The rotten egg and the phantom limb

(a further reply to Rajpal Abeynayake)

By Basil Fernando

(August 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The only reason for this further response to Rajpal is because this is a public debate and there are readers who read both sides. For the reader, what is important is as to whether something of public interest is being debated. The issue as to whether there has been an improvement of human rights under the present regime is an issue of enormous public interest. While Rajpal claims that there is such an improvement, and blames others like Pinto Jayawardena for not recognizing that, I am trying to demonstrate that there is not only a lack of improvement of human rights but even the possibility of such improvement does not exist because the paramount law of the country, the 1978 constitution, makes that impossible.

Trying to convince the public that things are improving is to give them a very dangerous illusion. A person who uses his journalism to spread such an illusion would be doing it for some purpose, if he is not an idiot. I refuse to treat Rajpal as an idiot. He is either a person who has deluded himself with the belief that human rights in the country is improving, or he is deliberately trying to spread a deception while knowing that what he is saying is untrue. It is not necessary for me to decide which of these two propositions may be the correct one. It is sufficient to deal with the illusion and not with the individual who is spreading the illusion.

In truly Don Quixote fashion, Rajpal asserts that I have comprehensively conceded the argument. Since he seems to enjoy his illusions, he can afford to ignore what I have written and make whatever claims he wishes to make. For him, to move in the No-Fact Zone seems to be a skill he has acquired.

In deciding whether human rights in the country have improved, the constitution is an important parameter in any country. In Sri Lanka, since 1978, the constitution obstructs the rule of law and democracy and human rights. When this is pointed out to him repeatedly, he says “I throw the constitution at him”. He says “I’m not a defender of this government, leave alone the 78 constitution, and that this fact is proven because the newspaper I edit takes on the Rajapaksa regime on a routine basis.” My argument has not been with his newspaper but with him. His newspaper has not said that the human rights in Sri Lanka have improved. Instead, like many other journals, it constantly criticizes the deterioration of human rights in the country.

The argument was not that he defends the constitution, it was that the existence of the 1978 constitution belies his position that the human rights in Sri Lanka has improved. Though this has been said very clearly and has been repeated, Rajpal refuses to deal with that argument. If by saying that he doesn’t defend the constitution he concedes that so long as the 1978 constitution exists, there cannot be improvement of rule of law, democracy and human rights in the country, then there is nothing more to argue about.

With every rejoinder, Rajpal shows that he has forgotten his original article. Whether this is some form of amnesia I do not know. But with each article you see the traits of such amnesia. By the last article, he had even forgotten my name.

There is a thing called a phantom limb. That is where an amputee who has lost one or more limbs continues to imagine that he or she still is in possession of that limb. This phenomenon is relevant to this debate in two ways: for Sri Lankan people, their constitution is a phantom limb. They still keep on believing that the constitutional order which existed at the time of the independence still continues to exist. Like an amputee who feels pain and pleasure in their imagined limb, some even imagine improvements in human rights and democracy, when in fact what exists is only an imagined democracy. It also applies to Rajpal because he is now engaged only in an imagined debate, not the debate which he started with his argument blaming Pinto Jayawardena for deceiving the nation by saying that the human rights in the country is further deteriorating.

It is something shockingly remarkable that in Sri Lanka many people who have taken to professions which have to deal with the defense of democratic rights after sometime turn into the destroyers of such rights. For example, many lawyers participated in the introduction of the 1972 and 1978 constitutions, which virtually destroyed the very relevance of their own profession as lawyers. This has also happened to journalists. A journalist by profession is committed to providing information to the people so that people can make better informed judgments. However, for various types of reasons, journalists also can turn out to be misinformers. There are many who do that job in Sri Lanka as also in other countries. The more repression there is the more misinformers are needed by those in power. Unfortunately, Rajpal too is now in the misinformation game.

Related Articles:

More rotten egg in his face - By Rajpal Abeynayake

Rotten egg is now in his pocket -By Basil Fernando

Rotten eggheads never get better - By Rajpal Abeynayake

Rotten eggs never get better - By Basil Fernando

Rice-fed rascality? - By Rajapal Abeynayake

-Sri Lanka Guardian