Columns

There I was writing this column, awaiting the dawn of the New Year with mixed feelings — feelings of hope and trepidation. For the first time as far as I can remember — and possibly the world too – a usually joyous day celebrated round the globe seemed to have lost its lustre. Even if some lights shone brightening up the darkness it was not what humanity was accustomed to once a year despite the differences that divided them.

Earlier in the week, in the United States, the media carried news of a health worker being infected with Covid-19 less than a week after being administered by a newly-produced vaccine.

In some parts of Africa, variants of Covid-19 have surfaced adding additional difficulties to the problems already confronting scientists, doctors and governments racing to end or at least mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

The global economy is in quite a mess and it would appear that Planet Earth has broken from its moorings and is in free fall or whatever astronomers and space scientists call it.

But if nature has turned on Man for the decades it has spent on destroying nature, the habitat in which man and nature both survive, Man is now paying for the thousands of years he has been committing ecocide in the name of development.

What is more despicable and revolting is that Man, governments and big business deny any complicity for what they have done to destroy not only Self but all life forms — be they animal or plant.

Having participated in this ecological homicide, governments and businesses often join hands to blame the media for what they call “fake news”. Had they plagiarised the phrase from somebody more politically respectable and worthy of leading a nation one might have pardoned them for passing on the blame for their degrading acts.

But no, they have to turn to Donald Trump, an egocentric leader with signs of paranoia, who has not only degraded his country by virtually bringing it to its knees by his deplorable conduct but insulted his predecessors in the White House, audaciously referring to himself as the greatest leader the United States ever produced.

It was while recalling events of the past year in Sri Lanka and the world we are struggling to live in as nature strikes back for the enormous damage that politicians and their business lackeys have done, when I came across a press release from the presidential secretariat relating to a news item it calls “fake news” a la “Trump the Chump”.

Headlined “Fake news campaign alleging environmental destruction exposed” (which I suppose is the original banner”, saying  “A fake news campaign that alleges unprecedented environmental destruction is taking place since the present Government came into power has now been identified.”

Not having read the original news report I cannot say whether what is said in the press release is accurate or not. Nor could I say whether the story used the word “unprecedented” to exaggerate the importance of the news or did so to buttress the story with fact to justify using “unprecedented”.

Whether this was fact or fiction, the truth is there have been several instances in recent times where forests and wetlands have been cleared for all sorts of activities violating laws including some areas of the highly valued Sinharaja within days of this Government assuming power without the authority of relevant institutions and using machinery of the army so quickly obtained for use..

This was exposed by environmentalists and journalists and caused President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to call a temporary halt to it but not for very long. Who actually was to benefit from this roadway though some villagers in the area were fronted as the main beneficiaries? There are several examples that could be cited to show that all news is not fake.

Still fake news does exist and the media are basically responsible for it. Sometimes it is deliberately concocted and the reasons are many. At times it is muck-raking, like a mango tree suddenly sprouting from a mango.

Sometimes the muck-raking comes from a piece of gossip that hardly has any basis but is resorted to for specific purposes — to tarnish the character of a political opponent, a business rival or a personal enemy.

But this is not to say that fake news is always deliberately concocted with animus at the heart.  The way political powers and some who have been elevated to positions of authority whether competent to hold such office or not, try to cover up their inadequacies, faults and mistakes by passing the blame onto media, ignores or avoids the fact that the authorities themselves are artful dodgers and manufacturers of fake news. The most recent case of concocting news and misleading parliament and the people is the November 28 Mahara prison riot, in which Police Headquarters and the Prisons Department indulged in claiming that not a single prisoner was shot dead.

Subsequently a five-member team consisting of four Judicial Medical Officers and a Government Analyst who held an autopsy ruled that eight of those killed had been shot.

Attempts were reportedly made by the Government to put the blame on state officials for the condition of the prison.

Meanwhile, Prisons Minister Lohan Ratwatte told parliament that no one was shot. One cannot blame the minister. How could Minister Ratwatte know about guns, gun shots and ballistics? Still if this is not fake news and attempts to absolve the authorities of responsibility, then pray say what is concocted news and misinformation.

What is worrying is that it will not be long if thoughts begin to float around like viruses to impose curbs on the media, especially on social media, whatever Minister Keheliya Rambukwella might say the media garbled it. The question is how it would be done and how it would be applied instead of using it for vengeance. Therein lies fairness.

Maybe Sri Lanka is following other governments that are trying to cover up their misdeeds. But if this is what 2021 is going to turn out to be and what appears to be planned for the New Year, viruses of various kinds are not the only troubles lying ahead.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London where he worked for Gemini News Service. Later he was
Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and
Deputy High Commissioner in London
before returning to journalism.)