Has the tide turned in “red sand field”?
View(s):The events of last week are still being talked about, but their memory is already fading. That old habit, and character, of our island-race’s public – resilience tempered by self-interested forgetfulness – has begun to set in. While some headlines shouted, and certain images lingered in horrified viewers’ minds, and particular mourners loudly lamented the passing of loved ones, the issue remained alive. In a week at least, however, or a month of Sundays at most, Weliveriya in general and Rathupaswela in particular will be names for the dusty history books and sundry lost files and misplaced investigative reports.
Other names like it are legion. These have occupied the media space all too briefly of late. And then, like the last mourners beating their breasts in unutterable grief, they have wound their way over the horizon of recollection into some deep, dark, oblivion where no Sri Lankan of this generation dares to go any more.
Names like fisherman’s Chilaw; free-trade-zone worker’s Katunayake; tourist’s Tangalle; terrorist’s Nanthikadal; anguished youth’s Angulana; psychopathic killer’s Kalawana; dark and dangerous Deraniyagala; the killing fields of Kolonnawa spring to mind. Let’s not forget other names from our chequered past, either; even if the records have obliterated Suriyawewa, Elephant Pass, and Pooneryn; Dehiwela railway station and Wellawatte beach; Wanni as the last front; Kilinochchi and Aranthalawa alike from our collective consciousness – despite studied efforts from time to time to remind the nation of one face or facet of terror.
In tone, and tenor, and timbre, the latter lot of names is perhaps not very different from the former set. In the latter, armed combatants on both ‘sides’ of an internecine conflict sometimes slaughtered innocents. In the former, hostilities were perpetrated by terrorist groups as well as state agencies on the civilian populace. But also in the latter, maybe unequally matched forces – ignorant armies – clashed by night on a darkling plain. And in the former, too, strongmen of disparate might conducted showdowns at high noon in the broad glare of daylight, law and order, and the state of emergency.
Until the Rathupaswela imbroglio, though, there have been mostly confused alarms of struggle and flight, with the press being shackled and propaganda-mongers taking centre stage – to the detriment of truth and justice. After the Weliveriya fiasco, some clarity is emerging in the most negative and frightening sense. We could say that the increasingly clear writing on the wall is the greatest scare of all; by the way, lucid enough since the first armed forces shot was fired at unarmed protestors.
The tide has well and truly turned now; the beast has been unleashed against a home crowd on a home ground; and the mask and velvet glove (if ever it was on) are finally off and any pretence of politeness has been banished with an iron fist.
That the more outspoken sections of civil society – unafraid individuals, unbowed lobbies, uncowed opposition spokespersons, unmuzzled media in mufti – have challenged the men, machines, movements, and monuments behind the heavy-handed crackdown on civilians has left us all with some sense of hope in civil society. That the comments and criticism of the government’s handling of the bloody fiasco have taken their most censorious shape and form, but only out of plain sight and only out of public hearing – in the hidden mediascapes of offsite scandal sheets and yellow journals – is still some cause for concern. That this time the powers that be have gone too far, and might survive to regret their impetuousness in the battlefield – in the near future, on the political scene, where voters have longer and more unforgiving memories than victors – is the uncertain if strangely reassuring mood in editorials as much as everyday conversation.
Be that as it may, the personal impact of the tragic shootings and indiscriminate opening of fire on sorely provoked but unarmed interlocutors seeking refuge from rampaging security forces may overshadow – for a while, in the heat of the moment – some valuable principles we would all do well to keep in mind…
A discontent commoner may shake his fist at kings and generals with impunity. Where a survival issue and or basic human right such as drinking water is at stake, civilized governments can and must give their aggrieved civilian populace some leeway; not be inveigled – even if hidden agendas and unseen agents provocateurs are conjured up – into rash, violent, and eventually tragic responses.
In times of war, bullets speak. In times of peace, ballots sing. The majority of our people and their political leaders had all but signed a contract to this effect. With the state having seemingly reneged on its end of the bargain, there appears to be nothing by the way of goodwill or good faith to make the population at large keep theirs.
The law that has to enforce legislated peace, order, and probity of conduct for protectors of the people’s rights has lost its people’s heart. That is, if any court martial would ever eventuate for the officer or enlisted man who gave that fatal order. We are not holding our breath.
The land that grants its poor, oppressed, and marginalized no relief – but indiscriminately crushes legitimate dissent and reasonable protests – has lost its legitimacy as a human habitation. No great wonder if the court of common opinion at home and abroad will find the behaviour of some elements of our wardens and guardians to be brutal, even bestial.
The power that crushes innocents with clenched fist has lost its rulers’ moral right to demand compliance. Many if not most terrorized people of the so-called south sympathized with their legally mandated state security forces. Those days may be coming to an end.
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus