Playing Dirty

Walking past the Vihara Maha Devi Park last night the absence of the monstrous cut out of the President was hard to miss. Large enough to cast a shadow over the entire Municipal Council, the unsightly addition to the park towered at about 60 to 80 feet, and when something that imposing goes missing you can’t help but notice.

The massive structure along with other billboards and posters, that pervaded Colombo as fast as a bad rash while the President casually picked petals about holding the Presidential Elections, have been taken down in compliance with election campaigning laws.

But what about that Rs. 1000 note?

Recently a case was filed regarding violation of election campaigning laws and the lengthy petition that was essentially about taking action against state media organisations that were promoting MR and completely ignoring the opposition presidential candidates, also included Rs. 1000 note that has the picture of the President in a stance which is being used in his campaign posters as well.

On the former, the Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake has issued a set of guidelines, but it’s a safe bet the guidelines will be taken very lightly.

As for the currency note, the counsel for the petitioner argued that this was a unique situation in which a picture of a Presidential Election candidate appeared on a banknote that’s currently in circulation, and since the same picture is being used in MR’s campaign as well, the court should consider ordering the notes to be recalled or alternatively since that wouldn’t be feasible, order that he refrain from using the exact picture of himself in his campaign.

The Attorney General protested saying that the note was issued in June, well ahead of the decision to hold the Presidential Elections a year in advance.

Court Proceedings were however, terminated. Which basically means no decision was made and if anyone feels the need to re-agitate the matter, they are free to file a motion.

Considering the situation at hand I’m somewhat inclined to believe that even if the note was issued in June, using the facsimile image in MR’s poster campaign, sort of makes the note part of his campaign as well. The banknote by itself is suggestive, with one side displaying solely a picture of MR with his hands raised in a victorious pose and other the side the soldiers arduously hoisting up a flag. It makes it seems as if he was single handedly responsible for winning the war.

That being said, I believe it isn’t appropriate that Sarath Fonseka is using a picture of himself in uniform in his campaign. It’s fallacious since he’s no longer a General.

It’s actually quite depressing reading the news. None of the Presidential candidates are worth voting for. At first I thought I’d just vote for whoever is the lesser evil, but by the looks of it they’re all equally bad. All right, I seem to have gone off on a tangent again…

Regarding the Banknote and Army uniform campaigning what’s your opinion?

Bloggers At Risk?

The government has finally gotten a whiff of what’s been cooking on the internet, and even though it’s trussed up in more important matters such as the GSP+, it’s managed to detangle a hand to wag a finger at bloggers.

Irresponsible websites which resort to distorting facts to create a rift between the government and ‘other’ parties would be black listed and publicized through the provisions available through the state media, the government information department said today quoting a Minister- dailymirror.lk reports.

The more stringent measures taken against Tissainayagam, than a mere blacklisting of his website, is evidence enough to show that the government has all the power to manipulate the law and slam you with 20 years of R.I for pointing out the faults of the ruling body.

New media has never been a threat to the government before what with development in Sri Lanka being at a fetal stage. You’d think websites and blogging shouldn’t really bother the government when considering anyone wanting to reach the masses would place the internet at the bottom of their list of ‘means of mass communication’.

So now that they’re keeping an eye on the internet, what should we expect next? Tapping of phone conversations? Perhaps the millions of people who will be unemployed once the EU withdraws the GSP+ can be recruited to monitor phone conversations.

If more websites or blogs are closed down we might just find ourselves relieving North Korea of being ranked the lowest on the ‘press freedom rank’ next year. Ranked by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), Sri Lanka has been place 162 out of 175 countries on the list, this year.

In 2005– before the current regime came into power, RSF had positioned Sri Lanka at 115 out of 167 countries. Now you don’t have to be a math whiz to notice that globally we’ve fallen in ranks over the past few years.

Not only have we dropped in ranks over the past few years but would you believe this year we’ve been sandwiched between Palestinian Regions and Saudi Arabia. Oh but that’s not the worst of it. No, the worst is that Pakistan is ahead of us placed in the 159 spot. That’s a bit of a damper considering I’d always thought of Pakistan as a country we could look at when things got bad down here and say “heck, at least we’re better off than them”!

What Freedom?

The war may have been won but Sri Lanka is far from being a free country. We’ve gone from living in fear of being blown to pieces to living in fear of our supposedly democratic government.

Journalist J.S Tissainayagam’s verdict reinforces the belief that the government has  infiltrated the courts. It’s plain to see that judges are being strong-armed by the government, when considering the charges under which he has been convicted.

The first journalist to be tried under Prevention of Terrorism Act, Tissainayagam was convicted on two of four charges-

• Collecting and obtaining information for the purpose of terrorism and for donating funds for the purpose of terrorism through the collection of funds for the online magazine OutreachSL which is now defunct.

