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by Basil Fernando
(April 30, Hong King, Sri Lanka Guardian) In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest satirical pieces is the Summoner’s Tale. In it the Summoner responds to the Friar’s Tale and attempts to insult the shameless cleric by saying that friars live in the devil arse.
Out of the Devil's arse-hole there did drive Full twenty thousand friars in a rout, And through all Hell they swarmed and ran about. And came again, as fast as they could run, And in his arse they crept back, every one.
Reading the peace chief’s comment on Sir Nigel Rodley’s statement, “that any representation by the government of Sri Lanka about what any of us (IIGEP) says should be looked at with extreme skepticism,” leaves no doubt that the residence of the so-called peace secretariat, is the same place where the friars were found in the Summoner’s tale. This conclusion comes not only from this piece by Rajiva Wijesinha, but the rest of his writings too, which have the same style. On an earlier occasion we compared his role to that of Squealer in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. His reply was that he was amused and, indeed, he seems to be a person who lives in a perpetual state of amusement. He even begins this piece on Sir Nigel Rodley’s statement by saying that he was amused by it.
Where is Justice P N Bhagwati’s purported letter?
A simple reply to Sir Nigel Rodley’s skepticism about Justice P.N. Bagwati’s statement would have been to produce the letter purported to have been written by the Justice retracting the IIGEP’s earlier criticisms to the effect that the Sri Lankan government has no political will to find out the truth about gross human rights abuses of state officers; that the Attorney General's Department’s role in the Presidential Commission of Inquiry implies conflict of interest; and that the absence of witness protection is a fundamental denial of international norms and standards of any inquiry into human rights abuse. Since no newspaper has produced this letter “the peace chief” could have simply demolished Sir Nigel Rodley’s skepticism by producing it.
The familiar game that the peace chief in his role as Squealer tries to play constantly is to accuse people by all sorts of names and thereby create the impression that he is representing the truth as against them. He refers to Sir Nigel Rodley’s comment as ‘sanctimonious bluster’ which in fact is a suitable appellation for his own work. He also refers to Sir Nigel Rodley as shallow and snide. It is this extremely profound peace chief who is calling others shallow. A good study to enable anyone to find out what exactly is shallow might be to read the writings of “the peace chief” himself.
This peace chief, who at one time devoted himself to writing long books on the executive presidency in Sri Lanka, is now one of the propaganda chiefs of the incumbent executive president. Among his writings is his book, Declining Sri Lanka – Terrorism and Ethnic Conflict, the legacy of J.R. Jayewardene (1906-1996). The legacy continues today through the present executive president and the ‘peace secretariat’ continues the legacy of political failures and the worst types of propaganda traditions that came into being with absolute power being vested with an executive president. The dictionary meaning of ‘sanctimonious is to be hypocritically devout. To pretend that Jayewardene’s legacy was bad for democracy and liberalism and that the present regime’s legacy is good for democracy and liberalism is nothing but sanctimonious cant.
What is this ‘peace’ that “the peace secretariat” claims to be committed to? How is this peace going to be distributed to all the people of Sri Lanka? To find that aspect of the contribution of ‘the peace secretariat’ to peace in Sri Lanka we could go back to the Summoner’s Tale. The friar that was satirized in this tale badgers a man to make a donation for the promotion of faith and the building of a church. The man, who is aware of the friar’s hypocrisy, says to him:
“Now then, come put your hand right down my back, Replied this man, "and grope you well behind; For underneath my buttocks shall you find A thing that I have hid in privity." "Ah," thought the friar, "this shall go with me!" And down he thrust his hand right to the cleft, In hope that he should find there some good gift. And when the sick man felt the friar here Groping about his hole and all his rear, Into his hand he let the friar a fart.
Then the story teller raises a theological question as to how the gift given to the friar by this man can be equally divided among all of the friar’s brethren.
This is the type of cynical and most despicable way the peace chief approaches some of the most fundamental problems, not just of peace but of the very existence of criminal justice in Sri Lanka. The questions raised by the IIGEP are not new questions at all to anyone who is familiar with the legal system of the country. To a person who has been writing books about ‘Declining Sri Lanka’ the questions that have been raised should not have caused any surprise. The entire criminal justice system of Sri Lanka has suffered a great fall, like the fall of Humpty Dumpty, and it is virtually impossible for this system to conduct credible investigations into crime in general and crimes by state officers in particular; and furthermore, the prosecutorial system has also failed the country. The questions of criminal justice are as important to a nation to stay together as any peace deals. The collapse of criminal justice makes life unbearable to all the citizens whatever their race or religion. It is about those matters that the peace chief is amused about.
Anyway, we hope that the purported letter by Justice P.N. Bagwati will be made public
- Sri Lanka Guardian
Excellent article. The "peace chief" deserves all that he has got. The Peace Secretariat itself is an anachronism and the present head is clearly just there for the perks. He is also a disgrace to all academics, one of whom he supposedly is.
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