Pity the land …

Monday 29th August 2022

Sri Lanka is looking for heroes. Those who made themselves out to be heroes and secured high positions have been found to be incompetent cowards. Bogus heroes have reduced the country to mendicancy over the decades. Unhappy is the land that needs heroes, as a Brechtian aphorism goes. Sri Lankans tend to see a hero or heroine in every average yet glib politician with rhetoric rolling off his or her restless tongue. Their despondency is such that they pin all their hopes even on the politicians they once rejected as worthless.

Movie star-turned politician and former SJB MP Ramanayake came out of prison, the other day, to a hero’s welcome. It was like a scene from a surreal flick, where he plays the hero. What was the heroic deed he had performed to deserve such a rousing welcome? This is the question one must have asked oneself on beholding that spectacle.

Ramanayake found himself behind bars having made a derogatory remark about judges; the judiciary found it to be an affront to its dignity. Does the act of serving a jail term for saying something nasty about others boldly, apologising for it meekly and receiving a presidential pardon submissively make anyone a hero? Ramanayake’s apology to the judiciary prior to his release from prison is tantamount to a kind of public mea culpa; he has admitted that he shot his mouth off and landed himself in trouble in the process.

Ramanayake, however, may be admired for some other things such as his thirst for education and courage to be critical of politicians. He has demonstrated that one’s age is no barrier to one’s education.

Curiously, although Ramanayake’s sweeping statement about the judiciary at issue was taken up by lawyers and others, who let out a howl of protest, some home truths he has uttered about the legislature and politicians, have been ignored.

One may recall that during the Yahapalana government (2015-2019), Ramanayake did not mince his words when he said in the course of a parliamentary debate that some ministers were addicted to drugs. He drew heavy flak from his colleagues and opponents alike for saying so, but he stood his ground. Whether he told the truth, one may not know, but such a serious allegation should not have gone uninvestigated. Drug addicts in high places are a danger to society; the future of the entire nation will be in jeopardy if druggies are allowed to govern the country. The Yahapalana ministers who chose to remain in the UNP lost their seats at the 2020 general election, and others are currently in the SJB. So, Ramanayake must tell the public whether the drug addicts he spoke about are in the Opposition at present, or back in the Cabinet.

Ramanayake revealed, at a media briefing in 2019, that he had asked the then Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and the Inspector General of Police to conduct a probe into his allegation that some ministers were drug addicts. It will be interesting to see whether the then Speaker and the IGP took any action.

The SJB has said it will do its best to bring Ramanayake back to Parliament via the National List. Before doing so, it ought to call for a probe into what he said about the druggies in the garb of MPs, some of whom may be in the Opposition.

Meanwhile, lawyers bayed for Ramanayake’s blood, so to speak, when he made the above-mentioned statement about the judiciary. Having evinced a keen interest in safeguarding the dignity and independence of the judiciary, will they explain why they have not called for any action against some members of the legal fraternity who threatened judges and smashed up court furniture when the judgment in the White Flag case was delivered in 2011?

The police had to escort the terrified judicial officers out of the courtroom. There was a female judge among them. Is it that all people are equal before the law, but lawyers are ‘more equal than’ others? Will the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) provide an explanation?