Search for ‘the Truth’ amidst debris of fake news and sacred truths
Quite apart from humanity’s futile search for the ‘ Eternal Truth’ since time immemorial, today, in the age of electronic information, we are baffled to find simple truths even on mundane political matters.
During the past two weeks, the Sri Lankan polity was embroiled in the search for the truth about who was responsible for the hike in the fuel price.
The country was in a ‘lockdown’ in an attempt to halt the Covid 19 virus wiping out men, women and children of all ages. Other related current crises like the looming foreign exchange crisis, the fertiliser crisis and closure of schools became secondary to finding the culprit for the price hike.
Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila was accused by a party official of unilaterally taking the decision but the minister hotly denied this allegation and claimed that it had been done in consultation with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa.
High notes of debate were heard on late night TV talkshows, newspapers had reams of it and street demos were abound but the hike did take place and the identity of its creator remains obfuscated,
Meanwhile, a No-Confidence Motion against Gammanpila has been presented to parliament while the price hike and demonstrations continue. Whether the ‘Truth’ will be laid bare on the floor of parliament is to be seen.
Parliaments are certainly not sacred places for revelation of truths, sacred or mundane, but some --parliamentarians in particular, think so. It is generally accepted as a place for enactment of legislation and voicing the opinion of electorates.
Justice based on facts and the law is expected from the courts and the judiciary but two varieties of the truth have emerged in certain cases under two different political regimes.
So, what’s the Truth and where can it be found?
In this age of information, we global inhabitants are supposed to know everything about anything, anywhere the moment it happens, whether they happened in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, kissing in the corridors of Downing Street or the emergence of the Delta Variant of Covid 19 in Sydney. Minutes after the event, professors from far flung places will be telling us what in their opinion had happened. But do we accept these electronic projections as the Truth?
Donald Trump rebranded the Cold War word, ‘ Propaganda’ as ‘Fake News’ .Propaganda or fake news are not new phenomena but they would have existed eons before even in the times of the Pharaohs, Persian, Greek and Roman conquerors for the great emperors to mislead their peoples to go to war risking their lives and as slaves toil at building massive monuments in the belief that they did so for the gods and not for narcissistic desires of their rulers to be immortals
The age of information is witnessing a battle between the ‘Big Lie’ and ‘ Sacred Truths’. To Donald Trump, the BIg Lie is ‘ Fake News’-- what his opponents (mainly Democrats) say about himself and his doings and the achievements of his opponents and the good they say about themselves. To his opponents, Trump is spreading fake news about himself and the traditional policies followed by them constitute the Truth.
Trump’s ‘ Fake News’ has marked similarities to the ‘Big Lie’ of the Nazis in Germany of the 1930s where the constant repetition of a lie of massive proportions came to be accepted as the truth by the masses with horrendous consequences.
In today’s polarised global world of mass communications, the Truth too has been polarised. Since liberal leaders as well as strongmen, ex-military leaders are chosen by some kind of election, they all call themselves democrats and describe their countries as democracies.
The Western bloc of countries see claims of Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and many African countries as fake news and Russia, China and others see claims made by Western bloc countries as being fake. Suppression of dissent in China and Russia is countered by suppression of minorities, harassment of migrants in the United States and other Western bloc countries. One country’s Truth is a Fake to the other and vice-versa.
When the Truth gets blurred not only democracy but government too becomes blurred and shadowy. The electorate will not know who moved for a price hike in fuel or whether rice will grow better with carbonic than inorganic (repeat inorganic) fertiliser or grow at all.
(The writer is a former editor of the Sunday Island, the Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader.)