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| Sunday, 7 November 2004 |
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The right column Magadi sellama Do you wash your dirty linen in public? A colleague of mine asked me. I told him "dirty or not dirty, we do not wash any linen in public." Of course dirty linen has to be washed, if you care for hygiene. But that is a private and discreet affair unless you entrust it to professionals -the laundry people. I asked my colleague what prompted him to ask such a silly and perhaps personal question. He said he was only trying to drive a point. He was disgusted with the politicians including those at the top and very top washing dirty linen in public. The media has also become a willing conduit, a sort of political Laundromat for this washing. What media manager would scoff at such oozy juicy stuff? Readers too relish such stories. No wonder 'fly on the wall' stories are so popular. If you take a corollary from the answer I gave my colleague, it is clear that even political dirty linen has to be washed to ensure hygiene of our body politic. The only thing is it should be channelled to the proper place. In this respect it is heartening that the President has instructed coalition leaders to settle differences within the UPFA in proper internal fora - the Cabinet and the Coalition Apex Committee. Unfortunately wisdom has dawned after much damage has been done. The trouble with our politicians is that they cannot contain an itch to play the joker in public to entertain the audience. I do not know whether it is the "revolutionary itch" of which Lenin spoke of or the scabies itch. It is tragic that politicians spend most of their time amplifying and commenting on issues of trivial significance when issues of national importance abound that should attract their attention. Watching these highly sensational but low quality dramas one wonders whether they are also enacting what Martin Wickremesinghe described in one of his books as Magadi Sellama, a meaningless interlude resorted to by dramatists to mark time. Perhaps this magadi sellama will go on till the next hustings and the drama will be repeated again and again, ad infinitum. The bus mafia Strikes were traditionally a weapon of working class struggle. Now their opponents- the mudalalis have taken over the weapon of their adversaries. The private bus owners are one of the few who resort to strike action quite often. Last week we saw another lightening strike by them over an administrative issue - the issuing of route permits to few of their own kind. This bus magnate mafia does not know the language of civilized discussion. They resorted to strike action harassing the commuters at their will. As usual the authorities gave in. As regards the provincial authorities under whose charge this subject comes, the less we talk about them the better. They have been unable to get the mafia to issue even a simple bus ticket, leave alone disciplining their rude and eccentric behaviour. - the Sceptic |
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