A note on power, truth and their relative lifetimes

The worth of a statement is not necessarily associated with its truth-value.  Truth does stand on its own, but very often by the time it is so recognized and even consecrated, a lot of water has already passed under the bridge. Blood-stained, we might add.

How many innocents have been slaughtered in the name of justice courtesy the death penalty? How many communities, cultures and languages have been obliterated from the face of the earth in the name of progress?  How many thousands are being rendered homeless, orphaned, widowed, limbless and distraught even as I write, all in the name of pursuing democracy and peace?
 
We all know that things are seldom as they seem. When the USA invaded Iraq, the excuse trotted out was ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Tommy rot, it turned out to be. Barack Obama’s Libyan testosterone-test was about no-fire zones and protecting civilians. Both Bush and Obama were cheered all the way by the mainstream media in the West. The cheering has not stopped.  Crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in gay abandon and with 100 per cent impunity. Truth, like justice, is slaughtered on the altar of expedience. This was how it was and this is how it is. There is no reason to believe it will not be so in the future.
 
It is all about power. Glen Ford in an article titled ‘African Union says ‘UP YOURS!’ to International Criminal Court’ (published on July 7, 2011 by Black Agenda Report), lays it all out. He talks of the US-led attack on Libya and how original reason has been left far behind and how the International Criminal Court appears to be half or almost totally blind when it comes to crimes against humanity perpetrated by the West, in particular the USA and the UK.  Israel too is a no-no as far as the ICC is concerned, one notes. The ICC does not see what the West is doing in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
Ford tells us what the current AU Chairman, Jean Ping, had to say about Navaneethan Pillai, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, the lady with more than a soft spot for LTTE terrorists.  It is worth a full quote:
 
‘Without doubt, the International Criminal Court is as Eurocentric in its view of the world as are the governments in Paris, London and Washington. So is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillai, who had the nerve to chastise China for ignoring the ICC indictment against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Bashir has travelled in Africa and the Middle East on state visits, and went to China for high level talks, last week. Navi Pillai, the Human Rights Commissioner, whined that she was disappointed with China for not arresting Bashir – although China, like the United States and Russia, is not a member of the International Criminal Court.
 
‘Nevertheless, Pillai showed herself to be a true servant of the West. “The whole world favours” putting Bashir on trial,” said the bureaucrat. Most of the continent of Africa does not want to put Bashir on trial. Isn't Africa part of the world? China does not want to put Bashir on trial. And one out of every five people in the world is Chinese!’
 
We haven’t heard Pillai calling for George W Bush’s arrest or for that matter the arrest of Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Nicolai Sarkozy or David Miliband. She hasn’t expressed regret or dismay that countries these gentlemen have visited had not arrested them.
 
Ping lays it out as thick as it deserves: ‘Pillai thinks the whole world revolves around Paris, London and Washington. So does ICC chief prosecutor Luis Morena Ocampo, who wants to deputize the United States military to enforce the criminal court's arrest warrants – regardless of what the African world or the Chinese world or anybody that is not European or American thinks. It's sad to say, but at this point in history, the UN serves the Empire.’

There is no such thing as unadulterated truth, ladies and gentlemen. Truth comes out of the barrel of a gun. It is something that strains out of power realities and relevant structures of approval and rejection.

The most important thing to remember is that truth does not win the day.  Power does. Truth wins. Later. It keeps us waiting, very often. In the long run, we are all dead, they say. In the long run, our children may be alive and if not, their children would. Time is longer than life, some Africans say. This is true. Time beats power. That’s small consolation for us of course. 

Civilizations, however, outlasts tyrant and idiot both. That’s why we are Sri Lanka, have been, are and will be. A bump along the road will trip the Obama’s, not a nation, a civilization and a culture.

http://print.dailymirror.lk/opinion1/50441.html

Read more

A postscript to journalistic quackery a la Channel 4

It was bound to happen. Channel 4 has suffered a serious case of egg-on-the-face, but it was almost inevitable. Channel 4 was motivated in the first instance by bitterness at having one of its correspondents deported for gross violation of expected professional ethics. Channel 4 has a considerable track record in dodgy and shoddy journalism. Channel 4 seems to have been intoxicated by the shrill self-righteous statements issued by British parliamentarians shamelessly pandering to the LTTE lobby hoping to secure electoral victory.  Channel 4 seems to have been outraged by the fact that all chances of preferred outcome materializing were buried on the shores of the Nandikadal Lagoon. 

‘Revenge’ was called for. Revenge was sought. And, as usually happens when delusion, hatred and greed inspire rather than deter, Channel 4 tripped. Over its own vomit, did I hear someone say?

A few days ago, in New York, there was a screening of the much advertised ‘documentary’ about what Channel 4 (and other interested parties including rabid chauvinistic elements among Sri Lankan Tamils overseas) want the world to believe happened in the last stages of the historic operation that rid Sri Lanka of the terrorist menace (interrupted by stoppages for snacks and chit-chat we are told). Major General Shavendra Silva who led the 58 Division at the time the 30 year war came to an end and now Sri Lanka’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, New York, in a matter of a few minutes stripped Channel 4 of all vestiges of respectability and trustworthiness.

