“DEMOCRACY STILLBORN”” written by Rajan Hoole and Kirupaimalar Hoole is a recent Perera- Hussein publication. The book focuses on the past,present and future of politics in Ceylon/Sri Lanka from a Labour movement perspective. The backpage of the book summarises the essence of its contents and the point of view articulated by the husband and wife author duo-
“Democracy Stillborn” traces the present plight of Sri Lanka to the battles of the 1920s over the championship of labour by Ponnambalam Arunachalam.His ouster in 1921 from the Ceylon National Congress, led to the country’s politi This in turn resulted in an anti-labour stance blended with communalism, which received a boost from the total disenfranchisement of plantation labour by 1949 becoming dominated by estate capitalism.”
“The main legal battle around citizenship of plantation labour left the Judiciary deeply compromised. The right of habeas corpus affirmed in the Bracegirdle case of 1937 was attacked by the 1947 Public Security Ordinance permitting ‘murder in good faith.’ With elite Tamil and Muslim complicity, politics which was anti- labour at first, turned to ethno-chauvinism, surrendering the Parliamentary Left to Sinhalese exclusivism by 1964.”
“ Organised labour, weakened by abandoning the Plantation sector, was crushed by the UNP government in the General Strike of 1980. The right of habeas corpus, rendered virtually extinct by the 1979 PTA, made way for the cruel joke of the 2007 ICCPR Act.”
“Observing that the country is tired of revolutions, Democracy Stillborn places its hope in the survival in a mangled form of the Separation of Powers and of new life in a Judiciary with the courage to declare bad laws unconstitutional.”
The book is not available at Amazon or any other postal outlet. Copies could be purchased locally from the publisher Pererahussein or at local bookshops Sarasavi, Barefoot and Vijitha Yapa.
Orders can be placed through the publisher’s website www.pererahussein.com which ships to any location in the world. The website can be used for both foreign and local buyers.
Ameena Hussein
Perera Hussein Publishing House
80A Dharmapala Mawatha,
Colombo 7
Sri Lanka
www.pererahussein.com
www. phbooks.wordpress.com