Editorial

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What ethnic riots?

Mawanella represents one of the most virulent manifestations of political Mafioso, but the phenomenon of organized political thuggery begins with a attitude that the PA government seems to blithely condone, if not encourage. 

Storming the Royal - Thomian cricket match without tickets, for instance, may not match the proportions of the high-handedness displayed in Mawanella. But, the government’s inability to contain the arrogance of politicians, their sons, bodyguards and henchmen, results in the general attitude adopted by political Mafioso about what they can get way with.

In the aftermath of what are called “ethnic riots’’ there will always be recriminations. But, a social treatise or a seminar at a auditorium in Colombo is not required to determine that Mawanella was a result of an all too common malaise in our society. The gun-culture has exacerbated, in spite of the returning of weapons after the period of the JVP and the resultant paramilitaries. Police inaction is contagious, particularly when political thugs are concerned. 

A whole thesis has grown around the matter of police apathy, culminating in the vogue theory that a Police Commission is a immediate requirement. The merits and demerits of that argument have already acquired a decidedly political coloration, which means that discussion is best avoided. There is no dearth of previous commission reports as regards the conduct of the police, and these reports are replete with recommendations on how a police that may be cowed for various reasons from acting against political miscreants, can be goaded into action. There can and should be another round of “localized disarmament.’’

Friday night’s curfew is a good indication of the inability of the police to come to grips with a developing situation. Police ineffectuality resulted in a so called precautionary curfew, which, however laudable its motives, was an over - reaction to a situation which could have been easily checked by measures less drastic than a curfew spread around the entire Western Province.

Curfew’ are ad hoc and sanctimoniously panicky reactions to situations which need to be prevented not by the hour, but by effective long term measures that purify society from its dregs which proliferate as all kinds of Mafioso, political or otherwise.

Mawanella madness will be forgotten, until another bout of riots rears its uglier head, and the whole of the elite establishment goes into another round of apoplexy about what can be the antidote to such social malaise. Ethnic conflagrations themselves, precipitated for whatever reasons, are dangerous due to the fact that we live in times where such flare ups can be exploited by elements in society which have something more than an ethnic agenda on their minds.

The public for instance should be vigilant against a possible LTTE attack on a Vesak Pandal or a Dansela, accompanied by an Islamic cry so that the blame is neatly placed in such a way that ethnic riots will almost inevitably be expected as a result. At least that will be the hope of the perpetrators of any such attack.

Therefore, before Mawanella is replaced in our notoriously short collective attention spans, it is worth planning against similar occurrences in the future, considering that the causes of such conflagrations are usually anything but ethnic.

The Political Column

Editorial/ Opinion Contents