Sunday Times 2
Freedom of speech in an African Way
View(s):Freedom is there but no guarantee of freedom after speech
Chairman of the Rajapaksa family party, the SLPP (Pohottuwa) and Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris, until just one Full Poya Moon ago, protesting outside parliament on Wednesday that he and thirteen MPs were prevented from speaking in parliament, reveals the inglorious uncertainties of Sri Lankan politics today.
Prof. Peiris, former dean of the Law Faculty and Vice-Chancellor of the Colombo University, Rhodes Scholar, BCL Oxford and many other legal academic adornments, is considered as a constitutional authority. Yet, according to the parliamentary procedure recently adopted, he has not been given time to speak in parliamentary debates after he and 13 other MPs voted for Dullas Alahapperuma, a Pohottuwa candidate who lost the presidential election in parliament.
Whether this is considered to be constitutionally correct is now a moot point and not yet settled.
He has said that the government which is accused of suppressing the voice of the people is now silencing critics in parliament.
Indeed President Ranil Wickremesinghe who is strongly denying charges that he is suppressing opposition criticism is also accused by the Aragalaya or Gota Go Home protestors that they are being arrested and remanded for expressing their opinion which is not illegal and is in accordance with the laws of Sri Lanka. They are accused of doubtful violations such as preventing police officers from carrying out their duties (during demonstrations). An Inter-University Students’ Federation leader who has been vociferously and openly critical of both the Rajapaksa government and President Wickremesinghe’s government is being held in custody although he points out that opposition criticism and demonstrations against governments have been held by the highest courts of the land as not being illegal. Many others have been arrested and released on bail.
Wickremesinghe accuses those arrested of being involved in acts of terrorism.
These assertions of suppression of opinion critical of the government and counter-charges of terrorism ring a bell way back into Africa in the 1970s.
Idi Amin, a notorious dictator, declared: There is freedom of speech in Uganda although I cannot guarantee that freedom after the speech.
This writer does not contend that this country has sunk to the levels of Idi Amin’s Uganda. But we can appreciate the thinking of those young men and women who through sheer non-violent means and generation of public opinion threw out a corrupt and inefficient government that brought this country to ruin. That surely is the best demonstration of democracy in action in recent times in any part of the world.
Playing T-20 Cricket is like playing ‘Booruwa’
With entire Lanka going Ga-Ga on winning the Asia cup we want to warn our young inexperienced cricketers of the pitfalls that are ahead.
The game of cricket, we were told long ago, is fraught with ‘glorious uncertainties’. That was the term used when only Test Cricket was played — the dour game that went on for five days and even after that no decision could be reached at times. The Americans described this game of cricket as ‘baseball played on tranquilisers’. T-20 cricket cannot be described as such because within a matter of hours, the game could reach a climax, often in the last over or even the last ball making all involved go into a frenzy.
After the recent Asia Cup victory, our boys have been accorded attributes such as being an example to the nation now in the doldrums and are capable of showing the way out.
What is forgotten is that it is a game where luck plays a vital factor along with cricketing skills. A colleague has likened T-20 cricket to a game of ‘Booruwa’, also called, ‘Asking or Hitting’. To those not initiated with the game, it is one where a well-shuffled pack is played and the dealer asks the player: Red or Black, and with all cards being red or black, It is a 50-50 chance. Our cricketers should realise that their chances of winning are only a little better than in Booruwa.
The media can play an important role, particularly, in conditioning the minds of players. Virat Kohli (called King Kohli) is undoubtedly one of the most talented batsmen in the world but he is being reduced to a mental wreck by the Indian media by making him the ‘King of Cricket’ in the one billion-strong nation. He is expected to delight the billion people in every game he plays. But the poor fellow in recent times has been failing in one game after another.
That fate can befall anyone of our Lankan heroes. Let’s hope not.
We do not claim to have been any sort of cricketer but have been only an irregular spectator for over 70 years.
(The writer is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader)