If the conscience of a country is rotting and the people lack the sensitivity to realize it, then that country may be considered one that is in a state of woe.
This state of woe has arisen in society’s conscience. Although our society has a conscience, it has no capacity to identify pain. The conscience is either dead or is so benumbed that it cannot recognize pain.
Prof Daya Somasunderam’s book ‘Scarred Minds’ is a profound analysis of the manner in which the Tamil mind has been distorted in conditions of mass violence in which the Tamil community had been compelled to live. Although the professor writes about Tamil society, his observations, I think, are true about the entire Sri Lankan society including the Sinhala and Muslim communities.
There may be differences in the way in which the shock waves of mass violence have affected the Tamil social consciousness on the one hand and the Sinhala social consciousness on the other. But it may be said that those shock waves have distorted and sickened the entire society.
The Tamil society, it is true, has had to live a longer and continuous period in the midst of mass violence. However, a number of lives comparable to those lost in that long period were lost in the brief period of two years from 1988 to 1990 in which the JVP rebellion took place. Yet the extent of destitution and the loss of property is much higher in the north.
However, the violence in the north always had a connection with the south. It is from the south that the government forces recruit manpower. In the war waged by the government forces against the LTTE forces, ordinary Tamil people in addition to Tiger soldiers, male and female, have been killed. On the other hand, ordinary Sinhalese too have been killed in addition to members of the government armed forces by the LTTE armed forces.
Violence affects not only the mind of the person who is subjected to violence but also the mind of the person who perpetrates violence. In addition, violence also affects the minds of the people who witness it.
Those who had been or who are directly involved in institutions that had been or are being involved in agencies maintained for violence (government forces and anti-government forces), as well as those who were killed in such violence, those who were oppressed and those who have lost their property, although they have not been killed, might exceed half the population.
The others might not have incurred direct losses but may have witnessed what has happened. They may have inhaled the smells, heard the noises. Thus, it may be said that the shock waves of the violent activities that reigned over the country for a continuous period of nearly two decades, have affected the minds of the entire Sri Lankan society in one way or the other. It is this state of affairs which has paralyzed or benumbed the conscience of the society.
There is a similarity between the manner in which things are happening in the country on the one hand and the path of Sri Lanka’s cricket on the other.
A state of affairs prevailed in the country in which all other games were sacrificed for the sole existence and progress of cricket. No other sport suits commercial propaganda as does cricket. A football match takes only a short period of time. Consequently there is no time, in the midst of the match, for commercial advertisements. The position of most sports except cricket is the same. It is only in cricket that there is the possibility of inserting commercial advertisements in the midst of the match especially during the interval between two overs.
In these circumstances, a situation existed in the country where the existence of all other sports which had no space for commercial advertisements were done away with, and cricket alone was promoted. Gradually the people were weaned from the other sports and turned into a people who watch a contest between two cricket teams of eleven members each.
When Sri Lanka won the Cricket World Cup, playing in the national team as well as the management of that team became a means of earning money in a big way. At the same time, those who were in it turned it into a place where others had no access. For the same purpose, provincial cricket tended to be ignored and killed. In a context in which no new blood came in to the necessary extent and rotten blood was not expunged, the sport of cricket itself, which had developed at the expense of all other sports, moved towards its near demise.
The administration of the state had become an official permit to plunder public property. The administrators plunder state property not stealthily but in public. Although there are strict rules to punish bribery and corruption, they do not seem to apply to the administrators. The people too do not appear to consider such questions as vital.
Under the constitution, it is the general public who have sovereign power. That sovereign power too is liable to be plundered. What is of importance to the commissioner of elections, the attorney general or the judiciary is who wins, not how he or she wins. Their loyalty is to the winner. Although the constitution is the fundamental law of the land, the ruler has the right to flout it. The judiciary too seems to function on the basis that the ruler must have such a right.
The 17th amendment to the constitution was introduced with the aim of setting up a system of independent commissions. The President did not like it because it was a system that would diminish her powers, but, for the purpose of setting up a probationary government with the JVP, she had to consent to it. However, on the pretext of preparing a new draft, she was able to distort its essence. The JVP, which functioned as the middleman for the purpose of getting the President’s consent to the amendment, was unable to see the meaning of those distortions. The UNP which was dreaming of power, too, did not see the distortions.
The PA, at the committee stage, had to allow the appointment of members anew to three commissions, in order to get the support of the UNP for the purpose of getting the draft passed. However, after the amendment was passed, the Speaker signed the original draft and not the draft to which changes were introduced at the committee stage.
The President does not have the right to abstain from giving her approval to names recommended by the constitutional assembly. However she does not give her sanction to any name she does not like. The constitutional assembly follows a policy of silence on the question and does nothing to overcome it.
The President objected to Priyani Wijesekera who had been nominated for the post of secretary to the parliament. As a result the parliament has no secretary to date. She also opposed the name of retired Justice of the Supreme Court Ranjith Dheeraratne who had been nominated to the post of the Chairman of the Elections Commission. Consequently the Election Commission is in the doldrums. A Police Commission has been appointed, but has not been given staff as yet. Although the names of the Justices Mark Fernando and Vigneswaran have been recommended as the two other members, it is the same old members who are still there. The Bribery or Corruption Commission too is in a state of inactivity. Although all these persons are playing with the fundamental law of the land, there is almost no one to protest against it.