By Dr. Kamal Wickremasinghe
The memory of the key event that led to the 2015 regime change––the defection of Maithripala Sirisena from the SLFP a year ago last week––appears to have sunk without trace in the humdrum, moral-free politics of Sri Lanka. The defection that marked the pinnacle of the project to assassinate former president Mahinda Rajapaksa politically is yet to see its completion.
Notwithstanding that, the event that was made spicier by revelations that Sirisena had shared a meal of hoppers with Rajapaksa the previous night, giving rise to howls of ‘traitor’ from Rajapaksa loyalists deserves a bit more attention.
The electoral defeat of Rajapaksa, who appeared invincible until the defection invoked comparisons with the fall of the Roman Dictator Julius Caesar, with many writers attempting to enliven the undertones of treachery by colourising comment with the hackneyed, historically inaccurate Shakespearean quote, Et tu Brute? It was certainly drama that incorporated many dramatic elements such as characters in conflict and tragic or at least painful resolutions that appear to be still unfolding.
The purpose here is to ‘compare and contrast’ the characters, events and the aftermath of the ‘political’ downfall of Rajapaksa with the ‘physical’ assassination of Julius Caesar as portrayed in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar ( or Julius Caesar) that debuted in 1599, opening the newly-built Globe Theatre in London (burnt to the ground on 29 June 1613).
The play portrays the hatching of conspiracy by 60 Roman senators to assassinate Julius Caesar, and the momentous events that followed the assassination. Although the title is Julius Caesar, the central psychological drama of Shakespeare’s play comprises the inner struggle of its ‘tragic hero’ Marcus Junius “Brutus”prior to joining the conspiracy against his friend Caesar, at the behest of the leader of the plot, his brother in-law Gaius “Cassius” Longinus.
The leading characters of the play – Caesar, Brutus and Cassius certainly had parallels in the Sri Lankan situation, with Rajapaksa, Maithripala Sirisena and Chandrika Bandaranaike comfortably fitting into the roles respectively, albeit with obvious dissimilarities relating to their levels of power and social background, and gender in one case. Such differences however are irrelevant to the character profiles.
It is first required, however, to draw a line between the factual events that surrounded Caesar’s assassination and the fictionalised version of Shakespeare: Julius Caesar was the first of three Roman tragedies written by Shakespeare based on actual historical events in Rome: the other two were Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra, which debuted in 1605 and 1607 respectively. There are however, many factual differences surrounding Caesar’s murder as portrayed in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and the historical records of the two Roman historians Plutarch and Suetonius that inspired Shakespeare’s work. Considering that Shakespeare was dramatising Caesar’s death for excitement and gravity of the act such differences could be ignored.
There is, however, an exception to the rule: it is necessary to retract the ‘poetic licence’ Shakespeare has assumed in assigning “Et tu, Brute – Then fall Caesar!”as Caesar’s final words. According to Suetonius, Caesar’s actual final words were Kai su, teknon? (Greek words meaning ‘you too, child?’). Plutarch has believed that Caesar said nothing, just pulled his toga over his head upon seeing Brutus among the conspirators. Plutarch may well be right: lying on the ground having been stabbed 23 times according to all accounts, Caesar would hardly have had energy to speak any words other than to make a painful cry of aaaaaagh!
The story of the life of Gaius Julius Caesar (100 – 44 BC), and his death in the hands of some 60 conspirators, all Roman senators, bears some important similarities with the life and political demise of the former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, at least at the perimeter. Admittedly, Caesar was a hands-on military man, and without a doubt the best Roman General of his time. He had conquered Gaul (modern France and Belgium). By 49 BC however, the relationship between Caesar and Pompey (co-ruler of the Republic and the best General next to Caesar) had deteriorated to such an extent that Caesar marched his legions on Rome to fight Pompey’s forces. Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River in to Italy proper, uttering the famous phrase “alea iacta est” (the die is cast) plunged the Roman Republic into civil war. Caesar pursued a fleeing Pompey to Greece and to Egypt (where Pompey’s severed head was presented to him by the Egyptians). On his way back to Rome, Caesar defeated his remaining rivals in North Africa, firmly establishing his authority. It is at this point that the play begins – with Caesar marching towards Rome in triumph over Pompey and all others who opposed him.
