For
this comic relief much thanks
So
another year has passed. Our blessed isle, though bruised and battered,
has somehow survived no thanks to its politicians. This being the
season of good cheer we should be charitable to all, even parlour
patriots and assorted self-proclaimed thinkers who fellow columnist
Thalif Deen prefers to call third rate intellectuals.
This
is the time of year when we must be magnanimous to those who have
filled our dreary days with jollity, made us burst into uncontrollable
laughter with their sayings and doings. To them we offer our humble
thanks for the unintended humour that made life more bearable.
Never
mind that the much-vaunted peace process lies still and the set
piece dialogues have come to a studied halt. Never mind that all
the king's men and Akashi too cannot make the Wanni Nayakar change
his sullen mind.
Never
mind that the political 'confrontasi' between the President and
the Prime Minister remains unresolved despite two unknowns named
Malik and Mano behaving like an amateur dance hall duo performing
a difficult pirouette.
Never
mind that our MPs partaking of the subsidised food with Falstaffian
relish at the Diyawanna Oya rest house, are fighting a losing battle
against their expanding waistline while the public is desperately
struggling to keep its collective head above the poverty line.
Never
mind all that. These have been difficult times, they have been troubling
times. But for the political peccadilloes of our leaders where would
the denizens of this paradise be but sulking in some corner like
Achilles.
So
to them we pay obeisance this first Sabbath of the new year. It
is no easy task to name them all, the list of cabinet ministers,
ministers assisting this and ministers not assisting anything, deputies,
bureaucrats, diplomutts (oops sorry, diplomats) fawning faithfuls
and parasitic hangers-on reads like the passenger manifest of a
jumbo jet.
Shakespeare
was done with one Malvolio. But that will hardly fit the bill in
paradise where the competition for unappreciated comedy is so fierce.
Despite possible charges of political bias, bribery and corruption
and a hundred other sins, we shall undertake this arduous task of
honouring where honour is due.
Should
we choose President Kumaratunga and her faithful followers who berated
the government and the Mass Communication Ministry for granting
an operating licence for an LTTE radio station in Kilinochchi. Some
even went to court over it. But as minister in charge now has she
cancelled that licence which was temporary anyway? Not on your life.
What
about Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who belatedly discovered
that his knowledge of English grammar and that of his speechwriters
failed the crucial test. Some blame it on the school attended. Others
say this is the trouble when you depend on foreign speech writers,
be they of British origin or discards from British politics.
Enough
has been said in this column about Minister Milinda Moragoda whose
penchant for anything American makes one wonder which country he
owes allegiance to and if he has a green card that has turned greener
in our pastures.
Still he has provided us with enough laughs during the year we have
ruled him out of this contest.
Talking
of the United States how can one ever forget that memorable speech
of Consumer Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake at the WTO conference
in Cancun earlier this year that had most knowledgeable persons,
including, I suppose, some Third World intellectuals, rocking and
rolling with laughter.
Hailed
by a section of a sycophantic press, Karunanayake certainly made
an epoch-making speech. But it was epoch-making for all the wrong
reasons. But then it should come as no surprise. He is selling off
so many of the assets that come under his ministry. So selling Sri
Lanka down the river is no big deal compared to some other deals.
If
it is true, as some say, that he has an American as a speech writer,
it might be one reason for the volte face. It seems we can't even
write our own pro-western speeches these days and have to hire an
American to praise American policies. What a laugh that.
But
for consistently providing us with bellyaches my vote goes to Foreign
Minister Tyronne Fernando. His recent reply in parliament on the
foreign ministry votes would have been voted the joke of the year
if the matter was not so serious. Faced with "financial constraints"
the ministry is "embarking on a rationalization of our missions
abroad".
"I
particularly find when I travel around that many of our missions
are overstaffed". Jokes apart, if money is a problem why is
Minister Fernando travelling around so much. After all he does not
have to do so to discover that our missions are overstaffed or that
there is plenty of dead wood lying around in them. He can do so
from home by asking a simple question- who started this rot?
During
his current tenure he has packed our missions with persons from
Moratuwa and other party hangers-on. I wrote last year how the foreign
ministry in Colombo asked for 13 visas to send recruits to our High
Commission in London causing consternation among British authorities.
Eventually Sri Lanka had to beat an ignominious retreat and change
the status of those being sent, mainly from Moratuwa.
They
came several months before the existing staff were terminated, resulting
in Sri Lanka paying out additional salaries costing the High Commission
around £10,000 a month. Surely there would be "financial
constraints" when taxpayers money is wasted on jobs for the
boys and girls.
A
so-called gardener was sent to a mission that had no garden, and
receptionists who could only speak Sinhala and were of little or
no help at the reception, to other capitals. Some unnamed foreign
ministry spokesman was quoted as saying that political appointees
had always been posted. What he didn't say was what two deputy high
commissioners were doing in our Australian High Commission or how
a driver recruited from Sri Lanka to our New York mission was elevated
to protocol officer.
Joining
battle on behalf of the government our UN representative Charlie
Mahendran was quoted in news reports as saying that one reason for
the financial problems was the opening of several new missions by
the previous foreign minister.
If
that is true one-time career diplomat Mahendran appears to have
forgotten the value of keeping his mouth closed-and his ears and
mind open- on political issues. As our man in New York he might
be better suited to say how the "grammatical error" slipped
into Ranil Wickremesinghe's UN speech. Or is he not consulted on
these matters and his job is to make sure that Wickremesinghe's
former STF bodyguard is elevated from driver to protocol officer.
Instead
of trying to pass the blame on to the Treasury, Mahendran might
explain how foreign ministry money was spent on accommodating a
dozen Sri Lankan journalists at the Ritz-Carlton during the Wickremesinghe
visit and how much had to be coughed up for unpaid telephone and
other bills by journalists and delegates. But then Mahendran has
given up diplomacy for politics. That explains his unexpected and
spurious defence of the establishment. There is always room for
more Malvolios.
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