Joining The Stampede?

By Emil van der Poorten -September 23, 2014 

Emil van der Poorten

I will make no bones about the fact that I do have a “take” on the recent Uva Provincial Election and some of what emerged during it and the slime that is already seeping out after it.

People like Professor Kumar David have sounded the clarion call to begin the process of driving out of power the most violent and corrupt government in the history of this country, pre- and post-independence. And the place where the first signs of resistance emerged is certainly fascinating. Remember the Uva Rebellion of yore?  The difference, though, is in the sequence of events: that Uva Rebellion was followed by unprecedented violence and suppression of dissent.  This one has been provoked by exactly that pattern of conduct by the rulers of what they have proclaimed to be the Miracle of Asia.

One doesn’t have to be a crystal-ball-gazer or have access to the services of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s soothsayer who dwells in a several-stories-high mini-palace on the Southern coastline to anticipate what the reaction is going to be from those who suspect that their imperial edifices might be at risk from the rising tide of discontent.

Many of us grew up being told the home-truth of how dangerous cornered rodents could be. Look no further because that would be an apt simile for what will unfold in Sri Lanka. No rodent, however, had at his command one of the largest armed forces in the world whose loyalty, and let’s be realistic here, has proven to be available to He-Who-Pays even a devalued Sri Lankan rupee salary to a buck private which exceeds what an University graduate might earn after years of burning the midnight oil.

The Rathupaswala and Free Trade Zone shootings of absolutely unarmed civilians are simply coldly-calculated warnings to anyone suffering under the delusion that that the Armed Forces would display something resembling conscience and mutiny against those giving them orders to kill people from the same rural background and from the same class as themselves.                                       Read More