• Attempting to cause the commission of acts of violence or racial or communal disharmony relating to articles he published in the magazine in 2006 and 2007.

The 45 year old journalist has been sentenced by Colombo High Court Judge Depani Wijesundara to a 20 years rigorous imprisonment having been found guilty on the two counts.

The government was supposed to prove that he wrote an article that incited ‘communal disharmony’ which equals terrorism and that he associated with persons unknown to the government. Some of his articles have been saved and can be found here. I’d urge you to read them and make your own judgment.

Apart from that, the word out is that the government’s leading witnesses were solely policemen. While the defence led evidence of witnesses who were considered to reflect the view of the ‘reasonable man’ (random people who aren’t connected to Tissainayagam).

Chances are the police wouldn’t have “witnessed” anything substantive and simply gave evidence on how they found the published material in his house.

It’s been reported that Tissainayagam will appeal. We can only hope that the ruling is overturned. In all probability Tissainayagam’s  appeal will be based on the reasoning of the judgment in the High Court being patently wrong, which would mean that there was no case and asking that he be set free.

I came across an interesting comment on DailyMirror.lk on an article about him being found guilty.

“If Karuna can be pardoned and given a Ministerial position after sending him to the UK with a forged passport, Tissanayagam could be made the Editor of a Government Newspaper if he joins ‘Chinthanaya’.”

Which is quite true. We’ve got someone who abducted and forcibly enlisted child soldiers being given a ministerial position and someone who voiced out his dissent being clapped in prison for 20 year under RI! Isn’t that twisted?

One thing’s for sure though, Tissainayagama being found guilty is a violent blow to the already crumbling ‘media freedom’ and ‘dissent’ in the country. Before the government orchestrated the abductions, assaults and assassinations of journalists behind drawn curtains, but now it would seem the government has managed to puppeteer the law and its rulings.

What we should do now is make some noise about this issue so that the majority who seem to think that Mahinda is infallible will sit up and take notice. Even if they don’t change their minds immediately they will notice that something isn’t right and if we keep at it, making a clamour about what the government is doing, maybe we waft off the cloud of delusion that’s fogging up their reasoning.

Hikka Fest Fracas

The Minister of Tourism Promotion Faizer Mustapa buckled last week apologising for the indecent behaviour and the semi nude tourists at the Hikka Fest.

There’s been a clamour about the pictures of the scantily dressed foreign women dancing provocatively at the beach fest. Some say the pictures have been in circulation months ahead of the beach party, and some say those pictures were taken in Dubai.

I say whether the pictures were from the Hikka Fest or not, is entirely beside the point. Doesn’t this feel oddly like the mobile phones and porn ban in the country?

What’s the government going to do now? Ban the Hikka Fest? Hand out ‘Dress Code’ guides at the air port? Or better yet, hand tourists sarongs to tie up at the bust before heading to the beach or any body of water, and fine them heftily if they’re spotted without them?

You can be sure a strict regime isn’t going to help tourism in Sri Lanka, which is a primary revenue generator of the island.

If we are to develop as a nation we have to accept that development and cultural influences cannot be sundered. Though communist parties have argued that Sri Lanka can be self-sufficient and develop without losing its culture, it’s impossible fortify the island from foreign influences unless its isolate completely from the rest of the world. We also have to consider that at where Sri Lanaka stands at the moment, self-sufficency is light years away. But say we do end up being self-sufficient, if we continue to export and import and allow people to travel in and out of the country foreign cultural influences WILL infiltrate Lankan culture. Take China for example, they’re still influenced by Western culture even though they can stand on their own feet.

Also, having watched the documentary ‘Tank Man’ , I discovered that the generation that grew up after the Tiananmen Square episode are oblivious to it… Isn’t it strange how the rest of the world is aware of what happened in 1989 at the Tiananmen Square protest, while the Chinese are completely oblivious to it? By blocking google search, destroying all documentations of the ghastly killing, China has successfully drawn the blinds on a major historical event to bolster its communist regime. And that’s nothing short of disgusting! The Chinese are living a lie.

And then we have Malaysia, alright… so it would seem it’s sunshine and smiles over there. But that’s just what everyone is made to believe. No one knows about what really goes down in the supposedly ‘truly asian country’ because all media organisations are under government control. NOTHING seeps out to the public. At least in Sri Lanka journalists report on the uncouth activity of the government albeit at the risk of being whizzed off in a white van or receiving a bullet to their brain. Which I’d rather have than have my mind manipulated by some communist!

