Those who wait

Friday, 7 April 2017

Today, 5 April, as I write, my heart is strangely at peace. Not
because justice has been done or even looks remotely like it will
be done in a singular landmark killing But because the heart
has its own reasons (of which reason knows nothing) in the case
which might stand, forever unsolved, on Sri Lankas post-war
mediascape. Until the allegedly widely-known killers are identified
conclusively, beyond the court of public opinion; brought to trial;
and justice executed.

Just noting a comment made on a social-media platform by a

perennial faithful of Lasantha Wickrematunge brought a lump to
the throat. Because, behind the forensic scene, hearts still bleed. I
couldnt have said it with more poignancy to capture the panache
of the man or the pathetic fallacy that the beast has life in it.

(By beast, of course, I mean the abysmally lethargic monster

that is our bureaucratic approach to law and order when big
names are allegedly complicit. Be that as it may, Im not going to
repeat my sentiments about a Beaufort Scale for Senior
Bureaucrats. See last weeks column for that
http://www.ft.lk/article/606896/-Storm-warning---Weathering-
some-turbulence-with-stressful-words)

Here is what the loyal scribe whos now gone on to reach editorial
rank herself had to say in remembrance of her first unforgettable
boss Happy birthday, Lasantha [heart icon] remembering you
with much love, as always. Hope youre dancing the baila and
making some prank calls [heart icon, birthday cake icon, smiley
face]. Ditto from us, o deputy editor cum chief sub; our
likeminded tribe of loyalists far and wide hasnt forgotten him,
either, even if everyone else who rode to power on his dead back
has chosen not to remember or let it pass

However, the time for maudlin reminiscences is far gone, like the
long spent day of Good Governance. The sun of hope that justice
will be done in the lifespan of this administration is rapidly
westering. Bother those who feel it has already set! Bless those in
whom the earnest yearning for justice still lingers in the face of
mounting evidence that it will come to nothing in the end like
the Norse gods who valiantly prevailed in the face of certain
doom

No! This column and the cause it champions, inter alia must be
made of sterner stuff. No more lachrymose reflections. The man
whose birth his friends, families, and fans remember today would
have wanted it no other way. There is more injustice in the
prevalent milieu than the unsolved murder mystery of an iconic
editor who stung successive governments in the flank like an
incorrigible gadfly.

That for every Lasantha and Keith Noyahr and Prageeth

Ekneligoda and Taraki alias Sivaram as well as nameless, faceless,
not-so-famous others there are myriad cases of abductions and
assassinations goes without saying. The pity of the matter is that
it also goes without doing, sans passionate but clinically
professional investigations that are transparent to the public.
There seems no impending closure for the curious, the conflicted,
the afflicted. Thus killing the bird of realpolitik with the stone of
media advocacy, and voicing the hurt of a lost generation until
the wounds heal these remain the task of a conscientized civil
society.

With that said, there are diverse (strikingly variant) complex

strands of thought on the ramifications of the case. That this is
the norm in a hybrid political culture where the good, the bad,
and the ugly intertwine like a trinity of serpents some harmless
like rat-snakes, others less so will be cold comfort to those who
grieve for loved ones gone and groan for justice yet to come.
Here is a triad of the dominant discourses as regards the not-so
accidental death of a sociopolitical anarchist:
The Murders were Convenient Detailing in a Larger
Scheme. Move on!

There is a disconcertingly growing number of otherwise

sensible citizens who would argue that the needs of the many
outweigh the needs of the one. Their rationale is that while a free
media is necessary in a time of peace, it was a luxury during the
war. That a gadfly who was inimical to the national interest as it
was perceived then had to be taken out at the juncture that he
was is par for the course in the safeguarding of the republics
security and sovereignty. The role he played and the service he
rendered have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Those who would excuse the then powers that be for acting with
alacrity in assassinating a personal nuisance and a public menace
as those with vested interests would perceive it or him would
encourage the present thrones and dominions not to take too lofty
a view of a resuscitated democracys duty to right past wrongs.
Its live and let die all over again.

(This is a pragmatic view Its proponents are to be found among

nationalists, national-minded defenders of concepts such as
sovereignty of the state and governments prerogatives in
expediting national security ruthlessly, and those with vested
interests in keeping the wheels of commerce and corruption
rolling smoothly even under a new dispensation. Their numbers
are growing as the caravan moves on, and a generation of Sri
Lankans declare for a Lethe-like forgetfulness.)
The Mystery must be a Challenge in a Democracy to
Strengthen the Law. Make hay while the sun shines!
There is still an albeit diminishing number of law-abiding and legal
recourse-expecting citizens who wait in trust. These include the
likes of war widows and wounded offspring, mourners and
grievers, media with an axe to grind, tender-minded philosophers
in the naver demographics of the polity. Their aspiration that
those surmised to be the commissioners and the killers be
brought to book is doomed to be blown to smithereens, while the
ambition of those with their sights on protecting some of the
culpable remains seated in high places.

Think of a recent cartoon in which a former defence secretary and

a former army commander play battledore and shuttlecock a
deadly clinically savvy game of badminton in which the cock
being passed back and forth is bull because there is no smoke
without fire and my former friend is my future enemy when
frenemies at best fall out for the worst possible reasons. Though
the truth stares the simpleminded appellants in the face,
something in human nature pre-empts them for surrendering all
hope Therefore, the stakeholders in the peace with justice
platform press their case and nave, benumbed, dumbstruck,
deceived, civil society occasionally conducts a candlelit vigil so
that the dear departed wont be in the dark in heaven or
nirvana.

(This is an idealist view It fails to take into consideration the

demands that realpolitik makes on our emerging ethos of
democratic-republicanism. And there are enough and more
cynical manipulators to keep the managed spectacle of judicial
investigations, exhumations, the laws delays, the publics
outraged demands, media expectations, fresh developments,
unexpected setbacks, ticking over buying time)
The Milieu calls for Calculated Detachment in Lengthening
ones Shelf-life. Mark time
While the twin scenarios above are figments of my fancy and may
not exist as objective correlatives, the one Im about to present
comes from the lips of a well-placed political interlocutor of the
powers that be. Hes sufficiently democratic-republican to be a
trusted confidant of the Mikado as much as the Lord High Poo-
bah; but hes enough of a subversive to be an outsider with
strategic access to the inside.

His initial contention is that what is apprehended as a lack of

visible progress in arrests being made is merely procedural: the
laws usual and much-cited delays, the wheels of justice grinding
slowly (but, he says, surely). Upon being pressed, the legislator
and much-loved champion of good if not great ideas will admit
that justice delayed is justice denied; adding for good measure
that there is a fair chance that the culprits will not be brought to
book in his political shelf life or the lifetime of loved ones left
behind.

In the interim, all that conscientized citizens and their spiritually

compatible elected representatives can do is reach out to comfort
the victims families, coax and cajole the law enforcement
authorities to expedite the process, and critically engage those
functionaries of the state who dont do their stern duty with
sterner admonitions. Of course, this cunctatorial approach of the
Attorney-Generals Department, inter alia, betrays wheels within
wheels, the deep state as much as the deep fear that to act
without fear or favour now is a sure way to secure a political or
career-wise Siberia for self in the near future!

(This is a strategic view It serves those in power. And a

subaltern perspective suffers in silence as a result. Where the
honest, decent, sincere, genuine, politicos defend the indefensible
and adopt a via media wait-and-see approach, there is a
perpetuation of the old political culture in which nobody in power
or previously in power is ever dealt justice.)
Posted by Thavam