Though Rajapaksa’s military achievements were of a much lesser scale, with no conquests of foreign territory involved, he appeared to have earned similar popular legitimacy to Caesar by dealing the fatal blow to the LTTE in 2009. Although he had not led the army in the battlefields, the people had granted him hero status on account of his robust decision making in the face of foreign interventions that could easily have scuttled his military campaign. A popular politician by any standards, he had become an icon of the people, and of the state, and had ruled the country for nearly a decade since 2005. The ruthless manner in which Rajapaksa dealt with his war-ally General Fonseka’s challenge to his authority smacks of Caesar’s destruction of Pompey in many respects!
There are also parallels between Caesar’s efforts to consolidate power to the scorn of the Roman Senate, and some of the measures Rajapaksa adopted following his victory at the 2010 elections. In Caesar’s case, he had found defending the newly conquered territories impossible with shared decision making with the Senate that was slow and corrupt. This pragmatic need prompted his declaration of himself “dictator perpetuo” (dictator for life) in 44 BC. His opponents in the Senate, however, charged that for all his success on the battlefield, Caesar failed as a statesman because he had no vision for Rome other than his dictatorship. They accused Caesar of being contemptibly ambitious, revelling in the homage from the people and his conception of himself as a leader who would live on in citizens’ minds forever. Caesar is known to have laughed at rumours of his wife Calpurnia controlling him at home.
Rajapaksa’s political opposition threw almost identical charges against him, ostensibly frustrated by their inability to make a dent in his popularity to win an election by foul means or fair. The opposition accusations of “triumphalism” and populism of Rajapaksa were followed by charges of overt plans to become the eternal ruler, usurping the ‘love’ of a largely “unsophisticated” rural Sinhala-Buddhist populace. Sections of the urban middle classes with a smattering of English became the group that seemed to dislike Rajapaksa the most.
Like Caesar, however, Rajapaksa also had resorted to measures that gave the appearance of attempts at consolidating power: the September 2010 amendment to the constitution (18-A) to allow him to contest for a third term and the bringing of the independent commissions under the president were portrayed as designed to transfer all power to the president. It is against this background that opposition forces converged to form a common front against Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Caesar’s opponents – 60 members of the Roman Senate – concluded that the only resolution to the problem was to assassinate Caesar and they hatched a conspiracy to stab him to death at a meeting of the Senate on the Ides of March (March 15), 44 BC. The leader of the plot was Cassius, who alleged that Caesar had planned to overthrow the Senate in favour of tyranny. Cassius believed that Caesar’s friend Brutus was absolutely essential for the plot to succeed. Naturally, Brutus showed reluctance to join the conspiracy: Caesar had professed his love of Brutus as a son, and had been Brutus’ political sponsor; Brutus’ mother, Servilia Caepionis, was said to be Caesar’s mistress and some speculate that Brutus may have been Caesar’s son. Ultimately, however, Brutus gets recruited by Cassius, through subtle manipulation and devious schemes, to join the conspiracy to assassinate Caesar.
While many operators claim to have been the original schemer of the plot against Rajapaksa, the former president Chandrika Bandaranaike, who had been sidelined by Rajapaksa appears to have been the instigator, later bringing in to collusion others such as the ‘perennial opposition leader’ up to that point, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and Rajapaksa’s bitter enemy Mangala Samaraweera. The number of participants in the plot failed to reach 60 at least initially, unlike in the case of Caesar. The role the foreign powers played – from the next-door neighbour to the global empire – was another difference to the plot against Caesar.
The chief instigator of the plot against Caesar, Cassius, seems close to being a male Roman version of the character of Chandrika Bandaranaike. Shakespeare portrays Cassius as a ruthless schemer lacking all sense of personal honour. He has been gravely jealous of Caesar’s rising power. Caesar has divulged his distrust of Cassius to his friend Mark Antony, as arising from his “lack of a private life and seeming refusal to nurture his own spirit”. With Brutus, Cassius paints Caesar as a mere fallible man who has undeservedly gained divine status, blaming themselves for allowing Caesar’s rise to power. One of Cassius’ devious schemes involved writing phony letters to Brutus, pretending to be from citizens of Rome, pleading him to strike against Caesar.
