“Unfolding In Duly Ordained Fashion”

By Emil van der Poorten –May 15, 2015 

Emil van der Poorten

If the responses to my recent columns to Colombo Telegraph have done nothing else, they have provoked responses that should give at least a few of us cause for even a small degree of optimism: there ARE people who perceive the deception and deceit that is being performed under cover of Yahapalanaya, covering the backsides of those who have done very well, thank you, under the Rajapaksa dispensation!

However, identifying the problem (not merely the symptom) as individuals is not enough, in and of itself. We need (particularly us septuagenarians who might be of fit mind but somewhat feeble body!) to rally the troops because the generations that have succeeded us are tech-savvy to an extent that few of us can aspire to. We need to keep them rolling as they appear to have done during the last Presidential election where, I understand, young people familiar with the use of community media such as Twitter and Facebook and fluent in the national languages of this country played no small part in the demise of the leader of the most violent and corrupt government this country has ever encountered. I hope that what I am about to relate strikes a chord with them and that they will expend their energies to expose simple financial self-interest parading as some kind of “freedom of the press.”

The fact that Ranil Wickremesinghe appears driven to surround himself with a Praetorian Guard of old boys of his alma mater is one of the saddest spectacles confronting this country. Apart from the fact that it appears to provide evidence of some pretty deep-seated insecurity not befitting someone with ambitions of leading Sri Lanka and while his team might well be a more “civilized” bunch than the Rajapaksa Mafia, it is NOT all that is needed to deliver the goods.

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