Exploring editorials

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

In this era of despondency, one of the few things that keep our spirits up are The Island editorials. In addition to being incisive about politicians of all shades, rightly so, they keep us educated and entertained. With apologies to those who profess a higher degree of learning of Classics and English, I wish to share some of my experiences.

Although we claim to be the guardian of Theravada Buddhism, unfortunately, our history is replete with acts of savagery. One of those I seem to have missed, may be because I left for UK at the beginning of the second JVP uprising, I learned from the editorial “Tears of hypocrisy” (27 Feb.), which stated among other things:

“Among the politicians who decry the undergraduate monks’ appalling behaviour, which no doubt is condemnable, snuffle, blubber and boohoo over the debasement of the Buddha Sasana are some savages with a history of abducting and torturing Bhikkhus and thousands of others to death during the JVP’s reign of terror in the late 1980s. They invented a torture method, derisively called Dhamma Chakka, which was a horizontal iron bar mounted on two shoulder-high posts; Buddhist monks in captivity were placed on the bar on their stomachs and their hands and feet tied before being kicked to death by their torturers in such a way that they would rotate like wheels, screaming. Not to be outdone, the death-dealing sparrow units of the JVP gunned down many Buddhist monks, who were among the thousands of others murdered by the Rathu Sahodarayas for opposing their poll boycotts, hartals, etc.”

Whilst our neighbour India’s flag flutters with the “Wheel of Dhamma” at the centre of it, my heart aches to learn that our Buddhist politicians allowed it to be derided in this manner!

I was intrigued by the following statement in the editorial “Well of hypocrisy” (23 Feb.): “The National Police Commission has become a big joke and the IGP a lackey of the Executive. The police act as the President’s Brownshirts.” Though I initially thought brownshirt may be a casual reference to their uniform, on checking with the Oxford Reference Dictionary, I found the real, the more sinister, meaning: “A member of an early Nazi paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung or SA (‘assault division’). The Brownshirts, recruited from various rough elements of society, were founded by Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1921. Fitted out in brown uniforms reminiscent of Mussolini’s Blackshirts, they figured prominently in organised marches and rallies. Their violent intimidation of political opponents and of Jews played a key role in Hitler’s rise to power”. What an appropriate term to describe the Sri Lankan police!

In the editorial “Farewell to franchise and justice” (28 Feb.), I found this paragraph interesting: “President Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed in Parliament, the other day, that there had been no election to begin with and therefore the question of a poll postponement did not arise. He faulted the EC for having declared the LG polls in contravention of the procedure established by the law. His claim ‘made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes’, one may say with apologies to Hilaire Belloc.”. Being not familiar with this expression, nor with Hillaire Belloc, I did some reading.

Hillaire Belloc, born in Paris to a French father and an English mother, lived most of his life in England and was a writer, satirist, poet and a politician. He was a devout Catholic which went against him in British politics but he was smart enough to make it to his advantage. During the election campaign, when a heckler interrupted his speech with “Are you a papist”, he responded: “Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This is my rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.” He won the election as the representative of the Liberal party!

Belloc’s best-known work is Cautionary Tales for Children, a collection of humorous poems though supposedly for children, are more to adult and satirical tastes. The tale of “Matilda who told lies and was burned to death” is one of the poems which starts with “Matilda told such Dreadful Lies. It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes”. It is very true that Ranil has lost all credibility and has turned into a Matilda!

In “Tears of hypocrisy” , we come across the following the paragraph: “Claiming that they were ardent Buddhists and expressing their dismay at the young monks’ agitation and deplorable behaviour, our lawmakers declared that the protesting monks had brought the Maha Sangha into disrepute. Those worthies seem to think that the people have drunk from the River Lethe, and forgotten their despicable behaviour. They behave in a far worse manner than undergraduate protesters; they trade blows and raw filth in the House and, at times, even threaten the Speaker with bodily harm.”

Lethe is the river that flows around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, all who drink from it experiencing complete forgetfulness. It is also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness). The other four rivers of the Greek Underworld (Hades) are; Acheron (the river of woe), Cocytus (the river of lamentation), Phlegethon (the river of fire) and Styx, the river that forms the boundary between the Earth and the Underworld.

“Farewell to democracy”

(16 Feb.) adds a touch of humour, to a very serious analysis, with the following paragraph: “The shamelessness of the Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe regime reminds us of an apocryphal story about a Mudaliyar who was troubled by the womenfolk in his village entering his estate at dawn and removing the coconuts that fell overnight. He failed to prevent the theft, try as he might, despite all his powers and coercive methods. One of his lackeys undertook to keep the women at bay, and succeeded in his endeavour. Asked by his master how he had accomplished the task, the minion said he walked about in the buff, and women ran away! There are situations where the shameless succeed and the civilised fail.” By the way, apocryphal refers to a story of doubtful authenticity though widely circulated as true.

The most hilarious of all editorials, which I can read again and again, still laugh is “If wishes were Tigers” (15 February). You can laugh even more if you read the limerick referred to in this paragraph: “If wishes were Tigers, so to speak, Nedumaran and others of his ilk would ride them. He is one of the few politicians who rode the Tigers, smiling like the young Lady of Niger, but were lucky enough not to return inside the beasts.”

The original limerick, attributed by some to Edward Lear, who popularised limericks, by others to William Cosmo Monkhouse, goes as follows:

There was a young lady of Niger Who smiled as she rode on a tiger; They returned from the ride With the lady inside, And the smile on the face of the tiger.

The whole Tiger story becomes even more hilarious as confidence tricksters, former LTTE members, are duping Tamils in Europe by sending the resurrected wife and daughter to collect money for the treatment of gravely-ill Prabhakaran! They have been able to collect large sums of money, as detailed in D B S Jeyaraj’s column titled, “Fake news fraud using Prabha and family” in The Daily Mirror of 04 March.