|
|
|
| Sunday, 12 March 2006 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
The Rajpal Abeynayake column Introducing the via-Balasingham media What motivates a traitor? We do not know, but in the 'Ballad of reading gaol' Oscar Wilde ruminated on why he was losing faith in his mother country. He was being treated bad, but even so he had an attack of conscience, and wondered if British justice was right and he was wrong for being a homosexual. There are some who lose faith in their motherland, and act in isolation to subvert it. They do it out of mercenary considerations, and we have in recorded history, same of the most treacherous betrayals of the nation becoming regularised. For example, many of those who signed the Kandyan convention -- in Tamil at that -- were betraying the nation for a mess of pottage and for temporary advantage in turf wars with other fiefs who ran large fiefdoms. In other words, these were simple rascals, who got a foreign power involved in order to get a leg up over the competition. These days such petty wars are fought in the media space. Mr Anton Balasingham., we are sure, did not elicit a signal of approval with one raised digit -- from a scribe -- because he had some problem with his kidneys. There was nothing that he could not have staved off with a bit of dialysis, and a doctor with a bedside manner and solid medical credentials. But, he has got approval from the media that has been fighting a turf war not over fiefdoms but over power sharing. That's power sharing of the kind that is not spoken about by conflict resolution wallahs. Power sharing at the periphery be damned -- its power sharing at the centre over which all media considerations are determined. If the UNP had come to power, there were certain ways in which the pie would have got divided. Half of it would have gone to those who helped via the media - - - and the other half would have gone to via the media, which includes folks such as Anton Balasingham, with or without any sympathy on account of his kidneys. People are talking of spoilers --- but how can they without talking of the spoils? Of all the vogue words, 'spoilers' became current at about the time that the G.L. Peiris's peace process was becoming a daily show of apology for the Liberation Tigers. Lakshman Kadirgamar foremost among them, showed that there can be no such thing as a peace when you have bent totally over backwards. For this, he was rewarded with a freshly minted NGO word: 'spoiler'. It may have had its antecedents in other conflicts, but 'spoiler' was only parboiled in the Sri Lankan lexicon before it came to full boil in our conflict cauldron. after Kadirgamar and his ilk installed some checks and balances in a runaway process of appeasement. For this, they were called spoilers. This makes us want to add another word to the cauldron, and let it simmer. When it's well cooked - - people will give some meaning to this new word: spoils. We have peace spoils. Media has been picking peace spoils from when the press entourage got off at Geneva. Balasingham's version of events is being entered into the mainstream discourse by you know which media, and there is no subtlety here -- if the news could be successfully manipulated it can be shown before the next peace process that there is a something in the 'nothings' that the LTTE has designed for the consumption of the global media: the Muslims Jihadists in the East , the high security zones etc.. Systematically, the media has aimed at the spoils resulting from this positioning the news in this way. These spoils in fact, they think, should have been picked up at the last presidential election. Certain fiefdoms were turfed out for various media contributors; among these ambassadorships, chairmanships and other vital areas in which there was either money or power as part of the spoils, most often both. Ranil Wickremesinghe went and lost the presidential election, drat it. Keep your eyes screwed on the spoils, and there is a let down of that order -- the next best thing that can be done is to be the spoiler yourself. What curious logic drives this spoiler element whose rationale for their work, is that they did not get a share of the spoils? This media rationalises that it is all right for them to be pro Tiger, because Mahinda Rajapakse tricked the people into wining the election. They say that he lambasted the ceasefire agreement, but got it approved in Geneva. Sounds eerie since they should in that case be the first to sing hosannas for him. He is implementing policy, that in their estimation is best for the country ---- which is to make peace with the CFA intact. Then why did they cavil about it? For the simple reason that they lost the election. This media circus is dedicated to self-pity; it is the season then to be lachrymose. It bottoms-out to one consideration -- 'we have lost, we shall therefore wreck the peace process with all the strength we've got.' In this first silly season after the elections, the via-Balasingham Sri Lankan media has gone and lost its marbles so much that it cannot subvert the Sri Lankan state without entirely showing its hand. Or their thumb to be precise. When the thumbs go up for Anton Balasingham we know that the media war has hit rock bottom, the nadir with the nadars. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
