dj
vu in me. Two decades ago, I held my breath when another peaceful regime change
took place in Sri Lanka. In November 1994, we electedPresident Chandrika
Bandaranaike Kumaratunga with the largest ever electoral mandate (62%) for a
Lankan president before or since.
I was 28 at the time, and harboured high hopes of her ushering in a more pluralistic,
accountable and caring form of government. Alas, the good lady squandered it all away
after the first thousand days in office
For a wee moment after our brutal civil war ended in May 2009, I rekindled my lost
hopes for enlightened statesmanship. In an essay titled Memories of War, Dreams of

Peace, hurriedly put together within hours of the last shots being fired, I wrote: Our
political leaders, in whom we entrust our collective destiny, now face a historic
choice African analogies can go only so far in Asia, but at this juncture, it is tempting
to ask: would our leaders now choose the Mandela Road or the Mugabe Road for the
journey ahead?
Big mistake. I was rebuked by the then government spokesman for this analogy.
Within months, I realised how nave I had been to expect the war winning government
to be magnanimous or conciliatory. As we watched, the nation was forced down
the Mugabe Road. President Rajapaksa won the war, but lost the peace.
As a result, our society was polarised between pseudo-patriots and the rest branded
unfairly as traitors. Ethnic, religious and other minorities were humiliated and
harassed. A deeply suspicious government spied on its own citizens on a massive scale
listening to phone conversations and intercepting electronic exchanges. Dissenting
voices in media and civil society were coerced, intimidated or brutally silenced.
We hope you will immediately apply brakes on the militarization of the state,
brutalisation of polity and saffronisation of society. Reversing trends will take time
and effort, but you can set the tone.
Dear Mr President,
Unlike many others of my generation, I refuse to be cynical. I remain cautiously
optimistic. I dare not give up hope in our collective ability to learn, heal and rebuild.
Right now you must be under pressure from so many individuals and groups. There is
much to be done, and expectations are high. In this social media age, newly elected
leaders have a much tighter window in which to prove themselves. You are under
constant scrutiny, with every move over-analysed by admirers and detractors alike.
In such a setting, your minders might want you to be all things to all people. Or,
heaven forbid, even govern by spin, data doctoring, public distractionsand other
hazardous tricks. Please resist these temptations at all costs.
Wed much rather have a leader and government who trusts us and in whom we can
place our trust. If you make mistakes, please tell us so. We know you are only human
Leaders in the 21st Century have to balance between what I call retail and wholesale

policy actions. While elections tend to be won more on retail level issues those that
direct affect citizens on an everyday basis good governance demands paying
sufficient attention to the larger picture, or the wholesale level.
Your election manifesto was an assortment of both kinds. Systemic changes and
structural reforms are vital, for sure, but some sections of society also need rapid
relief. You will now have to do this tightrope walk everyday!
Dear Mr President,
Since you chose the Mandela metaphor, it is going to stay with you. I trust you realise
that this is your Mandela Moment. Your and my hero faced such an open, decisive
moment when he walked out of prison in February 1990. As we now know, he had
about 1,000 days to pull his nation back from the brink of calamity.
These days, history seems to be marching on steroids. So your and our window
would close faster. In whatever time left, I hope you can help our nation to awaken
from its long nightmare and take the first few steps towards an inclusive, egalitarian
and modern society.
Yours unruly,
Nalaka Gunawardene
Citizen, Father and Writer
Posted by Thavam