To protest or not to protest? That’s the agitating question
THE PLACE: Near Galle Face Green
THE TIME: Just past 4pm THE DATE: Any day now Excuse me, are you the security guard here?
Yes, sir. What can I do for you? Well good. I just want to know whether there is a spot here where I can protest? I was told that there was a site specifically reserved for protests?
Not to my knowledge, sir. You don’t mean the freedom of speech site, now do you?
Not exactly. I am not seeking for a spot to express an opinion. I just want to protest.
I am sorry, sir. We haven’t still come up with that one. We have the right of assembly enclosure but only to assemble peacefully and pass the time. No protests are allowed there, I am afraid. Hey, wait a minute. We opened this new spot only last week called the Agitation Site. You can give vent to all your pent-up grievances there without disturbing a soul. It seems right down your street. Will that do, sir?
Oh, no, not at all. You don’t get my point, now do you? I have come to protest at a government approved site reserved by royal edict to protest, not to agitate in the Agitation area.
Sorry. You are out of luck, sir, and far ahead of your time. We haven’t come to that stage yet, being sort of busy finding sites for people to exercise their rights in demarcated zones thereby guaranteeing in practice what the constitution lists on paper alone. Can’t you wait till the election is over and we have got our two third? You’re sure you can’t postpone whatever you’re protesting about till then?
Are you nuts or something? No, I cannot. Protests cannot be postponed like polls have been postponed in the past. Any delay is fatal to a protest. Either you protest now and be done with it or the protest is good as dead. A protest must be taken at the tide or you will be stranded in the ebb. Look, I am in an awful hurry to protest before the reason for it fizzles out and I go home unsatisfied with nothing to show for my day’s efforts. You have no idea what it’s like to have a protest pent up in you and then to suffer it dying in you without you giving it release.
Yes, yes, I understand what you mean. Tell you what, I’ll go through my Agitation area Guidelines manual and see whether I can fit you in under some allowed category. Now let me see. You’re not troubled or nervous, are you, by any chance? No, I am not.
I see. So you are not troubled or nervous. Are you, by any chance, worried or angry? Is your heart like a ship on an agitated sea that has been visited by monsoon gales?
No I am not worried nor am I angry and I do not feel like an agitated sea. I only want to give vent to my healthy desire to protest, if not in the open air then at least in a barb wired closed site.
All right, all right, keep your shirt on, I am only trying to help you. I am only trying to see whether this agitation area can accommodate your individual want. Now let’s see the extended list. And whether by any broad definition your peculiar need can somehow be made to fit in with what is allowed here and what is not. It’s all contained in this little kurahan book. What is that?
Don’t you know? It’s the book of books that gives you all you need to know to be a good citizen. And what can be done and what cannot be done. Ah, here’s the section that deals with demarcated zones and the litany of the activities permitted only within those zones. Now what do we find under agitation area, let’s see. Do you want to do some stirring?
What do you mean stirring? Well, you know, whisking, beating, churning, shaking, you know what I mean, anything to cause a turbulence?
I don’t know what you mean, except that all those activities describe agitation. I do not want to stir, beat, churn or shake anyone or anything or cause any turbulence in air, under sea or on ground. All I want to do is protest.
Come, come, now, no need to get so agitated. There’s plenty more on the list. Do you want to arouse, excite, provoke stimulate public feelings through discussion and debate?
Oh, no. Nothing of the sort. You think I am like that guy who taped his phone sex and leaked it to the public to excite their carnal feelings. No. I only want to protest.
Well, you are a difficult customer, now aren’t you?
Now will this protest act of yours cause an uproar which will place the public in turmoil and lead to a tumult?
No, nothing so hot. It’s just a protest. But is that hot stuff allowed in this agitation site?
Yes, most certainly, it’s allowed. It’s billed as one of our star attractions, though none has arrived yet on account of that.
I’m not surprised that there have been no takers.
Why is that, sir?
Well, you expect a small group of people -- which is all that can be crammed into this small enclosure -- to say or do anything here that will cause an uproar, place the public in turmoil leading to a tumult when they will be penned in like lambs in this demarcated site and left alone far away from the madding rush of life’s colourful crowds, to bleat their hearts out till the cows come home and the cockerel comes to roost? You might as well ask them to wait till kingdom come.
Shh… mind your language, sir, fences have ears, remember you’re not in the ‘Free Speech’ area. You will get me also into trouble shooting your big mouth off in an unauthorised area. Anyway, I think I have run out all the approved activities listed under agitation and protest doesn’t come under it.
Will you please give it another try? I will read out what I think what a protest is all about and you see in your check list whether it’s there or not. Okay?
Fair enough. But I doubt pretty much it will be there. Go ahead.
Can I make a strong complaint at this place?
You mean you want to protest against something? No, it’s not allowed here. You can get into a state of agitation or into a tizzy and talk about absolute tosh, but making a complaint, however strong or mild is simply not on. This is more of a place to stir things up, whip up something to a frenzy. Not the spot to hear some boring complaints being made.
Can I at least vehemently express my disagreement with something or someone?
No, sir, you can’t. That would be protesting. And that’s not permitted here. This is for agitation only.
Can I declare my opposition to anything?
Absolutely not. It is not that sort of place. Declaring your opposition would be an act of protesting. And that’s taboo. It does not fall within the ambit of agitation. And has no business in loitering these precincts. Now if that makes you feel agitated, you are quite welcome to enter and work your agitation to boiling point. But if your poison is to peddle protest then you are as welcome here as the coronavirus is. Sorry, but rules are rules.
Okay, I understand that this ‘agitation’ joint is exclusively for agitated folks who are worried, troubled, angry or nervous over something and want to churn, stir, whisk and whip up something to a state of turbulence that may cause a disturbance, commotion, tumult or turmoil. And, let me tell you, I have no such issues. Neither do I have any desire to persist in perpetually canvassing a particular or a variety of political causes or theories and profusely labour to expound its intrinsic merits for the delectation of an unsuspecting public who will all die out of boredom at the end of it. Let’s say, I have no intentions in that regard even as I am not suffering from psychomotor agitation, which can be due to both psychological and physical restlessness, and which can occur as a symptom of severe depression, schizophrenia, or other mental disorder. It is to those to whom membership of this exclusive club is reserved and not to the likes of such as I, whose one and only predilection is to protest.
I told you so, sir. Protest is simply not on the menu, not an aperitif, not as the main course, nor as the dessert. We don’t cater to such pedestrian taste.
Well, maybe not here. But are you sure there isn’t someplace else? I distinctively remember the previous government announcing from the turrets that they intended to have a preserve for protests?
Yes, yes, yes but that never took off ground. Now people don’t even have a place to protest.
But why? After all that big hullabaloo?
There was a big protest against it. So the Government caved in and dropped the whole idea.
Of course, in the good old days, that old building that you can see over there, was used as a special place to protest. Those statues you see in front of it are statues of famous protestors there. Yes, those were the days when they built statues for protestors. Then in the year I graduated from Peradeniya Campus, they shifted it to a lake and there it stagnates in its own mire, so grimy even for a lotus to be born.
So it’s just not my day then, is it?
I guess so sir. And it may not be your day for a long time to come till a special open air camp is set up to hold protestors. But I’ll give you a tip. You can still protest on the road, sir. No law against that. It’s only for ‘agitation’ that you need this special place to agitate for this and that. But if it’s purely a protest, then every public road is yours to protest. Enjoy your right before the shepherd has shut it up in a sheep’s pen where you can bleat your protest for none to hear but your own protesting ilk.