Hear ye what real truth-telling is

By Rajpal Abeynayake

(August 10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Quaintly, this notion prevails that only those who toady upto the government in power are sycophants.

Unless they have given new dictionary meaning to the word, those who toady upto the opposition in general or the opposition UNP, or those who toady upto international big powers or ambassadors and high commissioners and other potentates in Colombo are sycophants too - - and it’s time somebody put his foot down and said, out — out all ye sycophants, out of that closet.

Some economic czars and analysts who spell gloom and doom for the economy are —- as is only too well known —- closet sycophants of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Of course a great many of those who carry the flame for traditional values and ‘patriotism’ are no doubt closet sycophants of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Most of the latter are not closet sycophants really — they are so eager to show their fealty that they are a perpetual embarrassment.

But not so the other variety of sycophants, the smooth operators who mouth various excuses from time to time, swear to be good governance savants and committed rights activists, but are all gilded sycophants nevertheless.

It’s this variety of sycophant who when they are criticized or cornered say - - - “look look mother, they are criticizing us — so they must be in lockstep with the government.’’ Yes, of course, we are going to expose these ghouls every opportunity we get, because hiding behind a veneer of anti-government at all cost activism doesn’t give these Jhonnys-come-lately the right to be sycophants to interfering foreign interlopers —— INGO bosses, Tamil Diaspora handmaidens and Colombo elite UNP inner sanctorum hurrah boys and the lot.

In lockstep with

These guys have an easy manthra. We can criticize all and sundry, but the moment they criticize us, well those critics are bashing us poor boys because we are the only anti- government horde left, and they are in lockstep with the powers-that-be, right?

Wrong.

And who are they in lockstep with? Every interfering alien, every barely-closet LTTE operative, every sabotaging blatantly partisan pro UNP sympathizer. So, give us the license to bash all others they say, but you must have your hands tied behind your back, ok? Some cats, these.

The point about these Jhonnys come lately, is that they do not know that truth-telling is not about sycophancy. The truth must go for everyone of all stripes, ever single charlatan and every single two-timing mountebank.

Only that kind of freedom expression that also calls the bluff of every preening humbug of every shade and stripe, is real truth-telling, the rest of it is advertising for your own partisan favourite.

But the moment these partisan charlatans are exposed, they cry to momma and say “chee, they are abusing me aney.” Talk about not getting in the kitchen if you can’t take the heat...
The plain fact is that today, while the government is guilty of all kinds of excess and abuse of power, which this newspaper does not fail to scrupulously document every week —- there are a myriad of other civil society actors and INGO and NGO media personnel to boot, who are feathering their own nests and advancing their own personal agendas. There is no need to speak in the abstract - - those who tried to stop the successful military campaign against the LTTE on the pretext of rights activism, were for the most part acting as paid or unpaid LTTE agents. While in most cases the proof is available, their behavior also can be described in the way an expert on the subject famously retorted when he was asked in court about pornography; “I know it’’, he said, “when I see it.’’

But they want a silent reprieve for all these acts of subterfuge, and the slightest rap on their dainty knuckles draws the accusation “mom, he is abusing me — he is in lockstep with the government.” How those who relentlessly day in and day out, expose the wrongdoings of government in black and white are also in lockstep with the government, only these geniuses can see, but the amoeba blobs that have appeared out of the woodwork and now try hard to decorate the commentariat, cannot obviously be credited with even a rudimentary measure of intelligence...

Human, fallible

Of an entirely different variety of sycophants, are those who say that big names that have admittedly done some good work in the area of civic activism can do no wrong. At a recent public pow-wow one black-coat by the name of Ratnavel took it upon himself to recite a paean for Desmond Fernando, who was recently felicitated for his 50 years in the Bar.

I’d be the first to say three hearty cheers to Desmond Fernando having campaigned (you can ask him...) for his electoral success in his second run for Bar Association president, and having congratulated him for reaching the milestone of 50 years - - being there, at the event organized by, to his credit, the indefatigable and often irreverent Upul Jayasuriya.
But just because Desmond Fernando is an acknowledged rights activist, applauded from both sides of the divide, does it somehow place him beyond criticism - - an idol to be worshipped, a grand-totem that shall forever be revered, but never considered human or fallible?

Well, Ratnavel seems to think so. When it was said in the sprit of being fair by all, that Desmond Fernando did not fight all assaults on the Bar such as that had been led against it by disparate forces in the last one and a half decades or so, and when it was said that Desmond Fernando was also a grade of sycophant once upon a time, welcoming the late Ranasinghe Premadasa when he was alive and president incumbent as “the greatest Sri Lankan of the last century’’, all hell broke loose and Ratnavel saw it fit to sing a paean that was so soppy it could have been lachrymose.

Well, Mr Vel, you want to be an unquestioning sycophant, a mere robot of a follower who can give merit where it’s due but can’t call a spade a spade where necessary, then you can very well be a sycophant, who cares? But why insist on shoving your repugnant and blinding sycophancy down our throats?

Courtesy:Lakbima News

-Sri Lanka Guardian