Cardboard Hitlers plunging the country into a hellhole
My dear Mahinda Aiya,
Ayubowan, vanakkam and assalamu alaikkum but again this week the peace greeting would be inappropriate if not irrelevant with a full scale war raging especially in and around Jaffna and Trinco, though you keep insisting the government has not declared war and the military operations are only defensive or retaliatory attacks.
Words are cheap or meaningless and the reality is that the casualty toll on both sides is fearfully high with the Gampaha and Ragama hospitals reportedly being cleared to accommodate wounded soldiers . According to most analysts, you appear to be cornered largely due to weak, immature or inexperienced leadership at a time of grave crisis and the lack of think tanks or intellectuals who have a deep insight into local and international realities. Instead, you appear to be depending heavily on your rather inexperienced brothers – presidential advisor Basil Rajapaksa and defence seceretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa – while ‘General’ Wimal Weerawansa, the JVP and the JHU appear to be provoking you into a virtually suicidal point of no return. According to military analysts, the LTTE appears to be trying to corner the troops in Jaffna and Trinco, though the troops are putting up stiff resistance.
Part of the LTTE strategy in the siege of Jaffna and Trinco seems to be the cutting off of air, sea and road supply lines. Apparently the LTTE might try to keep the troops trapped in Jaffna and Trinco till the northeast monsoon starts in October and then the going will be really tough. Amid reports that some censorship of news on military operations might be imposed through a Bush-like Patriot Bill, you called a meeting last Wednesday of newspaper, TV and radio editors.
You were apparently annoyed that a Sunday newspaper which is highly critical of your administration was represented only at a virtual free lance level. You told the editors you believed there needed to be a greater sense of responsibility and sensitivity to national interest in the reporting of military news. A Sunday newspaper said the proposed Patriot Bill would impose censorship on news relating to military operations, strategies and even weapons purchases.
The need for more responsible, balanced, fair and accurate reporting is stressed even among the committed and dedicated journalists who have expressed grave concern over the growing trend towards unbalanced, unsourced, inaccurate and unfair reporting which sometimes goes to the dangerous or destructive levels of provocative or inflammatory reporting and feature writing.
This is a problem that has to be identified and addressed by the media professionals themselves. But whatever your Basils and Gotabayas might be telling you about censorship, such exercises in the past have turned out to be terribly and horribly counterproductive if not destructive.
One of the big stories last week was the peace march organized by the National Anti-war Front and its disruption by some members of the Jathika Sangha Sammelanaya. Amid the typical confusion within confusion, conflict within conflict and contradictions within contradiction of today’s achcharu politics, some reports say you gave your blessings for this peace march. One of you close advisors Vasudeva Nanayakkara was among the leaders of the peace march along with Deputy Ministers Dilan Perera and Mervyn J. Silva. The UNP, the TNA, the SLMC and several other parties were also represented at a high level.
In the peace march the main message was that war is not the answer and that conflict resolution should take place through dialogue, accommodation and a win-win solution. While Deputy Minister Mervyn Silva was speaking some monks of the JSS got on to the stage and said the peace march should be held not in Colombo but in Kilinochchi.
While accusing the LTTE of fascism, groups like the JSS, the JVP and the JHU also often show an attitude or behaviour of fascism. They need to be aware and the monks especially, should be enlightened enough to realise that while they have their points of view or perceptions of issues and events, there are only relative and not absolute.
Any person or group which believes that its mental picture of an issue is the total and absolute is apparently suffering from a mental imbalance known as bigotry. While we have our own perception of a particular issue and have right to have that perception, we need to be aware that other people have the right to see the issue in a different way. Mahatma Gandhi one of the most enlightened world leaders of modern times has warned that bigotry often leads to massacres and extermination of people.
He points to Hitler – ‘General’ Weerawansa is often portrayed as a Hitler today – as the most dangerous and bloodiest example of bigotry. The mad Hitler had a mental perception that the Germans were the pure Aryan race. Those who did not fit into that picture – it happened to be the Jews – were first marginalized and then exterminated. At least six million Jews were killed because of Hitler’s bigotry and the advocates of bigotry need to realise that their attitudes and actions could cause suffering, if not death, to thousands of people.
With the war raging in the north east and with other parts of the country thrown into fear and tension, the economy is facing a situation similiar to the one that existed before the 2002 ceasefire – a disastrous plunge to growth below zero level.
Tourism and investment are the first casualities, with most economists warning that unless there is a turn around to the peace process an economic catastrophe will take place. But your propaganda organs seem to be going off balance with one of your flagships giving page one lead story that the economy is booming – perhaps some one made a mistake and the reference was really to bombs.
So you are cornered and desperately looking for an exit strategy. Most analysts believe that to pull the country and yourself out of the bloody mess, one of the essential steps is to get rid of extremists like the JVP and the JHU.
If you don’t have the courage to reject Sinhala extremism and take this country to the moderation of a middle path then Doom or Destruction is written with a capital D.
Yours sincerely,
Koththamalli
[DailyMirror.lk]
