by
Vishnuguptha

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.”
~Albert Camus

Heroes are born every minute. Events can give birth to victims too, every second. A very few, in fact a handful in all history, do have the real DNA of a real hero. History also bears testimony to the most ironic phenomenon of turning yesterday’s hero into today’s ‘also-ran’ and tomorrow’s traitor. One fine example could be found in our own midst: General Sarath Fonseka. Just prior to May 18, 2009, on the threshold of a monumental military victory by our Security Forces over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) and in the immediate wake of the victory, General Sarath Fonseka was the ‘darling hero’ of the Government and their propagandists. Pitted against a slackening economy, the military success achieved by our security forces was a ‘god-send’ gift. But everything changed overnight.

There was no vehicle on the road that did not fly the National Flag; there wasn’t a shop, business house or private residence that did not display their solidarity with the armed forces that fought a gruesome war. By hoisting a National Flag they paid their gratitude, in their own humble way. Patriotism was overflowing the banks of human emotion, but then triumphalism overtook sensibility; speaking for minority rights became a betrayal of ‘the land, the race and the faith’. The frenzy of patriotic fever took over the psyche of every man, woman and child of Sinhalese Buddhist origin. Even non-Buddhist Sinhalese joined the crazy bandwagon of victors.

Magnanimity was thrown out the door; petty talk on phony patriotism colored by a Sinhalese-Buddhist tinge dominated the social conversation, whether it was held within air-conditioned Board Rooms, private dining quarters in ‘members-only’ clubs in Colombo or in all the ‘kopi kades’ throughout the country.

The carnival ambiance that pervaded over the urban sector streets and remote corners of rural life did not differ in character; they only did so in content of celebration. It was indeed a moment to enjoy. A twenty seven-year old war had been settled; a brutal terrorist had been killed; his army of terror and cruelty had been decimated and a real military victory had been won. Prior to that military victory, ‘Mother Lanka’ had been drifting in turbulent waters of politics and warfare. For twenty six long and difficult years, she had been battered, bruised and beaten; her self-esteem injured, her pride wounded and her soul tortured and tormented. Into the galloping and gushing elements of the flow, the ‘Government’ jumped and rescued the hapless and helpless ‘Lanka’!

What ensued was totally another story. A heartrending saga of rape, stripping, dismembering and skinning alive is taking place before the very eyes of all denizens of ‘Lanka’. Forgotten are the days of pristine purity of purpose. Gone are the days of sacrifice of glory for humility. The avaricious rulers and their fellow-travelers began their greedy indulgence in the most vicious kind of pillage and plunder. The plunderers and rapists assumed that it was their ‘right’ to rape and plunder, for they are credited with the rescue of the damsel named ‘Lanka’.

The real rescuers were ignored and defamed; their characters were assassinated in the most deliberate and despicable manner. The Army Commander who led on the battlefront was incarcerated, for he chose to exercise his fundamental right to contest the Presidential Elections. Those official propagandists led by the so-called Director-General of National Security Media Center, who later has fallen foul with those in power and tried suicide not once but twice, began disseminating news and half-truths, soiling the profession of media-men. Court jesters ruled, prosecuted and judged on matters of national significance.

When the Ex-Commander of the Army contested the Presidential Elections in 2010, the Tamils in the North rejected the Commander-in-Chief who was the sitting President but endorsed the one who led the fight on the battlefield. What an irony?

Thus the Tamils in the North and East proved that they could accept military defeat but not racial subjugation.
The Mandela-type magnanimity that could be extended to a minority is absolutely abandoned and in its place, petty superiority-emotions and fundamentalist approaches to the entire ethnic issue are predominant. The polarization of the Sri Lankan nation is being calculatingly institutionalized by the installation and toleration of extreme fringe religious groups led by gangsters ‘shrouded’ in saffron robes.

Some key elements in Government circles are sharpening their rhetoric and sloganeering skills. Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), the nationalist appendage of the Government is resorting to random release of their positioning on issues that are not even remotely connected to the Northern Tamil question. Their rhetoric has not weaned off in the slightest; they keep on slamming the Thirteenth Amendment by virtue of which are all Provincial Councils established and operating. While enjoying all the perks and benefits of the system, as one articulate Minister of the Government had the guts to air out recently, these charlatans of the JHU are indulging in the most hypocritical exercise of political duplicity.

While these cultural, social and political raping is being committed by one section of the Government, the dismantling of the economy by way of immeasurable corruption, naked nepotism, incorrigible indulgence in greed and avarice are being practiced by another segment of politicos from the highest to the lowest levels. Welfare of the people is their alibi and failure to deliver is their refrain.

But what is most astounding is the gross indifference shown by the subject people. But that indifference is not just born of helplessness; it has deliberateness about it. That indifference is being encouraged and enhanced by the practitioners of ultimate corruption. The corrupt politicians are, as this writer has remarked on more than one occasion, more corrupting than the system itself as they sustain it and feed off its sustenance; they sleep it, breathe it and live it to the full. They are not only the prime movers of the system, they are the system. They cannot advocate the eradication of it; on the contrary they find excuses and not reasons to maintain it. The obvious and lame reason they could ever offer is: “Everyone is in it, so should you too”.

No political leader of Government or Opposition has offered an end to it. Anna Hazari of India is not even mentioned in passing. In a grand mosaic of government-corruption, the dancers and musicians are the corrupting politicians, mesmerizing the onlooker to a magical spell of delusion and deceit and to an intoxicating aroma of avarice and sensuality. The binding effects of corruption, its temperamental lure to falsehood coated in a veneer of reality have all taken their toll. The average Appuhamy has taken this all-consuming corruption for granted. He himself has become not only a victim of it but most of the time he is an active and willing participant of this growing enterprise of corruption.

All this sordid practice is being enabled through the remarkable marketing of a false patriotism and a phony righteousness. Both patriotism and righteousness are two of the most easily marketable concepts. That marketability has in turn enabled all politicians, especially of the governing circles, to be entangled in most dastardly practices without being accountable and transparent. When one asks for that elusive accountability and transparency, they hurl the most vituperative stuff at the accuser. They celebrate the ill-gotten wealth and comforts as if they were entitled to them. Grander schemes are being planned and plotted every hour of the day in every lounge and bar in five-star hotels. ‘Mother Lanka’ is being raped and onlookers too have become willing participants of this ghastly act. All in the name of patriotism and righteousness.!