Right… I think I’ve gone off on a tangent as usual. Going back to the point a few paragraphs above, let’s assume that the government is being genuine in stating that it really cares about preserving Sri Lankan culture (modesty in particular).

1. Sri Lankan culture is in fact Vaddas with mangled hair, skipping about in grass skirts. Anything else considered ‘Sri Lankan culture’ is from refined influences. So the culture we have today isn’t something that’s truly Lankan. Culture WILL be influenced. You can impede the process, but you cannot stop it.

2. Our culture never really had that element of modesty to begin with. The frescoes on the Sigiriya rock reveal women during Kassiappa’s time went around topless (assuming the King hadn’t decreed that…). But even if you take present Lankan culture, the lama saree isn’t exactly a modest either.

Another possibility (though highly unlikely) is that the government is trying to cultivate modesty and thereby protect the people. If there’s a naive lot who believe that trite, they should know that the government isn’t taking the right measures. They’re going about it all wrong which makes this argument the least convincing.

Sometime back a Minister, appalled by the university students wearing jeans and t-shirts which he considered lewd spoke about having the female students wear the ‘lama saree’. But that two piece garment hardly qualifies as chaste! Besides, I read somewhere that most rape victims wore skirts than trousers ’cause skirts made the rapist’s life a lot easier.

What’s most likely is that these are distractions created by the government to keep people from noticing what’s really going on. Throwing the watch dogs a few bones to keep them off its trail. You must have noticed that the banning of mobile phones and porn, and the Hikka fest outcry have taken place over a suspiciously short span of time?

Whacking the Media

The WhacksteR: Don’t just stand there! I’m being oppressed by the government, damn it! DO SOMETHING!

Just scribbled this before my editor could get glimpse at what I was up to. The cartoon is my response to some cross firing comments on one of The WhacksteR’s many blogs.

The post – Sri Lanka Media Epic Fail

(Before I proceed I must warn you of the desultory nature of this post. It’d be easier to follow if you read The WhacksteR’s post first)

I’m not going to point out the flaws of his reasoning in this post ’cause I believe Pissu Perera and I have effectively done so in our comments. And I’ve no intention of reproducing that argument here.

However, I will respond to his last comment in which he states-

“I am not talking about journalists individually you see, i am talking about the media as an entity, just like the government is an entity. And equal chance for these entities to do their jobs in a democracy is not at all apparent. The media needs to reassert itself. It has a responsibility to do so“.

Fact is, both the government and the media (including several other institutions) cannot be judged as an entity. There a lot of nitty-gritty that makes it impossible to do that. If we were to take the media, there are the government media establishments and the private establishments. These are two very different types of media. The very purpose of their being contradicts each other. So how can you group them together and judge them as an entity?

Also, according to The WhacksteR, “sometimes half a media is worse than none. And a cowed and controlled one is the worse we can ask for“.

I agree that a ‘controlled media’ is a terrible thing and I’d choose ‘no media’ over it any day. I can’t say the same for ‘half a media is worse than none’.

In the imperfect world that we live in somethings can’t be changed. Sacrifices have to be made. The Whackster’s view of ‘media’ is idealistic. Not just in Sri Lanka but across the world.

Government media is nothing more than propaganda so we’ll brush them aside for now. Private media organisations are chiefly controlled by advertisers. While this may not seem as potent on the face of it, depending on the advertiser it certainly can compromise reporting (eg. reporting on Shell gas, laufs or IOC).

So private media organisations world over have to work within the constraints of advertising. Revenue is made solely from advertising. Reporting unfavourably about advertisers will result in advertisers pulling out, rendering the organisation bankrupt and it will consequently have to close down.

Yes, this is terribly twisted and that’s why we encourage blogging and other means of reporting that do not require large sums of money to keep that hamster running.

However the world, let alone Sri Lanka, is not that technologically advanced for blogs to reach as many people as newspapers, and tv and radio broadcasts. So at this point of time we don’t have an option but to work within these constraints.

Of course, The Whackster seems to believe that if the media is going to work within these constraints we might as well do away with it. To which I ask, how will that help?

At least now you are aware of most of what’s happening around you and you can make educated decisions. If we were to do away with the media you wouldn’t have even known about what Dayan Jayathileke said.

Lastly as for him saying “‘What the media (in Sri Lanka) is up against’ is not the issue here.”

What the media in Sri Lanka is up against is very relevant. Take away their pens and the journalists are people, with families and lives of their own that they are putting at risk for you. This is what the cartoon is about. You’ve got the government suppressing the media on one end and on the other people lambasting them for being cautious about putting their lives at risk.

In response to the fundamental subject of his post, there’s a lot to consider before pointing at the media as a whole or even the private media exclusively and yelling “Lame-duck! Lame-duck!”.