Link Part One
(A Dialogue on investigations. Written for the occasion of the commemoration of Lasantha Wickrematunge, six months after his assassination. Lasantha Wickrematunge, a Sri Lankan journalist, was assassinated on the 8th January 2008)
(July 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) This is a discussion among several imaginary characters. These imaginary characters do not represent any living persons.
The Characters
A journalist who is conducting the interview;
A senior police officer who has agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity;
A retired judge;
A political scientist;
A philosopher.
Journalist: In our last discussion, the police officer told us that in the case of Lasantha Wickramatunge no one has told the police not to investigate, and at the same time no one in fact was investigating the case. Can we take it as a general condition regarding all cases?
Senior Police Officer: Well, we do some work to occupy ourselves.
Philosopher: Well, if you didn’t you would have to close shop. The problem is how to keep the department yet do no real work.
Retired Judicial officer: It all depends on what real works means. Do any of us do any real work anymore?
Political Scientist: Let us retain loose meanings for some words. It is difficult to define what is real and unreal in present circumstances. Unreal often seems more real these days. Just to walk up and kill your opponent in open daylight does not seem real. James Bond type of stuff, you might think. But it is no longer fantasy. Such things happen all the time nowadays.
Senior Police Officer: Let me put it this way: no one tells us not to investigate. However, we do not always investigate
. You may think that that sounds like a riddle. It may be. Whether it is or not, that is how things happen.Political Scientist: Once again, as a statement of the actual situation, what the police officer says is correct.
Philosopher: From our last discussion we do have an explanation about cases that police do not investigate. Those are things that are likely to bring more harm to themselves, if they were to try to investigate. So, we may conclude that things that are no harm to investigate will be among the things that that they may investigate.
Senior Police Officer: I cannot contradict that.
Philosopher: That would mean you have no obligation to investigate.
Senior Police Officer: Obligations? No, no. Such a thing called obligation does not exist any more. Ha, ha.
I might add that the only obligation may be not to bring about harm on ourselves. You may think that is being selfish. Well, that’s how things are.
Political Scientist: If you think obligations are no longer relevant, does it not follow that law is no longer relevant?
Retired Judicial Officer: How far should we talk freely about such matters? We do need to say that law is relevant and even supreme. It may be harmful to talk frankly about how things really are.
Journalist: Let us feel free here. Let us uncensor ourselves.
Retired Judicial officer: Let me put it this way. We are a poor country and therefore cannot have supremacy of law. We do not have resources to enforce law. This means that we know that law is not all that important.
Philosopher: What then is important?
Retired Judicial Officer: To let the things be, and not bring more harm to ourselves by insisting on things like obligations and laws.
Journalist: Does this mean that what we call our own system, or our homegrown system, is one where law and obligations have no real importance? It is one in which we do in ad hoc manner whatever we think is appropriate?
Senior Police Officer: That seems accurate to me.
Retired Judicial Officer: It seems right, but we should not put it so crudely.
Political Scientist: It is good description of what is. But, when there is no ideal to compare it with, you cannot say whether it is good or bad.
Philosopher: It is not difficult to say that all this is very bad. By saying that it is our own system, our homegrown system, we only are trying to hide how wretched our situation is.
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