“The rebels were marked by their anarchic tendencies rather than in trying to fight back against what are evil in society with a view to create a better society. They showed a similar lack of concern for the security of human life as the state itself. Thus the situation that remained within the Sri Lankan context is one where murder is by the state as well as the rebels.”……………………………………..
By Basil Fernando
(December 16, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) What we are facing in Sri Lanka today can be described without any exaggeration as a very crazy situation. There is hardly anything rational that an average citizen could expect from his society.
The saddest aspect of this craziness is the level of fear that is spread through the entire society. Nobody wishes to do what would normally be called the right thing or the better thing because of the type of repercussions that can be expected to their lives or the lives of their families.
Let us take the case of a doctor who sees the gross neglect that is around his patients. If he sees the lack of medicine or the lack of basic facilities he finds difficulty to speak and talk about these things. In private conversations he might. Otherwise he will not make any kind of visible protest in order to get things done.
It is the same about people in any other official positions. An average policeman may see the utter cruelty that may be done to people without any real justification. Still they will not interfere to do the right thing or to make a complaint about them. The expectation of a chain of irrational reactions which they are in no capacity to turn back into the makes people to withdraw and bear in silence the things which in normal circumstances they would not tolerate.
The complaint that one may be exposed to threats to their lives is so common. This kind of threat is behind the mind of everyone. And the very repetition in telling that such an event is possible itself generates a type of conversation about threats if one dares to do the right thing.
Everyone tries to take extraordinary precautions to remain safe. This is most visible with the parents with children who would no longer trust in the normal securities that may be available within the society for the protection of the young. Instead of belief in protection what the people have in mind are the awful kinds of things that generate distrust.
The most elementary guarantee that there should be in society is the guarantee against murder. What Sri Lankan society has failed to ensure for its citizens is this very guarantee. People engaged in any activity feel that they are exposing themselves to the risk of murder. It is in the very essence of the human species to look for self preservation. To be constantly under the threat of having to face the possibility of being murdered is the most serious threat that anyone can face.
Usually people who live under that kind of fear are those who themselves are engaged in the murdering of others or other such criminal activities. The average citizen in Sri Lanka lives today with the same mentality of fear as most ordinary criminals would only have in normal circumstances. That a law abiding citizen can live with the same mentality as an extreme law breaker is the clearest sign of the type of craziness that has been created within Sri Lankan society.
The first executive president of Sri Lanka, J.R. Jayewardene, said publically that the time has come for each person to look after his own security. Such a statement to come from the head of a state is the most glaring abdication of the powers of his position. The primary guarantees that a government should create within the citizens is that their lives are secure.
That the government is doing all it can to protect the basic right to life is the most elementary guarantee that a state should create within its population. When the head of a state says that there is no guarantee of that in Sri Lankan society then that is a clear indication of an abdication of the most fundamental guarantee that a government should give to its people. This means a basic betrayal of the very idea of governance and the denial of the most basic reason for the existence of a government.
The heads of state of the governments that came later have not tried in any way to alter this statement made by the first executive president of Sri Lanka. While national security is being talked about the security of the people is not an issue that the government shows any concern about.
The very talk on national security is that the security of any individual can be sacrificed for the sake of an abstract notion of what is called national security. The absolute powers given to the security apparatus to deal arbitrarily with the lives of the citizens is what in essence national security has come to mean. The abuse of the national security doctrine so that it can be used for the survival of the politicians at the expense of the entire nation is the transformation that Sri Lanka has witnessed in the recent decades.
In creating the mentalities for insecurity the various rebel movements have also played their role. When the very system of governance goes crazy, the type of rebel that is created within that system also becomes equally crazy. The rebels in the recent decades in Sri Lanka were not committed to transformations of society to make it a better and a more secure one. Instead they were involved in creating even greater havoc.
Thus the rebels were marked by their anarchic tendencies rather than in trying to fight back against what are evil in society with a view to create a better society. They showed a similar lack of concern for the security of human life as the state itself. Thus the situation that remained within the Sri Lankan context is one where murder is by the state as well as the rebels.
Thus in trying to understand the insecurities that exist within Sri Lanka and the resultant mentalities the loss of the guarantee of the security of life should be given the greatest consideration.
How Sri Lankans came to threat murder as matter of no great importance need to be considered carefully.
To be continued …….. -Sri Lanka Guardian
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