Peoples Alliance starts election campaign in Eastern province!

Mahinda Chinthana on Rupavahini and Dr. Mervin Silva

The continuing brutal attacks against the Rupavahini corporation employees expose the nudity of current regime in the most pitiable manner. How can one trust an incompetent government who cannot even stop such attacks against innocent victims in broad daylight to fight terrorism and bring peace to this country? How can they catch Prabhakaran, if they cannot catch even a ‘delipihi-kaaraya’ at Orugodawatte?

Let me deviate from the popular opinion by not focusing criticism at a single individual. Doctor Dutugemunu certainly played and most probably continues to play a role in this drama, but to quote Adolf Eichmann, he is only a cog in a larger machine. Little can be achieved by replacing one cog, when the necessity is to dispose the mechanism before it does irrecoverable damage to the society we live.

When Minister Mervin Silva played that now infamous havoc at Rupavahini, many inaccurately took it a part of personal agenda.  Demonstrating his true self, he talked filth making insulting and sexually connoted references to former minister Mangala Samaraweera’s parents and was apparently outraged when Rupavahni, a TV station puppet-controlled by the very government he is a part of did not broadcast it. (In fact, the station did him a favour by not broadcasting the speech, but surely brain is a not fully functional organ in Dr. Mervin Silva’s anatomy)

A simple and straightforward explanation but, if that were the case, given the unprecedented and enormous damage this incident caused not only to the government and the party but to the President himself (as the one who first brought his ‘game miniha’ to politics!) the immediate rational reaction would have been a formal request or failing that a stern order to resign. That was how disciplined and responsible political world behaves elsewhere.

Had we witnessed any call for resign? Forget that. Had we seen something even like a reprimand for Doctor Dutugemunu for all what he did? (Mind you, it is not the first instance he or his son got into similar troubles!)

No. We have witnessed nothing of that sort. Mervin Silva is still a minister, and surprisingly continuous to be the SLFP organizer for Kelaniya. He yields the same power he had before the incident. Nothing had ever changed.

What does this imply? One possibility is that nobody in this country is man enough to warn Mervin Silva. The very people who give ‘pora talks’ about killing Prabahkaran within deadlines seem to be sheepishly kneeling in front of Doctor Dutugemunu. If that is the case, this is the turn of Malaka Silva to send some women’s attire to the spineless political leaders who treats his father like deity, patiently tolerating all his acts of violence against innocent people. Time for them to change their ‘amude lensuvas’ to some sexy lingerie from House of fashion or Odel.

 Image: With good friends at higher places it looks like Mervin is asking “API KAATADA BAYA?”

The other, more logical possibility is what Doctor Dutugemunu is doing is part and parcel of Mahinda Chintana. The original document missed most of the actual deliveries we were about to get (like incredible price hikes, electric shock treatments and weekly bomb blasts in South) so this too can be a late annexure.

Yes, he does some damage but he there is nobody better than him to distract people from their more pressing day to day issues. Imagine if not for Mervin, what would have been the headlines of national dailies. Which leader in government likes to see headline about rising prices of essential commodities or bomb blasts day after day? So Mervin provides them a perfect shield, by creating a safety margin between people and issues. What more the leaders of the already failed state can ask for? And for those who are even ready to team up with TMVP ex-terrorists for their political survival, Mervin Silva is more like a ‘poos petiya’.

The latest victim of the violence was Arunasiri Hettige, an Assistant Director and a pro-JVP union leader. He was attacked by two unidentified men at Kotikawatte on Friday who dragged him by legs and slashed his neck with a sharp instrument. He was lucky. Had the injury been half an inch above he would have been with Sripathy now.

Ironic is that the same people like Hettige who was part of a political party that played a key role in bringing the current regime to power, but it would be too harsh if anyone to call it poetic justice. Right of opinion is something everyone is a democratic society enjoys, and it is pathetic if one were to be assaulted for protesting the uninvited and uncivilized petty performances of a pathetic individual at their own premises.

Finally, it is the duty of all right thinking men and women to stand by the Rupavahini staff at this difficult moment. This is not a moment to think about political divisions.

Remember the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller.

WHEN THEY CAME FOR ME, NOBODY WAS LEFT TO SPEAK UP.