25th October 1998

Murali: a glowing example

Murali, Sri Lanka's spinning prodigy's generous gift to his cricket coach, his alma-mater and his Club is a glowing example worthy of emulation by every member of his clan and a tribute to the spirit of sportsmanship.

His large-heartedness and generosity has certainly earned him a place in the annals of our country as an ambassador of humanitarianism and of goodwill, fostering amity, peace and harmony amongst the different ethnic groups.

Murali has set the pace and it's left to his comrades to follow suit.

Rowan Aniff
Colombo 13

The Tillekeratne saga

A lot of hot air has been generated in the recent weeks in the aftermath of the now infamous Police arrest (CID) of a person who happens to be a High Court Judge of Sri Lanka. According to the media he has been accused along with his son, domestic and others known to the prosecution for two alleged indictable offences namely, attempted murder and unlawful assembly. The gravity of the offences complained of (if true) need not be over-emphasised especially when a member of the judiciary is the suspect.

The complainant happens to be a serving Army Sergeant said to be lying in a serious condition in the Army Hospital. The extent of his injuries is not known but can be well imagined.

If the CID has erred in law or practice, then the appropriate forum will determine their guilt and the offenders punished according to law.

However, in the excitement and furore where many of the legal fraternity and others have jumped the bandwagon to condemn the Police in general and CID in particular, have people paused to give the Police a fair go, the least of which may have been to await the outcome of the cases pending against a man (quite apart from the high position he holds) who has been accused of serious misdemenours. It is sad to see the sacred traditions of the legal profession being so blatantly degraded to the level of what we have seen both in print and electronic media. The question is whether the aggrieved party and his fawning supporters so numerous especially Senior Lawyers and the Bar Association could not have resorted to a more dignified form of protest.

That relations between the Police and the lawyers which have been always excellent in the yester-year have now gone somewhat sour. Unless sanity prevails and the related issues are sorted out and resolved sooner than later, both organisations cannot pick the threads and get on with their daily chores.

I believe the lawyers could have acted in a more responsible manner and contested this matter before the appropriate forum which determines violations of human rights. In this context one wonders why these people who are now very vocal were so silent or too timid to vent their anger or frustration when even houses of certain judges were attacked.

Carlyle de Silva
Colombo

This is just a beginning

Your feature on the tragic death of David Selvakumar Ponniah leads us to question the message we are giving our youth in this land of ours. We have been fighting a war for the last fifteen years; a war that is not even close to being resolved. The youth of our country only have memories of conflict and blood shed. There is a whole generation of young people in Sri Lanka who have no concept of what it's like to live in a land of peace. Can we blame them then, for attempting to resolve their conflicts with murder? After all, that is the path that we've adopted for the last so many years.

We lost hundreds of Sri Lankans in the Killinochchi disaster. The government tries to make wrong right by saying there were more LTTE deaths than Sinhalese. The LTTE tries to do the very opposite. Each side is involved in a massive propaganda campaign. Meanwhile there are others who are actually making money out of this whole war. The war has become a way of life to Sri Lankans. We only read a newspaper headline if the death toll is high; we are slowly desensitizing ourselves to murder. We are fighting valiantly and yet we have lost the very essence of what we are trying to save: a future for our children and ourselves.

The Sri Lankans have lost many valuable years of their lives because of this war. The only reason the war is being prolonged is because the privileged, powerful minority in our society remains unaffected by it.

The death of David Selvakumar Ponniah is just a beginning. The children who grew up in this war torn country are just emerging to maturity. A few more years and we just may have a worse problem than the LTTE on our hands: bloodthirsty youth who see murder and corruption as the only solution.

A Reader
USA

So what's the big deal?

Some newspapers recently published some photographs depicting some cabaret artistes, scantily attired, in dancing poses. Those newspapers alleged that the photographs had been taken at a fund raising function organized during Ranil Wickremesinghe's tour to the USA.

It keeps one guessing as to the reasons behind the publishing of these photographs in these national newspapers. Did they smack of soft porn that violated the social and cultural ethos of the country? The innuendo, it may seem, is that the UNP leader and his wife were frozen on film savoring the fleshy delights that featured in the fund raising function.

At a time when the long arm of the law is hell bent on a mission to clamp down on pornography of all sorts like screening of films depicting explicit sexual scenes, blue films, sale of prurient sex booklets etc., it must necessarily boggle the mind of the average reader as to how the newspapers concerned came to publish the colorful spreads of those curvaceous cuties who in certain readers' minds might have conjured visions of indecency alien to the Sri Lankan culture.

On the other hand for certain other readers of those newspapers the pictures would have brought into focus the memories of their visits to Sigriya and the bare-breasted Sigiriya damsels painted on rock. Without prejudice to any, it is my personal opinion that the T.V. episodes of "Baywatch" expose more of cheesecake and bosoms than the fund-rasing pictures had actually done. What about our own cabaret artistes at sundown dances or even New Year's eve dances organized to usher in the New Year at which a mixed bag of entertainment is provided, including strip-tease.

And do not forget male strip-tease as well. It is believed that politicians of all shades of opinions attend these functions without any scruples of conscience or prudery. So then what's the big deal!

AL-UD-Nabma
Battaramulla.

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