We end as we began with the wise and apt words of Buddha’s teachings...!!!

Let the post-election violence and doubts be laid to rest

NOTE BOOK OF A NOBODY

by Shanie

"Events have revealed, for all to see, how thin is the veneer of our piousness. Not only the murders, but the sheer nature and extent of of the attendant cruelties, permit no ‘white-washing’. Instead of trying to project a false image, let us see ourselves in our true image. Let us be aware of the seeds of hate and retaliation in our own society. Then at least we would have taken the first steps in our pilgrimage towards the Buddha."

Emeritus Professor Mahinda Palihawadana wrote the above in the aftermath of the 1983 pogrom. In that same essay, he pointed out that Buddha had asked us to be aware of what we are, that we have in us the propensity to kill, the mentality of hate and retaliation. He argued that this awareness as to what is within us can act as a catalyst. It can turn us away from the path of violence against those who are different from us. The differences can of many forms. Not only ethnic, in the context of the time when Palihawadana wrote, but also political and personal differences. This is what is relevant in our immediate context when the principal opponent of President Rajapakse, his associates and political supporters are being subject to violence and intense harassment.

In the post-election scenario in our country, many charges have been made about the legitimacy of the electoral process that ended with the declaration of a winner. These questions may or may not have any foundation in truth. But the seeming suppression of free speech in this regard and the dismissal of the charges as not warranting an investigation can only add to the rumours, irrespective of whether they are based on fact or fiction. In view of the forthcoming parliamentary election, it is even more important that the charges be dealt with quickly. Even if there were malpractices, it is unlikely, as we noted last week, that it would have made a significant difference to the final outcome. But justice must only be done but also seen to be done. President Rajapakse will do well to agree to an independent audit, under court supervision, of the counting process and the results, including the tallying of votes cast at each polling booth with the final votes counted as certified by the Returning Officers. Giving consent to such an audit will be a sign and a show of strength, not of weakness.


The Naxalite Plot

The people of this country are aware that in the aftermath of his comprehensive victory in the Presidential Election of 1982, President J R Jayawardena had his opponent’s principal supporters, including Vijaya Kumaratunge and the present Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, arrested on alleged charges of plotting violence and assassinations. The Press and offices of Attha, the popular daily newspaper of the Communist Party, were sealed This case of a ‘Naxalite Plot’ fizzled out but it meant that several leading opposition figures remained under detention, unable to campaign later that year against the infamous referendum postponing the parliamentary election that was then due. It is noteworthy that the mainstream media and the Attorney General’s Department went along with this bizarre drama. Only a few organisations such as the Civil Rights Movement had the courage to speak out against this repression of political opponents.

After referring to the alleged Naxalite Plot and the Referendum, Dr Rajan Hoole of the University Teachers for Human Rights wrote: ‘The legacy of the Referendum exercise left impaired the institutions of the Judiciary and the Attorney General’s department, long beyond the UNP’s hold on power. The Army and the Police, instead of being forces which upheld the law impartially, were made to function as private gangs of those in power, when they were called upon to detain and harass opposition figures on the basis of fiction concocted by the executive.’ President Rajapakse and Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, then leading opposition figures, will remember the arrogance and abuse of power by the authoritarian regime of that time with utter disdain and contempt.. Now that they are in power, they must guard against the temptation to abuse power not only by themselves but by their associates as well.

Sometimes, the temptation to abuse power comes with a history of good intentions. In 1977, soon after coming to power, J R Jayawardene in introducing a bill to repeal special legislation passed by the previous government, spoke of special powers ‘hidden away somewhere, in some wardrobe or closet, which one feels like using... I do not want that temptation in our Government. When these are repealed, all the laws that will be operative in Sri Lanka will be normal laws. No man can be locked up by the Police for more than 24 hours. He must be brought to court.’ A year later Vijitha Yapa, a former Editor of The Island, interviewed J R Jayawardene:

VY: When I interviewed you last year, before the elections,my first question was to ask you to comment on fears expressed in certain quarters that you may become a dictator if elected. Now, returning to the island after a year abroad, one finds the same accusation of paving the road to dictatorship being levelled against you by those in the opposition.

JRJ: In which dictatorship do you find tight laws like we have to prevent the extension of terms of the President or Parliament? Even two-third majorities can no longer be used to deny the basic rights of people to choose their own representatives.