This does not mean of course that Channel 4 will confess to media quackery, apologize profusely to all Sri Lankans, all viewers and especially to the Tamil people living in other parts of the world for preying on their fears, insecurities, communal pride and grief. It does not mean that Channel 4 will fold up operations or even stamp ‘Chapter Closed’ on the door of its malice-ridden operations pertaining to Sri Lanka. It does not mean that this will be the last such effort on the part of terrorist-backers such as the Global Tamil Forum and the British Tamil Forum nor their partners in crime in the British Parliament, the European Union, the US State Department, certain UN agencies etc.

Neither will see racketeers like Jehan Perera and Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu shut up; it’s their livelihood to vilify things Sri Lankan and bat for forces that are determined to divide the country. For all their bleeding-heart bawls about human rights violations, these ruffians have with full knowledge advocated strategies that make for blood-letting. The will do so in the future too, I am sure. It’s a profitable business, we know. The intellectually dishonest, such as R.M.B. Senanayake and Kumar David will continue to pander to Eelam interests. Guaranteed.

We do not live in a world where social and political processes necessarily move towards the consecration of truth and justice. Tyranny wins, nine times out of ten.  The end of tyranny is only comic relief for world history has shown that tyrannies are not necessarily succeeded by democracies, nor tyrants by the benevolent, but rather other tyrannies and tyrants respectively.

Still!

Channel 4 with all the resources available could only come up with a movie.  A cheap one at that. Sure, there was clever use of the age-old misleading and misrepresenting trick, juxtaposition, and the use of music to wrap the lie in tragic flavours. There was the expected deliberate misnaming of terrorists as artists and journalists. The characters were, as expected, developed with careful non-mention of key and extremely relevant facts about who they are and what they’ve done. Care was taken not to compromise the purported ‘independence’ and ‘respectability’ of those employed to vilify the Government of Sri Lanka.

Greed, hatred and delusion did their usual work. They produced a sloppiness that the frills of music, lie-narration and doctored imagery just could not hide.  As was the case with the report submitted by the panel appointed by Ban Ki-moon to advise him on Sri Lanka, over-enthusiasm was the undoing of the Channel 4 movie.

‘Killing fields’ was supposed to buttress efforts by various forces to get the UN to authorize an ‘independent’ investigation into the ‘last days’ of the war (i.e when the LTTE was wiped out, and not, as should be the case, the time period that makes sense, February 22, 2002 to May 19, 2009).  Some want the truth. Some want confirmation by hook or crook of a cooked up story. Some want closure. Some want to use threat and intervention to extract regime change from the political chaos they believe these moves would generate. Some want to make Mahinda Rajapaksa submit to the Chelvanayakam Option (A little now, more later) by fixing Eelam-boundaries via the 13th Amendment, thereby legitimizing Eelam mythology. Most know and most pretend they don’t know that these malicious moves will only give life to communal disharmony and postpone reconciliation, even resulting in a fresh round of blood-letting.


                     
Parts 1 - 3


                     

Parts 4 - 6 

Malinda Seneviratne, a journalist and political analyst based in Sri Lanka

debunking the claims made by the

Report of the Secretary General of the UN

on Accountability in Sri Lanka [Darusman Report]

        

Channel 4 need not worry. Darusman won’t lose any sleep and neither will Navi Pillai, Louise Arbour, Manfred Novak, David Miliband, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Bernard Kouchner, Robert Blake, Peter Hayes, Patricia Butenis etc.  Jehan Perera can take a lot of egg on his face.  So can Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu.  Kumar David might say it’s just facial cream.  R.M.B. Senanayake will offer a prayer and bat on in the sophomoric manner he has perfected.  Gordon Weiss might move to another exotic location where he can play ‘Conqueror and Subjugated’ and maybe write another book or two.

We must expect the above from these ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’, ladies and gentlemen.  They are not fast asleep. They are not deaf or blind.  They were not born with twisted tongues.  They are pretending, most of them.  Therefore it will take a lot to wake them, make them hear and see, and make them speak the truth.

They don’t own Sri Lanka and they will not either. There are people who can say ‘I am Sri Lankan’ and ‘Sri Lanka is mine’, not because those words come easy but the civilization, heritage, culture, ways of being and becoming and the philosophies that nourished all this runs in their veins and make their sinews.  They and not the above mentioned individuals won the war for us, made this land free.  They alone will protect this earth in which the ashes of their ancestors are buried. They will be stopped, tripped, hurt and humiliated no doubt.  That’s in the short-term. History is long, ladies and gentlemen.

There will be tyrannies, no doubt.  Still, no tyranny is so efficient that it can obliterate a civilization. That takes multiple and consecutive tyrannies over many centuries.  We went through such a period. It lasted 500 years.  We survived.  A poorly made film by a set of crooks who are at best journalistic quacks just won’t do it.  Sorry. 

Read more