Our people at large do not seem to understand the meaning of democracy
I must congratulate the writer of the letter, “Didn’t his life matter? Shameful silence over death of Borella OIC” to the Sunday Times of March 31 wherein reference is made to my article the previous Sunday in the Sunday Times “Roads, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”.
The people of Sri Lanka have been in a state of successive Government-induced slumber for over 70 years. Historically this is of importance to the ruling parties because had people been watchful and responded well to adverse stimuli the rulers would have found it difficult to govern the way they have done all those long years. The former have been brainwashed into a state of complacency that all is well when indeed they have been slowly falling from the frying pan to the fire.
The population at large does not seem to understand what democracy is all about. For the vast majority of people, democracy is unfettered freedom to do what they want. A good example is what I saw recently down a road in Galle. Two bus drivers travelling in opposite directions had stopped side by side and were chatting to each other holding up two rows of traffic behind them in either direction. Anybody who dared to toot the horn got a frightening stare in return.
Free education though in a devious way means tested and free health care. Even if substandard, people feel they are privileges they enjoy due to the goodness of the rulers. They are blissfully unaware that these are their basic rights. Successive governments have been struggling to rid the island of a simple vector borne disease like dengue fever that claims hundreds of lives each year for the simple reason that they have been unable to launch an effective and sustainable vector control programme. People do not know that it is their right to have a dengue-free country.
The rulers are talking about Sri Lanka becoming an economic superpower in the next few years which the masses would readily believe. They are oblivious to the fact that more than 15% of the population are below the poverty line defined as anybody earning Rs 4166.66 a month while a recent newspaper report stated that the upkeep of a single Cabinet Minister, if I remember right, cost over Rs 300 million per year.
Television channels are full of musical shows, serials, young people’s chat shows and periodic news on how well the government is doing. These help the people forget at least for a while the problems facing the country. Strong nationalist ideology goes down well with the voters who are prepared to embrace it with open arms despite its pernicious nature. This group does not consist only of poorly educated and the economically challenged.
As the thinking power of the people is blunted they consider road crashes as something unavoidable or something happening even as retribution for a bad karma done during a previous birth. A coconut falling from a tree and injuring someone is a genuine accident. Even this is preventable to some extent by plucking all ripe coconuts every two months and not standing under a coconut tree with overripe coconuts on it.
On the contrary a person who sits in the driving seat of a bus will know that he may kill someone if he drives recklessly. Speed is the biggest killer and that is why in the developed countries there are millions of speed cameras in operation. It is scientifically proven that a pedestrian hit by a car moving at 30 mph would have an 80% chance of not getting fatally injured. At 35 mph, just 5mph more, this figure gets reduced to 50%. The bus driver knows he may well kill someone. A premeditated killer also knows he is going to kill someone.The latter knows who his victim is going to be whereas the bus man does not know who he might be killing. This is the only difference between the cold blooded murderer and the bus driver who would mow down an innocent pedestrian or indeed decimate a smaller vehicle with its driver and the passengers. This is why in the developed countries the so-called accidents have been rebranded road crashes or incidents and the act of killing a pedestrian or a cyclist by mowing him /her down, or indeed killing someone inside a smaller vehicle by negligent driving amounts to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. If proven, a long custodial sentence will be the result.
As far as I am aware a driver killing another road user due to reckless driving is not tantamount to manslaughter as per the Motor Traffic Ordinance or indeed the Penal Code and hence even the hands of a right thinking judge would be tied as to the sentence he could impose on the driver whose weapon unusually has been a motor vehicle.
Clearly the legislation has to change and new laws enacted to drag the errant drivers into the net to be punished appropriately. It is the prime duty of the people of the country to elect a Government that would uphold the rule of law and not interfere with the carriage of justice at all times.
Dr. M.M. Janapriya Via email