POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK

POLITICAL SKETCHBOOK by Rajpal Abeynayaka

The black art of talking about crime
Crime consciousness had Sri Lankan politicians doing overtime. MP Dilan Perera waves his arms about, and he is a perfect Batman imitation of a crusader against crime. Or maybe a perfect Superman impression.

He zooms in and zooms out - - - maybe it is the effect of the television camera zooming in and zooming out of him, but the net special-effect is that he is Batman, in his mind.

He says 'we parliamentarians are social vigilantes. That is why we brought a coffin into parliament -- and came dressed (like Batman) in tee-shirts.'' Actually this most significant thing about Batman is that he wears his underwear on the outside. Dilan Perera and the SLFP boys came inches close to doing the Batman impression because they decided to get into parliament in black T-shirts which did look life Batman's underwear, especially on the person of Arjuna Ranatunge who looked like Batman in retirement reclining on the floor of parliament.

So Dilan Perera comes alive as Batman on TV (or Superman take your pick) and he says that everything is being done by Batman… sorry, the PA members of parliament … to ensure that people can live peacefully and without the fear of being victims of criminal elements.

But wait a minute? All he is talking about is attacks on his own party - - and then, his opposite number in the UNP takes up the cry and says that UNP MPs too were attacked in the past, during the JVP era and the Kumaratunga administration etc., This Batman is for saving his own rear, and if that was the case, why is he making all these great sucking sounds and grand sweeping movements as if to say he is Batman, authentic -- the vigilante and crusader who is a romanticist, dedicated to the safety of the people?

Either that or they all hate John A. John Amaratunga doesn't play Batman -- he plays highway vigilante. He was not present at the talk show which veered onto the subject of whether the Organised Crime Bill should be introduced or not. If he was there we may have been witness to another organised crime - they would have slain him, and I am quite certain of that. Rajitha Senaratne came close to perpetrating this kind of organised crime on Wimal Weerawansa recently on television, or was it the other way round?

Anyway back to the Batman and the Dilan talk show. The police officer there was candid --- and when he said that the police fight crime with scant regard sometimes for their own lives, he was telling the truth. It was his day - - and he got most empathy from that show, causing some of the lawyers present there to question their own abilities at grandstanding and show business.

But the politicians, Batman included were worse than the lawyers. Dilan Perera was almost in tears -- his Batman suit crumpled and looking like last week's underwear recycled.

What can we say? Dilan Perera is the ultimate politician -- if he is at a wedding he wants to be the bride, and if he is at a funeral he wants to be the corpse. Catch him allowing a cop to steal the limelight - even for a thin nanosecond of pointless talk-show time?

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