Who is scared of Colombo Telegraph?

We live in a world where the Bible and Quran are used to justify anything and everything, a world where the teachings of the Buddha are (mis)interpreted to buttress political projects quite antithetical to the teachings of Siddhartha Gauthama and a world where the works of Karl Marx are mined for ‘appropriate’ quotes to support preferred political position.  In such a world, selectivity, deliberate downplaying and happy inflation abound.  The internet, for all its promise, is made as much of information as misinformation.  It can empower and it can also lead astray.

So this is a world of (mis)information overload where effective regulatory laws really don’t exist.  It is a world made for slander and lying where those with bucks and guns can mine selectively, conjure up files upon files of fantasies and, let’s face it, vilify with impunity.  And there are enough takers too, enough people who revel in garbage production and enough demand to lap up the produce with glee.  The discerning would have a good sense of true weight of ‘story’ and by and by figure out which sources are reliable and which are not. 

The most important point is that you can’t really shut people from going where they want to go.  Those who want pornography will visit such sites. Those who want gossip will find it.  It all depends on what people want and how serious they are about getting reliable information.  For example, if you want information about the ills of smoking, it won’t be enough to look for anti-smoking websites.  What appear as anti-smoking sites in the first several pages of Google, for instance, are operated by various sections of the tobacco industry.  Even the ‘opposition’, thus, is regulated.  If you have bucks, it can be done.  On the other hand, the truth, as they say, is ‘out there’ and it is virtually impossible to block all roads leading to it. 

This is why site-blocking is a puerile exercise.  Anyone can say ‘any old thing’ slander included.  What is blocked can be accessed through proxy servers; works for pornography and works for mischievous or slanderous sites that paint themselves as neutral, political commentators.  

Colombo Telegraph (CT) is not a porn site.  It is a political news/commentary site.  Those who run it have their political slant.  They do allow the ‘other side’ (shall we say?) some space, but for the most part privilege columnists with undisguised antipathy towards the current regime.  They indulge in what could be called gutter journalism, hitting below the belt in ways that do themselves much disservice, for example the recent tasteless attacks on Rajpal Abeynayake, the Editor of the Daily News.  The management of comments is equally unprofessional.  And yet, there is enough good-sense stuff in CT to attract a good cross section of people interested in Sri Lanka’s political firmament.  Indeed, it is a convenient place to visit if you want to know what those who are opposed to the regime think.  That entire club meets there, so to speak. 

But CT is not just platform for regime-haters.  CT also puts out information that is of absolutely import in defending Sri Lanka against various machinations from rogue-players in the international community.  CT has ‘broken stories’ that have been used extensively by those opposed to ‘imposed regime-change’.  This should also be recognized.

CT has been blocked on many occasions by various internet service providers in Sri Lanka, both state-run and private entities.  It has to be consequent to orders from somewhere close to the top of the regime, obviously.  Only the blockers and those who order blocking will know the ‘why’ of it all; we can only comment on the meaninglessness.

The United States of America doesn’t block in this crude manner.  It purchases dissent for the most part or regulates/manages it.  That’s being smart.  Cost-effective.  The US knows that what cannot be stopped should be managed.  That’s why we get ‘conflict management’ as opposed to ‘conflict resolution’.  Washington probably knows that it is better to have the opposition visible than have it go underground.  It should not be forgotten that avenues to vent anger and opposition are an important part not only of a vibrant democracy but in consolidating power, especially since virtual space is the preferred battleground of slothful critics.  Keyboard warriors show where the fault lines are and thereby serve regimes that are terrified of even the slightest threat to perceived invincibility.    

The internet, for all its liberating appearances, is a tool more effectively used by the powerful.  In Sri Lanka’s case, since ‘threat’ is more from outside and since real power is also resident elsewhere, there’s little that can be gained by blocking CT, either domestically or internationally.  It only betrays regime-jitteriness.  

