Differentiating Between Cause And Effect, The Chicken And The Egg Etc.

By Emil van der Poorten -

Emil van der Poorten

I have, for a fairly long time, been aware that there seems an almost peculiarly Sri Lankan predilection to identify symptoms as problems and vice versa, with those doing so often claiming that one is indistinguishable from the other in a manner similar to the hoary old “chicken and egg” business.

However, that sleight of hand or, more accurately, sloth needs to be punctured and reality faced because not to do so is to skew any attempt to identify, understand and deal with our current Sri Lankan predicament, a predicament that EVERYONE residing in this country must face, as much as some might want to turn a Nelsonian eye on it, because not to do so, is to ask for trouble with a capital “T.”

Let me begin at the end, so to speak, with a few incidents that have been front and centre recently.

The stoning of the court(s) in Mannar has, at long last, provoked a response from our legal eagles who have “downed tools” in protest at thugs and bullies seeking to serve notice on the law courts that they are expected to do their (the thugs’ and bullies’) bidding rather than fulfill the requirements of the statute book.  The behaviour of the goondas has been described as the problem with the Minister who gave them specific direction being identified as primus inter pares in the matter of guilt.   What is missing from this evaluation is the fact that this behaviour, dramatic as it might be, is NOT the problem but rather a symptom of a much larger problem: a government that has displayed an arrogance in the matter of violent and unlawful behaviour that has, in fact, set the tone and pattern for specific incidents such as this.  I would put the killing of the protester in the Katunayake Industrial Estate and the subsequent shooting of a fisherman protesting the huge increase in the price of kerosene, the primary input in his attempts to reach the fish which constitute his livelihood, as incidents which set the tone of acceptability for the “mere” stoning of a law-courts building!  The difference in response to state-generated violence in the three incidents was the fact that lawyers and judges belong to the professional middle class whereas fishermen and industrial workers are part of a proletariat – perhaps considered “lumpen” – and which, with the manifest blessings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, our current monarchy feels free to treat as disposable.  Let me be very clear however that I am not, in any way, critical of the actions of our legal fraternity.  In fact, I cannot heap great enough praise on them for their principled and courageous action, particularly given the threatening and violent response of this government to anything resembling disagreement and dissent.  If my theory needs confirmation of any kind, it comes from the head of state responding to this monumental disgrace, not by condemning an attack, literally, on the courts of law but by invoking what J.R. Jayewardene countenanced when judges’ homes were stoned because they made determinations not to his liking.  I have before referred to the “they did it first” defence and excuse that this government consistently trots out when found with its pants down and this constitutes yet another prime example of its recourse to that very tired “justification” of totally unacceptable behavior.

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