Lessons from today’s ‘General Strike’

Both parties claim victory in today’s strike. People are the ultimate judges and all the evidence is there. Some services didn’t work, but some did. Less people were seen in the streets but that can also be attributed to the reluctance of many to take risk of travelling. Transport services worked only partially but that did not change much. There were no interruption to the operations of schools and hospitals. Hardly any work at Central Mail exchange. Everywhere else it was a mix. Certainly it was not a General Strike. I am not sure whether this was what Lal Kantha has expected.

Lal Kantha is no N. M. Perera either. What we saw today was nowhere near the incidents in 1953 Hartal. That was what we call a ‘General Strike’. According to what I have heard in 1953 women in south cocked in the middle of Galle Road bringing the transport to stand still. We have seen none of that today.

On the other hand, the biggest mistake to avoid is to interpret what happened today as an acceptance of Rajapakse regime by the people. It would be stupid to think poor have any love for a regime that robs them shamelessly. However it was clear their expression of anger did not come out. It has been lost somewhere in the middle.

There were several reasons why today was not another 1953.

Firstly, it is impossible for anybody to launch a mass scale General Strike today. The landscape has changed. Most of the sectors are no more government monopolies. JVP has no control over private sector – specially over privately operated public transport services. Even they do not have full control within institutions like CEB and Railways.

Secondly, it is not easy to launch trade union action against a military government that uses terror means to control any obstacle comes in their way. That was why equated them to a clan of Goliaths. They have the full military and police powers behind them. Anybody who questions will be branded a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ and might be physically assaulted. What happened to Defence Analysts during the last few months was enough to discourage a trade union activity. Even apart from the risk of facing physical attacks who would want to be branded ‘traitors’ by the government itself?

Thirdly, JVP has largely lost its clout even among the government workers. It is now another three wheeler party, just like LSSP and CP.

JVP should have taken these ground realities into account before calling for a General strike.

The biggest lesson however for the entire opposition, in which I am very much a part of. We see the anger of public accumulating against this robber regime. We see how eagerly they wait to see the end of war and massive scale corruption. We see how public urge for a leadership that can take them out of the misery there are in now. However, we have so far not been too successful in diverging that force into a strong people’s movement like we did in pre-1977 days. That is exactly what is expected from UNP and this is the time we should take that challenge more seriously than we ever did in recent past.