‘COOL’ debacle in the hands of fools: He laughs best who laughs last! – I

by Rohana R. Wasala

Addressing a gathering of jurists in Sinhala at a function in Colombo, Justice Minister Ali Sabry said (12): “To me as Minister of justice, and to us all as citizens of this country, people are the most important factor. It is because of them that this (legal) profession exists; judges sit because of them. Ultimately, the interest of the people must take priority over everything (else). I don’t think I will (Ali Sabry chuckled as he said this) seek to go to parliament again…. I state this without any fear… I will revert to my preferred occupation, that of supporting the judiciary…. We know that some laws of this country have not been updated for over a hundred years. This task (of modernising outdated laws) is our key focus… Some thirty committees are engaged in this work (at present) ….. Then the minister talked about the perennial problem of law’s delays. He claimed that even the Mahanayake Thera, when called on him, asked him to do something about the monks having to visit courts frequently (due to the slowness of court procedures): “We’ll introduce a small claims court as found in other countries; cases that involve less than (Rs) 2 million need no prolonged examination of evidence, except in special instances. A method for resolving these cases through an affidavit system will be put in place. This is to relieve pressure on the district courts”. (Explanations in parentheses are mine. I hope I have interpreted the minister’s meaning correctly. C.O.O.L in the title is a re-arranged acronym for One Country One Law)

The present ruling alliance, the SLPP, led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa sought election on the main platform of One Country One Law. However sincerely both reached out to the Tamil and Muslim minorities, and had never practiced discrimination against them in the past, the level of support expected from them was not forthcoming. This was due to the influence that certain communalist Tamil and Muslim politicians exercise over those minorities. It was a fact that the two brothers came to power chiefly on the strength of the SLPP-ideology-inspired Sinhala votes. But, as could be expected, they assured the minorities that their interests would not be ignored in any way; they invited all of them to participate in nation building with the majority community. Steps were taken to ensure that Tamils and Muslims are fully represented in the administration. The key ministry of justice was given by the President to national list MP Ali Sabry. No Minister in the cabinet has to do more with the implementation of One Country One Law concept than Ali Sabry.

Surprisingly, he is now talking as if he has forgotten that all important (at least purportedly so) goal of the government, for which it received the strongest ever electoral mandate. One may think that Ali Sabry is having the last laugh! He implies that even the monks, the most vehement advocates of One Country One Law, are now only complaining about the chronic problem of law’s delays, which, of course, is not a political issue! The One Country One Law ideal involves politics, as it is opposed by a minority of communal and religious extremists.

The appointment of a whistleblower Buddhist monk, who had earned a bad reputation due to his own lack of basic self-restraint and discipline (in spite of his cause being a genuine justifiable one), as head of a presidential task force is as questionable and as irrational as the President’s later appointment of a trade union leader monk as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo; but that is a different matter. Bracketing Ali Sabry with the controversial monk could not be accidental. Though the two are handling closely allied subjects, they are diametrically opposed to each other in their education, religious beliefs, and personal attributes. Probably they were coupled together to neutralise each other, or just to make a mockery of the One Country One Law project.

But extremists are a vanishing tribe nowadays, for there are signs that indicate that these communalists will go out of circulation by the time of the next elections, replaced by the emerging progressive younger generation of Tamil and Muslim politicians, just as the old guard politicians of the two major national parties will be ousted by an alliance of smaller patriotic parties and groups led by a refurbished JVP further strengthened by the return to its fold of its earlier stalwarts,and also accompanied by a rejuvenation of its leadership. The concluding paragraph of an article of mine entitled JVP at a crossroads published in The Island Midweek Review on March 7, 2018 was as follows: “The JVP must take a long, hard look at its wasteful past and subject itself to serious reform as a party. It must get rid of its outdated ideologies and outmoded leaders. It must not condemn the voters as idiots for not voting for them. Most important, the JVPers must find political allies with whom they can coexist and serve the nation.”

(I would now use the term ‘save’ for ‘serve’ in the last sentence.)

I imagine that such a broad alliance will absorb emerging young political activists of all communities including Uvindu Wijeweera (son of JVP founder Rohana Wijeweera), Amith Weerasinghe, Dan Priyasad, Arun Siddhartan et al, and non-extremist ordinary young Muslim, and ex-Muslims such as Rishvin Ismarh (who has fearlessly appeared on national TV channels, speaking against Islamists, risking his life for the sake of the country). Such a winning alliance must have the last laugh. The One Country One Law ideal must be left for them to realise.

That was a sort of anticipatory digression. Let me return to the Ali Sabry factor that is the subject of this piece. A retrospective survey is necessary at this point. About a year ago,

Media secretary Viraj Abeysinghe of the Ministry of Health issued a press statement warning against spreading false information allegedly concocted by certain politicians and websites regarding the subject of whether to bury or burn the bodies of persons who had succumbed to the COVID-19 infection (lankacnews-Sinhala/December 28, 2020). It notified that the Ministry was turning its attention to some ‘politically motivated fake news’ stories featuring powerful politicians connected with the government. The statement further said that for the time being (daenata) cremation alone was done on the instructions of all the expert reports received by the Ministry until then. Very much the same news was carried in Hiru TV News (9:55 pm/December 27, 2020). We felt that this, despite the provisionality expressed by ‘daenata’, was signalling an end to needlessly prolonged dilly-dallying on the part of the authorities about an issue where evidence-based science ought to have had the last word.

Interviewed by two You Tube channels (Hari TV/Lahiru Mudalige/December 16 and Konara Vlogs/Avishka Konara/December 23, 2020) Ali Sabry PC, Minister of Justice, stressed that his struggle was to build bridges rather than walls between the communities. For over eight months by then he had been advocating burial of bodies of Muslims who had died of Covid-19, ignoring the decree of the competent authority, the DGHS (Director General of Health Services). The DGHS was acting on the advice of the local experts who knew best what was suitable for our country in the then existing context, i.e., cremation. The reputed lawyer was the legal consultant of (current president) Gotabaya Rajapaksa at least for 15 years from the latter’s defence secretary days; he had successfully defended the latter against false charges of various kinds fabricated by political opponents. Sabry’s aim of establishing intercommunal harmony had been laudable, and he might be sincere in his efforts in that direction, but how sincere was yet to be demonstrated. This was because it was puzzling that he repeatedly warned that young Muslims were likely to be pushed towards extremism by what they’d perceive as a denial of their right to freedom of religion if the health authorities did not allow the burial of bodies of Muslims claimed by Covid-19. His totally nonsensical stand on the sensitive issue (that had to be left for science, but not religion, to resolve) was likely to give a fillip to extremists and other miscreants opposed to the government to create trouble.

To be concluded