Where terrorism left off, media terrorism takes over with a halo

The Rajpal Abeynayake Column

The heat is on. The Hindu carried a comment to say that Sri Lanka is becoming intolerant of its “peaceniks.” That term is insulting by itself, and connotes the lunatic fringe. (Peaceniks, beatniks, flower-kids, lunarniks, lunatics.......). But, the Hindu says that Sri Lankan peaceniks and NGO flower-kids are not adequately cosseted or pampered.

The Hindu commentator goes completely round the bend by saying that no case was filed in court against the Buddhist monks who abortively sabotaged the peace campaign staged by a pro peace group at Vihara Maha Devi park sometime back. What he leaves unsaid is that he visualises these monks derobed, defrocked decapitated and delivered to him with their heads planted on platters.

So, there is no doubt about it. If we are to use the clinically neutered language of the international news magazine, there is something that is definitely happening ‘’for good or for ill.’’

For good or for ill, there is a definite tendency to put the brakes on Sri Lanka’s defensive-aggressive push towards the Wanni, by (A) underlining the humanitarian costs of combat (B) highlighting the economic costs of war..

With regard to the second, the interview granted to a wire service by the dad of the current Air Force commandant, Air Vice Marshall Harry Gunatilleke is pertinent. If he was quoted right, he said something to the effect that the Sri Lankan forces are winning, but that the war’s costs, unfortunately, would eventually have to retard these gaining tendencies...

Rich men in America smoked cigars rolled out of hundred dollar bills, but the poor men in Sri Lanka couldn’t fix the ammunition into their guns anytime they were within striking distance of the enemy.

So it seems. But, what of my Colombo based upwardly mobile friend who says ‘’thanakola kala hari api mey uddaya ivarayak karranna onne — netthang ratatama anagathayak nehe.’’ (We need to win this war, even if we have to eat grass while its being fought; there is no future in the alternative.)

Would he be munching at breakfast buffet time at the grassy knoll, if it came to the eventuality? The Sri Lankan defence bill was ratcheted up by twenty per cent in a couple of recent months, but so far, he has not consumed any kind of grass.
But, what of the whingeing Colombo based editorial lamentators who say ‘’we cannot take this anymore?’’

They seem to be high on the grass, not eating it.

But the ‘we’’ is inspired, as their real concern is about their own Colombo based existences, not those of the poorer who are willing to ‘’thanakola kanna’’ until the war draws to an end.

The Norwegians have held that this is an un-winnable war, making an imp among us want to quip that a winnable war wouldn’t have offered them the job security they wanted in the SLMM cadre.

But, why does a war become “un-winnable” everytime the Sri Lankan forces look as if they might be winning it?

The war is probably therefore un-winnable, but not in the literal sense on the face of the statement. It’s un-winnable, because nobody wants Sri Lanka to win it. Everybody makes sure that the forces would have to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - - and the war’s un-winnability hence becomes axiomatic and self fulfilling.

Everytime a Sri Lankan wants to point out that when the Sri Lankan forces are winning the war, the war suddenly becomes “un-winnable’’, he is immediately branded a war monger, which is not a mild snide aside such as ‘’peacenik’’ is, but is a complete pejorative label stuck for life.

Apparently, the newspapers are now going to town about the President saying that the LTTE wants peace this week, because its cadres are getting exterminated.

What a brilliant deduction. A seven year old must be telling this to his mother over Quaker Oats, and here we have the Sri Lankan press going batty over this sensational statement supposedly made by the Commander in Chief.

Dayan Jayatilleke writes in the Daily News that Sri Lanka would be perceived as the aggressor when the LTTE clamours for peace talks and the Sri Lankans baulk.

It’s correct because the international media is something of a cricket match, which does not keep scores.

Think of a cricket match in which every ball bowled is the first ball, be it the last ball on the third day. This ball alone decides who is winning at the current moment. Say Sri Lanka is close to defeating England by an innings. Now, suppose the last ball bowled would get a wicket for England. That would get England on the winning side in a cricket match in which no scores are either kept or respected.

No scores are kept or respected in the international media wire-services or the NGO and diplomatic information conduits. All previous scores are obliterated, and if the current ‘delivery’ shows that Sri Lanka is refusing to talk when the LTTE wants to talk — the Sri Lankans would be called intransigent faster than Darryl Hair calls someone ‘chucker’.

That the LTTE didn’t want talks about a month earlier, when it wasn’t getting battered, would be the score that was clean wiped out and licked off the board.

Snigger

Couldn’t you almost touch and feel that collective NGO snigger?? “Who is keeping scores in this humanitarian disaster’’ would be the Mother Theresa prototype question that would be divinely routed to any simpleton such as me, that dares suggest internationally and in the media that the LTTE wants talks because it’s getting a mauling of its life.

Should such ball-by-ball non-cricket pass off for international newsmongering? If it didn’t, should we have to ask Dayan’s question “Won’t we be perceived as the aggressor?’’

Shouldn’t Lankans work towards the international media (along with its NGO and diplomatic halo) being told exactly where to get off? That way, should any Sri Lankans have to go for talks thrust on them, when they are at a well deserved advantage over a Tiger that harassed them for years? Is the media war that’s fought from where the LTTE war has left off, RIGHT? Is this media terrorism to be countenanced?

No, but where is the choice.

So, talk, talk as they say - until the cows come home, and then until the Tigers come to your watering hole and drink to your health???