Carlo’s lesson

Human beings are frail. They err.  Sometime the transgressions are deliberate.  There are times also when poor judgment, lack of adequate information, deductive poverty, emotion and arrogance result in wrongdoing.  There are no safeguards against the former.  People who believe they can get away with murder will murder for the ‘getting-away’ is but after-thought of murder-decision.  If found out and charged very few would acknowledge crime. Most would look for loophole.

Of the latter type most who later realize the error of their ways would let sleeping dogs lie, so to say.  If error is pointed out, there would be many who twiddle thumbs, many who would try to pass the buck one way or the other, and many who would seek to dismiss or dismiss weight of mistake.  It is a rare breed that acknowledges in full, accepts responsibility and pleads forgiveness. 

Professor Carlo Fonseka is a rare man.  He has his detractors, those who disagree with him and who find fault with the positions he’s taken on particular issues.  One thing is clear: he is a man with a conscience.  If he makes a stand it is because he identifies with the particular cause.  If he is silent it is because he has reconciled to himself that silence is ideologically correct, socially responsible and politically appropriate.  He will, if pushed, defend the positions he takes. 

On January 19, 2013, Carlo Fonseka stepped back.  He admitted error.   Indeed, he virtually confessed that he was accessory after the fact of crucifixion. He asked for forgiveness.

The ‘crime’ was relatively mild.  All he had done was to repeat a lie, which he had honestly believed to be true, that the late Gamini Dissanayake was behind the burning of the Jaffna Library.  He did this on approximately 30 occasions in public forums, i.e. during Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidential election campaign in 1994.  Now, with the retired police officer Edward Gunawardena establishing clearly in his memoirs ‘Memorable Tidbits include the Jaffna Library Burning’ that it was the LTTE that was responsible for this crime, Prof Fonseka had a choice to make.  He could have ignored, told himself that he had gone with what was thought to be the truth, downplayed his error or taken refuge in any number of absolving arguments.  He went public with confession.  He apologized to the Dissanayake family.  He asked Navin Dissanayake (Gamini’s son) to think of his late father and say ‘Father forgive him, for he did not know what he was doing’.   He need not have, but he did.  Rare. 

Confession does not put parts of broken things together.  Event, personality, time and metaphor pass and pass rapidly over crime-moment.  ‘Sorry’ doesn’t turn back time. It doesn’t draw back fire into matchstick.  It does not turn ash into manuscript and brick.  Remorse, however, imprisons arrogance, subverts righteous anger and makes healing possible.

At the same event, Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera pointed out that the error resulted in another crime: false accusation.  It was not just Gamini Dissanayake who was vilified.  The state, erroneously (and deliberately) tagged ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ by the LTTE, Tamil chauvinists and others who had a gripe against Sinhalese and Buddhists, stood accused.  Errors of omission and commission did nothing to put the record straight.  No apologies so far.

Prof Fonseka has sowed the seeds of humility.  He can be emulated.  One does not have to say ‘You are right, I am wrong’, but one can say, in the very least, ‘You may be in error, but I am not error-free either’.  This country has seen a lot of violence.  Few are guilt-free.  Individuals can step up and become bigger men and women.  They can speak for themselves, for few have the right to speak for collectives. 

One can say, ‘They’re not remorseful, so why should I?’   Fear comes from possible political fallout.  Carlo Fonseka is a bigger man than he was.   Humility is rewarded.  In the very least it makes for less sleeplessness.  If you have a conscience, that is. 

['The Nation' Editorial, January 27, 2013]