Jayawardene’s capitulation to the temptation to use special powers and his slide to authoritarian rule is now history. As victims of that legacy, President Rajapakse and Prime Minister Wickremanayake must now resist the temptation to follow the Jayawardene example in discovering Naxalite or similar plots and abusing special powers, no longer hidden in cupboards and closets.


Conscience and Integrity

Adam Michnik was a campaigner for democratic change in Poland and closely associated with the trade union Solidarity led by Lech Walesa. In 1981, the Polish regime declared martial law, banned Solidarity and arrested Michnik along with several other prominent trade unionists. Two years after his arrest and imprisonment without trial, General Czeslaw Kiszczak, the Minister of Internal Affairs and directly responsible for the repression of dissidents, made a proposal to Michnik: if Michnik would agree to leave the country, he would be freed soon. On the other hand, if he refused the offer, he could look forward to a trial and many years in prison. Michnik refused the offer and wrote a letter to General Kiszczak which the Civil Rights Movement of Sri Lanka have published in their splendid series ‘The Value of Dissent’ as a ‘superb affirmation of the need for conscience as an undeniable guide to ethical conduct, in politics and public life as in private life.’ The published extracts, quoted below, deserve a wider readership:

"I cannot tell the future and I have no idea whether I will yet live to see the victory of truth over lies and of Solidarity over this present anti-worker dictatorship. For me, the value of our struggle lies not in its chances of victory but rather in the value of the cause. Let my little gesture of denial be a small contribution to the sense of honour and dignity in this country that is being made more miserable every day.

"For me, General, prison is not such painful punishment. On that December night in 1981 , when martial law was declared and I was arrested, it was not I who was condemned but freedom; it is not I who am being held prisoner today but Poland. For me, General, real punishment would be if on your orders, I had to spy, wave a truncheon, shoot workers, interrogate prisoners and issue disgraceful sentences. I am happy to find myself on the right side, among the victims and not among the victimisers. But, of course, you cannot comprehend this. Otherwise, you would not be making such foolish and wicked proposals.

"In the life of every honourable person there comes a difficult moment. The simple statement ‘this is black and that is white’ may require paying a high price. It may cost one’s life behind the wire fence of Sachsenhausen or behind the bars of Mokotov prison. At such a time, General, a decent man’s concern is not the price he will have to pay but the certainty that white is white and black is black. One needs a conscience to determine this. Paraphrasing the saying of one of the great writers of our continent, I would like to suggest that the first thing you need to know, General, is what it is to have a human conscience. It may come as news to you that there are two things in his world – evil and good. You may not know that to lie and insult is not good; to betray is bad; to imprison and murder is even worse. Never mind that such may be expedient; they are forbidden. Yes, General, forbidden. Who forbids them? General, you may be the mighty minister of internal affairs; you may have the backing of power that extends from the Elbe to Vladivostok and of the entire police force of this country, you may have millions of informers and millions of zlotys (Polish currency) with which to buy guns, water cannons, bugging devices, servile collaborators, informers and journalists; but something, invisible, a passerby in the dark, will appear before you and say: this you must not do. That is conscience."


Milinda Prasna

Also in the same CRM series, is a short extract from an ncient Pali text called Milinda Prasna or Milinda Questions. It is a dialogue between the Buddhist monk Nagasena and King Milinda.

The King says: "Bhante Nagasena, will you converse with me?"

"Sire, if you will converse with meafter the fashion of the wise, I will. But if you converse with me as kings converse, I will not."

""How, Bhante Nagasena, do the wise converse?"

"Sire, when the wise converse, whether they become entangled in their opponent’s arguments or extricate themselves, or whether they or their opponents are shown to be in error, and whether their own superiority or that of their opponents is proved, none of these things can make them angry."

"And how, Bhante, do kings converse?""Sire, when kings converse they put forward a proposition, and if any should oppose it, they order his punishment, saying, ‘Punish this fellow!"

Bhante, you are right. I will converse as the wise do, not as kings do. Let your reverence converse with me in all confidence. Let your reverence converse as unrestrainedly as if with a Bhikkhu, a novice, a lay disciple or a keeper of the monastery grounds. Have no fear!"

We end as we began with the wise and apt words of Buddha’s teachings.


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