He finally managed to persuade Brutus to take part in the conspiracy by dressing up his personal vendetta against Caesar as sentiment “in the best interests of the Republic” that need to be safeguarded from Caesar. All available information on the role played by Chandrika on the Rajapaksa affair – especially in persuading Sirisena to take risks – shows a distinct similarity to the character and actions of Cassius, motivated primarily by her almost insane jealousy of Rajapaksa’s war success and popularity.
This leaves us with the most important task of seeking parallels between the role of Brutus in the assassination of Caesar, and that of Maithripala Sirisena against President Rajapaksa. It must be noted at the beginning that the social backgrounds of Brutus and Sirisena are literally ‘worlds apart’: The name Brutus is a cognomen – the third name of prominent families under Roman naming conventions. He was a descendent of Lucius Junius Brutus, who founded the Roman Republic in 6 BC; Brutus’ wife is Portia was daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato, the famous orator who killed himself rather than yield to Caesar. His sister married Cassius. Brutus’ family and social background contrasts greatly with the humble background of the chief protagonist of the plot against Rajapaksa.
Judging by his boasts about the ‘hopper meal’ nor does Sirisena appear to have faced much mental distress attributable to facing a choice between his ‘friendship’ with Rajapaksa and an assumed ‘duty’ for the country, comparable to the agony of Brutus that forms the central theme of Shakespeare’s play. Chandrika is unlikely to have faced too much difficulty in persuading Sirisena, apart from exploiting his unhappiness over not being appointed prime minister by Rajapaksa. Similar to Brutus taking full control the conspiracy upon joining, much to Cassius’ distress, disagreements between Sirisena and Chandrika also surfaced before and after the elections.
The preceding comparison shows that by serendipity or design, the Sri Lankan political operators have played out an altered version of Julius Caesar. The events show that the characters in 21st century Colombo share much with those in 44BC Rome, with the aftermath of the political assassination of Rajapaksa still being played out.
Just to complete the story of Julius Caesar, his conspirators killed him while he sat in the Senate, with daggers they had brought to the chamber, hidden beneath their togas. Right next to him went Tillius Cimber, under the pretext of a humble request for a recall of his brother who had been exiled by Caesar, and grasped the mantle of his toga. Servilius Casca struck Caesar with the point of the blade on the left shoulder, Cassius made a slash at his face, and Decimus Brutus pierced him in the side. All others struck his body as it lay there, until he breathed his last.
According to Plutarch, after the assassination, Brutus and his companions marched out, crying out: “People of Rome, we are once again free!” They were met with silence. According to Suetonius, Caesar lay there lifeless for some time, and finally three common slaves put him on a litter and carried him home, with one arm hanging down. The Senate, calling themselves ‘liberators’ immediately began sharing the spoils by way of appointing themselves regional governors: Brutus got Crete and Cassius Africa.
Caesar’s loyal friend Mark Antony however, turned the tables on the liberators with a speech over Caesar’s corpse. Beginning with the much-quoted words “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” he deftly turned public opinion against the assassins by reminding the people of the good Caesar had done for Rome. Through his speech, Antony roused the mob to drive the conspirators from Rome. Caesar’s heir, the 18-year-old grandson of his sister, Gaius Octavius became leader.
Driven out of Rome, Brutus and Cassius gathered their armies together to fight against Antony and Octavius, but lost the battle. Brutus, seeing no way out and refusing to be taken prisoner, decided to kill himself. After 13 years of power struggle and civil war, Octavius would establish permanent autocratic rule that lasted for the next 500 years under the name Caesar Augustus.
In the case of the anti-Rajapaksa plot, President Sirisena assumed a shaky leadership of the UPFA and SLFP and is struggling to contain many Rajapaksa supporters. The so-called “national government” he formed is trying to muddle its way with incoherent economic and political plans. One hopes that Sri Lanka’s Brutus will have a better ending than Marcus Junius Brutus.
Courtesy:The Island