Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe has stated
that if national unity is to be obtained then the primacy of the law has to be
protected. He has made the further point
that the collapse of law and order has not only caused anxiety among Muslims
and Tamils but has impacted everyone.
He is correct. While
Wickremesinghe has taken pains to cite specific instances where the behavior of
law enforcement authorities have been suspicious and even downright scandalous
necessitating finger-pointing at political figures, fear and apprehension are
not the preserve of the opposition or Tamils and Muslims. There is a palpable lack of confidence among
the general population about the efficacy and integrity of the entire legal
edifice of the country, the judiciary and the police included.
There is a vast distance between politician and citizen with
ruling party politicos holding sway over the police and, according to some,
over judges too, to the point that ‘no one is above the law’ is a notion that
would be laughed at. If it weren’t
worrisome, that is.
There are countless instances where politicians have
prevented police officers from doing their job.
Countless too are instances where police officers have happily deferred
to the will of politicians. Then there
is highhandedness on the part of police officers. Police brutality followed by intimidation
that forbids proper investigation is another issue that goes into the
‘countless’ column. Countless also are
the number of times the Police Media Spokesman Ajith Rohana has had to twist
and turn to defend police action and inaction.
He’s been the butt end of countless jokes. But it’s not funny. He’s just a fall guy for a system that could
only be called ineffective if it were not corrupt.
This state of affairs has served to exacerbate fears and
anxieties, adding grist to the lie-mills of the most pernicious elements in the
political firmament. Interestingly, we
have a situation where all communities place the blame on the police for rising
unrest, anxiety, mistrust and violence.
However, as Wickremesinghe points out, it is not a communal issue alone;
the breakdown of law and order affects everyone in multiple ways.
Not only does it pose severe challenges on efforts to
reconcile communities and obtain national unity, it compromises the smooth
functioning of all institutions including businesses, government agencies and
religious organization. Indeed even the
day-to-day of citizens going about their lives and their work are tinged with
disconcert and unpredictability that speaks of an unhealthy social order,
clearly a disappointing state of affairs in a country that was supposed to
recover and flourish in the aftermath of putting behind a terrible three decades
of death, despair, destruction and dismemberment.
Whatever the doomsday prophets may say, a country which
boasts of more mobile connection than its population cannot be said to be
suffering deprivations that make for an insurrectionary moment. That aside, a polity which is adequately fed
is not necessarily one that will suffer other shortcomings. Where justice is a privilege and where that
privilege is the preserve of the powerful, where power is linked to wealth and
where relative wealth implies relative poverty, the underclass thus described
(naturally the majority) will not exactly salute the state of affairs. ‘State of affairs’ will necessarily be seen
as the regime’s baby.
Sloth, foot-dragging and tacit and open encouragement of all
elements that metaphorically drop pants and show all to ‘the law’ in defiance,
arrogance and outright ridicule, has brought about a situation where things are
less compromised than they are outrageously out of control. The question has to be asked, ‘does the
government want to pull things back?’
There’s a second question, ‘can the government pull things back?’ Right now it looks as though rhetoric will
not help and therefore ‘more of the same’ or worse is what the options for the
regime have narrowed down to.
If anyone can turn things around, it is President
Rajapaksa. If he does deliver on this,
then indeed that much talked of and vilified word arshcharya or miracle would recover some respectability and thereby
cover both president and regime with glory.
If not? Well, the answer is
single word that should sober one and all: scary.
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