Closing a university over a tamasha

Editorial-June 3, 2014

Some ruling party supporters, angered by a government decision to shift the venue of the next Deyata Kirula exhibition from the Ruhuna University to another place in view of student protests, set upon a group of undergrads injuring several of them on Monday. Prior to the incident, scores of irate government backers had held a demonstration opposite the university.

Ancient Roman rulers or optimates, as they called themselves, used bread and circuses or panem et circenses to distract the public or populares from their burning problems and prevent them from revolting. Even today, this kind of escapist entertainment is being used very effectively for political purposes. However, we have circuses sans bread! The electronic media also helps further the interests of governments in power, albeit unwittingly, by telecasting third rate soap operas one after the other daily, thereby, causing viewers to forget their problems at least temporarily. The poor hit the sack on empty stomachs, ruminating over the scenes in teledramas they have just watched instead of the causes of their woes.

Rulers in this country have surpassed the Roman optimates; they have introduced state-sponsored mega carnivals to keep the populares entertained. Gam Udawa was introduced by the UNP at a massive cost to the state coffers, and now we have Deyata Kirula, which also costs taxpayers an arm and a leg. Thronging crowds at such events prove politicians right; there’s a sucker born every minute!

Student protests against the government’s original plan to use their university as the venue for Deyata Kirula may have been politically motivated as the government supporters claimed on Monday. It may also be true that they are being manipulated by some external political forces opposed to the government exhibition. There’s hardly anything devoid of politics in this country.

The University of Ruhuna has been closed indefinitely following Monday’s incident. It is a crime to close a seat of higher learning at least for a single day in this manner. However, the university authorities may have been left with no other choice in view of tension following the attack. There have been several bloody clashes between the undergrads of that university and government thugs over other issues during the past few years.

The government blundered by considering a university as the venue for its grand tamasha and provoking student protests unnecessarily. It has managed to pacify undergrads by changing the venue, but failed to rein in its supporters.

Pro-government demonstrators who took to the streets on Monday, demanding that Deyata Kirula be held at the university and nowhere else carried a big banner with a telling slogan in Sinhala; it urged President Mahinda Rajapaksa to overcome resistance from Ruhuna undergrads at any cost, the way he had defeated the LTTE, and hold the exhibition at the original venue. True, the President provided unwavering leadership to the country’s war on terror. People are still expressing their gratitude to him in terms of votes at elections. But, the defeat of terrorism cannot be used to justify the government’s high-handed acts such as bulldozing its way through.

Master Blaster turned Deputy Minister Sanath Jayasuriya was seen batting really hard for the pro-government demonstrators on Monday. He knows his home turf better than anyone else. Here is a situation where he should play his elegant back foot defensive shot without stoking his party supporters’ hatred towards undergrads; he ought to knock some sense into protesters and urge them to agree to the new exhibition venue and refrain from perpetrating violence against students they have come to perceive as enemies.