Dreaming Dreams Of Human Rights

by Gamini Weerakoon

(September 13, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I had a dream, a bad dream — a mad dream. Not one like that of Martin Luther King’s.

I had come ashore to a land, vaguely familiar but a strange land. People were crowding the streets and they were lining the streets in a joyous mood. They were singing: “We are free; we are free, like birds, like bees… Hip, hip, hip hooray, archige koday, nandage kotta…” etc.

Lotus and kiributh

Was I in the land of the Lotus Eaters where the guys and dolls were said to be stoned eating lotus flowers and beautiful sirens luring sailors to come ashore with their siren-like voices? Aiyo, no such luck. These were politically oriented sirens, gobbling kiributh and kavun etc, lighting crackers, playing raban and doing a jig on the roads.

With much difficulty, I coaxed a guy to tell me what the festivities were all about.

Who wants rights?

“Don’t you know, it’s a historic day, a two-thirds majority; we are free and we no longer have rights, no more damned human rights or civic rights or any such rights. It’s a great day. The whole country is celebrating. Have a kavun or kokis and if you like take ‘shot’ inside that shanty. All on the house, you know.”

But if you lose your rights — freedom of expression, freedom to write, freedom of association etc., what’s there to celebrate?

“Who wanted these rights?” the merrymaker asked and replied himself, “It’s the damned NGOs, foreigners and bloody traitors. Now that we have buried our rights, let’s celebrate.”

“But don’t you want an impartial police? Lawyers to defend; judges to give you a fair trial?”

“In which country were you living in all the while? Impartial policemen? Do such living beings exist? When I get caught driving after some booze or with grass, a green note wrapped up in a green betel leaf will do the job. A lawyer will take many more green notes and plead in court: my client pleads guilty and get me a fine as well.”

The Mervyn system

“What if all your remedies fail and you are prosecuted?”

“Simple no? What’s my ‘Am Pee’ for? All today’s fun and games are under his sponsorship. Besides, our system of justice is absolutely fair. Look at the case of Mervyn Silva. He was not charged for tying a man to a tree. Instead of a court case, a party inquiry was held by his party cronies and the victim confessed that he wanted himself tied to the tree. What a fine system of justice. And the President himself had agreed with the verdict and now Merve the Perve is back as Deputy Minister!”

“Couldn’t Gen. Sarath Fonseka have been tried under the same system instead of the military justice system and civil law?”

“Yako, Moo UNP Karayek!” (this fellow is a UNPer), our friend bellowed and as the crowd got restive, someone went to fetch a rope. We beat a hasty retreat from this system of instant dispensation of justice on the highway.

Karl Marx

As I kept walking to the interior of the country, it was getting cold and the scene changed to one of Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. A crowd of factory workers was being harangued by a fierce looking man in long hair, knotted long beard and a threadbare overcoat. He looked very much like Karl Marx that we have seen in photographs.

He was saying: “Workers of the world don’t unite. You have everything to gain by putting on the chains and shackles from which your ancestors broke free and you have the whole world to gain. United you fall. Divided you stand. Go down on your knees to the aristocrats and the king. Join the gravy train lest you are left high and dry on the highway.”

These sentiments were exactly the opposite of what Karl Marx and his sidekick Friedrich Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto which we in the rash days of our youth mugged up.

“This can’t be Karl Marx. It is quite the opposite of what he wrote. Besides he died years ago,” we whispered to a bystander.

CIA tricks

“CIA tricks, comrade. They have put him in a time machine brought him back to 2010 and are making him eat his own words,” we were informed.

All this was too confusing. We retired to an inn nearby and were sipping a beer when a Sri Lankan sat by us and introduced himself. “What’s all this about Karl Marx in a time machine?” we queried and the fellow pooh poohed the whole thing. “They don’t want to admit that it’s the new thinking that has come out of Sri Lanka,” he boasted.

“History moves in a circle and after feudalism and republicanism, it is now once again returning to monarchy. In Sri Lanka as you may know, a family dynasty has come into being and the people are giving all indications that they are for a monarchy and have given up their rights under the constitution quite willingly.”
“Maharajathumata jayawewa!” he shouted aloud as he quaffed his beer and some whites at the beer inn threw us out saying that the darkies don’t know how to behave.

“I have Euro citizenship and I am going to the European Court of Justice for violation of my fundamental rights,” he cried out aloud sitting on the street on his haunches. “Fundamental rights? You were saying just now we Sri Lankans don’t want fundamental rights,” I reminded. The patriotic Sri Lankan threw his beer in my face saying, “No fundamental rights cases against our Maharajathuma, but there are fundamental rights in the European Court of Justice.”

I kicked my fellow Sri Lankan in his face and in the process I had kicked myself out of bed to wind up on the floor. What a mad, bad dream