Protests and protests

This feline went to bed on Tuesday, February 16 night completely shattered, yes shattered. Mercifully, not a personal problem shattering her but a national calamity which could worsen. A national crisis affects this cat since so many are involved and the brunt of it is on the less privileged.

If you are born as a human or even as an animal, problems, hazards, ill-luck and ill-health are inevitable. But one cannot stand when people in all their cussedness, sometimes puppet-stringed from outside, and direly foolish, cause unnecessary trouble. And that is what is happening more and more in this beautiful land of ours which is grossly misused by crass people.

Protest by graduates

Menika speaks of the protests that are staged almost daily and getting more violent. Protestors now congregate on public roads, highways, bridges, and cause as much inconvenience as possible. Take for example last Tuesday.

In the morning there was a huge protest by unemployed graduates gathered from even Batticaloa and Jaffna trying to barge their way to the Prime Minister’s office. They could so easily send two people with a letter to meet the PM and talk to him. He will surely spare some time. But no. The idea is to cause as much mayhem and trouble to the police and the public.

Menika watched carefully and listened intently to the discussion that ensued between the police officer and the leader or spokesman of the protestors. The latter was very loud mouthed, burning with anger, and the protestors determined to crash through or climb over the barricades placed across the road. The police officers were very polite; seemed to understand the anger of the graduates and attempted to persuade them not to proceed to overstep the barriers. The police failed in their attempted persuasion and had no other recourse but to water cannon the graduates.

Previous protest

We remember what a ho ha there was when a large and unruly group of protesters from universities marched together and wanted to invade the University Grants Commission (UGC). They protest so frequently and often for the most flippant of reasons that this cat forgets what they were shouting about. They were asked to disperse but they persisted in moving forwards and even climbing the barricades.

They were carried aside by the police. One girl sat a mite behind the most vociferous and violent of the protesters. She could so easily have retreated. She got knocked by a police officer; deliberately or accidentally, one could not say.

Menika who saw it all on TV could not decide but she definitely blamed the girl. In this column she roundly blamed the students. She exonerated the police since what could they do but use physical force of carrying students aside or even pushing them, since they had to prevent a forced entry to the UGC. The police were found fault with; and that gave university students a further fillip.

Menika also Cassandra-cried that faulting the police would give encouragement to students to take the law into their own hands and tie the restraining hands of the police.

In this protest too she lays the blame fair and square on the unemployed graduates. Take it from Old Menika, having experienced working in a Faculty in the University of Colombo, she knows how fine students can be but led by one or two ruffians, they can so easily get out of hand.

These protesting graduates need to have it dinned into their BAed brains that they got education free, and even bursaries. The government cannot hand out jobs to them on platters. Take it again from Menika, they are not willing to take any old job; they want executive positions. The public sector is already bulging to dangerous proportions by governments just giving jobs to appease the grads. It must not be done. They have to seek jobs; get trained or whatever and get employment. Jobs cannot be handed over to them as a right of theirs.

Menika remembers travelling often to Kuliyapitiya on a project. En route, returning to Colombo, she would stop at a fruit shop managed by a very good looking, apparently cultured young man. Enquiring, she found he was a graduate and had decided to start the fruit business. “I did not want to stay at home waiting for a job.” On a later day she found a very pretty girl helping the young man. She spoke English and had passed her ALs. They were to be married soon. The protesting graduates of today have shunned jobs that require their hands; have turned away from their father’s lands and paddy fields. This feline has no pity or sympathy for them; only scorn for their parasitic natures.

Protests by tenants

The Kelani Bridge was swamped by protesters, mostly very young boys, and this resulted in a huge pile up of vehicles. Some tenants of rough shod houses were protesting the destruction of these unlawful abodes of theirs. Menika is sure that unlike during the previous regime, the tenements were not destroyed with little warning and no concern. The news relayed that day indicated that flats had been built for the tenants of the area but they (or whoever) had rented out the shanties. These were the protesters. They caused so much confusion and mayhem. People returning home after a hard day’s work were delayed by two hours.

This cat had a relative arriving from overseas on Sunday 14 and as is usual with her, wondered what calamity would delay his arrival. Added now to the likely jinks of airline persons striking; fog and inclement weather delaying take-off or landing; sudden cancellations of flights; is added the local hazard of protesters swarming roads leading from Katunayake to Colombo. Don’t you see a pattern emerging? Protest on vital highways; cause maximum trouble to people and be extra belligerent with the police, is the aim of these protesters now.

And thus this cat’s conclusion. Far-fetched but very relevant to this land where political ambition exceeds everything else. Let the public suffer and cause maximum trouble to the police and thus bring dire discredit to the government. That seems to be what’s behind these almost daily disruptions to normal life. It most likely is that there are persons behind the protesters egging them on with money and liquor. Their attempt is to topple the present government. Is it a certain person whose vaulting ambition will soon enough override and toss him on the ground and his unruly golayas who crave positions of power to cover up all the sins committed during the past ten years who are behind the various bands of protesters?

- Menika