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The dimensioning of giant and dwarf in art and literature

The Colombo Telegraph and Rajpal Abeynayake clearly don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.  There's been a lot of invective flying both ways and in my opinion CT hasn't exactly covered itself in glory in its attacks on Rajpal.  Rajpal and I have our own differences.  To his credit he provided space for me to take him on in the newspaper of which he was editor at the time, Sunday Lakbima News.  Rajpal is sharp, has a no-holds-barred approach, can be harsh to the point of bordering on insult, but he doesn't caricature; he supports claim with facts.  He is open about his biases and defends the logic of preference. Many who hate him don't have the language or the arguments and in most cases don't state their own biases.  Similarly, Uvindu Kurukulasuriya and I have our disagreements.  And yet, he gives space on the site for my views.  This particular CT post, 'Short man syndrome really does exist, Oxford University finds' carried two photographs of Rajpal. I thought it was way below the belt.  It reminded me of something I wrote more than three years ago about height, giants and dwarfs.  It was prompted by a 'giant' comment and let's say lesser blow below the belt, again aimed at Rajpal.  This is what I wrote.

I once overheard a conversation between two undergraduates.  One of them had the dubious reputation of being a conscientious non-bather. He stank.  The other complained about the stench one day.  The stinker responded philosophically, ‘ganda…mokadda ganda kiyanne?  ganda kiyanne suwande avasaana avasthaava’ (stench…what is stench? It is the lowest aspect of perfume).  It is all relative, isn’t it? 

There was, back then, a tradition in the Arts Faculty, University of Peradeniya.  The staff of each department would invite the final year students for a meal and the students would reciprocate.  Back then, the students would make invitation cards and formally hand them over to each member of the academic staff.  The most creative person was usually tasked with writing an invitational verse and someone who was good at drawing would design the layout.  All hand-done of course.  That year, there was a problem in the Sociology Department.  None of the final year students could write a verse and none could draw.  The task was outsourced. 

The verse was horrible and utterly inappropriate. It had for reasons I never could understand essentially made the claim that the lowly lecturers had created some super heroes (there really isn’t an English equivalent for yuga purushayo; perhaps ‘Men of the Century’, ‘Epochal Personalities’?) and the latter, by way of showing gratitude were inviting their teachers for dinner and chit-chat.  We teased our batchmates mercilessly for years, reminding them that the last person we knew who deserves such a title was Ernesto Che Guevara and that it was incredible that the Sociology Department had produced 3 in one go and most amazingly, there was one from Wathurakumbura (inaccessible due to lack of regular public transport), whose village-hero, Wickramabahu Karunaratne had sweated for decades to be one and was unsuccessful.

‘Who wrote this?’  I asked Walter Sumith Pradeep (Kuliyapitiya) and Ananda Samarakoon (Wathurakumbura). 

‘Kule Malli,’ Walter said. 

Kule, short for Kulatunga was a first year student.  We all hooted with laughter and told them that although they may be yugapurushayas for Kule Malli, they were still in their intellectual nappies as far as the lecturers were concerned. 

The point in both stories is this: it’s all relative.  There are giants because there are dwarfs and vice versa, there is stench because there is perfume, good because of bad and so on.  It all came back to me yesterday (June 15, 2010) at the British Council, where ETV announced the launch of a brand new programme called ‘The Ashok Ferrey Show’.  Let me explain.

Ashok spoke.  Lakshaman Bandaranayake, CEO of Vanguard Management Services Pvt. Ltd. Spoke.  Gill Westaway, Country Director of British Council spoke.  Prof Neluka De Silva, English Department, University of Colombo spoke and Prof. Yasmine Gooneratne, both authors, spoke.  I enjoyed what Yasmine had to say about the work of time and place on language; she didn’t talk about giants. 

Gill Westaway in a wishy-washy manner rubbished ‘classical literature’ and told us that the British Council library now had a fully equipped section for Sri Lankan English Literature.  I am not sure if she wanted to say that Sri Lankan English Literature is superior to ‘classical literature’ but there wasn’t much substantiation on her part and for all my nationalism I would choose classical lit over local English lit if it were a matter of life and death, such is the nature of quality-difference.

