by

Vishnuguptha

“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”
~Blaise Pascal

They say that thirteen is not a very auspicious number. Originating perhaps from the Last Supper which had only thirteen partaking of it with Jesus Christ at the center, numerical 13 has been plaguing many a member of families who occupy seats of power and influence and they have more often than not, tried to avoid this numerical with disdain and fear. Due to the fear factor especially in relation to the ominous forebodings it had surrounded itself right throughout the history of man, number thirteen has influenced decisions of leaders, both of clergy as well as lay kind. The mere superstitious nature of this baseless fear, however, has had enormous impact on the lives and times of many countries and individual leaders.

While stating categorically that this writer has no such superstitions or ill-based prejudices regarding these numerical occults, it should be stated that the year 2013 stands out as a sinful year in so far as politics and politicians of Sri Lanka are concerned. The spate of sin and rampant evil that spread across the country’s city centers as well as remote villages, where school children and school teachers were subjected to humiliation and dishonor, where innocent bystanders were run over by the maddeningly speeding luxury sports utility vehicles (SUVs) belonging to politicos and their henchmen, where illegal drugs and illicit liquor became readily available merchandize of the average guy and gal, enveloped the population centers and remote hamlets corrupting their denizens and enriching the peddlers of sin and evil.

While no government should be held responsible for not legislating morality and ethics of a society that it is supposed to govern, the provision of social and economic structures that would serve the purpose of providing both offensive and defensive mechanisms to curb and curtail the spread of evil and sin that usually have their own unrelenting momentum when given a jump start is important. But the fact that such efforts are rendered ineffective by the greedy and corrupt politicians who are being protected and encouraged by the higher-ups, should be uppermost in the minds of the public and of those in power responsible for implementing policy-programs that are meant to be implemented with a view to shaping the destinies of a society. If they fail in that venture, they will have abdicated their fundamental function as ‘rulers’. Sadly it is precisely what happened over the last decade or so, culminating in the year2013 which will pass by in another forty eight hours.

From January to the last hours of this year, Sri Lanka has had the great misfortune to witness some of the most bizarre killings, gruesome rapes, illegal importation of merchandize including drugs and compounds that are used for liquor-manufacturing, illicit felling of trees, unauthorized erection of buildings in state properties, illegal and improper ‘disciplining’ of government servants such as school teachers, Grama Niladharis etc. The one common denominator among all these dastardly sins is that all of them were committed by government politicos or their immediate henchmen. Those who have been charged with responsibility for the rule of law are violating and desecrating the very law they are sworn to uphold.

Sinners are the very guardians of morality and ethics.

The list is long and not yet complete. The process began a decade ago and is accelerating its pace with each passing day and each election cycle. No hope exists and no prayer is answered, for the powers that decide between good and evil, between merit and sin are all part of the corrupt process; their very sustenance is intricately linked to and dependent upon the corrupting process itself.

One cannot take the year 2013 in isolation. It is only a landmark year in the winding and warped stairway of material and mundane gain which corrupt and corrupting politicians define as success.

Participating in this never-ending cycle of corruption and sin are not only individuals but whole families who are deeply engrossed in it; not only the husband who is the politician but his spouse and children are also inextricably entangled in the vicious cycle because they feed on it, they breath it, they sleep it and they live it every minute and every hour. Life has no meaning with no luxury SUVs, no Blue label whiskies, no all-night parties, no nothing without the husband’s ill-gotten wealth and the subsequent flow of perks and benefits and bonuses of life. That cycle of evil and sin grew exponentially during the year 2013 and it was evident from top to bottom and inside out. Tele-drama actresses and up and coming movie stars played the game too, to the tune of the politician’s flute and drums. Some wives did mind the husband running amok with these movie stars while others chose to look the other way. The oldest profession in man’s history acquired new attires, new paint on skin and new wigs that concealed the fact of being human garbage that pretended as nobility and class while rotting away beneath the surface. A whole heap of avarice and greed has taken hold of a once-decent man.
That carnage of culture and the annihilation of values have filled the pages of the year 2013, lending obscene credentials to the successful politician and his successful henchmen. What can one write about them? How can one write about them?

In this final week of the year alone, intimidation by henchmen of politicos, arrest of Mahawa Police O I C and other high officers on charges of sex-bribery, remanding of anti-bribery Policeman in Puttalam and a Thanamalawila Pradesheeya Sabha Member getting caught while digging for buried treasure and all other sordid tales of human folly and vice are being reported on a daily basis. The Prime Minister’s office is being accused of pandering to some drug dealer and stories about the dealer financing the son’s election campaign have not been denied yet. One partner of the Government, namely the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), is asking for the PM’s head while the higher-ups are muted on the issue altogether.

With each passing day the frequency of incidence increases but its weight and gravity get lighter, for those who carry the weight as a matter of everyday practice gets used to the weight quite placidly. The frequency is getting forgotten and a foggy sense of complacency sets in, benumbing all sensitivities and making the carrier even more and more subservient and slavish, for they are all eager partners of the same crime, willy nilly.

The year Two Thousand and Thirteen will be best remembered by forgetting it. The year of bad omen has become an year of sin and sinners, committed by those who live at the highest echelons and going right down to the bottom; the years months and days have not given any indication as how to spend one’s life and pastime, especially for those who are politicians, these merchants of power, cash and corruption. They barter their influence for short-time pleasures, striving to satisfy their greed and avarice. The victims are willing partners in the same trade, for they too know very well that what they possess, their meager earnings or their very physical bodies might buy them another meal on the table or another earring or payment of an unpaid cellular phone bill.

A thoroughly forgettable year, 2013 has seen all the miseries of the human condition shamelessly exhibited by all the players and sinners. As the great E M Forster, man of English letters wrote about Shylock, the Merchant of Venice, “He is more sinned against than sinning”, but one cannot use the same simile about these politicos and their henchmen. They have been resorting to their miserable ways of living and decadent lifestyles at the expense of the nation’s children and they deserve nothing less than the First Circle in hell as described by Nobel Laureate, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn in his celebrated novel First Circle.