Is There A Need To Return To Capital Punishment?

By Emil van der Poorten –August 28, 2016

Emil van der Poorten

As someone on the cusp of the proverbial eighth decade of my life, let me say, at the very outset, that even discussing the sentiments expressed in the title of this piece in the abstract would have been beyond the farthest reaches of my imagination until now.

However, what I have seen over the years since my return to Sri Lanka after better than thirty years, has, as in the words of the old chestnut, “given me pause.”

With two siblings who lived all their lives as revolutionaries and died in penury, even though celebrated by a variety of people from more walks of life that I am ever likely to encounter, I have had my diet of “world revolution,” “the need to destroy capitalism and the capitalist class“ etc. etc.

However, when I see the manner in which the basic living standards of people in rural Sri Lanka haveregressed, as epitomized by three of four skinny nurses trying to reach something suspended on a clothes line of sorts and failing for lack of reach until a colleague, just five feet tall (as she herself proudly proclaimed), reach what had eluded their grasp, one begins to realize how small so many of our compatriots now are. In contrast, I recall how much bigger and taller were Canadians entirely of Sri Lankan origin who grew up in that North American country after being born in Sri Lanka. The reason for this contrast can be put in two words: good nutrition.

I am not going to labour this point and, if you doubt what I have just said, check with your closest authority, particularly in the matter of birth weight stats.

Bad enough? Consider the allied issues of deprivation of anything approaching adequate medical and educational services and the circle is complete and that circle, I’d seriously submit, is not far behind genocide in its final implications.

There has never seemed any doubt that genocide is the most serious of capital offences and deserving of the most serious of responses.

What then of those responsible for the premature deaths and debilitation of large segments of our population? I am deliberately excluding the poorer elements of the so-called minority communities from this discussion so that its dimensions may be measured without the distraction of the howling of the racist hordes in their usual efforts to distract attention by involving, on their side, those most susceptible to the siren call allegation of colonial “divide and rule” governance being the root cause of this state of affairs.

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