By

Vishnuguptha

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
~ Søren Kierkegaard

They looked everywhere but they did not see. Some were afraid to look so they did not see either and in the worst case, many others refused to look and they simply did not see. There is nothing wrong or deficient in any one’s eyesight.

They are all healthy, hale and hearty. Their sights are clear; their sclera, the cornea, anterior and posterior chambers, the retina and the lens are all normal and in ideal condition of functioning. Yet they don’t see. It is indeed a tragedy of massive proportions. Its consequent reflections and responses are delayed or none at all. A dreadful sense of foreboding seems to have settled on the collective eyesight of a society.

The enticing webs have been woven; a deceitful ague of terror has entrapped them and caused the temperature to rise and dull the minds which would otherwise be alert and lively; various devious decoys are employed to take the focus and attention away from the present predicaments and inevitable hardships that follow wrong policies.

Lasantha Wickrematunga, the editor-in-chief of the Sunday Leader was murdered in broad daylight, in the middle of a busy thoroughfare close to the city. Four thugs on two motorbikes surrounded the car Lasantha was driving and did him to death, in the most gruesome fashion, undoubtedly causing insufferable pain and agony. Lasantha must have died a very painful death. Tens of onlookers and passers-by must have been witness to this heinous crime; dozens would have been willing to tell the tale of murder. But no eye witnesses, no accounts of details, no nothing. Even the one who was taken into custody has died of a cardiac arrest! Not that there were no witnesses. They have opted to look the other way. They were so blind.

Prageeth Ekneligoda, a freelance journalist who used to write very creative stuff extensively on government corruption and misdeeds of key partners of the Coalition-Cabinet has been missing for almost five years; the then Attorney General went on record saying that Prageeth was seen in a foreign land and when confronted by the Courts had to retract his assertion. Prageeth’s wife is still hopeful about her husband. The tears she sheds and sighs she exhales daily cannot be quantified in any calculable measures. The petitions that she has written and the pages they ran into could be miles long. Yet nobody has seen Prageeth, none has been able to say a word about his last sightings. They are so blind.

White vans have appeared in the most unexpected hour in the most unexpected corner of the land. They came, they intimidated and they took away their target victim. Some days later they were found, dead or alive and nobody knows because those who were even remotely connected to them have chosen to be deaf, dumb and blind. The ‘White Van’ syndrome continued for some time at a very consistent rate but since of late it appears only now and then. Yet the fear-psychosis so created is yet haunting those who were victimized by these dastardly acts of the perpetrators. The witnesses have once again chosen to be blind.

Then came the Wanathamulla fracas; the victim, Sunil has been a supporter of the United National Party. He has also been an activist in the area, providing leadership to various agitational programs. When Sunil and his neighbors were asked to be ready for relocation, they objected heavily and then he was abducted by a strange group of individuals and brought back the day after.

Roshen Chanaka Ratnasekera, a 22-year old factory hand at the Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) was shot and critically wounded on Monday, May 30, 2011 as police opened fire on thousands of workers who protested the controversial Private Pension Scheme, with some 250 others being admitted to hospital as well. The victim subsequently succumbed to his injuries on the subsequent Wednesday at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Ragama Teaching Hospital, prompting the authorities to deploy heavily armed security forces personnel in and around the FTZ which had turned into a near ghost town following the shooting.

The workers and journalists attached to the Udayan Newspaper in Jaffna were intimidated, some abducted, offices set on fire and no effort was spared to discourage the publishers from printing an alternative newspaper in the North. Some journalists are still missing. Journalists are attacked, owners harassed and truth is getting buried. As usual no onlookers and passers-by have the guts to come forward, yet again.

Vicarious pressure is being brought on the election meetings organized by the Democratic Party led by General Sarath Fonseka. Every step of the way his candidates are being subjected to unprecedented difficulty and misery. His supporters are cajoled to withdraw consent for lending their land and premises for meetings at the eleventh hour, leaving no alternative but to cancel the events. Again harassing political opponents is being practiced at will in the ‘land of freedom and love’.

In the main City Center, main artery road is closed for the indulgence of the very, very important persons (VVIP). In the midnight glare of neon lights and imported cheerleaders, they gather to watch the privileged few engaging in car racing in vehicles that are prohibitive in prices and sleek in appearance. A great many people labor, sweat and bleed for the satisfaction of a very few. None is making any complaint. Neither the people’s representatives nor anybody else.

A coal power plant was built and seems to be in operation for the last several years. But it is closed for more days than it is working. A real white elephant and now the talk is that it’s going to be sold to a Chinese company. Handing over of a major power plant to a foreign power, friendly or not-so-friendly, is a political no-no. Yet no one is speaking, no one is seeing. To this lot of economic misadventures could be added the Hambantota port, Mattala Airport and Mihin Air Services. National wealth is being consumed by the kith and kin of the ruling circles without any check, without any balance and without any breaks.

Two Government parliamentarians are openly being accused by the public of being involved in drug-dealing. One is even a member of the Cabinet and the other, an accused in a murder case. The land of the Dharma is being defiled and debased by the ‘Temple Keepers’ themselves. Members of the local representative bodies, Provincial Councils, Pradesheeya Sabhas and Municipalities have joined the bandwagon of racketeers and merchants of corruption and vice.

Not to be left out, even the offspring of Ministers and other half-past-two-thirty politicians have decided to jump in and stir up the broth. Whether the father is a Minister in the Central Cabinet of Ministers or in the Provincial Council, it simply does not matter to these young hooligans. They assume that their fathers’ powers are invested in them too and the unfortunate victims of these petty-thugs are the innocent and unsuspecting.

Wasteful expenditure, extortion, drug-trafficking, prostitution under the pretext of Karaoke bars, rape and even murder comes easy to these ruffians who do not know that ultimately they will have to pay a price for their sins and crimes.

What’s growing is not a “Family Tree”; it’s a “Family Jungle”. Even a blade of grass is of kith and kin. In these woods of vice and crime, the howling of the suffering men, women and children is not heard nor is it seen. In a vast empire of corruption and nepotism, there exists a great majority of subjects and whose eyesight is perfectly normal and without any flaw but who unfortunately cannot see.

This is the House of the Blind.

The writer can be contacted at vishnuguptha2012@gmail.com