‘Sound and fury’

Monday 3rd May, 2021

A motorist has got into hot water for honking in protest when the police closed roads in Colombo for the motorcade of Chinese Defence Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe, on Tuesday night. Is this kind of action intended to serve as a warning to those who are protesting against the new laws to be made anent the Chinese Port City?

It is only natural that drivers vehemently protest when roads are closed while traffic is grinding nose to tail. Nothing infuriates motorists more than road closures. Roads in Colombo and other urban centres such as Kandy are characterised by heavy congestion, and the traffic police and the government politicians ought to realise that tempers fray when vehicular traffic is disrupted and, therefore, road closures must be avoided, or made as brief as possible if they are really unavoidable.

The present-day leaders have a history of having roads closed according to their whims and fancies. This was perhaps one main reason why the previous Rajapaksa government became highly unpopular and suffered an ignominious defeat in 2015. Motorists had to wait, gnashing their teeth, for the so-called VVIPs to whiz past. Worse, roads were closed in Colombo even for car races much to the consternation of the public. The organisers of those racing events were above the law to all intents and purposes, and did not heed even appeals from the Mahanayake Theras against such events; they held car races in Kandy as well.

One of the few good things Maithripala Sirisena did as the President was to reopen the roads in Colombo, including those near the President’s House. The present government must have found it too embarrassing to close them again, after the 2019 regime change. Old habits, however, die hard. We can see some self-important politicians move about in huge motorcades with their armed guards menacingly clearing their path. This practice must end forthwith. The biggest service these ruling party potentates can render to the public is to stay at home if they feel so threatened as to require the deployment of massive security contingents, and special traffic arrangements.

That said, it should be added that when foreign dignitaries, especially defence bigwigs from powerful nations, travel here, their safety must be ensured, and precautionary measures, therefore, adopted. But this should be done in such a way that inconvenience caused to the public can be minimised. The police have the bad habit of closing roads even before the VVIPs concerned dress up. Why such dignitaries with huge security threats are not taken to the BIA in helicopters is the question. The cost of their air travel will pale into insignificance, compared to what we incur due to politicians’ unnecessary whirlybird rides; road users’ woes will not be aggravated if this method is adopted.

It has been rightly pointed out that the incumbent government, which has got the police to act against the aforesaid motorist, who expressed his displeasure by honking, unable to cork up his anger, has, as its Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who introduced Janagosha or ‘noise protests’, in this country. During the Ranasinghe Premadasa government, Mahinda himself led such protests, critics of the government say. It, however, needs to be added that the goons of the then UNP government attacked the Janagosha vehicle parades, in Colombo. Some of them smashed up the windscreens of several cars and vans near the Lake House roundabout for honking. Journalists covering the event had to run for cover when the UNP supporters turned on them.

Let the present government be warned that it is counterproductive, if not politically disastrous, to suppress people’s right to protest, for frustration wells up, and then pent-up anger invariably finds expression in some ways that are far more politically destructive. What befell the UNP regimes under the late Presidents J. R. Jayewardene and Premadasa, and the previous Rajapaksa government is a case in point. Above all, the government grandees had better realise that getting the police to silence protesters is as futile as using a loincloth to prevent dysentery, as the local saying goes.

We believe that all right-thinking Sri Lankans who cherish democracy and hate traffic congestion are on the side of those who had the courage to protest on Tuesday night.