{"id":49911,"date":"2016-11-27T03:32:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T07:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=49911"},"modified":"2016-11-27T03:34:19","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T07:34:19","slug":"rajapaksas-may-return-bogey-used-by-cynical-manipulators-within-yahapalanayagovt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=49911","title":{"rendered":"“Rajapaksas May Return” Bogey Used by Cynical Manipulators Within “Yahapalanaya”Govt."},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Kishali Pinto Jayawardene<\/strong><\/p>\n

For far too long following the change of power last year, many have responded to the policy and practice of the Unity Government with the plea to \u2018tread softly in case the Rajapaksas return.\u2019 The logic (if that is the appropriate word) in this thinking was asinine at its core.<\/p>\n

An outrageous condescension in governance<\/strong><\/p>\n

In other words, if citizens remain selectively silent when the Government goes grievously wrong, the condescending presumption was that somehow, the problem would disappear and the \u2018unwashed multitudes\u2019 will not get agitated. Now, as the \u2018rainbow revolution\u2019 teeters on the verge of diminishing itself to a mere \u2018pappadum\u2019 crunch with gloss and satisfying shine but offering exceedingly little nutrition as it were, the danger signals are very clear.<\/p>\n

Underlying realities were disquieting from a very early point. This approach of \u2018keeping selectively silent\u2019 fed off and reflected an outrageous condescension evident at the heart of the Government itself. Its conception of almost every pillar of legal reform, from corruption to transitional justice to constitutional reform was informed by that same thinly patronizing tone.<\/p>\n

So we had manifest absurdities. Sri Lanka\u2019s transitional justice reform largely left out ordinary people of both the North and the South save and except a \u2018consultation\u2019 process, cynically designed not to have any practical impact on the actual outcome.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chattering travelers on the gravy train<\/strong><\/p>\n

Na\u00efve comparisons sought to be drawn with this exercise and post-apartheid South Africa was almost more than what even the most even-tempered could take without exasperation. The post-apartheid reform process was driven by South Africa\u2019s citizenry from one end of the country to the other, not by \u2018cocktail groupies\u2019 in the plush neighbourhoods of Cape Town or Durban.<\/p>\n

In contrast, what took place from last year in Colombo invited disquieting reminders of the 2001-2003 peace caravan which had soon disintegrated in tatters. The gravy train was in town once again, stuffed to the brim with chattering travelers eager to engage in democracy experiments that had failed calamitously elsewhere. Those who had confined themselves to writing on asteroids or the like during the Rajapaksa years were suddenly transformed with slippery ease to right to information pundits and rights arbiters.<\/p>\n

Most unforgivably, anti-corruption investigations became a source for amusement for the general public. Lacking a thorough overhaul of the judicial process, politicians and anti-corruption activists paraded in matching t-shirts in public, assuring the people that everything was proceeding just as it ought. The culmination of this extraordinarily nonsensical exercise was President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s very public denunciation of the Director General of the Bribery and Corruption Commission recently, leading to her resignation and leaving the credibility of the process in shreds. Now there is frenetic anxiety over constitutional reform in regard to which citizens have been left completely in the dark despite ambitious plans to hold a referendum next year.<\/p>\n


\nWho is indeed responsible for the counter-terror draft?<\/strong><\/p>\n

And it was precisely this flawed reasoning which led to a new draft law on counter-terror, conceived secretly and presented with a flourish before a receptive Cabinet. The Law Commission\u2019s draft at least reaffirmed important safeguards such as the right of a detainee to have immediate legal counsel. This was rudely thrown out in favour of a secretive deliberative process resulting in the worst draft national security law since independence.<\/p>\n

So when the question is asked as to how this draft emerged in the first place, the pointing finger should turn not only towards its architects, including those who insisted on footnotes as the case may be. Instead, there are multiple points of accountability, and not only within Government, I might add.<\/p>\n

Fundamentally the draft\u2019s existence was enabled by a post January 2015 environment in which many seemingly good governance voices were key partners, which tolerated the intolerable, abandoned the first principles of the public trust on which last year\u2019s electoral wins were based, agreed to unconscionable compromises and collectively sought to hush critical voices.<\/p>\n

Any future law reform is \u2018highly inflammatory\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In truth, the bogey call of the \u2018Rajapaksas may return\u2019 effectively played into the end game of cynical manipulators within the government. The point is not that this eventuality may not arise. Indeed, it may well be manifested in one frightening avatar or another, particularly if the current incoherence in managing affairs of State goes unchecked. But if a stoutly independent stance had been maintained and so many had not been co-opted into government in dizzying droves, the chaos of the \u2018yahapalanaya\u2019 accountability project may not have been evidenced quite so egregiously scarcely two years into the election wins.<\/p>\n

Yet we never learn from history. Or perhaps the lessons are clear but that the end game for some is never really about the country itself. Regardless, suggested law reform specifically impacting on civil liberties from this point onwards needs to be approached with a sign reading \u2018highly inflammatory; approach with maximum care.\u2019 For what must be remembered is that however excellent a Constitution may be, this is useless if judges are weak and draconian laws facilitate equally draconian administrative practices as illustrated in good measure by the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).<\/p>\n

Consequently, this week\u2019s unfolding of yet another \u2018consultation process\u2019 in regard to government-led media regulation is not reassuring. As the perceptive should realize, the mischievously framed \u2018them versus us\u2019 dichotomy pitting mainstream media against social media, actively propagated by some publicity hunters for their personal advancement, has now been gainfully employed by interested dealmakers to make a case in regard to the State regulation of both.<\/p>\n


\nRecognising the self-evident<\/strong><\/p>\n

And there is no exclusive claiming of the moral high ground by one against the other. The use of \u2018fake news\u2019 during the recent Presidential election in the United States by a classically opportunistic narcissist now turned President-elect is a good illustration thereof. Thus we have the mournful reflections of outgoing President Barack Obama on living in an age where \u2018people get sound bites and snippets on social media masquerading as news\u2019 and where, lacking a \u2018baseline of facts, everything is true and nothing is true.\u2019<\/p>\n

A crippling blow has been delivered to liberal activism in that country. But it does not take a Donald Trump in the White House to recognize the perils that exclusivist and elitist decision making may pose to a nation.<\/p>\n

Only the foolish will remain sanguine in the face of such threatening realities.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Kishali Pinto Jayawardene For far too long following the change of power last year, many have responded to the policy and practice of the Unity Government with the plea to \u2018tread softly in case the Rajapaksas return.\u2019 The logic (if that is the appropriate word) in this thinking was asinine at its core. An …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘“Rajapaksas May Return” Bogey Used by Cynical Manipulators Within “Yahapalanaya”Govt.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49912,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49911\/revisions\/49912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}