Ashok came up with a classic.  He observed quite correctly that history is an incomplete discipline and that event, personality, social intercourse and all human processes of a given epoch are best obtained by a perusal of the art and literature of that time.  He proposed that the lives and work of the people who come on his show would, similarly, tell the interested student about this time and place.  Yes, but only if the said personalities and their work was in some way definitive and representative of this time and place.  The fact is that the Ashok Ferry Show is not going to feature people like Gunadasa Amarasekera, Ariyawansa Ranaweera, Pundit Amaradeva, Jayatilleka Kammallaweera, Udayasiri Wickramaratne, Prasanna Vithanage, Prasanna Jayakody, Jayantha Chandrasiri, Ashoka Handagama, Nadeeka Guruge, Jayalath Manoratne, Nishad Handunpathirana, Chaaminda Ratnasuriya, Lelum Ratnayake, Kasun Kalhara, and of course all the Tamil poets, playwrights, novelists etc and the hundreds of others who dwarf into insignificance most of those in the list that the producers showed us. 

Ashok mentioned Rome and Greece and the literatures of these places at the times when they were giant-names.  Yes, the literature paints a time and a place.  On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that the literature that survives was all that was ever written.  I am fairly certain that the pedestrian efforts of mediocre authors had short life spans.  Not everything great survives the turbulences and fires that history is made of, but there is some law of nature, perhaps, that ensures that good books don’t burn.  Two hundred years from now, thanks to technology, a lot of what’s being written today, will be available in some form.  This will include a lot of rubbish.  I am sure that 200 years hence, the rubbish will not be getting a fraction of the page-hits that the truly great works get. 

Giants. Yes, I almost forgot.  That was the word that Lakshaman used to describe Ashok Ferrey.  He called him a ‘Literary Giant’.  I was not looking at Ashok so I am not sure if he squirmed in embarrassment.  The truth is the Sri Lankan English Literature just doesn’t have the equivalent of a Martin Wickremesinghe, Ediriweera Sarachchandra, Dayananda Gunawardena, Mahagama Sekara or Simon Navagaththegama, not in terms of literary output, not in terms of timeless, space-less quality, no, not according to any acceptable criteria. 

This is why I believe the one and only question raised during the ‘Q&A’ session was very pertinent in terms of giving some perspective to an audience that appeared to have been invited on some come-if-you-are-ready-to-cheer basis.  Rajpal Abeynayake, editor, Sunday Lakbima News, and a no-nonsense critic who just can’t suffer mediocrity, pomposity and misplaced notions of self-import, asked Lakshmanan what the criteria was to determine who is giant and who is not.   Some pipsqueak from the audience said ‘he (Ferrey) is taller than you (Rajpal)’.  Rajpal took the bite and bit back, ‘Ok, is that the criteria Mr. Lakshaman?’  Lakshaman didn’t bite. He dodged. He reiterated, re-described Ferrey as ‘giant’ and the audience cheered.  That was telling.

The Ashok Ferrey Show, going by the preview, looks great.  It will entertain its target audience. It is not about literature and it doesn’t claim to be.  Ashok Ferrey is a great presenter. He has energy, words, verve and self-effacing charm that work really well for this kind of programme.  Those who need ego-boosts, would love it.  Some would go along, reluctantly, as Ferrey said, simply because they find it difficult to say ‘no’.   At the same time it remains pretentious and in the end just another exercise of a particular clique to convince themselves that they are at the top end of Sri Lankan literature. They are not.

One giant stood out that evening. Rajpal Abeynayake. There were others, I noticed.  Perhaps not ‘giants’ but certainly not the dwarfs that are celebrated by this clique.  They were silent. Not required to voice opinion. I am not finding fault.  Rajpal spoke out.  Dwarfed everyone. Including myself.  

p.s.  I never saw the Ashok Ferrey Show and don't know if it is still running.  [January 29, 2014]

Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com

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Who is afraid of Colombo Telegraph?

The news/views website, Colombo Telegraph is blocked by certain internet providers in Sri Lanka.  This is not the first occasion this has happened.  Colombo Telegraph is not the first website that has been blocked either.  Tamilnet, which was the voice of the LTTE was blocked years ago.  Other sites which like people to think that gossip, wish and other mischievous missives marketed as ‘news’ that the operators of the websites believe would in some way help their political project(s) have also been blocked.  Pornographic sites have been blocked too.

The blocking of websites is first and foremost silly.  Those who really want to visit such places can do so at the cost of just a few mouse-clicks.  It is therefore childish.  Now we don’t know for sure who blocked CT, but let’s assume that the Government had a hand.  If that is the case, the Government is not doing itself any favors. Indeed, it can be argued that it is detrimental to the Government to block CT or those other classes of websites referred to above.   

