01.01.2008
By G. Godabanda
Several
years ago a politician walked into the Divaina editorial
and threw his weight around. Back then he was no doc and
his canine credentials were hardly known. The following
day the Diavaina ran an editorial titled ‘me ballavath
vaha benda thabanu!’ (Tie this dog also immediately).
A couple of years later the said ‘dog’ was
given a dubious doctorate, he became ‘Doc’.
Dr. Mervyn De Silva.
Since
then we’ve heard a lot of barking. Since then we’ve
heard about a lot of biting too. Emboldened naturally
by a master or a set of masters/mistresses who were wont
to look the other way, the creature became even more ferocious.
His bite, we all know, is potent enough, but the potency
is probably best indicated by the fact that his bark was
actually worse than his bite. What’s even worse
is that his master’s voice is and has been virtually
mute.
There
is a kind of kaalakanni sathuta in watching the man get
a taste of his own medicine no doubt, but that’s
hardly the problem. As veteran journalist D.F. Kariyakarawana
put it, everyone knows that this man operates in the way
he did/does, the question is, why isn’t anyone doing
anything about it? I am sure D.F. was not talking about
the kind of ‘doing’ that those at the Rupavahini
Corporation ‘did’ on Thursday. We are talking
about a country where rabid dogs are summarily slaughtered.
Rabid men are a different kettle of fish of course but
still the social contract demands that the state intervenes
to protect the general citizen. The easy referent, ‘National
security concerns’, could have been applied here,
one notes.
As
things stand, the general public perception regarding
how the government views the incident is as follows:
In
a 1-10 continuum of the serious nature of a given act,
Mervyn’s theatrics get 3, his thug’s antics
5, the actions of the Rupavahini employees 7, the fact
that state media carried the story 8, the fact that Rupavahini
didn’t halt its telecast for a few hours, 10! To
put another way, if, as had been suggested, the riot-squad
had been deployed to spray what ammunition it takes to
disperse the mob, that particular act of civility would
have earned a 1, meaning, it would be saluted, celebrated
and the implementers (re)decorated for being heroic beyond
the call of duty.
My
problem is not so much what Mervyn does or doesn’t
do as what the President does and doesn’t with respect
to this quack doctor. The issue is clear, whereas Mahinda
Rajapakse is all-powerful thanks to JRJ’s second
republican constitution of 1978, so is he equally culpable
for what happens during his tenure.
He
is clearly an unintended beneficiary of JR’s machinations,
true, but the other side of the coin is that he is JR’s
prisoner as well. He is caught, constitutionally, in a
tangle of numbers and in this web even a single vote in
parliament has a high premium. It reminds us of that ancient
dictum about picking up a snake and putting it into your
sarong. Mervyn is his baby, no two words about it.
We
don’t know what kind of cheque Mervyn has that he
is able to cash it again and again, but Mahinda would
most certainly know. The problem is that Mervyn must have
exhausted his credit a long time ago. He cannot be allowed
to survive on overdrafts forever for the simple reason
is that the money is not coming out of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s
account (remember that famous ‘coronation speech’
where he said ‘I am not owner, but temporary custodian’?
Each day that this despicable man is allowed remain in
parliament and party, Mahinda Rajapaksa has to feed him
and the only thing that Mervyn consumes is bits and pieces
of Mahinda Chinthana, chunks out of the fight against
terrorism and the aspirations of all the people who voted
for Mr. Rajapaksa on November 17, 2005.
Dogs
have to be vaccinated. Dogs have to be held on a leash.
These are basic things. Owners or guardians as the case
may be earn the wrath of those bitten by the particular
dog(s).
Mervyn
is not an embarrassment; he is fast developing into a
veritable Achilles Heel in an otherwise impregnable presidency.
Mervyn, come to think of it, is a blessing in disguise.
Drop him and that single act would elevate Mahinda’s
stature immensely. It would restore faith in our institutions,
the presidency and the president’s pledges while
simultaneously ridding our polity of an obnoxious so and
so.
Mahinda
Rajapaksa and his ill-advisors have to understand that
Mervyn is costing the Presidency dearly. If he is so worth
that he has to be kept then Mahinda Rajapaksa simultaneous
puts a tag on his own worth, as a man and as a President.
Now that’s pretty sad stuff. It reminds me of a
July ’83 story:
When
one son of S.J.V. Chelvanayagam, a suspected Eelamist
was being harboured by a senior UNP minister in 1983,
the other son, an honourable man and a Mathematic teacher,
upon being set upon by a mob (instigated, again, by another
senior UNP minister of the time) with broomsticks, had
said ‘mata oken gahanna epa; vedagath ayudayakin
gayanna’ (don’t beat me with that, use a more
respectable weapon). Mahinda Rajapaksa is running the
risk of being brought down by rabble. Does ‘rabble’
have a singular form? I don’t know. If it does and
you need a name or a synonym for it, it has to be ‘Mervyn
Silva’. Doctor. Dog. Well, I don’t know. Let
the man’s behavior name him. At any rate, whoever
he thinks he’s biting, one thing that is getting
is the President’s behind. Ouch!
Courtesy - Asian
Tribune