Strip Lanka: You all did love him once, not without cause

He comes from a warrior breed -gives no quarter and asks for none. Many fear him, others respect him, and yet others would see him fall. I do not call him a great man or a paragon of virtue. At the end of the day, who amongst us are paragons of virtue? In replication, the sound of silence echoes in the corridors of each man’s conscience. But, if there be such a claimant let him come forward, and there you will find a humbug.

We are now in the days of indecent public exposure: Using a translation in the context of the Sinhala phrase normally used, everyone is “stripped naked”. These seem to be the catch words of our times. The Government is “stripped naked”, the politicians are “stripped naked”, the law enforcement is “stripped naked”, the judiciary is “stripped naked” the legal profession is “stripped naked”, and basically the whole system is “stripped naked”. There are strippers, counter strippers, belated strippers, round- about strippers, and all sorts of other strippers. We have become a nation of strippers. The international community must be rolling around laughing its sides out at us poor strippers. Very soon Sri Lanka may be renamed “Strip Lanka”, don’t you think?

Chameleonic politics: Here today, there tomorrow, and somewhere else the day after. To my mind, the essence of true politics is the courage and the wisdom that a man has, knowing full well the unpleasant repercussions to him, to leave a political agenda that has turned sour and has gone against the interests of the community it purports to govern provided the law permits such a change. A politician, who clings to his party where that party has gone against its own poli- cies to the prejudice of the community it governs, is a traitor to himself, as well as to the community, and to the country. Loyalty to the party can never be reconciled with one’s loyalty to one’s nation where they are diametrically opposed to each other. As to whether his party is correct or not is a matter of individual opinion and conscience. The basis of the downfall of any government is the hypocritical defence of its wayward policies by its so-called diehard members. Unfortunately, the dying is not done by those valiant members who rally to the party cause, but by the individuals who make up the community who are helpless in the holocaust of political power. I wonder whether an individual who changes sides has committed a mortal sin in changing sides now and again. Or whether he has acted according to the dictates of his own political conscience. Maybe the people who condemn him for his political moves should give these aspects of the issues some little thought in their contemplative moods.

Some may say that he did this to get that or that he got that because he did this. They may be correct -- or yet again they may be wrong. Some may say that certain allegations are demonstrably true, but then again, what is demonstrably true may in fact be false. These are all mind games, the real truth is resident only in the conscience of the doer. Only he knows.

Morality has become another burning issue in recent times, especially the morality of the other man and not one’s own. Let us dwell a moment on the subject of morality. Morality, which means right or wrong, is qualitative and quantitative in substance. It is qualitative in the sense of right or wrong and quantitative in the sense of how many people say so. In the qualitative sense, except for a few universal constants, morality is a rather unstable value: what is right today is wrong tomorrow, or what was wrong yesterday is right today.

Has anyone come across a truly moral man or woman? An immoral man is entitled to call another an immoral man. But, is he also entitled to condemn that second man, he himself being immoral? I believe this entire business of morality can be summed up as:

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try.

- William Shakespeare,

Measure for Measure The latest trend which those who have been “stripped” indulge in is to gallop into the nearest court howling that his -- no reference to gender -- character has been tarnished by the “strippers” and claiming millions or billions of rupees in damages as compensation for pain of mind, loss of reputation and so on and so forth. There was an interesting comment made by a cynic: many people rush into the legal machinery like pigs and come out as sausages. One wonders as to what yardstick people use to value their characters. If a plaintiff claims one billion rupees as damages then I suppose his character is worth only one billion rupees, and not a rupee more. Can a person’s character be reduced to terms of money, or gold or silver? Character is the quality that governs what a person will do or not do in a given situation.

From where do these “strippers” get the right to “strip” with impunity? Where else, but from the so-called “Fountain of Law” which is the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka? Let us take a gander at the substance of the relevant Articles of this sacred document: Article 14 guarantees freedom of speech as a fundamental right. At the time this provision came into being, there was a counter provision in the Penal Code in the guise of criminal defamation, which put a check on irresponsible statements being made against any one’s reputation or character entailing penal sanctions for its breach. Subsequently that provision was repealed from the Penal Code leaving the field wide open for anyone to slander anyone else with penal impunity -- the only remedy available being a tame action for damages in a “sausage” suit. Which is the situation now. So, with the repealing of the check to freedom of speech, the field of defamation of reputation and character opened up like the jaws of the crocodile. Then, with this new found freedom of speech without bounds, save for a few, who, for decades, have been pointing their accusing fingers at various persons of high profile for alleged misdeeds involving their profession and personal lives, a new breed of self-righteous warmongers peddling their wares came into being, like the flood waters of a bursting dam, turning Sri Lanka into a catwalk of strippers and stripped.

As in all wars, in this war too, the guilty as well as the innocent, all get shot, and the warmongers roll around chortling in glee.

How long can one man endure others making a caricature of his life before striking back or folding over? No man is all good just as no man is all bad. A statement which envelopes the totality of human nature, setting out the tragedy of one man’s life, will sum up this article:

“In the fire’s dying embers, My only regrets are these: Of what I did right no one remembered,

Of what I did wrong, no one forgot…”

So let it be with him. You all did love him once, not without cause…

(The writer is a President’s Counsel)