As I argued in a piece titled ‘The staunchest friends of the regime’ that sites like Colombo Telegraph helps the regime.  It’s an old theory, true, but dissent and criticism is more containable within democratic structures and in this case such opposition gets off loaded into virtual space largely inhabited by invective-spewing hotheaded cowards who are loathe to walk the talk.

Colombo Telegraph has more uses than this dissent-offloading business. Even if you thought CT was run by nutcases with nutcases and for nutcases with narrow political objectives that are against the larger interests of the citizenry, it can be taken to be a place where the enemy shows up, shows face, spouts criticism.  Knowing the enemy by face, name and word is very useful in politics.

But CT is bigger than that.  CT gives space to a wide range of political views.  While it has its complement of regime-haters (mostly out of disappointment and rage that preferred outcome(s) did not materialize), there is enough cogent criticism to make such whiners irrelevant and even sufferable.  The benefits outweigh the negatives.

Speaking strictly for myself, in addition to CT accommodating my articles, it has offered me insights into the characters and politics of those who don’t necessarily agree with me.  I am richer for reading their versions of things and their vision of how things ought to be. Sure, I don’t care much for the invective of the largely ill-informed and politically compromised commentators who throw up frequently below what is posted, but that’s fine with me; I just don’t bother to read that stuff.  I do read the articles and I find them by and large to be well-written and well argued (even though I may not share the assumptions and may find fact-selectivity problematic). 

CT, more than any other source, mined Wikileaks for documents pertaining to Sri Lanka, many which wrecked the sweet picture of the USA and UN that those opposed to the regime, for example, may have entertained. 

What is fundamentally objectionable here is the curtaining of expression-freedom, the intent rather than the act (which, as I said, could be sorted out with a few mouse-clicks).  It implies fear.  It implies retarded thinking process.  It implies lack of counter-argument (to whatever it was that bothered the ‘blocker’) or inability to articulate objection.  CT has not shown that it will not honor the right of reply to any article posted on the website, but even if it did, that kind of ‘censorship’ is too common for anyone to gripe and whine. 

This blocking of CT is a violation of my right to information, my freedom to visit websites that I find useful.  It is a childish and pernicious move on the part of the blocker(s).  CT is not a threat to my security and not a threat to national security, and even if that were the case, the best way of responding to that kind of threat is to engage using the same weapons, primarily word and argument.  This, is counterproductive, and moreover offers free ammunition to those who actually may have pernicious designs on the nation and national interest. 

If some state element is behind this blocking, it deserves the tag ‘dumb-ass’.  If not, it is in the interest of relevant state agencies to find out who did it and put a stop to these kinds of meaningless and childish responses to what is in the view of the blocker(s) objectionable.   

 

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The staunchest friends of the regime

The word in the street is that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s is the regime’s best friend.  Inept leadership, fuelling division in opposition ranks to prompt defection, refusal to take on the Government in any meaningful manner on crucial issues of public concern, rhetorical slip-ups made to be pounced on for purposes on ridicule and being conspicuously out-of-touch with the sentiments of the masses are often cited as evidence to support this friendship claim. 

On the other hand, it must be mentioned in Ranil’s defence that the 1978 Constitution does not grand the opposition any favors. In fact, just as it confers dictatorial powers on the executive president, it also disempowers the opposition.  Sarath N Silva’s horrendous crossover ruling that made parliamentary traffic a one-way matter hasn’t helped.  These factors helped scuttle the 17^th Amendment and worse paved the way for the 18^th, further strengthening those in power and conferring further disempowerment on the opposition.  Ranil’s detractors might say ‘Still!’, implying that he could do much better. 

But is Ranil really the only friend that the regime can count on among those who object to it on matters of policy and policy implementation, and of course corruption, incompetence, inefficiency and overt and covert attacks on democracy? 

Mahinda Rajapaksa had few friends when he was running for President in 2005.  Today he has few enemies and fewer still have the courage to stand up and object.  That’s not unusual.  Power corrupts.  Power also attracts.  There was a time, after all, when there were countless ‘friends’ swarming around his predecessor.  That was not the case before she became President and it is not the case now that she is Ex-President.  It is about playing the right card.  It is about mutual benefit.  Important no doubt, but still less critical than friends among the enemy in times of declining popularity. 

It’s not just Ranil. 

In the past few years there have been ample reason for many to object to the regime.  Not just object but to be appalled, in fact.  The umbrage however has not translated into mass protests. ‘Fear,’ some explain, but that’s just a part of the story.  A small part, one might add.  Where does the anger find expression, then? Why, in social media! 

Facebook is full of people who have serious problems with the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.  Among them are the usual sour-grapes types, i.e. those who wanted a different outcome in November 2005, May 2009, January 2010 and April 2010.  There is a sizable number though of case-by-case assessors, who would cheer some and critique some.  There are also many who have voted for the President and his party but have run out of patience and are convinced that astute political thinking is about burying gratitude along with the LTTE. They have a point.  The President and the Government did what they were elected to accomplish.  That’s ‘job’ and therefore does not necessitate ‘unlimited bonus’.   But what do these objectors do and what do they accomplish?

Many of them rant and rave. Some are more academic with objection.  They all call for ‘uprising’ of one kind or another.  Some even organize protests, run campaigns to mobilize people and make it out that it is all spontaneous, free of any agenda except expressing objection, and borrow from the extensive material pertaining to rebellion from all parts of the world.  They cry, ‘Occupy Colombo’.  They say ‘Sri Lanka Spring’ (never mind seasonality ignorance).  They put up campaign-related profile pictures. They ‘like’, they ‘share’ and they ‘blog’.  Some say ‘wish I was there’ and others pip in, ‘I am there in spirit’. 

They seem to be so busy doing all this that they forget to make it to the events they organize, endorse and cheer.  Then they wait for the ‘Next Big Moment’.  They move from ‘spark’ to ‘spark’ and meanwhile the regime moves from one crisis to the other, not in a crisis-snowballing context but in the classic getting-by of doing it, dealing with it, counting on ‘forget’ if not ‘forgive’. 

Facebook and other social media sites are therefore regime-friendly.  Of course there is nothing to say that activity therein will not add up and contribute to regime-change at some point, but it is safe to say that impact will be marginal.  In the end it boils down to feet on the ground, feet marching together, voices raised in real time and in real space in unison and not in the artificial congregation of feel-good solidarities. 

There are other ‘friends’.  There are the many ‘news’ sites that are hardly better than gossip rags capable of mild titillation and deflecting and dispersing righteous anger into feel-good laughter.  Objectors who laugh at regimes and do nothing else, don’t challenge regimes. 

There are of course ‘serious’ web-gatherings.  Like Groundviews and Colombo Telegraph. The former is clearly slanted in favor of federalism and federalists, those who have poorly disguised hatred for Sinhalese and Buddhists or feel a compulsion to attack them to be counted among ‘intellectuals’ and those whose communalism, racism, religious fundamentalism is thinly covered by a cloak called ‘neutral’.  The latter’s content is more eclectic, more in-your-face. There’s news and views.  There’s greater generosity of accommodation.  Those who run these objection-forums if one may call them that would probably agree that they are frequented by roughly the same clientele.  Both writers and commentators. 

Perhaps some of these people actually meet up for chat over coffee or wine, but if gatherings and protests organized by the movers and shakers are anything to go by, they don’t add up to regime-overthrowing-by-mass-uprising. A perusal of commentary reveals untrammeled invective, penchant for abuse and foul language, a privileging of emotion over reason and a conspicuous lack of sobriety.  A neutral may be swayed by argument but would think more than twice about joining hands with the cheering squad. 

All these ‘sites of resistance’ (let’s be generous here) function as outlet, opportunities to let off steam, and spaces to feel you’ve done your bit (and inflate contribution to oneself).  Ironically, in Sri Lanka, the more effective users of this space happen to be those who are ready to walk the talk and not all of them walk in peace.  

In the end, therefore, true challenge to regime would probably come from those who for whatever reason don’t use these spaces to vent their anger.  They get the bullets, history has shown.  Those others, the ‘friends of the regime’ as argued above, will cry foul, weep virtual tears, like, share and blog, but in the end they will not count. Most of them will remain the internet versions of Ranil Wickremesinghe, doing their bit to prop a regime they love to hate.   

 

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